I saw an old picture of us
I didn't expect it to hurt the way it did
it’s been almost a year
my heart was a sinking ship
terrified
the same type of fear when there’s a noise in your house while home alone
what if I never let her go from my heart despite how much I hate her
what if deep down she will always have a hold on me
I should be able to move on from someone who moved on from me while we were together
but what if I never do
what if a part of her is in my heart
the way a crater is left in the moon
22,000 breaths
Some days I want to cut it short
Not meet the mean
Be someone’s memory
22,000 breaths
I've been living to learn
And I have learned to love
Now I love to live
22,000 breaths
That is how many I will take
Because I want to see another day
And not be the reason for the tears on my mother’s face
I wasted all of my energy on a girl who would eventually fall in love with someone else behind my back
states away and I gave everything I could
everything
I have been drained of my love and now I have nothing left for anyone else
nothing
I am deprived of the ability to give
leaving everyone I meet unhappy and in debt
all because I wasted myself on someone I wish I never met
The father of my half-brothers
a narcissist, a cheater, an asshole, a deadbeat
and yet I owe everything to him
I would have nothing if it weren’t for how he hurt my mother
I was on the verge of not existing until he failed to do the bare minimum
all of the happiness I have ever had
is because he failed to be a proper dad
and all of the pain I have ever felt
is because of all the pain he had ever dealt
February 10, 2024
She spills
into my heart
drip after drip
I’ve cleaned up the mess
now there’s no more leaks
but I’m still submerged
in drops of defeat
February 10, 2024
I’m drawn to you like a picture
ever since we met, I couldn’t stay away
I'd be moments away from sleep, and I'd still be there when you called
I can’t say no
because I don’t want to
I didn’t think being best friends could hurt like this
you don’t feel the same
you said you did, but you don’t prove it
I make an effort, I don’t get one in return
when you need me, I’m there
and when I need you, you don’t care
February 10, 2024
I was wrong
you do care
in fact you care so much that you are pulling away because you aren’t ready and you don’t want to hurt me
you are falling for me
but you are still in love with him
things have changed and I know you feel it too
our connection has felt different since that night in my room
you kissed my forehead
and played with my hair
only neither of us could’ve known
it was all downhill from there
February 10, 2024
I do my best to treat her like a princess, a queen even
she deserves it
I want to make her feel amazing because that’s what she makes me
I wonder if he puts in as much effort as I do
I doubt it, but I can never be sure
I hope she thinks of me when he doesn’t open the door for her
February 10, 2024
I look at her the way the moon looks upon the earth; glistening in awe of life
and like the moon, I orbit around her
revolving on an axis of wistfulness
February 10, 2024
He is to her
what the sun is to Earth
when I am pulled by her gravity
she is pulled by his
he is the one she wants
and I'm the one that never is
March 1, 2024
Art
It is an injection of life into the veins
A bathing of the soul into emotion
A framing of the human condition
Art is the universe
By the time I reach the end, I have failed if art is not what I give
It is said that art is subjective, but if art is anything, it’s the measure of our ability to live
Art is blood
Art is life
Art is death
I am art
and I will be art when I exhale my final breath
March 9, 2024
Bugs and flowers
Overgrown grass, face in the dirt
My nerves have no pulse
It’s itchy, but I can’t scratch
Everything’s okay
Alone in the light
Everything’s fine
If I’m going to die alone, I might as well die how I want
A beautiful death of mine
March 10, 2024
The crack in my eyes when she doesn’t say it back
i love you
…
It’s a fragrance from my mouth
It’s hollow from her’s
How vain I feel when she can’t say those three words
March 10, 2024
In a lifelong battle with fate
I don’t know my control
The choices I make
Is it up to my free will
Or up to the wait
I’m unsure if time roots for me
Wishing free will doesn’t exist
Because I’m missing the will to be free
March 13, 2024
They stand tall
Hours of type, compressed into the binds of their container
Watching the same life they possess pass by forgotten; collecting dust like snowfall
They contribute to the scene, dormant on their shelved walls
They are not mountains, nor skylines
And still a beautiful background the paper draws
March 27, 2024
She’s not any other person
She’s a figment of my dreams
She was sent down from heaven
To take care of me
I’ve come too close
I can feel the feathers on her wings
Soft pain in her quills
She is the key my heart sings
March 30, 2024
Everyone knows it’s unusual; our dynamic
We are more than friends, not at all lovers
We are everything love should be
Everyone knows it
I itch for the moment you feel it too
I never wanted to live a normal life
I just wanted it to be normal with you
March 31, 2024
I heard somewhere that beautiful faces are everywhere, but beautiful minds are hard to find
A commodity you make both, when your laugh blends with mine
You are perfection in a skeleton when I look beyond your eyes
April 1, 2024
My pen is a dagger where I bleed on this paper
Words hurt, though I continue to write
Because I am a poet,
and that is life
April 16, 2024
I hate to see your tears
I hate to watch you cry
I love you and how your pretty eyes lie
You long to be someone’s muse
You want them to write beautiful things about you
So that’s what I do
Maybe you’d love me if only you knew
I’ve written countless pages
I vomit words of my heart’s deprivation
My mind’s tragedy and my heart’s rages
Only to never be read by my one inspiration
April 24, 2024
I can’t get enough of it
You control me, I’m your puppet
But you know I love it
So I wake up in buckets
I sweat in my sleep
Cus I’m chasing you in my dreams
My pores leak
Heartbreak running down the seams
They roll off my skin
I’ll never rest in peace again
September 17, 2024
I’m not the God of life
I am the God of living
They used to worship me
As the universe moved apart, all of that faded
I’m not sure of an afterlife, but heaven on Earth is my creation
Those who repent to me know the damage it brings
All the while, those who don’t are missing out
“Life imitates art.”
And suddenly everything we’ve ever known becomes the canvas, the brush, the art, and the artist
September 25, 2024
The days are going by faster than forever
Even when things are going good
The spark between us may be dying
I’m not sure if it is or if I can save us
The weather is getting colder
The lines separating moments are fading
I feel her enthusiasm fading
I had no idea she had liked me since forever
Everything she says to me is colder
Holding on for a moment, I’m still doing good
I wish this life was made for us
Like the trees, this life is dying
The thought of death is dying
100 years of fading
I’m no longer concerned with what is happening around us
I want to be remembered on the brink of forever
I want to make something good
Something to make the world less colder
I hate the word colder
It reminds me of everything dying
About time I don’t take for granted things that are good
The fading is fading
I was told forever
That was the end of us
Maybe that was the start of us
And I prefer my room colder
It hasn’t been cold in forever
What is the sound of dying
Is the noise growing or fading
It’s eerie, but it's good
If the sound is good
How can you blame us
For the want of fading
For the want of being colder
For the want of dying
For the want of forever
I’m no longer colder
I no longer feel like dying
Still, I want to be in love with forever
October 14, 2024
Walking through the museum, nothing in ear
, but Westside Gunn on beats, it sounds like wealth
Modernity brings art its greatest fear
Creativity is in awful health
Walls and walls of gold frames and artists’ pain
Machines taking over all creation
Does the common person not deserve fame?
Discredit through miscommunication
Why are we so quick to tear down humans?
Mockery of the human condition
The hand of God is the worst illusion
It's not a miracle, it’s ambition
Listening to Fly God, now I can see
That God could never be as fly as me
October 16, 2024
Im staring at the back of my eyelids
I can see my brain
My thoughts are coming alive
And I wonder why I ever refrained
I should say what I’m thinking
Or else I’m a waste of life
You only get the chance to say things once
Or the thoughts of others will fly by
And everything you’ve been meaning to say
Will never hit the same
So when you have the chance
Say what you’re thinking
Because when you die holding your breath
They will find air in your lungs
And they will know
That you were
In
com
plete
October 21, 2024
As they move away, the air dissolves into invisibility
It no longer smells gray
And they can inhale as intended
Every half second there’s a new revolution
The human race is in one room
They aren’t the same
, nor are they equal
, but inside these panes
there’s no such thing as regal
October 30, 2024
The things that matter are always something
in plain sight. In the five seconds to one
minute when something indescribable
separates us from the world around us
and sometimes even leaves us indisposed
and the hands of her eyes clench my jawline
and her laugh quenches the void inside me
how could I ever look away from her?
Sometimes I make her laugh so hard that she
grabs my arm or my shoulder. Sometimes she
even grabs too tight… I mean it hurts a
little, but it’s not like I’m going to
say anything because I’d rather wince
than take away from that moment with her.
And when her and I are in bed and she’s
in my arms, I’m pretty much on the cusp
of uncomfortability because
we are pancaked against each other and
simultaneously against the bed.
The one thing that keeps me grounded is when
I feel her feet rub against mine and it
really feels like the definition
of being intertwined. Stop looking at
me like that. I know it sounds weird to say
out loud, but it’s something so uniquely
intimate and even sensual. Trust
me when I say that some of the weirdest
things are beautiful with the right person.
You know I’m going to school to be a
lawyer, so it’s internally healing
that she’s an art major. I love art more
than almost anything on this planet
, so her being an artist reminds me
of my love for art and she’s kind of an
embodiment of that. And thank fuck she’s
good at it too. I’d do it more if she
let me, but I like to hang her paintings
up in my room. Of all the art forms I’m
good at, she’s good at the one I’m not. It’s
nice to be with someone who feels as much
as I do, and in a world full of thought
, she reminds me that there’s life to be lived.
When we walk around the sets of our lives
, holding hands and talking about what has
happened to us today, I become lost
in our conversations to the point where
I don’t realize how far we’ve walked
and then suddenly we’ve made it to where
we’ve been headed. But before we get there
, I never fail to look down at our shoes
and see that we’ve been walking in the same
pattern that whole time. When my right foot goes
forward, so does hers. It feels as if our
steps are a symbolization of the
kind of connection we’ve found in ourselves;
Like we are always on the same wavelength.
Sometimes I start to think that maybe we
have spent too much time together because
all the time, and I mean all the time, we
say the same things in the same tones at the
same times. It’s not always accidental
, sometimes I know what she’s going to say
and exactly how she is going to
say it before she even says it. It’s
fun to act like I’m making fun of her
in sort of a preemptively mocking way
, but I really just like it when she
talks, so I subconsciously take notice
of what she says and how she says it. I
like to think she notices it like I do.
But then there’s the times when we’re eating and
we don’t have to say anything at all.
In our silence, I can tell how much she’s
enjoying the food as she can for me.
When we do say something in between bites
, there’s the moment after where we put down
our forks and enter into a silence
while we take sips of our drinks or when we’re
watching a movie at the theater
and the lights dim and we shut up to watch
the movie. Then for the next two hours, we’re
almost silent the whole time, watching and
experiencing. And even though we’re
not talking now, I know we’ll talk later.
My point with all of this is that in the
past, I’ve always thought being in love or
getting someone to love you was about
spending money, giving gifts, having sex
, obliging, going on dates, posting each
other on social media. And it
sickens me to think of how much pain I’ve
given myself over misconceptions
about love when it’s the things like laughing
, feet-touching, art-loving, step-syncing, word-
jinxing, silent-eating that mean something.
And thanks to mistake, I’ve realized that
the things that matter, the things that truly
matter, are always something in plain sight.
March 3, 2025
Clouds look better in the distance
You look better up close
You’ll forever be beautiful with those rings in your nose
You move the blood in my veins
You make me love the life I chose
Being yours feels like stars colliding
You’re perfect in everything you do
You’re poetry not in writing
How I made you mine, I don’t have a clue
And while I’m confiding,
it would be stupid not to say, “I love you”
April 18, 2025
There’s no such thing as a natural disaster
It’s the Earth getting rid of us faster
You can run and you can hide, but you’ll never get past her
Everything’s made of space dust, but we’ve deemed ourselves masters
We see others differently, but we came from the same seed
We’re made in God’s likeness, but we’re the reason we bleed
Things only get worse, still we continue to sunder
I see all the greed
And I start to wonder
Who’s standing over you when you’re 6 feet under?
Money’s a fruit and evil’s the root
Our demise is a bullseye and we’re aiming to shoot
They bring about death in their big boy suits
Souls evaporate while they continue to loot
There’s blood on the hands of the elite
But it’ll never wash off or come out the concrete
Factory farms mean we’re no longer hunters
Struggle is rampant in the streets
And I start to wonder
Who’s standing over you when you’re 6 feet under?
Mother Nature has grounded you because you made her hurt
What Earth does to us, we do something worse
We’re using her worth to breed the next generation of the human curse
The Earth’s going to have its day
When we aren’t in its way
And when the time may come
There will be one last thing to say
Who’s standing over you when it’s all said and done?
April 29, 2025
Life goes in a flash,
But I’m here now, followed by
The sound of a splash
May 5, 2025
I have a 1972 Canon QL17 camera in my window
It was given to me by my mother, and to her by my step-grandfather
I hope that as it looks out, it allows him to see the world as he did before his last crescendo
He’s from outside my family tree, but like us, a scholar, an artist, an author
Successful I would be, to be as good at anything as he was at the piano
In one of our last visits, he forgot my name, but it was no bother
Hearing him play those black and white keys like he did in his day was nothing but an honor
I’d rather he forget my name than forget how to play
Because then he would have lost his life before he passed away
May 23, 2025
Nowadays, when I hear a song of yearning, I don’t relate to it anymore
This is something I’m not used to
Yearning is part of who I am, part of my core
, But I have a lover now, one that is true
No longer longing, I am no longer sore
You can see it in past poems, of which I have a slew
Doing everything a girl wants is no longer a desired chore
Unless it’s my lover telling me what to do
June 2, 2025
If someone asked me, “ What’s scarier, dying tomorrow, or living another sixty years?”
I would almost certainly pick the latter
Because living that long is full of fears
Not much could be sadder
The future, riddled with tears
If we all die, does any of it matter?
One more year of undergrad
Three more for law school
Life is never ironclad
But it is always cruel
Will my life end up an Iliad?
Will I end up a fool?
I may never be able to have a future of my own
That is, if the people cannot be sewn
It’s left against right when it should be us against the throne
All of this started when intelligence was outgrown
Some might not agree
But let it be known
We are the land of the “free”
And the home of the drones
It’s harder to live now than it was
It’s harder for the kids to afford
The cost of living, now up above
The middle class is becoming poor
The rich only get richer
And the people are bleeding out on the floor
There’s enough to go around
But they say socialism is a cancer
Because God forbid we be safe and sound,
Despite already having the answer
Ironically, it’s the low-class towns
The farmers and ranchers
That bow down
To the ones with mansions and manors
If Jesus came back to Earth,
Christians would put him back on the cross
They would call him a “communist hippie” with no worth
Those who have found themselves through God are the ones who are lost
They feed off us from birth,
And they’ll continue to the end
They gave life a cost,
In Jesus’ name, Amen
In the heat of nationwide suffering, we’re still expected to have children
We can barely provide for ourselves, but birth is forced to be given
What kind of world do we live in where fetuses are prioritized over women?
They’re pro-life until you have it, and they sit in contentment,
Knowing that the leading cause of childbirth is the Second Amendment
People are turning away from vaccinations,
And away from modern medicine
It’s no wonder this kind of mess we’re in,
Approaching our final destination
Even our leaders fall for blatant misinformation
They say joy is killed by comparison,
But I tend to think it’s being American,
And our tyrannical consummation
America can’t be great again,
If it wasn’t ever in the first place
We have problems now as we did back then,
And they’ll look you dead in the face,
While they exploit us with paper and pen,
And perpetuate the rat race
June 17, 2025
I'm never here
Always over there
My things collecting dust
I hope they miss me when I disappear
Inside these walls so solemn and fair
I only stay when it's a must
The fan looks from ear to ear
, but I wake up to sweat drowned hair
February 17, 2026
Lights everywhere, but I can't see shit
My favorite band is on, I'm in the pit
My clothes are mismatched, I'm throwing a fit
Pockets empty because I'm out of cash, so I'll settle on the cup for kids
Dr. Pepper it's froze, 70 degrees outside, 10 minutes from home, it's gonna drip on my bones
Wanted to get one for my girlfriend, so I bought two
It's not livin' if it's not with you
February 23, 2026
My Docs gave me a callus
Driving through downtown Dallas
It was the best picture I’d ever taken
Little did I know, that I’d be mistaken
Cus a year from now, I’d do something callous
The words I spoke were misshapen
I wanna go back to that boy who spoiled you
I wanna go back to that boy I used to be
I know you want me to do that too
, even though your friend said you should break up with me
I forgot to think before I say
I didn’t realize my words came off that way
I hope we’re gonna be okay
Like how we were our first Valentine’s Day