Lions' Cage

date: 08/20/2025

Heart thrumming against my barred ribcage

Through my breath, red hot anger of experiences had

to be had

and to continue living.


My result fear

discomfort of those who cage me and their cause

gratification constituting overkill

Ecstasy in the henhouse


What binds

needs me

needing something to fear

compare – contrast

right wrong self

inflicted


without us, the cage would not be.

without fear the bars

rendered obsolete

those outside of it nonexistent

power a fabrication

revoked of its manifestation


My circumstances in wait,

unchanged in present

Relishing my pounding

shuddering anger

Abstractions and extinction surrounding me

I know

I am fear to fathom

never reckon

Thunder ; Earth Won’t Wait for Us

date: 08/16/2025

Thunder sounds through the sky, as if the Earth is splitting open.

Releasing language too grounded and primeval for most to translate.

If one listens, though,

It is understood.


Language barriers such as this – and all others

are just like physical barriers.

They are self imposed.

They are an invention.

Entertaining the notion that experience shall not be shared

nor relatable.

Our bodies too are treated as such. Impenetrable

and unchanging

despite all fact and life showing otherwise.


This presents us with a reality made unreal

Against all fabricated odds,

you grow

you change

constantly shift.


you rot once this ends

Your skin – the largest bodily organ

flakes off, regenerates, and dies constantly.


Not always in death, or in howls of ending as old as time

we too split and release


The Earth is not clueless as to what has come for it

It is not helpless to the hubris but is fragile nonetheless

One does not fight for their life unscathed


All that the Earth has been and continues to try

to be

will come back

all that we’ve come to know

survive

won’t

Distance and Musing Made of Leaves

date: 08/14/2025

The sky in itself feels like a cradle – an embrace so deep and impenetrable. Night’s eyes, being the stars, gaze upon us; but here, the watchful trees’ are closer. After all, the distance is closed by their leaves.


Again, above is the all encompassing vastness of the sky. Its blue being both a force and blanket, comforting all the same. Dreams under this hue bring forth the real by day, attaching themselves to our lives; dancing within and out. The dreams turn indistinguishable from the enchantment of nature. How we could only long for its power again from afar in our sleep.


One is whisked away into the breeze as the branches conduct their song, a sound not only heard, but felt. Remembering the wind, I still sense it inside my head, underneath my skin, flowing alongside my blood; intermingling and weaving through the vessels. A symphony familiar, comparable to crashing waves. Those also of a similar tune, creating a melodic harmony when met with the trees.


Though far, the trees still whisk me away into their canopies – Pines, Magnolias, Oak and flowered souls – telling of stories, histories, and omens. This place is forgotten as it’s experienced – except many still remember its shelter, I do.

Face Card | The Box

date: 08/12/2025

a joint poem and short essay

I’d like my face back now

I’d like to have one at all


Rendered obsolete

Denied, wasted

potential


Organ wrap made important

Made subject

Issue taken with my very bone

Structure


Under scrutiny

or object of

praise


All this and yet

one fears peering

inside


themselves

rejecting their own skull

afraid of an existing body

for what

for how

it really is



*****



The Box

The omniscient and ever present; safety in definition. Withstanding in catagorical irony. Lacking in geometrical properties myself, I put forth my refusal. Only through it's margins would I find safety- more accurately, excuses. The margins of this house, not home, would be relented and not truly portrayed. Denying The Box allows assumption to fester, swarming insects buzzing and stinging. One becomes an intruder, unwelcome, yet asked to show up regardless. Pressed to the edge, ribcage splayed for the swarming insects to misidentify the heart and whatever viscera remain- rotting impatience.


I've had to forego considering assumption, and caring about inflicting the uncanny. My insistence on this way of life from time to time convinces me that my body will too warp outside itself into an undefined spiral. There's no greater comfort than that, to display such powerful difference that my familiarity, even if only through comparison, is gone.

10 Minute Writing Exercise - Termite Born

date: 08/08/2025

A 10 minute writing exercise I did of what visually came to mind while listening to Dysnystaxis {... a chance meeting with Somnus} by Sunn O))) and Nurse With Wound. The only edits I made were for clarity as it was a stream of consciousness exercise.


(I see) An abandoned hospital - ceiling caved with dried, hollow branches, laced with cobwebs and dirt. There's a tall, old person standing near the center of the collapse wearing rags. Mud on their face, shaking fingers outstretched, shuddering - much like the dead branches once did. Light somehow fills portions of the room - panels on the ceiling are missing. There's sorrow and confusion, desiring to be anger radiating from the elder - but anger is unable to surface as confusion triumphs. Its as if the individual keeps forgetting the source.


Perhaps it's the fact that places and times lived such as these are not only abandoned, but still persist unnoticed for what they truly are. Lack of awareness and care to the condition of the subject. The person becomes webs; thick, dirty plant matter- spiderweb, drywall dust and termited shaven wood combine to remake what- who should be human. Nature is that of understanding. It too is warped beyond itself in plain view, rendered 'appropriate' despite its clear pain and incongruence with itself.


Acceptance washes over the elder, elongated features made wise through togetherness with thier environment. They close their eyes, humming, breathing the first sigh of relief they've had in a long time. sunlight warms thier wrinkled face, tears finally allowed to pool and fall.


Winding into thier environment, fracturing and blending apart, the elder gives rejuvinated purpose to the hollow branches- creating a reborn oak tree. Shaken arms outstretched once more, they sink and fuse, shuddering slower... slower, until the tree is made human, the human made tree. Understanding manifest.

In Leaves' Home

date: 06/20/2025

In leaves’ lullaby

I do not sleep


lying awake eyes closed

still

I dream


Spiraling upwards in a dizzy haze

becoming one with the sky

memories fail in bringing me reprieve

strewn across my eyelids is some old

and familiar

others not so long ago

past nonetheless


Faces and places turned into something

jagged and fractured

worsening and dividing upon opening my eyes

and starting again


so many of those

faces and places failed

beautiful time so fleeting

grateful for what has gone


Only beauty could lie in spite of such horror

continuous ending

Such tragedy fills the heart with love

a need to make and keep making


it’s worse if you know it coming

foresight helps no one

if you’re dreaming

In the leaves


Skies full with smoke and flames above

and water below

Drowning and sinking as many have

foretold

As many have known it has never been

a secret


Singing serene they are plenty here

Trees filled with heart

and life to filter out the haze


Southern groves

that are groves no longer

have no such luck

An expanse of concrete invasive

with no plan


Trees in their last screams drown it out

with finality

Luck is not needed when your existence

is fact


Unable to sing their songs again

They pollinate

They exist

permeable through fact

fiction, memory.


Vultures singing

demise inside the home

with no doors

Hollow termite eaten platforms

What was seen will always be seen under blinding light

the sun could not have guessed its power

would ever be used against it

At night all night the birds sing and fly

making what they can out of what’s left


Lucky enough to have found the leaves

I am home welcomed at last

Having had my day and my goal complete

The sky will never fall and the trees

will again

blanket southern skies

safety and home


Being so far

these distant relatives have never met

but know each other in the same way


Various trees thousands of miles away

all lull us to sleep

They know themselves well


As we try to close our eyes

sleepless eyes

awake reflecting

fugue lullaby


We come and we go and in our soul we have never

left

Never having left every place we have ever been


Nothing has ever felt worse

Than finding home