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  • Orchid Child

    Orchid Child

    Orchid child with velvet skin,
    Where lilac light comes drifting in,
    So soft it feels like borrowed air,
    As if it knows to handle with care.

    She stands where morning falls too wide,
    With nowhere gentle left to hide,
    As though the day was never meant,
    For something made so delicate.

    Why was she placed where breezes roam,
    In air that does not feel like home?
    Where every passing, carless part,
    Can settle soft yet leave a mark?

    An orchid blooms in shaded glass,
    Where filtered hours drift and pass,
    It leans from light it cannot hold,
    Too pale for heat, too fine for cold.

    Its petals bruise at slightest change,
    From touch too near, from air too strange.
    It drinks from quiet, measured rain,
    And turns away from weight and strain.

    So she, alike, in silence grown,
    Takes the world too sharply known.
    Each moment pressing, faint but deep,
    In hues her fragile form will keep.

    Why shape a thing so finely made,
    To wander bright, unyielding shade,
    Where even light, in golden streams,
    Can feel too much for tender things?

    Why give her skin that answers so,
    To every shift it comes to know,
    That even time, in passing by,
    Can leave its trace and not say why?

    Is there a place where she might be,
    Untouched by quiet injury?
    Or must she bloom, though trembling still,
    In ways the world cannot make still?

    An orchid kept from harsher skies
    Still folds beneath too-watchful eyes.
    Orchid child with velvet skin,
    Still lets the lilac light drift in.

  • Before I Count to Three

    Before I Count to Three

    Don’t pretend you don’t hear me, don’t pretend you don’t see,
    I’m right where you left me, exactly where I said I’d be.
    In the quiet you bury, in the corners you keep,
    I’ve been tracing your breathing while you’re trying to sleep.

    You can soften your focus, you can blur what you need,
    But I’m patient, in case you forgot. I never leave.

    Just open your eyes now, I don’t want to repeat.
    Just open your eyes, I’m too close to retreat.
    Just open your eyes, before I complete.

    So, I’ll count to three.

    One-

    You remember how gently I would settle your mind,
    How I stayed in the background, never crossing the line,
    How I moved like a whisper you could take or refuse?
    I was something you wanted, something safe you could use.

    You leaned a little closer, I learned where you creep,
    Now I live in the silence underneath what you keep.

    Say you’re done,
    I’ve already won

    Two-

    Now I’m closer, feel me in your chest?
    Every thought bends around me, I don’t need to suggest.
    Fight, deny, try to hold to what’s true,
    But the pull feels familiar, and it’s me coming back for you.

    Every step you take forward, I’m still under your skin,
    every “no” that you say is where I’ve already been.
    You can name it, you can frame it like it’s something you lose,
    but I’m stitched in the silence you refuse to refuse.

    Keep resisting, fight to stay clean,
    But you don’t even know what that truly means.

    Just give up and give in,
    You can’t fight what’s within.

    Three-

    Now listen.

    Don’t stall me.
    Don’t try.

    You can feel it, right?
    You already know why.

    No distance.
    No lie.

    You don’t leave.
    You comply.

    Too slow.
    Too late.
    That’s me.
    That’s fate.

    Still reaching?
    Still sure?
    Still thinking you’re more?

    Stop.
    That’s cute.
    But it’s too late to undo what I’ve rooted in you.
    Too deep to pretend you’re anything new.

    I don’t leave when you fight me, when you swear I won’t stay,
    I don’t leave when you’re sleeping, I don’t leave when you pray.

    Don’t pretend you don’t hear me, don’t pretend you don’t see,
    You were never getting away, never going to be free.

  • When the moon loves the night

    When the moon loves the night

    The moon drifts high, a silver queen in endless skies,
    Its light a gentle promise to all lovers below,
    Yet every glimmer we admire, every tender sigh,
    Depends on the shadowed night where only darkness grows.

    We speak of her as if she rises solely for human eyes,
    As if her glow exists to mirror longing in our chest,
    But every tender shimmer owes its grace to shadowed skies,
    For without the velvet black, her light could never manifest.

    Romance paints her face in stories whispered soft and low,
    We crown her queen of hearts, of dreams, of secret, aching schemes,
    Yet every silver thread we chase is spun where darkness flows,
    Her brilliance born of night, not merely moonlights gleam.

    We watch her arc above the world in silence and in awe,
    And trace the gentle curves that seem to know our quiet pain,
    But only in the darkened hours does her light obey the law,
    That without the night to hold her, all her beauty would be vain.

    So, when we lift our eyes and sigh at every silver thread,
    Remember that her glow is forged in shadow, soft and deep,
    The moon would not exist without the darkness overhead,
    And even in our hearts, true light is sown where shadows sleep.

  • I Am the Counting

    I Am the Counting

    Five things we can see, five things to know,
    The door, the window, the shadow’s soft glow.
    The light that shivers and winks in the room,
    The space between laughter, a crack full of gloom.

    Look closer, look closer, there’s nothing to miss,
    Each corner holds whispers, each shadow a hiss.

    Four things we can feel, four things that remain,
    Fabric against skin, the chair and its strain.
    Fingernails pressing in rhythm and time,
    The pulse of a heart that will not yet chime.

    Keep it steady, keep it known,
    Count it softly, in a careful tone

    Three things we can hear, three things that stay,
    Breath in the silence, clocks marking the day.
    Voices that fold, twist, and bend,
    Notes that arrive before they end.

    Listen, listen, the shift is near,
    The almost, the maybe, the thing to fear.

    Two things we can smell, two things that lie,
    Dust in the radiator, something gone dry.
    Something faint burning, or almost a flame,
    Almost is warning, almost is name.

    One thing we can taste, sharp and complete,
    Metal on the tongue, bitter and sweet.
    Proof that we’re living, proof that we see,
    Proof of our own fragile decree.

    Small is safe, still is wise,
    Prepared is protection beneath open skies,
    Count it again, breathe it slow,
    Let the numbers guide you, let the shadows go.

  • If A Tree Falls

    If A Tree Falls

    A tree falls in a forest, but no one’s around,
    So follows the question: does it make a sound?
    Or does stillness blanket where the echo should be,
    Unheard, unmade, like thoughts lost at sea?

    If air never trembles inside of a mind,
    Is motion still motion, or something confined?
    Does the bark split loudly, or quietly break,
    If ears are the only translators we make?

    And what of the moment before it descends?
    Does the fall even start if it never quite ends?
    If time isn’t witness, does it even pass,
    Or pool in the roots and sleep under grass?

    Perhaps it rises, inverted through air,
    Breaking the world in ways no eye can bear.

    Or maybe it waits in a permanent poise,
    Suspended between the absence of noise.

    Does nothing bear witness more purely than we,
    Who clutter the quiet with certainty?

    Suppose I am there, yet forget I exist,
    Can memory hold me, or fade to a mist?
    If I hear it later, replayed in my head,
    Was the silence alive, or the echo just dead?

    So I ask, and the question unravels the ground:
    Is it sound that needs ears, or ears that need sound?
    And which of them breaks when the other is gone,
    The tree, or the thought we were standing upon?

  • A Bird Beneath My Ribs

    A Bird Beneath My Ribs

    You fit in my heart like a small hidden bird,
    All hush-feathered wonder, more tremble than word,
    As though you had flown through the bones of my frame,
    And built something bright out of breath and of vein.

    You settled where slow, quiet heartbeats begin,
    In the red velvet dark folded under my skin,
    Where the pulse keeps a rhythm both fragile and deep,
    Like a secret the body is trying to keep.

    I did not invite you, you simply were there,
    A flicker of wings in the stillness of air,
    A warmth in the hollow I had carefully grown,
    A light in the place I had thought was just bone.

    And oh, how I learned the soft weight of your song,
    How it threaded my breathing and carried along,
    Through mornings of silver and evenings of blue,
    Till loving felt less like a choice, and more true.

    But birds are made mostly of sky and height,
    Of distance that glimmers in pale early light,
    And sometimes I feel, in the curve of my chest,
    The shift of a wing reconsidering rest.

    Are these ribs a shelter, a circle, a seam,
    Where you pause for a while like a half-finished dream?
    Or are they thin bars I never meant to design,
    Forged out of wanting you safely as mine?

    For love is a blackbird that sings after dusk,
    All velvet-throat music and midnight-soft musk,
    It circles the quiet where daylight has been,
    Then settles like shadow drawn close to the skin.

    I never would clip what was born for the breeze,
    Nor barter your sky for my own small ease,
    Nor anchor your wings to the weight of my name,
    Nor darken your flight with the shadow of claim.

    If ever your feathers grow restless for air,
    If wide-open heavens call louder than care,
    I hope I remember that loving is this:
    Not tightening fingers, but loosening wrists.

    And if you stay folded in heartbeat and bone,
    not tethered by fear, not held as my own,
    then let it be a choice, quiet, steady and blessed,
    Not bars of a cage, but the shape of a nest.

  • If I Wasn’t Who They Said I Was

    If I Wasn’t Who They Said I Was

    They strung a wire between two skies,
    Said, Look how steady. Look how high.
    They placed the pole in my hands,
    And smiled as if I’d always stand.

    They love to say I never sway.
    That I was always built this careful way.
    A practiced foot, a lifted chin,
    As though the wind won’t press my skin.

    If I wasn’t who they said I was,
    Would they still gather just because?

    The line was lower once, I think.
    Or maybe I was less afraid to blink.
    For every step feels more defined,
    A thinner thread, a sharper line.

    But now each step is drawn in chalk,
    A measured shift, a mindful walk.
    The wire hums a little loud,
    A trembling string above a crowd.

    They clap before I take a stride.
    They trust the air to hold my side.
    They speak as though the end is clear,
    As though the fall is nowhere near.

    If I wasn’t who they said I was,
    Would the wind feel stronger than it does?

    The wire hums.
    It pulls.
    It thins.
    A silver, tightening violin.

    I’ve done so well.
    I’ve never slipped.
    I’ve never let my balance tip.
    They say the other side’s in sight,
    Just one more stretch, just one more night.

    The wire is taut. The air is thin.
    The noise below seeps slowly in.

    If I wasn’t who they said I was,
    Would I still climb because they trust I will?

    The thread feels narrower than before,
    A breath-
    A shift-
    A step-
    One more.

    And hope the wire is steady still,
    And I can be who they think I will.

  • A Love Like Swans

    A Love Like Swans

    Somewhere beyond the noise of the waking world,
    Where the water lies still enough to hold the sky,
    A quiet promise of two souls gently unfurled,
    Like something eternal the stars cannot deny.

    For love, they say, was never made to fade with time,
    Nor blend beneath the turning of restless years.
    It moves instead in silence, ancient and divine,
    A hidden truth the quiet heart still holds dear.

    So do the swans upon the silver water glide,
    Not seeking witness, nor praise of the human sight,
    But knowing only that side-by-side they bide,
    Two living souls made gentle in the hush of light.

    And when I think of love, it is not storms I see,
    Though thunder rolls so grandly through poet’s art.
    For tempests fade upon the ever-shifting sea,
    And leave no lasting harbour for the heart.

    Nor is it a candle trembling in the dark,
    Whose fragile flame bends low before wandering air.
    For such small fires may glow and leave a fleeting mark,
    Yet fade to ash as though they had never been there.

    Nor some wild ride that climbs with breathless, laughing speed,
    Then falls again as quickly toward the ground below.
    Such thrills may stir the restless heart indeed,
    Yet fade as swiftly as the winds that blow.

    But love, I think, is something hushed and slow,
    A deeper current moving far beneath the years,
    Where two quiet spirits learn at last to grow
    Toward one calm truth untouched by mortal fears.

    Like swans that find each other on a lonely lake,
    And feel within that meeting something old as dawn,
    A bond no passing season ever dares to break,
    A vow that lingers softly even when all else is gone.

    So let the world praise the flames that rise and move,
    Then fade like echoes drifting slowly from the air.
    I ask for only this: the faithful peace of love,
    Like swans that choose one soul and find their forever there.

  • On Our First Valentine

    On Our First Valentine

    This day arrives in softened gold, in quiet light that lingers long,
    As though the earth itself had learned the measure of a gentler song.
    No crimson flare nor trumpet’s cry attends this tender, chosen hour,
    It comes instead like early spring unfolding petal, leaf, and flower.

    The air lies warm upon the skin, though February waits outside,
    With silver frost upon the fields and winter pressing far and wide.
    No hurried pulse, no trembling storm confined within the waiting chest,
    For in your nearness, strangely so, the season seems itself at rest.

    Though bare the branch and pale the dawn beneath the year’s most fragile sun,
    A gentler climate stirs within, as if some softer spring begun.
    I had not thought that peace could dwell so close to something bright and new,
    That calm might bear so clear a flame, yet never scorch the sky in view.

    No vow is spoken to the wind, no promise carved in hurried art,
    Yet something in the hush between has quietly altered where I start.
    The world retains its shape and sound, its turning tide and shifting air,
    Yet moves with kinder harmony when I discover you are there.

    If this be what the first of days devoted thus to love may bring,
    Not fevered blaze nor reckless fire, but warmth that makes the spirit sing,
    Then let it come without acclaim, without the need for grand display,
    For in this quiet, golden hour, my heart has found its place to stay.

    And should the seasons turn again with sterner winds across the land,
    I shall recall this quiet hour, though few may truly understand,
    How light did not demand the sky, nor seek the world’s command,
    It simply touched till all within grew steady at its hand.

  • Lullaby for an Ember

    Lullaby for an Ember

    I walk the forest of us, each tree bowed with memory,
    Its roots tangled deep in the soil of promise, trembling with history.
    Beneath the canopy of our love, the ember rests,
    Red against shadow, small and patient, alive in the hollow of my chest.

    He says it is cold, that the flame sleeps at last,
    Yet smoke curls like a whisper from the path he has passed.
    I feel it in the quiet, the space between breath,
    A glow I cannot touch, a ghost I cannot bless.

    I do not step closer, do not reach with my hands,
    For to interfere would be cruelty the forest demands.
    So I tread softly where the ferns bends and sigh,
    Watching the ember flicker beneath the indifferent sky.

    The wind dances through the branches, carrying voices of old,
    And I know the ember remembers all it was told.
    Every spark is a promise, a temptation, a pain,
    A fire lying patient, a threat to all we have lain.

    I hum a low lullaby, a song in the dark,
    To quiet the glow, to steady the spark.
    But the forest is patient, and the ember is sly,
    And I know that a flame can awaken and fly

    I am neither villain nor guard, only witness and wood,
    Only a heart that has loved and wishes it could.
    I cannot command the wind, cannot still the rain,
    Cannot stop what is sleeping from stirring again.

    For our love is a forest, wild, beautiful, untamed,
    And fire, even forgotten, may kindle unnamed.
    So I hum to the dark to the wind, to the leaves,
    And learn how to live with I cannot unweave.