It's the 2025 Poem-A-Week Challenge! (This is a *poems only* thread.)

[_Land]

The Womb Laughs Last
By Bear Sage

I
sit high—
hips wide,
crowned in stars,
throne carved from constellations,
ankles soaked in tide.

They call me too emotional to lead,
while I cradle universes
in a body that breaks and bleeds
and builds anyway.

Let them beat their chests—
hollow drums of ancient fear.
Let them roar “DOMINION!”
while I pour life
from between my thighs
like holy wine
on a temple floor.

Their kingdoms?
Flaccid.
Flimsy.
Propped up on
plagiarized thunder
and ego erections.

They invent gods
in their own image—
and still
none of them
can create
without stealing something soft
from someone like me.

I see it—
their crusades,
their cock-measuring monuments,
wars dressed up as rites of passage,
their fear of softness
so loud
they named it sin.

But listen.
I’ve labored through pain
they couldn’t name
with every dictionary combined.
I’ve wept oceans
into womb-shaped chalices
and they
still
call it weakness.

They raise swords
to mimic my cycles—
sharp, brutal,
eager to spill.
But I bleed monthly
and don’t die.
That’s a superpower
they’ll never write in their holy books.

I see them,
building walls out of laws,
trying to trap my magic—
as if my cunt
wasn’t a cosmos
long before their gavels
ever struck wood.

They preach
like they invented purpose,
but I
nursed it.

I made teeth and tongues
from scratch
and taught them
how to speak.

So let them pretend
they own the narrative.

Let them build their Babel towers
on the backs of broken mothers.
I’ll be laughing—
not softly, not sweetly,
but with the raw howl
of a thousand birth screams,
with the power
of ten generations
of midwives and witches
and women they burned
for daring
to know too much.

I don’t need their thrones.
I am
the altar.
I am
the offering.
I am
the fucking miracle.

And while they cry
over not being gods,
I’ll be over here—
suckling suns,
rewriting bloodlines,
laughing loud
into the soft center of eternity.

Because
the womb
laughs
last.


35/52

 

[Ash999]

The Womb Laughs Last
By Bear Sage

I
sit high—
hips wide,
crowned in stars,
throne carved from constellations,
ankles soaked in tide.

They call me too emotional to lead,
while I cradle universes
in a body that breaks and bleeds
and builds anyway.

Let them beat their chests—
hollow drums of ancient fear.
Let them roar “DOMINION!”
while I pour life
from between my thighs
like holy wine
on a temple floor.

Their kingdoms?
Flaccid.
Flimsy.
Propped up on
plagiarized thunder
and ego erections.

They invent gods
in their own image—
and still
none of them
can create
without stealing something soft
from someone like me.

I see it—
their crusades,
their cock-measuring monuments,
wars dressed up as rites of passage,
their fear of softness
so loud
they named it sin.

But listen.
I’ve labored through pain
they couldn’t name
with every dictionary combined.
I’ve wept oceans
into womb-shaped chalices
and they
still
call it weakness.

They raise swords
to mimic my cycles—
sharp, brutal,
eager to spill.
But I bleed monthly
and don’t die.
That’s a superpower
they’ll never write in their holy books.

I see them,
building walls out of laws,
trying to trap my magic—
as if my cunt
wasn’t a cosmos
long before their gavels
ever struck wood.

They preach
like they invented purpose,
but I
nursed it.

I made teeth and tongues
from scratch
and taught them
how to speak.

So let them pretend
they own the narrative.

Let them build their Babel towers
on the backs of broken mothers.
I’ll be laughing—
not softly, not sweetly,
but with the raw howl
of a thousand birth screams,
with the power
of ten generations
of midwives and witches
and women they burned
for daring
to know too much.

I don’t need their thrones.
I am
the altar.
I am
the offering.
I am
the fucking miracle.

And while they cry
over not being gods,
I’ll be over here—
suckling suns,
rewriting bloodlines,
laughing loud
into the soft center of eternity.

Because
the womb
laughs
last.


35/52

https://ibb.co/TxLD4BVk

 

[Bn2f]

TO PAPER, FROM PEN​

What if…

Poems synced at the end…
Built like a house
Frame by frame
Sentiments, feelings
Sounding the same
Nailed to paper from pen

Or had internal rhythm…
Like the thought part
Of my heart where
Plans of words depart in
Curves of stanzas birthed in
Particular heated moments
My beating ventricular notices
Your hand rests on my breast

Is it 5, 7, 5?
Blissful! Not knowing its life
Syllables numbered

Or is there something to be said
About wandering aimlessly,
Naming clouds.
Remembering the taste of
The salt from your skin.
Finding poetry in the struggle
Of never being able
To adequately explain to you
This thing called Love.

 

[_Land]

TO PAPER, FROM PEN​

What if…

Poems synced at the end…
Built like a house
Frame by frame
Sentiments, feelings
Sounding the same
Nailed to paper from pen

Or had internal rhythm…
Like the thought part
Of my heart where
Plans of words depart in
Curves of stanzas birthed in
Particular heated moments
My beating ventricular notices
Your hand rests on my breast

Is it 5, 7, 5?
Blissful! Not knowing its life
Syllables numbered

Or is there something to be said
About wandering aimlessly,
Naming clouds.
Remembering the taste of
The salt from your skin.
Finding poetry in the struggle
Of never being able
To adequately explain to you
This thing called Love.

What if you bled for it?

Not just ink, but the kind that
sticks to your teeth when
you try to speak it.
What if poems weren’t safe
or syncopated or symmetrical—
what if they broke like bones
cracking under the weight
of what was never said?

What if the rhythm
wasn’t a heartbeat
but arrhythmia—
chaotic, gasping,
your chest caving in
under a memory
you can’t fucking write pretty?

What if clouds don’t need names,
they need altars?
Need thunder-split confessions
instead of metaphors
dipped in honey and hope.

You want to taste salt?
Then scrape it from the wound
left when “I love you”
wasn’t enough
to make him stay.
That’s the flavor of real poetry.
It doesn’t wander—it haunts.

And if Love
could be explained,
it’d be math.
It’s not.
It’s grief
that sometimes moans
like pleasure.
It’s a scream
that gets mistaken
for a song.

36/52

 

[_Land]

The Cabin
By Bear Sage

It doesn’t call out—
no haunting,
no whisper through pine—
just stands there,
swallowed
by decades of green hunger.

Moss has stitched curtains
where glass once trembled,
and vines have bolted the door
like nervous fingers
folded in prayer.

The roof sags,
tired of holding in
the weight of untold winters.
Each floorboard creaks
with the sound of something
almost remembered.

Inside:
a cradle of dust,
a rusted spoon cradling shadow,
a bedframe spine
with no mattress to soften
the ache.

Cobwebs lace
the rafters like
silver secrets.

And still,
some light spills in—
where the walls
cracked,
where time forgot
to finish what it started.

A red marble waits
in the corner,
half-sunk in the floor’s soft rot—
as if a hand once meant
to return
but never did.

And somehow,
in that breath between
forgetting and knowing,
you ache
for the echo
of the child
that once called this home.

37/52

 

[goddessofglee]

A Talk between two, now in the Evening News

"You again," the voice murmurs,
soft as silver mist at dawn.
"You always come, yet never speak,
only stand and watch me on."

A silence hums between the words,
then, softly, something sighs.
"You look unsure," the voice returns,
"No more riddles. No more lies."

A laugh, too quiet to belong,
flickers, brittle, in the air.
"Would it matter if I changed?
If I wasn’t really there?"

A pause—longer now. Too long.
The silence waits, sways, lingers.
"Say something," the voice insists.
But only breath curls at its fingers.

"You always hesitate."
The words fold into the hush.
"What are you searching for?"
A glance. A flicker. The rush—

"I don't know."
A whisper now. Thinner. Bare.
"If I say it, it will be real.
If you don’t, it stays nowhere."

A hand rises.
A pulse stills.
A shape blurs—

Then— Shatter.

Splintered shards catch the last breath.
A fractured silence. A hollow hush.
No answer. No echo.
Just an ending carved in dust.

A glint—sharp, fleeting—
slides along the edge of shadow.
Something warm unfurls,
slow as a secret spilling over.

The floor drinks deeply,
its grain darkening,
a map of rivers tracing
paths that twist, then vanish.

A rhythm falters—
shallow, uneven,
a tide retreating
from a shore too still.

The air grows heavy,
weighted with copper,
a scent that clings,
unseen, unspoken.

And the dust—
it settles,
soft as a sigh,
on a surface now glistening,
now quiet, now vast.

№11 of 52

 

[Kat90xx]

There was once was a man from Hull
Who’s sex life was incredibly dull
He bought a new toy
For his wife to enjoy
And now he ruts like a bull!

 

[goddessofglee]

"She turns"

[Stalker’s Voice]

She slips through the crowd, unsure, too fast—
A flickering flame not meant to last.
No one sees her. But I do.
Only I know what she’s moving through.

Footsteps quick, breath held tight,
She runs like prey too close to light.
A rabbit skimming midnight stone,
Fleeing fast—but not alone.

Her panic spills in every glance—
That lovely ache, that silent dance.
She knows. She feels. But does she see?
Turn around—just once—just once for me.

She will. She must. They always do.
The hunted look—when danger’s due.
Fear is curious. Terror slow.
She’ll turn. She has to know.
---

[Girl’s Voice]

Walls blur in. My chest won’t rise.
A breath too close. A voice behind.
Too near. Too slow. Too wrong.
This street has stretched a mile too long.

No breath. No face. Just sound that bends.
A shape that shifts. A step that rends.
The ground feels thin, my pace unsure.
I’m running still—but through a door.

No names, no signs. Only him.
That steady pull, that crawling limb.
A whisper brushing past my ear—
Where do I run? It’s almost here.

Don’t stop. Don’t breathe. Don’t fall.
He’s coming fast—he wants it all.
My skin can feel the reaching fear.
Someone’s close. Someone’s—near.
---

[Reversal]

She stops. She turns. Her gaze—unblinking.
A smile too wide. Her teeth—too many.
The air goes still. His heartbeat stutters.
Blood calls blood—pure thirst that flutters.

She stops.
She turns.
She grins.
He runs.

But not
fast
enough.
---

Epilogue

One body found in alleyway.
No visible injuries.
Cause of death unknown.
Witness say seeing
“a girl with glassy eyes” nearby.
But there's no trace.
---

№12 of 52

 

[goddessofglee]

An awakening call!

She steps away—silent, unseen,
Dust slipping beneath her feet.
The sea exhales. The stars blink once.
The wind hums low in her wake.

She walks, weary—
Until weariness claims her,
And under a lone tree, far from the world’s noise,
She folds herself into sleep,
A cocoon of shadow and sigh.

"She rests," murmur the wheat, golden and tall,
"But will she rise?"
"She dreams," sighs the air, brushing her brow,
"But will she wake?"

Fireflies gather—tiny lanterns aflame—
"Let us guide her," they flicker.
Moths circle, hesitant.
"Let her stay," they murmur, wings trembling.

A single ember drifts—
Falling against her skin like truth,
Too bright. Too sharp.
She stirs.

The stream surges forward, restless.
"She must move," it urges, lapping her ankles.
Cool fingers trail up her soles,
Whispering promises in liquid syllables.
Pull. Whisper. Wake.

The moths dive at the water's edge,
Wings beating back the silver tongue
That speaks of morning, speaks of movement.

The bee alights upon her wrist—
Bold, insistent.
"I offer memory," it drones, and stings.

Her breath catches—
Pain blossoms, seeps into slumber.
A crack in the dark.

The crow tilts its head, all shadow and question.
"She does not belong," it caws.
But the dove coos beside it, soft as forgiveness:
"She will learn."

A broken mirror drinks the starlight,
Each shard holding a different sky.
She turns toward it in her sleep—
Seven selves she may never recognize.

The donkey brays—sharp, shattering silence.
She jerks, the weight of dreams fraying.
The hyena laughs, cruel and gleeful:
"Stay lost," it sings. "Stay forgotten."

And then comes he who casts no shadow,
Whose footsteps leave no mark in dark.
The golden wheat bends away.
Even the stars forget to shine.
The tide trembles at the edge of decision.

As he bends forth, between mercy and malice—
He extends one hand.
And when his choice takes root—
She wakes.

Her eyes snap open—not to light,
But to the weight of the weary delight.
The world exhales. The spell breaks.
She is no longer who she was.

The wheat sighs. The sea exhales.
The fireflies retreat, their glow fading into dusk.

She rises, kicking the silvery sand,
Weighed by the silver left deep within.


№13 of 52

 

[Kat90xx]

There once was a man from Crewe
Whose balls were awfully blue
He had a big wank
To empty the tank
And now his ceiling is covered in goo!

 

[Kat90xx]

There once were three men in a bed
Who all slept head to head
Two dreamt they were rubbing
But the middle one was blubbing
As he dreamt he went skiing instead!

 

[_Land]

Master Pieces
By Bear Sage

Beauty quivered
on the cusp of form,
waiting for the hand
that would decide
where her breath should catch.

He circled once—
not like a predator,
but like a sculptor
studying marble
already aching
to be made smooth.

Silk rope braided
against pale wrist—
not tight,
but perfect.
Just enough to teach
stillness.

He painted with pressure—
fingertips dipped
in command,
brushing discipline
across the canvas
of her waiting skin.

A collar fastened
with the patience of ritual.
A look—
razor-sharp,
measured in inches
and held breath.

She bloomed
under the weight
of his silence,
each pause a permission
to ache louder.

When he struck—
it wasn’t violence.
It was shape.
A red welt arched
like a crescent moon
bent into obedience.

Beauty happened
in the curve of her spine
as he carved a yes
without a word.

He built her
with shadow and sweat—
a cathedral of moans,
an altar of bruises
meant only
for his hands.

Not broken.
Arranged.
Not taken.
Claimed.

And when she shattered—
she did so
beautifully,
because he told her
when.


38/52

 

[_Land]

Histrionic

Lipstick on his cock—
a crooked signature smeared across
the final draft of last night’s lie.
She left it there.
Like graffiti on the side of a train
that never stops long enough to be admired,
only captured in blurred passing
and whispered about
by voyeurs in passing windows.

The hotel room is theater—
curtains drawn shut like a hanged man’s last request,
bedsheets twisted in scriptless chaos,
and the minibar—
half-emptied like her mascara bottle
when the crying started for the third act.

She’s barefoot in a silk robe,
spinning,
arms wide,
monologuing to no one
and everyone:
the ceiling fan,
the cracked mirror,
the unpaid room service tray
that watches with the silence of a jury
already bored of the trial.

He is off-stage.
But his scent is a soliloquy.
Smoke and ego.
Chlorine and bourbon.
A ghost made of cologne and closure.
He didn’t slam the door.
He whispered it shut
like a curse with lipstick teeth.

She performs collapse with precision.
A slow fall into the armchair,
legs spread like accusation,
cigarette held like a microphone,
ashtray applause raining down
with every drag.

The neighbors upstairs
mistake her sob for climax,
but she is rehearsing grief
in five emotional dialects.
Each tear timed
to the crescendo
of last night’s voicemail
replayed again and again
like a director yelling, “Cut—
from the top.”

She will rise soon,
rewrite the ending,
and deliver her lines
to the next fool with a room key
and a taste
for tragedy.

Because heartbreak—
for her—
isn’t a wound.
It’s
a role.
And she plays it
like lipstick
on a cock.

39/52

 

[_Land]

A Penny for Your Thoughts


I was a whisper once,
pressed warm from the mint’s mouth—
a newborn with Lincoln’s spine,
gleaming like a sunrise
on the stoop of commerce.

Held between prayers and palms,
slipped into the Sunday tray
like redemption in miniature.
I jingled inside children’s pockets,
bought bubblegum and belief,
felt the soft pulse of a wish
as I kissed fountain water
and sank with hope stitched to my skin.

I have known the tremble of first dates—
the counting of exact change
when dignity rides on dimes,
I stood beside the quarters,
equal in the eyes of the broke
who knew the worth of every damn cent.

But altars fall.
Hands that once held me
with hush and intention
now fumble past me—
searching for something louder.
The reverence went silent
before I did.

I became the pause no one takes.
The small grace no longer given.
Not enough to offer,
not enough to keep.
Their fingers learned to skip me
like a skipped prayer—
too slight for blessing,
too slow for the rush
of a faster world.

They rewrote worth
without me in the sentence.
My copper tongue
no longer speaks
the language of exchange.
I am folklore in a cashier’s sigh—
my weight once sacred,
now inconsequential.

They still say
a penny for your thoughts
but leave their minds
untouched.
Unspoken.
As if even thoughts
have become too expensive
for something like me.

And so,
I vanish—not discarded,
but unwritten.
No longer cast,
no longer carried,
just the ghost
of a glint
that once bought wonder.

40/52

 

[Lily1011]

Throns and Grace

Aren’t we all beautiful,
Wearing thorns like crowns of sorrow?
Who could love us,
While our wounds bleed daggers
Into the hands that reach for us?

Yet still, we crave love —
So much we’d offer our skin to the blade,
If only for a touch that says, I see you.
We were never made to break —
We just broke,
Soft things shattered by the world’s hard edges.

We hide our scars in velvet silence,
Hoping to be felt, to be held —
But how can we be known
While cloaked in shadows not our own?
Still, we ache to be seen —
Raw, real, whole.

We carry our pain like sacred offerings,
Our pasts folded in reverence.
And in secret prayers,
We dream of souls who will meet us
In kindness, in gentle understanding.

But compassion from others
Can’t bloom
Where our own heart has not been heard.
So today —
Let the heart feel it all.
Let the pain breathe,
Let the need rise,
Let the loss weep,
Let the desire scream.

Let the body rage with fire —
For all that never came to be.
And when the storm settles,
Let me cradle the truth:
That life may not unfold as I wish —
And still, I will grieve it with grace.

 

[Tzara]

Hospital

When, after surgery,
she told me about the nightmare
because, she said, someone should know

and she couldn't tell her husband.
It was about her blood,
how it was plastic, sticky

as if shrink-wrapped in death,
oozing out of her wound
like a tarry oil seep,

ready to capture an errant dinosaur
or the neighbor's idiot cat.
I listened quietly

and held her hand, which Hal would never do,
until she went back to sleep,
before taking her horror with me

to disinfect the room.

Week 24 : Poem 1 : Total 29

 

[Kat90xx]

There once was a woman called Sue
Whose husband had not a clue
She tattooed a sign
Saying here you should dine
But his tongue got caught in her shoe!

 

[NC_Coastal]

Tomorrow

She rises in the night
A harbinger of summer's bounty
We wait for her sign
We must endure what comes first

The sky is bruised yet still blue
Dark clouds gather on the horizon
The wind blows high across the oaks
Long limbs swaying in the gathering breeze

All of nature is bracing for the storm
And waiting for the Strawberry Moon

 

[_Land]

Monochrome Memories

for the ones we loved in grayscale

The kitchen
was a charcoal sketch—
steam curling from your coffee like the ghost
of a promise
you were too afraid to make.

You laughed
in black-and-white,
a reel of 1940s cinema
where everything was always almost
enough.
Your hand brushed mine—
sepia-tinted,
like time forgot to color us in.

The bedroom
was a negative
burnt into silver nitrate.
We made love like film developing—
slow,
chemical,
delicate.
Your breath on my neck
was a shutter click.
Your body—
a shadow cast
by the flicker of who we couldn't be
in daylight.

And then that night,
under the stars—
a grainy photograph,
edges torn
by the way we whispered
truths too fragile for morning.
We spoke in static,
kissed in contrast.
You looked up,
said the moon was just
a streetlamp for the lonely.
I said nothing.
I never did when the grayscale
got too loud.

Now I remember
in monochrome.
No color.
Just texture.
Just ache.

Just the echo of you
somewhere between
white silence
and black goodbye.

41/52

 

[Angeline]

Chet

I dreamed you played for me,
steady and sweetly yearning,
sang about an old feeling still
in your heart. A vibraphone
meandered and chimed,

otherworldly. It didn't matter

that I clung to your arm
like so many women have.
You were happy to be lost
and when I awakened
I was too.



Week 24, Poem 1, Total 22

 

[_Land]

Choke the Crown

The sky is blue
because it’s choking.

Every siren
is a scream that got promoted.
Every badge—
a tantrum with funding.

We took to the streets
because no one listened
when we whispered.
Now we bring drums,
we bring screams,
we bring grandmothers in Nikes
who watched MLK get shot
and still have enough spit
to curse the new regime.

The freeway bleeds—
not from traffic
but from truth.
Rubber bullets rain
like God’s failed attempts
at diplomacy.
The cops beat a deaf kid
because silence looked suspicious.

No kings, motherfucker.
No masters.
Just landlords with tanks
and senators shaped like oil spills.

They fence the capitol
but leave the schools hungry.
They wrap a child in zip ties
because her cardboard sign
was spelled too well.
That’s what they fear—
not violence,
but clarity.

We burned flags
because they wouldn’t stop
burning bodies.
We toppled statues
because history
was never meant to be a statue—
it’s meant to be rewritten
with rage,
with red ink,
with the blood of every poet
who refused to pledge allegiance
to a myth.

And still they say
"be civil."
Be civil,
as if we haven’t begged nicely
for 400 fucking years.

So no.
We came to scream.
To paint in broken glass.
To piss on the boot
that’s been kicking our teeth in
and dare it to call us uncivilized.

The chant is not a prayer—
it is war drums
on TikTok.
It is children
learning to aim
with cameras
instead of guns.
It is a funeral
for obedience.

No Kings.
No gods.
Just fire,
and the roar
of a people
who finally stopped asking
to be heard.


42/52

 

[Tzara]

Form Exercise: Rondeau

I wonder why we are still friends.
Relationships so often end
Unhappily, it's sad to say.
But ours, I think, remains okay—
At least, on you I still depend

For good advice, to recommend
When firm is better than to bend
And when it's best to walk away.
I wonder why

That you're the one whom I depend
To keep me stable, apprehend
What I ought do, but come what may
Will never cast me off astray.
I cherish how you don't pretend,
but wonder why.

Week 25 : Poem 1 : Total 30

 

[Kat90xx]

There once was a man named Hunt
Whose language was incredibly blunt
He swore and he screamed
As his wife’s mouth he reamed
Till his cum ran all down her front

 

[_Land]

.Resources

They do not die for flags.
They die for contracts—
oil-slicked and hidden
in the folds of a diplomat’s handshake.

Their helmets catch more dust than glory,
while blood soaks
into soil earmarked
for lithium,
for gold,
for cobalt—
for the next upgrade
in your trembling palm.

Freedom?
No—
that’s the propaganda pillow
they smother the conscience with.

This war is a cashier's drawer
ringing with ribs and femurs,
where bullets are IOUs
for boardroom bonuses.
The dead are just deposits—
interest-bearing.
Profitable.

Watch how they strip a country—
skin it like a goddamn animal.
They name the carcass stability,
then hollow it out
to fill with tanks and silence.

Mothers don’t cry for freedom.
They cry because their children
became spreadsheets.
They cry because the cost of resources
is always human.
Because their babies
became the mortar
in someone else's palace.

This isn’t defense.
It’s consumption.
War as a feeding frenzy—
teeth made of treaties,
appetite baptized
in the blood of the poor.

You want freedom?
Try surviving
when your body
is just a commodity
traded in whispers
between men
in air-conditioned empires
who’ve never seen
the whites of a dying boy’s eyes.

Resources.
That's all they see
when they look
at the land—
and at us.

 

[_Land]

Puppet Strings and Powder Kegs


The hand is American—
not flesh,
but steel wrapped in velvet,
slick with oil,
veins pumping black gold.
It slides inside the ribcage of nations
and strings up their bones like windchimes.

Israel jerks like a marionette
nailed to military aid,
its fingers twitching over the trigger
before thought can form.
Gaza becomes
a sandbox of severed limbs—
doll eyes melted
into the rubble of kindergartens.
Each child’s name
a footnote in someone else’s briefing.

And Iran—
Iran is the fire they keep in a glass cage,
tapping it with a stick,
calling it savage,
as they piss gasoline through sanctions
and call it diplomacy.

This isn’t defense.
It’s a choreographed slaughter—
theatrics spun with copper wire
and teeth ground to shrapnel.

We puppet the carnage.
Our drones don’t hum,
they purr—
like housecats
rubbing up against the corpse
of sovereignty.

Every airstrike
is a sermon.
Every treaty
a noose sewn in cursive.
We hand out bombs like communion—
take, eat,
this is my profit,
broken for you.

In Gaza,
a mother clutches a jawbone
still warm,
still whispering
the bedtime story it never got to finish.

In Tehran,
a boy with ink-stained palms
draws a sun
on the wall of his bomb shelter—
yellow chalk on concrete,
the only god he still believes in.

And here,
in the belly of the empire,
we sip our coffee,
scroll our feeds,
watch live-streamed executions
between cat videos and influencer discounts—
blissful,
bloated,
benumbed.

You want to talk freedom?
Tell it to the smoke
curling from a crater
that used to be a marketplace.

Tell it to the hand
that writes checks with blood,
strings puppets with policy,
and carves the earth
like it owns the bones beneath it.

Because here,
freedom isn’t a right.
It’s a ransom.
And we’ve never paid the price.

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