And to say, “find yourself a fit woman running laps on your mind –
and catching her breath just means she’s sitting comfortably on
your lap,” is really just a sprint into pleasing the flesh, a race with
no real finish line. And to say you haven’t tasted her in a while,
where one bite makes you relapse – a crack in the glass, it takes two
to tango… but when she starts throwing shade, you start asking
about her love, and where did that perfect tan go.

Maybe I’ve had many partners, but truthfully, most only lived in
my head – my biggest problem was always thinking too far ahead.
A big head, as the women I never touched became intimate in
dreams, yet so intimidating in real life. My insecurity became these
imagined thoughts, and those thoughts made them always fly away.
As my love sickness was a cluster of flu – practicing patience, yet
overthinking until everything failed before it could even start.
A real lack of patience in the heart, and that headache turned into
heartache.

Sure, if I’d asked more of them out, we might have dated – but I
was so out of touch with myself that I felt so outdated. They could
have been less shy, but I was more convinced I wasn’t much of an
impressive guy. Expressive, yes – more direct in invitation, but
never showing up to the party in the end. It isn’t easy for most,
but I felt like I had the most to lose – a heart.

Now I see: I was chasing love as a boy, not building it as a man.
And the truth? It lands heavier when you start by being truthful
with yourself –that’s the only way to fully understand.

Altar regrets; please don’t alter my texts –
or delete my last request; as lust requests
you do what feels good, but it all becomes
tomorrow’s bad mistake, dressed out in
yesterday’s breath.

At the front of my books – my body language
in bold font is what I’ll flaunt; though at times,
I’m not so bold at being myself...
Physical or digital – spiritual or literal –
loaning some faith on empty days,
loading some company when I feel
I’m moving through life at my lonesome,
feeling loathsome.

But take your time; write your own books if you
want to – just don’t forget the lessons you’ve read.
Despite being blue-ticked in person, my presence
and influence still get left on read...
I can’t claim ownership of everything; crying for
it all, till my eyes are painted red.

As each good word you’ve received is a divine gift –
to defy the rifts; to train and define your divine gifts,
learn to prune the sickness from your vine so new
creation can live... value the chance to forgive —
make every reason solid, for choosing to live.

This is the prelude to a corny poem — not by genre, but by gesture.
The kind of moment you text someone who can never quite let go.
A character who, the more you explain yourself, builds up their
anger, like Lego — stacked tight, no gaps. Great, now you're blocked!
It’s the same game; they say they’re breaking down like Tetris,
but you’re the last crooked piece, a corner away from clarity, from
giving out a proper response, but you're stuck at a stop sign called
Writer’s Block.

(Not to say I grew up on the streets —but a soft smile is what I
use to pave the way of finding peace.) And whether this turns into
a path toward a kiss all depends how well you’ve cemented your
foundations, for your intentions to come out firm and concrete.
Not to sink into gossip, like spilled tea on the front steps of the
neighbour down the street. Because not every door you knock on
is one built for your peace. Not every neighbour you greet is a
neighbourhood of people open to giving you some peace.

Community grief isn’t all of our concerns to give… so call me rude,
but I don’t like to deal with everyone’s grief. So when I see you
approaching, I might walk in the other direction of this street.
Especially if I’ve already read all the signs but you chose to walk
into that direction. Now you stand in your wreckage, asking me
for directions, as if I’m still your GPS for healing.

Making me appear lost for words, stuck again at Writer’s Block —
where metaphors turn to mortar, and the silence right between us
starts stacking brick by brick. A friendship we were supposed to
build up as something worthwhile. But the foundation we built
it all on was something we never hoped for.

Take me as a definition: a surface-level heart that drowns in
deep thought, quietly pondering love, quietly grieving loss.
Loss not just for someone; a loss for most words. Because
when you’ve been dealing with a lot, you stop explaining
and start enduring.

Take me, for example: yesterday I had a conversation with
myself, but it sounded like I was addressing the ugly stuff,
the versions of me I don’t post about. Getting a little older,
I now feel the subtraction of duration settling in my bones.
It’s not pain exactly. It’s more like time knocking without
waiting for permission.

Multiply that by multiple misfires, all the times I believed,
in my head, that I’d finally found the one. Now, I’m left
divided. Not between people, but between the stories I told
myself; the truths I keep avoiding. Insanely rich with poor
results — "wait, that doesn’t add up." As that’s the math of
memory: it never balances the way love promises it will.

Still I need a leg up, not just to raise the hopes of this tired
heart, but just to step out of my despairs. Because lately,
I’ve been third-wheeling the very idea of love; a tagalong
to a party I used to host. And when it comes to falling for
someone with a previously broken heart, you learn quick:
it doesn’t come with a spare.

I’ve realized love either helps you make strong memories
or leaves you with the memory of a sus stain. You can’t
always tell which until it’s already on you, and by then
you’re already trying to scrub out that which you hoped
to sustain.

The Arithmetic of Almost-Love.

For that which I don’t know— built from
the bones of all the words I never spoke.
My life, if summarized, could be a quote:
a borrowed line, or a borrowed joke.
Either footnoted in memory, or discarded
as someone who misquoted hope
___________
Perhaps I’d trade in an error
for a single, shapeshifting era.
But funny how the past echoes loudest
in silence, and how legends live on not
in flesh, but in the offspring of their legacy.

Still— be careful not to jump to conclusions.
Don’t cut off your spring just because
you mistook the thaw for drowning.
And don’t become so quick to sip judgment
that you forget: a half-empty drink
can still quench the right thirst, depending
on who's pouring… and who's parched.
____________
Now there are those who offer their offending
speech like confetti; those whose presence is a
soft kind of peace; a balm, a breath, a quiet release.
Then there are others whose only offering is grief
once a week, wearing Sunday suits but speaking in leaks.

I have grown to value those who live
like arrows— honest, piercing, straightforward.
Not those who bend truth into shapes that fit
their spin, sending stories spinning on a tired wheel,
toward destinations they never meant to reach.
____________
Some speak on others' names with
the boldness of ownership, but it’s all
counterfeit— a forged will, a stamped conviction.

As for me? For that which I don’t know:
it remains a wonder, and I live in awe of it.
But as for some, with their tongue dipped
in certainty; your armour is made of knowing—
but you truly know nothing at all.

Fee-fi-fo-fum— as we weighed love by
an empty ounce, and paid it all back by this
sore pound. They yell: “come now or begone,”
and if you can’t produce the sum for what’s
been done; flee to fine some… or find none.

An anguish in fornication, and a touch that speaks,
but means nothing at all. No real stimulation—
just hunger in the guise of heat, and shame where
love was meant to meet. As some feather-dust their
guilt, pretending to have clean intentions. But we’ve
only used each other to air out our frustrations.

These old recycled themes; ******* from peers,
spilling from worn-out jeans, and spreading
dreams like genes, without real meaning in between
the fabric of time.

But tell me, do you still not see the giant problem?
Or are you too big for yourself, to fully measure up
to your own faults?

Glass tears dance on the lawn of dreams –
offered sweetness at hand; while the Beast
breathes fire over frost; black fur coiled in winter’s
chill, his warmth a lie dressed in comfort.

He offers blindness as a blessing, the bliss
of the thoughtless path. In the silence of white
winter, you take his claw, mistaking it for a hand.
“To die for”—a morbid metaphor— what is the gift
of a Beast meant for?

Around him, the dancing lich spins— leeches
birthed  from tombs of need. A cliff that clefts;
as a cleft lip cannot speak the truth, it only bleeds.
Closed eyes cannot paint the dark—
but they stay loyal  to its canvas.

Left bereft—travelers avoid certain subjects:
being sick of yourself, tasting your own *****.
But hush now— we’ll skip the topic. Change the
subject. And bury that scent.

As she was sent; and of all the objects she takes
from the Beast—he cures grief with a sugar-coated sting.
But bittersweet is still a shade of sweet, it rots your teeth,
and maybe he works with the tooth fairy to collect what
decay leaves behind.

But in the cold, no one heals— they run to the hills,
as their heels are clicking in panic of snow-bitten ground.
Perhaps this time, Little Red took the wrong road—
and the wolf she met, has grown hungrier from
feasting quietly on empty bones.

      ....there's no-one to save her at all.

Not every people are your people —
but in that same breath, everybody needs you.
Going round the city, and round the clock,
where times are always hard, like the past
we keep wearing; all the ones we hang up.
As someone called me, and I answered
quickly, frequently, honestly; just to hang up.

Funny how that’s what we do with people too.

Fingers of strangers scrubbing their own
dishes, while dishing out cold remarks —
serving my character as tonight’s leftover dinner.
And still, I stay on their minds without an address,
resting in dreams without a mattress; in the scripts
they write, I’m some recurring actor or actress —
But I don’t have the stamina to be running through
someone else’s head for free; dressing for their occasion
while my self-worth turns into something old fashioned.

And the idea of pushing a lawnmower over grass
that’s not mine, just to keep the image they clipped
of me, cut and well-trimmed - cuts me short of worth.

I’m always cut short for time, by that very blade.
Could it be a blade of grass or time itself?
Either way, it leaves another scent in the air —
the smell of success I’m still chasing.

Not every people are your people —
there are some paths, you won’t walk.
And some eyes, you won’t meet.
And some connections? You just hang up.