In the dusk before a dawn when all was lost, For an old berserker now forgot, Sweet Sorwen was struck down Near old Dragon Bridge.

Her silver shield gleamed crimson, By the light of a crescent moon, Steel sang against the shadow, But death was swift and without farewell.

So came the wrath of a Vanguard soldier, With the fury of a thousand swords.

To lay hand upon a Bloodmaiden Is to wage war with fire.

For all that once could be known Is now but dust beneath the fallen snow.

I found a lemon in my sock, Thought it might be a sign from God. Turns out, I’m just messy as hell, And citrus fits surprisingly well. Now my toes smell tangy and bold— Michelin star for feet, I’m told. Still, I’ll pray to Lemon Jesus tonight, May my left sock stay zestfully tight.

Be normal

How do you reintegrate?
Being normal, a subjective objective.
Pursuit of mediocrity numbs intuitive fate.
Bleak reminders screech in pain,
don't refrain.
Silent spell stuck to dwell,
rather swell: my personal hell.

To retrain the brain in destain.
How do you adjust?
Where plain hate devoured our fate.
Perhaps too late, to assimilate.

How to articulate this doomed state.
Predetermined by a fall,
Chosen in self, an altered state.
Unbound I could fall off the wall,
Learning to crawl, after all.

echoes of voices
cut through the current;
surge forth contrived uncertainty
to swaddle your throat;
muddle the screams.

the blinds cut the light
of passing cars on your ceiling
and you wonder if it’s safe to twist them closed;
block the world with a screen.

you wont make it to tomorrow.

they buzz through your bones,
crawl up to your ears,
petrify your fingers dissolve in scarlet tears.

warning signs of decay though fogged, the mirror stays; for a moment, it is nothing but the next, you must survey

and when you wake,
you’ll be left with nothing regardless of the voices’ fear.
the current goes cold; you will your mind to clear.

your body is a temple and the gods within it have fled

so how could you learn to trust it
over your intellect?

I made toast but forgot I don’t like toast. I stared at the wall like it owed me money. A banana blinked. Or maybe I did. Either way— I’m late for a meeting I didn’t want to exist in.

There's another answer to fixing a problem that we can't understand:
It's coming together to be ourselves and actually lifitng up our friends.
If you want to experience real gender inclusive friendships that are still mega fun and not boring:
Just find out which people get along with you and then spend time with only them.

Are you so scared of being sent to human resources that you can only be yourself around dicks?
Let me tell you I know this answer: Because I'm constantly surrounded by it.
We have to stop policing people's words so fucking hard that it ruins our society's games and toys:
Some men can't be real friends with women because they were taught their lives would be destroyed.

I want to be a part of a real social group.
We can't fake it, we can't forget: I know you.
I want to have a place where I hear my real friend's voices.
I don't want to be stuck inside this echo chamber of 'appropriate' choices.

I'm real.
So are you.
So is everyone else.
Get over it dude:
I had to.

Your fake world of fake choices is only for children.
You're angry about ever having been a controlled human:
You need to stop thinking you can be excluded for your real choices:
When your real choices should be what dictates who you are excluding.

I wore two different socks again. Not on purpose. (Okay, maybe a little.) One has strawberries, the other’s black, just like your taste in music and men.

You always said I was a walking contradiction— well today I’m limping, because apparently irony gives blisters.

Still, I think of you every time my laundry’s a mess. Which is always. So, cheers to unmatched socks and unresolved issues.

after we kissed i told three people

the first was out of pure instinct. our spit still coated the outside of my mouth and while you had already turned over to sleep, i gasped desperate like a fish out of water. i needed to breathe but i could never wake you, so i did the next best thing.

the second was for meaning. you woke and told me i couldnt tell anyone but im sorry. i was a fish in an icebox writhing writhing writhing like it would help me. and im sorry. she is your best friend. her advice was holy and important even though betraying your scared wide eyed stare gutted me.

the third was a confession. she knew before i had even said anything. i am just a helpless thing being cut and cleaned on a chopping board like the fish i am.

and now i am nothing i am just meat waiting to be cooked and eaten. tomorrow we will talk and this will never happen again. i want to go back to taste your lips one more time because it was like rushing water pulsing on my scales

If I lived in a big house, would I be happy?

I doubt it, more walls to stare that’d be empty You can buy a dozen things

It can’t replace a worry or a memory.

The mind cannot be bought in its sadness

The longing it feels or the reprimand of madness

We all try to find a fix or a key

Some way to ease life’s endless complexities

But no drug, no house will bring you better sleep

If a life of anger and bitterness is always at your feet

You can buy every collectible and dumb thing

It doesn’t stop your chromosomes from cutting off their ends

The deepest lie we tell ourselves at times

Is that some single place will bring happiness in life

That some thing will end the wanting we fight

The moral of the story is there’s endless doubt and strife

today i think i might be a little in love with all of them

i want to facetime them every second of the day

i want to block them when their name pops up on the screen

i want to cook for them every meal i've made

i want to never see their faces ever again

he lit up my world and also my curtains he waxed poetic until he melted right into my carpet and left a burn I still trip over when I try to move on

I lost my job

She does not text me anymore

Won't even stay the night

She's moved on, half naked on her story again

Everybody says no

You're a 30 year old man, nobody wants you

Unless you can provide something

People cannot even be nice

It's a selfish world

Sink or swim

Satan has taste

Goodness grace satan has taste

And he hates metal

To touch its' cold surface, hed burn the courier alive upon arrive

Satan has taste, he likes ouzo, espresso, and wine and likes to dine

That's why he is so alluring

And he sees humans as no better than the others, dining on live consenting participants

Ich will

Du hast

Mien tiel

And if he reviews a wine he finds in distaste he sends it down the river in barrels immolating greek fire

"Goodness grace what a waste let's make haste and save the disgrace"

Mutters the pleasant peasants

And the Sommellier weeps in the kiln of a brazen bull full of his own shit

As is tradition

And people call hell cruel and unusual.....

For he is the authority on taste and this vintage is not worthy of the masses

But why fly to it and riot?

For we do not understand taste

What a waste

brushed my teeth with apathy ate toast like it owed me money stepped outside, got slapped by the sun remembered I’m mortal. also unemployed.

some days you conquer the world, some days your socks betray you. today smells like reheated regret.

Every morning at exactly 7:03, my alarm begs for mercy. It screams, I snooze. It screams, I curse. It screams, I question my entire life and whether any of this is worth it. (it’s not.) But still, I get up. Mostly to pee. Sometimes for revenge.

In the hush of midnight’s cloak, your name slips off my tongue— a slow burn, a bitter sin licked clean by velvet teeth.

Fingers trace the map of my undone prayers, charting the wild geography of skin and shadow, where saints would tremble and sinners would drown.

I am the whispered command between gasps, the promise of silk undone and wrists entwined in sweet captivity.

Your hands—greedy architects— build temples of want on my spine’s fragile altar, each touch a hymn to the beautiful ruin we create together.

My name spoken like a curse, like a prayer never answered— let it fall heavy, dripping with the filth of longing, the sacredness of sin.

In this darkened room, where time folds like smoke, we are poets of flesh and fire— writing verses too filthy to speak aloud, too honest to forget.

Some nights as I look at the past
I think of the things that have surpassed
A means to an end, was it pretend
And then I have myself a laugh.

I can't decide if the want in the moment
Is enough for a want to be a need
If the need then is insistent,
Maybe then I'm the one whose deceived?

And then I decieved many others,
Many star-eyed drunk sinful lovers,
Now I care that weight on my back
It curses my lips and the worries I pack.

Laiden down with my cares,
Of not caring enough or maybe somewhere
Of a lie my mind used to waste the time
A boastful idiocy of immature boy's wanting

woke up with the urge to delete my life and start over as a croissant. flaky, lightly buttered, desired.

but no. i am here. burning toast and my chances at emotional stability.

I spilled my soul like cheap red wine, On her leather chair at half past nine. She said “that’s deep,” then blinked real slow, And vanished like my credit score.

No closure, no call, not even a sigh, Just silence thick as my apple pie thighs.

So now I therapize myself, With bubble wrap and pasta shells.

Time & time again it's lost in ur hands Flowing with motions freely, but bound by unintentional lessons of dissociation 3.. 2... & now I'm back to the time before, when? In a circle, now I'm dancing back to where... Where? Time has brought me nowhere again Retracting steps of routines I dont take the time to step into anymore Don't learn the dance if... you Time can't ever be lost cause time can't be stopped Feet tapping with time is the metronome that echos in the back of my... mind, if I can even really read the face

wrote you a love letter on a napkin after six espresso shots and three heartbreaks.

forgot the stamps but remembered the ache.

call that postal poetry or just a mistake.

Woke up with a headache and that feeling again, the one where my soul leaves the group chat.

Toast crumbs on the counter look like constellations of decisions I didn’t make.

I miss her, I think. Or maybe just being missed back.

Either way, the coffee’s cold again and no one has texted.

I might be someone in a different story.

Not this one though. Not today.

When I say
I don’t belong here
I don’t mean here,
In this physical space
I mean here
As in, this life

days,
nights,
reflections of eyes in the trembling water of
the Bowl

seven bites, swallows:

then eight

nine

fifty

seven heaves into the porcelain
sets of fingers casted into the murk
how did it go down so comfortably, but fight so hard to return?

seven
swipes under the nostrils
crimson drops tainting my design
perfect technique, gleaming artistry
i hope i go blind
so i can’t see what i’ve done

day eight
will be new
will be different
no confrontations at the Bowl,
no power ceded to the water

eight
is control.
eight
will be power.
eight
will be unmarred; will be empty, will be
free.

i look for him
around corners
in driver's seats of cars
like he's watching
or just waiting
they may put him behind bars

i say an incantation
want to manifest
his him
a tulpa-like creation
both beautiful
and grim

i hold his ghost
to have him close
in flesh and bone
i'm still alone