swimming

some moments
already capture the core of it.

you don’t know someone,
not really,

and yet there’s something strangely familiar
in the way they exist.

not like I’ve met someone like you before,
more like I found something of myself in you.

I see the resemblance from afar
in pieces,
in gestures,
in things I can’t quite name.

And maybe that’s what scares me.

not who you are,
but what I might recognize
if I come any closer.

still, I can’t look away,
even with all this fear
of what might come next.

there is this need
to keep learning how to describe you,
to capture your look
before it disappears into something
I no longer know how to name.

there is a story in you
waiting to be told,
a legend beneath the surface
waiting to be heard.

and I keep reaching for it,
getting tangled in the feeling
even if it means getting doomed.

Getting tangled with you,
even as the water rises,
even as I begin to wonder
whether I am learning how to swim

or only getting ready
to drown.

Needing to Feel

trying to name a feeling

that look you get when curiosity becomes something deeper,
almost transcendent.

Not just wanting to know,
but needing to

Like there’s something hidden in the depth of it,
something I can’t understand yet,
but I still want to reach for

Maybe I’ll follow it too far
Maybe I’ll hear the sirens singing
and let them lead me to my doom

Or maybe, this time,
I’ll be the one singing the song

ability to fail

waiting to fail
while still holding on to every rope
that could keep me from failing

the potential to become everything
but somehow stuck at average
not even able to fail

keeping life as it is
while checking every box
calculating every risk
before making a single move

no feelings
no letting go
nothing raw
nothing real enough to build from

just careful decisions
safe choices
calculated moves

even when I let myself fall into the depths
I've already laid something soft beneath me

protecting myself from failure
so completely
that I never give myself
the chance to become anything more

I have made myself so difficult to destroy 
that I have also 
become difficult to transform

Depth of Helplessness

I have reached
the deepest room of helplessness.

There is one soul
I would shield from every blade,
yet i have nothing. 

I cannot stand between her
and the swords.
I cannot protect
her dreams. 

I have dreams too,
but beside hers,
they feel small.

If her future
must be paid for with mine,
I would leave it. 

Still, I do not know
if my ruin could keep her
city, life alive. 

Because I once dreamed
of staying
of becoming a sanctuary,
a place
where nothing could reach her.

I'm here for her.

But now
I cannot even keep myself above water.

I pour myself into fullness,
and nothing fills.
I empty myself into nothing,
and still, nothing leaves.

For years,
they fed me,
held me,
caught me before I fell.

They were gave me the net beneath my life.

Now the net is gone.

And I am falling
through everything

Tell me

while I am still falling,
can I at least
keep her from falling too?

sea siren

voice of the deep sea

rising from
the secrets buried beneath

calling like a siren,
not to safety
but to sin

calm,
yet already reaching
for my shores,

washing away
the remnants
of what was

leaving behind
a breath
that feels
like beginning again

the purple hem of the sea
strikes my eyes

until the old brown
loosens its grip,

making room
for another color

to stay.

old yearn

to be truly yearned for

while seeing the old in the new

can't be sure how true it is,
this yearning to be

can't be sure
if familiarity becomes the reason

for falling

fall for the old
with new eyes

or

fall for the yearning
with new doubts

static

the tingling remains

long after

like static trapped under skin 

your breath mixed into mine

lines blurred between voices

until language disappeared from it

the mix kept echoing

long after the silence

I spun around you

centrifugal force

tearing me away

from my own center

the static moved

like a fox crossing the field

the tingling returned

earth's silence

not feeling the burn
the fire did not exist yet

calm wind surrounded every inch of me
pulling me toward you

wind came from the trees behind us
moving through the crushed grass
through the nonexistent space between us

stranger’s touch
somehow natural against my skin

not from hunger
nor love
but a quiet curiosity
that kept me in the wind

beneath us
the earth kept our outline

above us
the sky kept what we could not name

a space of stillness

a vast space

strecthing into the horizon 

without nothing in sight 

nothing to see 

nothing to happen 

vast space of emptiness

nothing other than yourself 

cornered in the space 

how tight that corner feels,

how endless that space is 

no edge 

yet still a corner of loneliness

no footsteps

nowhere to go 

only a bit of hope 

held in that corner

to see someone 

to see something 

to hear a sound 

but nothing to arrive 

and you remain still, 

with emptiness

keys

The hardness of this world
for a tender soul
no gentle corner to rest.

I found an echo once again,
sweet, kind enough to listen
But when the voice began to fade
the silence drowned upon like no before.

I longed to sing beside you,
But your breath was short 

we were written in different keys, 
and i longed again for a softer world.

Wound

How hurt I am from the wound,

dried decades ago.

How the blood that was here once, 

still wet.

How's that every scar  I see,

reminds me of mine.

How's that every new strike,

Only falls into deepening the old.

There were roads we never took,

ages we never shared.

So many possible lives,

where this wound

might have learned to rest.

But the wound never learns. 

Time does not pass there, 

just around it.

The skin closed.

Only to reopen when shaken. 

and the pain...

arrived each day

as if nothing

had ever healed.