Tag: Poems

The screen sleeps in my palm,

a small, indifferent moon.

Three dots bloom, then vanish—

a tide that forgets to come in.

I scroll through the last thing you said,

as if re-reading could change the ending.

 

Outside, the day goes on performing itself:

traffic, a pigeon, a leaf giving up.

Inside, time slows to a buffering wheel,

spinning on the edge of almost.

 

There’s a grammar to this quiet—

ellipsis, unsent draft,

the faint electric ache of maybe.

 

When your reply finally lands,

it says nothing extraordinary—

just hey, sorry—

but the world exhales,

and the moon in my hand

brightens again,

like it never learned to wait.

The room smells of chamomile and damp wool.

Outside, autumn is chewing through the trees again.

I tell her it’s fine, really—that the underworld

has better lighting now, soft bulbs instead of torches,

and Hades lets me redecorate.

 

Still, I keep the curtains closed.

Six months of night leaves you cautious

about what daylight can do.

 

When spring comes,

the world expects blossoms.

But the soil remembers—

it has held me too long,

and I am tired of rising

only to fall again.

 

I used to think the pomegranate

was temptation—

now I call it routine:

the sweetness, the stain,

the small surrender I swallow each year.

 

So I tell her I want to choose—

not between light and dark,

but whether to return at all.

And she nods,

writing something that looks like

freedom,

in pencil,

so it can be erased later.

Cradled in the ancient murmur,

we are archives of fire:

helixes folded as choirs,

each base a note,

each spiral a score

composed in the silence.

Listen closely—

your skin sings hydrogen,

your marrow chants iron,

your lungs rehearse

the vocabulary of stars.

What we call solitude

is crowded with voices:

the background whisper

of a universe still cooling,

and the chorus inside us

that refuses to forget

how to sing.

Song version:

The Ministry owns every syllable.

The fountain sings freely, water speaking for us.

A brass meter ticks on my throat, a clock wound too tight.

I come to hear it, because it says what we cannot.

Most have grown spare: clipped commands, no confessions.

I have grown used to nods, to eyes speaking instead of mouths.

But I am a poet. Silence is a storm caged in my ribs.

I have watched her: ink bruising her fingers, silence like thunder waiting.

Once I spent a week’s bread on one word: Careful.

Once she gave me Careful—I held it like a jewel, a bell ringing inside me.

Now three coins jingle in my pocket: life or confession.

I feel her coming, choosing me over survival.

I press them into the slot. The gears release. Three words only.

I cannot afford reply. Silence burns in my throat.

At last I speak: Without you, nothing.

Her words strike like fire. My bottle overflows. My hand trembles.

Tomorrow they will come for me, to gag me, to strip me of voice.

Tomorrow they will take her—but tonight I smile, slow and certain.

Three coins spent. Eternity bought.

Her words, my silence—together, unowned, ours.