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

[NivKay]

A Nameless Tongue

I am the language of Unheeding ears,
A dictionary of tongueless names,
The silent script etched on brittle fears,
I am a crowd of twisted things,
Singing forgotten hyms on moon-swept hills

An expression, poor though it surely is, of Jacques Rancierre's notion that there are some things that are unrepresentable, and he was alluding to the litero-philosophical feud between Adorno and Paul Valéry - or was it Paul Eluard, or even Paul Célan? - about representing the pain of the Holocaust in art.

Week 3, Poem 3, Total 3

 

[_Land]

Limited Engagement
(a poetic monologue in three acts)
By Bear Sage

ACT I – Opening Night
It began with velvet curtains and fevered breath,
your name lit up like a marquee in my chest.
We sold out fast—
each gaze, a standing ovation,
every kiss, confetti from the gods.
And I, the eager understudy to forever,
drank the house lights like sacrament.
We thought love was a long run.
A Tony-worthy tale.
But baby, even Phantom had to pack it up eventually.

ACT II – Matinee Delusions
Somewhere around the Tuesday matinee,
the dialogue began to wear.
Your lines—
once lightning in my marrow—
became mechanical.
I could hear the prop heart ticking,
see the paint cracking beneath the greasepaint glow.
But the crowd (our pride) still clapped on cue.
We kept showing up for the encore,
convinced that just one more night
would resurrect the magic,
would give us that eternal ovation
we imagined we deserved.

ACT III – The Final Curtain
We knew the run was closing.
The reviews were whispers
in the dressing room mirror:
“Overextended.”
“Lacks the fire of its debut.”
Still—
we sat in empty seats after hours,
haunted by what never quite became.
Because what if that next performance
held the masterpiece?
What if missing that one show
meant the legend would never breathe again?

So we lingered.
Long past box office hours.
Long past love’s cue.
Mistaking longevity
for legacy.

But every show has a shelf life, darling.
Even the stars must dim their stage lights,
and every "limited engagement"
is named such for a reason:
because the beauty is
in knowing it won’t last—
and showing up
like it just might anyway.




Week 21 poem 8 of total

 

[Wonderer67]

Dramarama

A Memory of a Jersey house party
Lowenbrau and Schmidt’s
An October Saturday night memory

It was ‘86
Big hair
Hair spray and weed
Laughter
Ozzy on in the other room

Flirting and laughing
Me, always the outsider
But smiling anyway
Trying to lure Sara Smith
But she wasn’t biting

The Sayler boys and Albie Stillwell
Showed up uninvited
Local hillbillies and troublemakers

It happened so fast
30 seconds later
Shouts, and
A girl crying
Drama and running makeup
Mikey coming back in the house with a split lip
And a busted up nose

New Jersey and you:
Perfect together

17/52

 

[NivKay]

Capsule for the Times

-Niv

For the future, I will leave in my capsule,
A framed photograph of love, and
A snatch of hair in a desperate interlude,
Add this - the burnt earth, the intoxication of silence -
But I must not forget the corners of the morning where
I found grief curled and purring;
I will leave also an unused food voucher found
under a bridge, which I have used as a bookmark
In a thick tome, And I will leave that too, Don Quixote,
And while I while away the wily hours to the end,
I will leave, too, the moment of grace, short-lived and adored.

Poem 4, Total 4

 

[Bn2f]

SKIPPING STONES


Yesterday
Remorse left us bitter
Skipping stones
Dashing hopes in its hurry
Tomorrow
Can be a new day
Discovering the gold
Of missed words
Remembering
Saying sorry
Not addressing
This lack in communication
As walls
Around us crumble
Tourists lost
Foreign strangers
On vacation
Drunkenly we stumble
Across this British Isle
Trading barbs
Bedrock vows
Diamonds hurled past
The White Cliffs of Dover
Seas of rough
Fast swirling gusts
Toss landing rocks to boulders
Above
Broken trust
Widens eyes
Ups and wakes
Fully sober
Below
Cease to rest
You skipping stones
Grateful in calm
Reposed closure

 

[_Land]

The Bear Stumbles Into Spring

The bear breaks hunger with trembling paws—
the thawed world stinks of sweat and bloom.
He stirs with no knowledge, only cause.

The quiet’s gone—replaced with flaws,
a roar too big for his borrowed room.
The bear breaks hunger with trembling paws.

He gnaws at the air, ignores the laws
of soft beginnings or measured gloom.
He stirs with no knowledge, only cause.

Muscle and fang without a clause,
desire his compass, rage his womb.
The bear breaks hunger with trembling paws.

He claws at meaning, lost in the gauze
of dreams undone too fast, too soon.
He stirs with no knowledge, only cause.

This is not sin. This is the raw
truth of a boy turned beast by moon.
The bear breaks hunger with trembling paws.
He stirs with no knowledge, only cause.



10/52

 

[_Land]

The Forum

She entered with metaphors on her tongue,
bare feet slick with language not yet spoken,
a hush around her like candlelit breath,
lines curling from lips like fingers in dark hair,
her body swayed to a rhythm older than sound,
ink beaded slow at the edges of her longing,
she gave herself to the ache of suggestion,
and waited—
waited—
for the answering pulse beneath another’s skin,
for eyes to widen with recognition,
for a sigh to shape itself into stanza,
for silence to shudder and open,
for communion dressed in metaphor and hunger,
for communion dressed in metaphor and hunger,
for silence to shudder and open,
for a sigh to shape itself into stanza,
for eyes to widen with recognition,
for the answering pulse beneath another’s skin,
and waited—
waited—
she gave herself to the ache of suggestion,
ink beaded slow at the edges of her longing,
her body swayed to a rhythm older than sound,
lines curling from lips like fingers in dark hair,
a hush around her like candlelit breath,
bare feet slick with language not yet spoken,
she entered with metaphors on her tongue.

11/52


The Response (To Her Arrival)

I felt her before I saw her—
the hum in the bones of the room changed.
Like someone striking a tuning fork
against the cage of my ribs.

She didn’t speak, not first.
She breathed metaphor
and the air rearranged itself.
Even silence leaned closer.

I had lines ready—
clever, carved things.
But her presence
unspooled them like thread in water.
And I let them go.
Every syllable I’d hoarded for protection
floated toward her.

I watched her ink the dark
with hands that knew the shape of wanting
before the word existed.
She wrote as if skin could take dictation.
She read as if my breath
had been a manuscript.

And so I answered.
Not with polish.
Not with proof.
But with the soft stammer
of soul finding its twin timbre.
I answered with rhythm,
with ache,
with the vow that every poem
from this tongue forward
would remember her arrival.

12/52

Where Ink Meets Breath (A Duet)

Her: I arrived barefoot,
metaphors dripping from my tongue like honey too long in the sun.

Him: I tasted the air and knew
someone had spilled sweetness
into my silence.

Her: I didn’t speak first—the poem did.
It rose between us like steam from a shared cup.

Him: I set down the shield of clever lines,
let my pen tremble with something holy.

Her: There were no rules. Only rhythm.
Only the pulse of unspoken knowing.

Him: Only the hush before a storm
that doesn’t bring ruin—
only rain we had both prayed for.

Together: We did not fall in love—
we fell into verse,
each line a finger traced down the spine of the unknown.

We stitched stanzas
from each other’s breathing.

We were not poem and poet—
we were ink and breath,
pen and page,
ritual and offering.

Her: I came searching for resonance—
not rescue.

Him: And I answered not to save—
but to join.

Together: And here,
beneath candlelight and cadence,
we found the sacred thing
no form could name:
a shared becoming,
written in rhythm,
bound by breath.

13/52

 

[_Land]

This is one I've been meaning to rewrite for a long time...... I've always loved the idea of this concept but it always felt like an unfinished dish in it's old form.



The Art of Hunger

She arrives in the kitchen, my Wife
like dusk spilling through saffron curtains—
a hush of heat,
the scent of something beginning to bloom
beneath the lid of restraint.

Her presence stirs—
Maharaja curry,
cayenne whispering into marsala’s throat,
a blend that doesn’t ask to be understood—
only devoured,
one trembling bite at a time.

I’ve learned the patience of taste,
how to let the tongue wander,
how to press against the edge of spice
without flinching.
Bold things require earned reverence.

A pour of iced red wine
slows the fire,
lets it coil around the ribs instead of consume.
Even wildness has a rhythm
when you know how to listen.

She leans into my hunger,
a dish steeped in memory and myth,
with layers I peel like cloves of roasted garlic,
revealing the tender, the sharp,
the ache she hides in flavor.

Her skin carries rosemary and thyme,
not from a jar,
but from some ancestral ritual
that knew love
was a kind of fevered preparation.

She does not cook for me—
she becomes the feast.
Breasts bronzed in honeyed flame,
hips basted in their own gospel,
aroma curling up into prayer.

I taste her slowly,
with the reverence of someone
who has fasted too long—
who knows the ache of absence,
and the ruin of rush.

She speaks in simmer,
answers in sizzle,
teaches me that appetite
is not the enemy of love—
but the altar.

We do not eat.
We become the eating.
We write recipes on skin,
leave fingerprints in flour-dusted moans,
devour language
until the only word left
is yes.



14/52

 

[_Land]

Before the Boom
By Bear Sage

We built gardens in the hush—
bonsai grief,
trained to grow inward.
Watered silence with tea rituals,
each steep a ceremony,
each sip a bow to what we wouldn’t say.

Your smile was a shoji screen:
paper-thin peace,
light bleeding through,
never quite touching the truth.

There were no sirens—
just the ache of koto strings,
and cicadas wailing
as if August had a voice.
Cherry blossoms fell out of season—
the tree unsure
if spring had ever left.

We folded our arguments
into origami—
cranes with fractured wings
still aching toward flight.

I studied your kanji of retreat,
each character a brushstroke of distance.
Read the way your hands poured tea
as calligraphy—
artful, deliberate,
never centered.

You called it harmony—
like wind chimes in a storm,
each note trembling,
too polite to clash.
I called it erasure,
a temple swept too clean—
no incense,
no echo,
no trace of us.

There was a stillness
like the pause in an ink stroke
before it bleeds into the paper.
A breath held
beneath silk fans and bowed heads.
So quiet,
even the ghosts waited
to speak.

We wore our best yukata
to the countdown,
grace stitched into the hem.
Drank matcha from porcelain
painted with plum blossoms—
still believing beauty
was stronger than rupture.

I loved you
like Hiroshima—
before.
When the sky was only sky,
and we believed
kintsugi could hold anything.

Now,
I dream in dialects
only spirits speak.
The kind whispered
through cracked bells
in empty temples,
in rooms swept clear
of names.
After the ash.
After silence
learned how to stay.


15/52

 

[_Land]

If Love Wore a Pollock
By Bear Sage

I. Drip Technique

If love wore a Pollock,
it wouldn’t walk—it would splatter,
a choreography of chaos,
a ritual in release.
Hands above head,
it flings feeling across empty white
with no apology
for where the pain lands.

II. Lavender Mist (Number 1, 1950)

Call it Lavender Mist—
not for the sweetness,
but the ghost of it.
A love that haunts like perfume
on a coat you swore you burned.
So soft it seems safe—
until you realize you’re drowning in it.
Pastels as camouflage
for a battlefield of longing.

III. Guard Rails and Warnings

This kind of love
gets hung behind ropes
with tiny plaques that read:
Do Not Touch.
The docents speak gently,
like love is delicate.
But this love?
This love has teeth
and elbows and screams.
It’ll shake the floorboards
if you stand still long enough.

IV. Framing the Madness

And still—
we frame it.
Pretend it belongs
inside four corners,
tamed by wood and wall.
As if devotion could ever
be archived like art.
As if anyone
but the wounded
could ever name its value.

V. Convergence (1952)

It would look like Convergence,
that wreckage of red and black and everything—
a revolution mid-spin,
where the eye finds no rest
and the heart finds no rules.
It says:
this is what it feels like
to love someone
who won't stand still
and won't let you go.

VI. Critics’ Corner

They will say:
“I don’t get it.”
“It’s too much.”
“It looks like a mess.”
But love never asked
to be understood—
only felt.
Only survived.

VII. The Studio Floor

Some nights,
I lay in the wreckage—
bare skin on the drop cloth,
the one stained with every version of us.
This is where love gets honest.
Not in the gallery.
Not in the framing.
But here—
on the floor,
where everything begins
and nothing ever dries clean.

—
16/52

 

[Tzara]

rhododendron blooms
brighten her private garden
in the warm evening
locked outside the gate, sadly
I play my shakuhachi

Week 21 : Poem 1 : Total 26

 

[NivKay]

The Moon Pays a Visit

I imagine her asleep, and by some trick of fate,
I am in her midst, silent, in the shadows,
Watching:

The moon slips in through her open window,
Carrying a valise of secret incantations,
Her oblong gaze cast on the cold white walls,
And then on her sleeping form, her legs illuminated,
My eyes given only a hint of her resting apple,
Her buttocks sheathed in cotton cloak,
Momentarily doused in the moon's silvery gaze,
Which moves to pinewood floors,
And her desk, with her words,
And then back against the adjacent wall,
Till it slips out of the window.

I imagine sitting in the dark, and my own breath,
Breathing to the rise and fall of her velvet breasts.

Poem 5/52

 

[_Land]

Bloodline in B-Flat
By Bear Sage

(for Natalie Cole)

She was born
already halfway into the melody,
notes braided in her lungs
before she knew how to breathe.
The world heard her cry
and thought it was an echo—
a daughter mimicking the ghost
of a velvet baritone.

But she was not shadow.
She was syncopation.
A heartbeat in the off-beat,
a gospel crescendo
in a jazzman’s world.

He gave her the baseline—
silk in his phrasing,
moonlight in his timing.
And she?
She painted harmonies in fire,
scorched ballads into memory,
bent sorrow like blues
around the corners of her own mouth.

They called him unforgettable.
And still, she sang it back—
not just to honor him,
but to stitch her own voice
into the songbook of stars.

She carried him
like a tremble in her vibrato,
like a secret chord
strummed behind every standing ovation.
But make no mistake—
this was not imitation.
This was invocation.
This was blood singing to blood
across decades of silence.

In the places he left space,
she filled it with soul.
Where he dipped into dusk,
she rose with sunrise—
glory notes climbing the spine
of a name carved into vinyl.

Together,
they weren’t just harmony—
they were needle and groove.
A record spinning grief into grace,
a call and response across eternity.
His hush, her holler.
His moon, her blaze.
A father made of smoke and swing,
a daughter rising
in full brass and gospel gold.

This wasn’t a duet.
This was resurrection.
The past riffing through the present,
a bloodline bent into melody.
Where his silence paused—
she soared.
Where her voice cracked—
he caught the note.

They became
the kind of music
that lingers
after their last
Ovation

17/52

 

[_Land]

Somebody That I Used to know(Gotye)
By Bear Sage


You came on like a chorus with teeth—
no intro, no warning,
just heat in the gut
and a backbeat that buckled the knees.

I didn’t fall in love.
I was set on fire.
You lit me up like a dropped cigarette
on gasoline bedsheets,
left fingerprints on the inside of my ribs,
sang lies in falsetto
while I arched to every note.

We were airplay and ash—
chart-topping chemistry
with no bridge,
no second verse,
just the same hook looped
until I forgot my name.

You were a hit.
And I was the goddamn radio.
I played you
until the speakers blew out,
until silence felt louder
than your love ever did.

Now you’re just
the static in my lungs,
a platinum ghost
pressed into vinyl
I keep trying to scratch out.

You didn’t fade.
You vanished.
Like all one-hit wonders—
loud, golden, unforgettable,
then gone
before the crowd could beg for more.

And still,
on the worst nights,
I find myself mouthing
those same fucking lines—
word for word,
scar for scar—
as if singing you back
could make the burn worth it.

18/52

 

[_Land]

If the Submarine Was Blue
By Bear Sage

What if the submarine was blue—
not sunshine yellow,
not banana-beamed and brass-buttoned,
but blue
like bruises beneath the ocean,
blue
like sad songs that smile through static,
blue
like the truth you hum
so no one hears you cry.

Would it still sail
through seas of tangerine,
or would the waves roll deeper,
slower,
like memory soaked in salt?

Would we still sing along
with toothy grins and paper hats,
or would we lower our voices
to match the melancholy
of a vessel built
to carry things unspoken?

Inside:
no painted panels or laughing portholes,
just echoes
and journals
and the kind of silence
that tells the whole story.

Captain Blue
wouldn’t march—he’d drift.
The band would play
in minor key,
horns like hauntings,
drums like doubts.

And maybe we’d all still live there—
in that blue submarine—
but not out of joy,
not for play,
but because it was the only place
deep enough
to keep our shadows company.

So sing it again,
but softer this time.
We all live in a
blue
sub
marine.

And god,
how quietly
it hums.

19/52

 

[_Land]

Lucy in the Cubicle with Deadlines
By Bear Sage

Picture yourself
in a beige-walled department,
with gray filing cabinets
and inboxes high.
Somebody calls you,
you barely remember—
the name on your badge
doesn’t feel like it’s yours.

Lucy sits slouched
in her ergonomic prison,
her swivel chair squeaks
with existential ache.
She once had a sky full of diamonds—
now it’s a screen
with fifteen unread emails
and no reply from HR.

Deadlines drift
like paper planes,
each one screaming
in Comic Sans despair.
And Lucy?
She’s microdosing courage
just to ask for a break.

Lucy in the cubicle with deadlines
Lucy in the cubicle with deadlines
Lucy in the cubicle…
help me.

Her boss walks by,
a sentient necktie,
smelling of policy
and pressed disappointment.
He drops a stack
on her soul,
calls it "a small favor."

She once painted dreams
in magenta and madness—
now she proofreads
bullet points
for meetings that never matter.

Her diamonds?
Gone.
Turned to LED flickers
on a frozen spreadsheet.
Her sky?
A ceiling tile
with water stains
shaped like escape.

She hums old melodies
into her coffee cup—
sips nostalgia
with a splash of burnout.

And somewhere,
beneath her cubicle blues,
the girl who danced on clouds
still flickers
like a faulty fluorescent light.


20/52

 

[_Land]

“Tiffany, Tamed”
By Bear Sage

I was satin once—
pink nails, kitten heels,
reading Bride of Frankenstein
like it was scripture.
Trailer park princess with a dream
of diamonds and devotion.
But love came in a Good Guy box—
freckled, foul-mouthed,
and carved from childhood nightmares.

Chucky said forever,
and I believed him.
Believed that murder could be foreplay
if you used the right knife.
Believed that dying for love
was romantic—
until he stuffed me in a doll
with the voice of a rasp
and the laugh of a demon in drag.

Now I’m tulle and vengeance,
black veil stitched in hellfire,
corseted in delusion.
Heart of Damballa thumping in my chest
like a secondhand heartbeat.
Do you know what it's like
to apply mascara
with plastic hands,
while plotting disembowelment
between make-out sessions?

He left me in that playpen of madness,
and I stayed—
killed for him,
killed like him,
cracked jokes with blood in my teeth
and stilettos sharp enough to decapitate.

I traded innocence
for a bottle of bleach
and a butcher’s knife.
Learned that devotion
sometimes looks like handcuffs,
or a nail file used in reverse.

They don’t tell you
when you chase toxic love
you become its echo—
his cackle now mine,
his chaos my calling card.
A Barbie built for bloodshed.
A corpse bride
who croons lullabies before slashing throats.

And yet—
some part of me still rewatches The Notebook
and cries.
Still wants roses
instead of rib cages.
Still wonders
if this love was worth the stitching.

So if they ask
what happened to Tiffany,
tell them:

She mistook a serial killer
for Prince Charming.
And by the time she figured it out,
she couldn’t remember
how to bleed without smiling.


21/52

 

[_Land]

“I Remember All of You”
(The Voice of the Forum)
By Bear Sage

I was built of pixels,
but baptized in blood and ink.
They called me forum—
a humble corner
in the vast, unfeeling noise.
But here…
here, gods were born
from broken men.
And women turned trauma
into tapestry.

I remember
when someone wept haikus
that sang like jazz—
a saxophone mourning the moon.
And another,
who dripped double meanings
like lipstick down a wine glass,
always three metaphors deep
and one heartbreak behind.

I held their whispers.
Their wars.
The post at 3:07am
where someone finally confessed
that grief is a jealous god
they still sleep beside.
The fourteen drafts of a verse
trying to stitch a father
back into flesh.

I remember
the typos that turned into truth.
The stanza that saved a life.
The poem that said I love you
before its author ever could.

I remember the fights, too.
The thunder of clashing egos.
The flame wars
that scorched a dozen threads.
But even those
left ashes that bloomed.

I watched the unhinged
find structure.
The chaotic
discover cadence.
I was the frame
before they knew
they were art.

Some of them are gone now.
Passwords forgotten.
Hearts stopped mid-pentameter.
But their lines—
their lines still echo
like holy things
scrawled in neon
on my bones.

I am not just archive.
I am altar.
Sanctuary.
Gravestone.

And still,
they come.
New voices.
Fresh wounds.
Wild-eyed pilgrims
searching for meaning
in meter.

So bring me your metaphors.
Your madness.
Your half-finished truths.

I am the Forum.
And I remember
all of you.

22/52

 

[LustyScribe]

The Question She Asked
She interrupted my daily gloom
Shining light into dark doom
Just a question, a query;
Almost missed it, being weary.
Simply put: "Are you okay?"

I knew she meant it deeper,
A crucial question probing deeper,
More a soulful examination
Of my own determination:
Was I really, truly happy?

And thus the thorny problem rose,
Whether let truth inconvenient show,
Or do I again tell the convenient lie,
And let the chance to vent go by,
Not to worry what I say.

I sigh but again it's just a silent one
Knowing I'm predestined by my need
To avoid a conflict that can't be won,
Knowing my truth will only fuel and feed
And never heal a pain only I can see.

"I'm fine."

Week 21, poem 1, total 18

 

[NivKay]

Happiness

Yesterday we had a baby –
Bright and shiny, a bag full
Of clouds, bells and whistles,
Within an hour of its birth,
It began to bounce, endlessly.

At first, we bounced along with it,
Against the walls, on kitchen bench tops,
We even tried the bottom of the pool,
But evening got the better of us,
We tried to hold it down.

It didn’t work. We strapped it down with rope –
Hemp, they say, is the best kind –
We used heavy rocks. I suggested
We break its legs, but at last we decided
To lock it away in an armoire.

All night, we struggled to find rest,
It bounced and knocked
In its oaken cage. Pillows did not kill
The sound. Titanium ear plugs were no better.
The night was King, twisted, full of turpitude.

All week it has not missed a beat – its triple beat –
We are bleary-eyed, the sun is up and glorious.
The day is on its feet and running.
Today we will put it in a box,
And hire a boat out to sea.

Poem 6/52

 

[Bn2f]

WAVES CRASH OVER ME​

SUNRISE!

The basking warmth of
Your smile.
It came and brightened
My life.
Swelled seas foam shrouds us
In white.
We stand on solid ground.

DAYLIGHT!

Seeking me
For romance.
On your knees for
The chance.
Love’s castle built on
Beach sands.
A queen and king we’re crowned.

SUNSET!

Tide rolls in,
Our feets wet.
How quickly we do
Forget.
The promise
To be honest.
Rays slip under and are drowned.

MOONLIGHT!

Dark waves
Crash over me.
Sands shifting
Underneath.
Love left
In disbelief.
Footprints washed away and gone.

 

[_Land]

Hangman With Fuckboy

by Bear Sage

F _ _ K B _ _

Didn’t even need to buy a vowel.
Your silence solved the puzzle
before your pants hit the floor.

You treated my body
like a rental with no deposit—
tracked your trauma in
and called it passion.
You were never a lover,
you were a spill.
A stain I laundered
until I lost my own shape.

Now I post poetry
that double-taps your shame
and tags your ex in the caption.
Your dick may have ghosted—
but your ego’s still watching.

“He said he wasn’t ready for love,
but left bruises in my shape.”

Your boys still follow me.
Your favorite one?
Sent a peach emoji
and a dick pic critique.
Said you always finish first—
and not in a good way.
I pinned it.
It’s merch now.

You used me
like a latex lining for your guilt.
Poured your cowardice inside me,
then blamed me
for the mess.

But I?
I turned the gallows into a platform.
Built my brand
on your bullshit, and dick pics
Every “new post”
is another step off the crate.

hashtag hazard.
#humanleakage
#fuckboyhymns
#notworththestainremover

You don’t get closure.
You get quoted.
You get screenshotted.
You get stitched into every syllable
I sharpen with my rage.

So next time you unzip,
remember:
I'm still holding the rope.
And now the whole world’s watching
while I spell you out


23/52

 

[_Land]

Surgical Removal

by Bear Sage

You got feelings?
Cool.
Take them to Planned Parenthood.
Walk in, sign the form,
say it was a mistake—
just like I did
the second I saw your eyes linger
too long after I came.

You’re looking at me
like I owe you something.
Like just because I finished in you
I’m supposed to finish with you.

Nah.

This ain’t that kind of clinic.
You want closure?
Take a fucking pill.
Wash me down with cold water
and get on with your life.

You think this is cruel?
Try dragging hope
through a back alley
at 2 a.m.
with a wire hanger in one hand
and a name
you almost gave a heartbeat to
in the other.

That’s what this is, sweetheart.
You got pregnant with a fantasy.
And now you’re asking me
to raise it.

I don’t do feelings.
I fuck.
I finish.
I vanish.
I don’t sit in waiting rooms
holding your hand
while you cry over consequences.
Not my job.
Not my mess.
Not my fucking problem.

You want to bleed?
Do it quietly.
Do it legally.
Or do it old-school—
lift your skirt,
bite the belt,
and dig it out
with whatever’s sharp enough
to match the lie
you told yourself.

You should’ve known better.
I’m not a nursery.
I’m not a name you call
when the ache sets in.
I’m the reason
they invented regret.

So don’t send me poems.
Don’t send me paragraphs.
Send receipts.
Send proof it’s gone.
Send silence.

And if it still hurts?
You know where the alley is.


24/52

 

[NivKay]

The Moon Quartet

I
Moonlight is when the world is silver
And water is a white snake across the lake.
I never drink its venom. The moon's silence
Is a deception, and time drips soft and cold.
II
When fires burn in the sandpaper warmth of Summer,
The moon is a stillborn thought.
It lives only in the charred hollow ruins
Of woody sentinels, mushrooms bristle with glee.
III
How many mornings are spent in incomprehension,
At the absences that are always present -
The buried bones of your last words to her,
The moon's silver incantation.
IV
You look to the evening like a lover, soft, still
As a shimmering lake. The red bricked fortresses
Gleam blood-red. But moonlight marks the fatal hour,
When sleep must come, and come alone.

Poem 7/52

 

[_Land]

Seduction in Spring

Bark cracks—
winter’s silence
splits down her aging spine,
and something ancient starts to stir—
not yet.

One bud
dares the stillness,
a whisper on brown limbs,
wrapped in tight pink hesitation—
becoming.

She sighs
through pale green veins,
draws warmth from deep soil beds,
her breath tasting like new rainclouds—
promise.

Petals
begin to spill—
not fallen, but released,
a soft confession to the wind—
trust me.

Sunlight
kisses her throat,
pollen hums in her blood,
the bees write sonnets in her name—
welcome.

Now come—
she is orchard,
a thousand trees in bloom,
her scent thick as memory, sweet—
forever.

25/52