Faded

The night caught in my teeth,
it does not have a name.

What was I chasing?

I promise it was on the tip of my tongue.

What did I find?

A memory I’m not sure is mine.

The shadow pulls over me like a blanket.
Whatever it is can wait.

Aquarians

Sundays, borrowed from you

but I always forget to return.

I almost tell you about my mother,
how she drinks her wine in a coffee mug,

and my father, how he leaves
before the dining table is cleared.

But we have learned never to ask each other

questions that don't belong to us.

From my lips to yours,

an apology.

The rest of us
untouched.

Demeter

Mom —

There are things I don’t understand.

Things about love,

the way it clings like wet laundry,

heavy on the skin;

the way it wraps itself tight,

until the air grows so thick,

each breath feels like a battle.

How can something so soft

feel so suffocating?

I love you, but I hate you.

And I hate that I hate you.

It’s a knot I can’t untangle,

a weight I can’t carry without breaking.

You say you love me,

but your love is too heavy—

it presses down,

until I can’t gasp for oxygen.

I wish you could see it—

how you twist into shapes

you think you should be,

only to feel whole.

You say you’re smart, but you refuse to grow.

You say you’re learning,

but you hide behind lessons that teach you nothing.

You’re stuck,

and you pull me

into the quicksand with you.

There are days when I understand

why Dad needed space,

why he wandered into someone else’s arms

to find a place to breathe.

I don’t forgive him,

but I feel it too.

It makes sense now, in the aftermath,

why he slipped away from a prison

you call home.

Your disease spreads like vines,

seeping into every corner of the house.

It’s the way you need me

that chains me down.

How am I supposed to love anyone

when love feels

like a cage I can’t escape?

I moved out

into a room no bigger than my shadow,

four walls that don’t close in

but hold me steady.

I stare at the ceiling,

and it feels like the sky.

Here, silence doesn’t smother.

It cradles me gently,

gives me space to remember who I am.

In this emptiness, I found

myself again.

I am not running away,

but I’m not coming back.

Maybe distance is the thread

for stitching up the broken promises

none of us has ever kept.

— Your daughter

Hera

Dad —

There are things I don’t understand.  

Things about the oceans,  

the gods, the seasons.  

How atoms spin endlessly in the void,  

how we breathe in chaos and exhale  

stillness.  

I used to think these mysteries were beautiful,  

but now, they are nothing more than noise,  

like static—  

and the voices in my head,  

questions closer to home

I cannot answer.

Like, why do we love the ones who hurt us  

and hurt the ones we love?  

Why does betrayal only bloom where trust once grew?  

At what age does a child learn the art of deception?  

Is it something you taught me without words?

The world owes Mom an awful lot.  

She suffocates us with her giving,  

and I wonder—  

Do you see it?  

Do you know what it costs her  

to fill this empty house with

pieces of herself?

I wonder—  

if all of us are victims of this world,  

who is the perpetrator?  

Is it fate? Is it you?  

Is it me who’s part of the silence,

holding in truth like smoke I refuse  

to release?

I can't help but think—  

Why do you stay in a home full of ghosts?  

Does love spoil, like milk

left too long in the fridge?  

Do lies have an expiry date too?  

Or do they sit, festering, until they poison  

everything around them?

Gravity has a way of making me

feel small.  

Every waking moment, I drag

my feet through a river of questions  

I know I can’t answer.  

There’s a storm beneath my ribs—  

I can’t tell if it’s rage or grief,  

or if it’s particles colliding

on what was once a crowded dance floor,  

but it’s drowning me all the same.  

I’m standing in the ruins of something  

I thought was unbreakable,  

and I no longer know how to rebuild.

 

Mom has given everything—  

her skin, her breath,  

her heart until it’s threadbare,  

and still, she stands.  

I don’t know if I will ever understand  

what made you tear at the seams,

why you chose to shatter  

the woman who gave us everything.  

And in the end, I don’t know if I can ever forgive you.

— Your daughter

triangle of sadness

everything i wanted you to tell me

dissolved in a breath of salt.

this year was a cup

half empty.

i am only ever water— 

one part ocean, one part rain,

endlessly dwelling

in the labyrinth of blue.

each step forward is swallowed

by the tides behind.

i woke up from a dream  

(in which i spoke a foreign language),

to the vowels slipping

through my fingers like vapor,

and the words returning

to the sea like storm.

my longing guts

reach for the door.

on the other side is a season—

she can leave or linger if she wishes.

oh alien planets! they never

have to know what comes after spring.

but my moon pulls me back,

the more i push, the more i drift.

like the ocean, i return

to where i began.

I Wish I Could Go Back to the Two Times I Loved You

Sitting at the two ends of your couch, we were guessing the colors of our eyes. What a dangerous game. As we moved closer and closer, the bourbon you poured got the best of us. I didn’t know chaos could be so quiet.

And once, you came back from your trip, and showed up at my apartment unannounced. You showed me the black and white films you developed. I had never understood their aesthetics, until a photograph of me came up - a Saturday morning at yours, still in my pajamas holding the cup of coffee you brewed me. I never saw colors the same way again.

Interstellar

The anatomy of constellations on your couch -
our skins mantling two solar systems, one running
endlessly after another but could never get there
fast enough.
Our chests exposed like two caskets 
holding pain as if it was all
we were made of.

Ambience tapped on your window,
you let Winter swallow it whole.
I stared into your eyes and remembered darkness.
So I begged you to set me on fire
until my bones become stardusts,
dissolving into the night
into you.

You poured us your favorite scotch as you watched
me burn,
then you rained gently on me
like early summer that tempered the flame.
My body, so honest, I am a walking overdose of pain.
I can't lie to myself. I chase it again
and again, and again.

Aren't my legs tired of running
in an orbit I don't belong,
my arms tired of reaching
your hand that won't open.
I swear this is the last time I comedown
like meteors poured from your cosmos.
I know now, I can't hold what won't hold me.