True love for me,
It wasn't when we kissed deeply.
True love for me,
It shouldn't feel like a duty-

When you put just enough effort to keep me around blindly.
True love for me,
Now I see clearly,
It was not when we didn't care to change for it.

True love for me,
It was when my mom still made food for me,
After seeing her husband's toxicity.
True love for me,
It was my mom when she still helped
The late-night assignments with me-

Even when her red life juice spilled on the floor,
After he crushed her skull to the moldy rotten door,
Only for she didn't feel like pouring her love,
Into a person full of violence and gore-

Who can't even consider his son watching and hearing the storm.
When he just needs to be four.

Tender thread that binds the heart so tight,
Yet loosens in the quiet of the night.
A trembling breath, a raw, unguarded gaze,
Where shadows dance in vulnerability's haze.

To feel exposed, as if the world lays bare
The fragile chords of all you hold with care.
No armour shields, no walls to hide behind,
Just fleeting whispers of a soul confined.

Yet, in this trembling state of soft despair,
A beauty blooms, unmatched, beyond compare.
For vulnerability, a sacred art,
Is where the truth resides within the heart.

It is the crack that lets the light seep in,
A gentle call to shed the faceless skin.
To stand unmasked, though shaken to the core,
And offer up the wounds that we deplore.

The strength it takes to let the world behold,
The fragile lines within your story told.
Is bravery in its most tender form,
A quiet storm within the raging storm.

For when the tears fall freely, unrestrained,
And fears no longer fight to be contained.
A space is carved where healing dares to grow,
A fertile ground where love begins to flow.

Oh, vulnerability, thy paradox,
A fragile strength that no chain ever locks.
To feel so open is to feel alive,
For in that softness, spirits learn to thrive.

So fear not, heart, the moments you feel weak,
For in that trembling lies the truth you seek.
Let courage rise through cracks and shadows deep,
And in your openness, your soul shall leap.

They see it not.
Their eyes open to me,
yet their heart remains closed.

My mind a web of ideas,
my heart a compass.

Warps of mercy and construction,
wefts of brutality and destruction,
how to share this tapestry?

Words?
Wounds?
No methods appear.
Am I to be silent?
What to say?

When it comes to the world,
I'm a preterm baby—
I know nothing
of tales, adventures,
treachery, or wisdom.

I watch
with hooded, glazed eyes
that only understand
fragments—
splinters
of ideas.

So when I got a glimpse,
it wasn’t something
a cradle-bound soul
could ever decipher.

It's the justification of just—
It’s never just a papercut.
And it wouldn’t be.
It’s never I’m fine.
And it wouldn’t be.

My baby self
is allowed to throw a fit.
I think
every other version
should too.

But I’m only a preterm.
What do I know?

some days i mourn the death of stars,
some days i forget to mourn the dreams i massacred
both days i tell you nothing about it

somedays i mourn the death of stars,
some days i forget to mourn the dreams i massacred

both days i know i can tell no one anything about it
and i didn’t, but it seems like the end

so what if i erupted out all my infections.

Not even here is Knowledge a thing of intuition
But the procedure followed key by key
Into the river and out of the drain
Like a lamprey seething on a deer

Should we wake her,
Or do the defiler's whispers eat at your ear
Do the wallops within you complete something
You didn't know needed to be found

A golfer eats a melon and yearns for forgiveness
As she knows, it’s not the smaller
Unforgiving swallowtail pictured
Am I what you imagined

When you wished upon a star
Never to be seen again but on the pages of
Typing writers blocking my every thought
As mysteries unravel me

I know you, Moon
Shining pieces of light
that are not your own.

As beautiful as you are,
as full as you look,
there are pieces of yourself
that you hide in the dark
the empty patches
left by those who took
but never gave.

If I could, I'd
climb
up
next to you
and offer you a
piece
of myself,
to make you feel whole.

I, too, know
what it's like
to
hide
pieces
of
yourself.

At least with you,
that piece will be called beautiful,
and no one will know the difference
except for you and me.
I know you, Moon