Just when I needed it: companions, warm and kind.
A baby-blue ******* mother, sharp and refined.
Now I know, she’s saved her whole life to give,
Each round, each smile, proof of the way she lives.

Tremendous smile beneath a cap, humor bone dry.
I let you overestimate me and I’ll never know why.
Married to contrast, cold calling embassies, a landlord that has tenants as enemies.

Majestic bearded bard with Rakija grace.
In every tale, facts and fables found their place.
Knowledge poured like wine - free hat, jokes, and care,
Even speaking Bulgarian, like you were born there.

So cheers to you; Jane, Tim, and Mike!

I’m sure none of us will have a pear-shaped life!

i board the eurostar,
knots in my stomach,
anxiety clinging like static.
i may get charged
for the emotional weight
my heart and i packed
in my luggage.

then a guy across the aisle
mistakes me for a being
you can turn to for guidance.
his travelling companion,
anxiety, also had a reserved seat,
and soon, the four of us share
one nervous heartbeat
in carriage sixteen.

human panic in motion,
he’s vibrating with nerves,
scents of worry
seeping through his shirt.
but he calms me,
and eventually we both
drift into sleep.

we’re halfway there,
when we wake,
and rapid fires emerge
in-between the yawning.
discussing the speed,
the delay, the weather.
now, i don’t mind he found me.
there’s comfort in knowing
we can be scared together.

i don’t know his last name.
or anything, really.
we both whispered,
don’t be a serial killer,
don’t be a lunatic.
it was sort of beautiful.
strangely poetic.
my hair still smells like him,
and he’s given me a gift,
a quiet relief:
she’s no longer
the last person i kissed.

One breath, we were family
the next, two silhouettes unrecognisable.

Are we strangers now?
I’m unsure.
But I do know this:
we stood, souls stripped,
bare in the quiet between us.

I wanted to trust you
to lay my heart in your palms
like kindling,
hoping you’d keep it warm.

Still, I ache.
Not just for your touch,
but for that fierce, wordless belonging.

talk to me.
stop staring from afar
i don't want stolen glances-
i want us.
i want your love.
i want your hand in mine.

i don't need to see you
across the room
laughing with another man
why couldn't it be me?
the girl you stare at
watch from afar-
making sure she's okay
quietly,
making sure she's not
seeing anyone else
you should talk to me
talk to me
instead of watching
instead of wondering
making sure
im not taken
im here
i just want
to be spoken to
by you.

we still talk-
only in echoes now
you send memes
instead of midnight thoughts
or how your mum finally said
"im proud of you"

our laughter-
it used to fill rooms
theatres when we watched a comedy
but now-
it just barely stirs the surface
and i think
we both feel it

there's a silence between us
it hums
between messages
the long pauses
they don't even ask to be broken.
no fight,
no storm,
just the soft unraveling
of something
that was once knotted tightly.

maybe that's
how some tides go-
not crashing
just quietly
pulling back
pulling away softly
without a sound

it’s funny how people grow apart —
one day you’re laughing,
the next,
you’re not texting
or calling
or sending dumb memes

a girl i used to know
stopped calling one day
sent a birthday text —
like a ghost with good manners
i haven’t seen her in months,
she’s an old friend.

maybe it’s just the cycle of things.
maybe we’ll find our way back.
but that doesn’t make it hurt
any less.

We pass each other in the hallways like strangers.
You look in my eyes, I look in yours—
We speak without words,
Because eyes say more than lips ever could.

Passing by you feels like passing a stranger...
But strangers don’t know—
your name,
your laugh,
your smile,
your birthday,
your class,
your eyes.
But now, you act like you never knew me at all.
I tell myself:
It’s done.
What’s done is done.
Maybe we weren’t meant to know each other.
But even after all that...
I still miss you.