Posts for June 2, 2026 (page 5)

We knew it would end—
the song and its lyrics,
the story and everyone in it,
but we danced anyway,
swayed to melancholy hymns,
bumping the backs of our knees
against the pew in a dull rhythm and
timing each tomorrow by inches of rope
twisted and frayed from the dangling, dead
weight of today. We twirled to laughter
that spun us faster into our smiles—all teeth
and jutting tongues, rooms we barely knew,
as light refused to guide us through
making sense of which belonged to whom,
our feet finding the steps, unsure at the start,
dizzy, and then confident as a gamecock—
we grooved free, never believing a pulse,
racing or steady, will cease, that the singing
will grow quiet—faint as a morning drive
between memories, and the words will forgot
there are mouths to hold them, will crawl away
with the sound on their backs.

i have a lot to say
i have a lot to give
i have a lot I want to hear

but i have been silenced
too many times

and my questions go unanswered

by a certain man

i’m trying to find my voice again
but it’s hard

When the pulse oximeter lies 80%
flickering, fatally dropping, she takes
my supposedly dead pointer finger
in some sort of nurse’s palmar grasp reflex
trying in vain to transfer her heat to me.
Plug in socket, the only transmissions
between us are the unspoken truths
of such a situation. Head down, she ducks 
out of the room, returns holding pediatric
equipment. The reading finally works,
correcting truthfully to 100% saturation
when the sensors finally sit snug enough
to pass light through my frozen skin. 
I am perfect, alive, just ice, just nail
polish armored to hide the blue.
With a green train on my WelchAllyn
child-sized blood pressure cuff, there is 
measurably less of me, almost 20, 
than when I was 10 years old, blood still
full of oxygen as I’m vanishing into thin air.
Full on only oxygen, I’m thinning into air.

Somewhere in time
There are two people dancing
In a dimly lit corner
Not necessarily knowing
What they are waltzing to
But they know they want to keep dancing
Somewhere in time

I’ve been told my hands are like chicken breasts.
It’s why I quit guitar–
I couldn’t stand to think my fingers might callus,
rough beyond recognition.
I don’t know how violinists do it, playing eyes closed in reverie.
Perhaps the instrument has embedded itself into their fingers
so that where there were swirling lines there are grooves,
which, when fit together with the bow and the neck 
play music in bold notes that manhandle 
wavelengths of light and sound.

I have friends who won’t take pills
They swear off them before they even started 
when a baby fell out of me they handed me ibeuprofen 
when the anxiety ate me alive and I paced the floors till they creaked beneath my heavy feet
they gave me one prescription then another
now when I can’t find sleep 
and I’ve tossed and turned and prayed 
I’ve found myself medicated again
melatonin melting on my tounge 
I swear this is my last one
 

Etching today’s

Atmosphere

Slant of sun

My own

Joy

And

Heart-

Break

Into the page

Nothing

Already in queue

Sharpened riffs

From life’s mess

Yesterdays more

Distant view

Left to

Further

Revision

a seal bit me in my dream,
lunging out of the water and
clamping down on my foot.
I was at a middle school friend’s parent’s house
I had never been to before in real life
out in the country.
we met for lunch under the cozy shelter,
sat on pillows on the floor
and watched exorbitant numbers of cats roam, mill, and play.
I turned to have some food, already disappearing
from memory as I saw it,
and by the time I turned back,
the cat sanctuary turned into an ocean,
and my nemesis got me.

fright sparkled in my chest like fireworks
and pain froze me solid,
but I had to do something.
I reached down and used my fingers to
unclamp its jaw from my body.

when I woke, I dreaded
the seals in my life which would latch onto my foot.
I am not a seal tamer at sea world
or a deep sea scuba diver;
I am not a ship captain or fisherman,
knowledgeable about watery biomes,
but I am a human with a need to survive.
While the prophecy foretold hardship,
it also envisioned my ability to escape.

Winter clings to the bones of earth

Ice wrapping around like sinew of muscle and tendons

Heavily weighing down branches

Grief a very similar fashion

Melting muscles heavily against lungs

A breath can never be felt

Fully

But spring’s joy and love

Begins to blossom

Hazy soft shades of pink

Sprouting

A life burrowed in the depths

Of the underworld

Reaching up

Opened palm of resilience

She reclaims herself

Hades lost, becoming Persephone