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

[Angeline]

The sap is a sticky promise
of Spring, of Earth's awakening.
Persephone returns,

entreats frozen ground open,
be fecund, damp and inviting,
pungent with mud and smoky
detritus of fading winter.

Come Persephone! Command
the season change! Show me

yellow whorls of coltsfoot, bright
beaming in the snow. Now is time
revealed: its passing soft
as fuzzy gray buds, pussy willows
soft to caress my skin.


Week 21, Poem 1, Total 20

 

[_Land]

“The Dollhouse”
by Bear Sage

She built it for me—
the dollhouse.
Pastel walls,
hinged in hush.
Said, “Play here. It’s safe.”
Then sealed the roof.

My imaginary friend—
stitched smile,
eyes like thumbtacks pressed into velvet—
she watches from the nursery
where my voice went missing.

Each room lined in rules.
Each window nailed shut.
The air tastes like old apologies.

She feeds me
plastic food and pleasantries.
Curls my hair with barbed wire patience.
Buttons my dress too tight
and says, “Pretty hurts, but don’t squirm.”

In the parlor,
there’s a portrait of who I could’ve been—
but her face is scratched out.
In the kitchen,
the oven never turns on
but I still pretend to bake worthiness.

I sit at the table
with a smile sewn on,
spooning sugar into guilt
as if sweetness will fix me.

Her voice
echoes from every drawer:
“Too loud.”
“Too much.”
“Too needy.”
Each word a tack
holding my limbs in place.

The carpet covers cracks in the floor—
where I buried my hunger
and anything I couldn't make polite.

Even sleep isn’t mine.
She hums lullabies with no melody,
rocking me in rhythms
meant to numb, not soothe.

And I—
I forget I’m not made of porcelain.
Forget that breath should rise.
Forget that walls are not skin.

She says, “Good girls stay small.”
And I nod.
Because even my shaking
makes too much noise here.

 

[_Land]

The second piece in the series following dollhouse

“Fracture Lines”
by Bear Sage

I was porcelain.
Fine, flawless.
Painted by steady hands
that did not belong to me.

Glass-glazed lashes,
a mouth set in near-smile,
pinked cheeks
pressed with borrowed blush.

I sat—
still life in a place of still death.
All posture, no pulse.

My limbs were jointed
for show, not movement.
My silence varnished
until it gleamed.

But still—
beneath the gloss,
the hairline fractures formed.

Tiny splits
where feelings pooled like storm water
under floorboards.

Pressure behind the pupil.
A hum in the clavicle.
An ache too loud
for painted ears to ignore.

No one saw the way the crack
ran down my spine—
hidden beneath the satin
and good behavior.

She noticed.
The imaginary friend
with her stitched smile
and threadbare voice.
She whispered,
“You're breaking.”

Not a warning.
A threat.

She ran fingers down my arm
where the seam trembled.
Said, “Don’t move. You’ll ruin everything.”

But I was already shifting.
Already warping
beneath the expectation shell.
Already splintering
in places I could no longer keep smooth.

The porcelain held
but only barely.
And inside—
something thrashed.

Not freedom.
Not yet.
Just the scream
pressing against the inside of the glaze.





Week 21 poem 2. Total 3

 

[_Land]

Part 3

“Hairline Tremor”
by Bear Sage

I am still sitting.
I have not fallen.
But the room tilts
like breath held too long.

The walls of the dollhouse lean in—
closer, closer—
wood warped by secrets I didn’t choose.
The air is heavy
with pretend.

My imaginary friend
knows.
She circles slowly now,
threadbare skirts brushing splinters.
Hands clasped like a prayer
that’s forgotten its god.
She hums off-key,
fingertips tapping my temple—
checking for hollow.

She whispers,
“You don’t want to break.”
And maybe I don’t.
But I no longer want to stay whole
on someone else’s terms.

The tea cups tremble.
My painted lashes twitch.
There is a noise inside me
like thunder underwater.

The crack has teeth now.
It speaks in pulses,
gnaws at my ribcage
where all the unspoken things were stored
like porcelain dolls in an attic—
never touched,
never named,
never allowed to want.

My smile is slipping.
A sliver falls from my cheek
and shatters like a secret
hitting tile.

She gasps—
not in fear,
but fury.
Her toy is breaking.
Her rules unraveling.

But I do not apologize.
Not this time.

I sit still,
cracking slowly,
deliberately,
holding the tension like a storm.

Because even silence
has an edge
sharp enough to slice the hand
that pressed it into place.


Week 21 poem 3 Total 24

 

[_Land]

Part4

“Swept”
by Bear Sage

The floor is a graveyard of glint.
Slivers of self
gleam like moonbit teeth
in the throat of the dollhouse.

I crawl through the remains
with dust-colored fingers,
sifting bone from ornament,
truth from trim.

Lace still clings to some fragments—
shame’s embroidery
stitched in mother-thread,
singed at the hem.

I gather pieces
like relics
from a ruined shrine.
Each one warm
with the memory of pretending.

She watches
from the wallpaper—
faded now,
a shadow sewn into the corner seam.
Her eyes, black thread pulled tight.
Her mouth, a line unraveling.

Once she ruled this place.
Now she is mildew
in the corners of memory,
watching her porcelain prophecy
crumble under my breath.

I press a jagged cheek
to my chest.
It pulses.
Not like a heart—
like a wound that’s dreaming.

Her hands twitch.
She wants to gather what I drop—
but the pieces cut her now.
They only obey the blood
that belongs to me.

There is no broom.
Only palms.
Only grief in the soft sweep
of gathering ruin.

I make a cradle
from splinters and breath,
lay the shards down
like a dying season.

And the dollhouse creaks,
as if exhaling
for the very first time.


Week 21 poem 4 of 5 Total

 

[_Land]

Part 5

“Porcelain Mourning”
by Bear Sage

She howls
without a mouth—
cracked open at the seam of her chin,
dust flaking like snowfall
from a face that forgot how to hold shape.

Grief blooms
in the throat of her lace—
mildewed, unraveling,
dragging behind her like a train
stitched from every no
she ever made the girl swallow.

She cradles the spine
of a broken music box—
its song long bled dry,
its dancer missing a foot
but still spinning.

Her hands tremble—
not from age,
but from the sudden weight
of being powerless.

She drags her fingers
through splinters of former obedience,
trying to rebuild the child
from marrow dust and shellac.

But the pieces do not listen.

They gleam
with a life she cannot rethread.
They hiss
with heat she cannot hold.

She screams
but the sound curdles—
a porcelain shriek,
dry and shattering,
falling in splinters
no one catches.

The dollhouse groans—
not from collapse,
but from memory.
It remembers the rituals,
the lies sung in sing-song,
the rooms scented with silence
and varnish.

Now,
only shadows move
when she reaches.

No girl.
No giggle.
Just the hollow hum
of purpose unthreaded.

And still she kneels—
a priestess of control
at the altar of ruin,
offering cracked cups
to an absence
that will not drink.

Week 21 poem 5 of 6 total

 

[_Land]

The Gods of Disbelief
(by Bear Sage)

Come.
Lay your broken blueprints at my feet.
I am the God of Disbelief—
first of my name, bastard son of Shrug and Sigh,
patron saint of “It wasn’t meant to be.”

You called it fate when your spine folded.
When your voice cracked in the presence of your own damn longing.
You whispered “Maybe this is for the best,”
and I lit a cigar with the edge of your ambition.

I watched you—
dragging your dreams behind you like roadkill,
still had the nerve to call it a pilgrimage.

You blamed Mercury.
You blamed timing.
You blamed the full moon, your rising sign,
your mother’s disappointment,
and the imaginary life coach in the sky.
But never once did you blame the mirror.
Bravo. Truly.

Oh, how the congregation weeps
when life forgets to spoon-feed them miracles.
You wear your inaction like holy robes—
tailored from the fine linens of “not good enough,”
hemmed in “who do I think I am?”

You mistake my silence for mystery.
My absence for destiny.
But let’s be honest—
you never needed gods,
just an excuse with a better PR team.

You wanted divine permission
to quit before the finish line,
so I handed you prophecy in a punchline:
“Maybe it just wasn’t meant for you.”

And you—
you gobbled it up like communion.

I am the god you summon
when the door cracks open
but your courage is still
cloaked in sleep.

I am the voice in the static
between your heartbeat and your gut
that says,
“Don’t try. It’s safer here.
Let someone else burn.”

And you thank me.
Offer me sacrifices of canceled plans and could-have-beens.
Worship me in the temples of sarcasm
where your soul wears a nametag that reads:
“Almost.”

But make no mistake—

I am not fate.
I’m just the whisper that makes you think
the fire in your belly
was meant to go cold.

Week 21 poem 6 of 7 total

 

[Angeline]

Deep Elem Blues

The band is bouncing,
rocking joyful melody.
But aren't these blues?
Blues blow your sorrow away:
that's what they're made for, Mama




Week 21, Poem 2, Total 21

 

[goddessofglee]

This should've been in
Spontaneous poem, I mean...
but here it is... quite like a fool
I'm running behind schedule...

I met a guitarist there...
79 years and a day,
but I had no care.
he kinda played me like a guitar...
from top to begin his music bar
Came to the frets above the mid,
I cannot say what he really did
strumming through to the chord C
giggling, wriggling, dancing was me.
his right hand was constantly fingering
oh nothing but only my lips, like strings
fully wet though, those chords did wring
So I felt I'd just let go,
for him to steal the show.

But...

he was a kinda dom guy
so i couldn't let him try
I had to leave him midway
saying maybe another day
Ahh, but his tears did cry
but, I would not let him try
to take advantage of me.
I don't like doms, so please,
should've been easy to see.
It's OK with girls if they try,
some, they can, should they pry.
Talking to him though made me
wee wee and more, you see!

I knew it'd come that very morn,
my lips were sore, quite done.
He made me feel so good before
but I just had to leave and go...
that's all for now, there's no more

№10 of 52

 

[_Land]

Gentrified Childhood
By Bear Sage

Big Bird got evicted.
Oscar’s trash can’s now
an artisanal compost bin.

They paved over innocence
to install bike lanes
and boutique grief counseling.

Elmo’s in tech now.
Grover drives Uber
and flinches at red lights.

The stoop?
Luxury lofts.
Cookie Monster microdoses
and blogs about scarcity.

The only letter left
is F—
and not the one
they sang about.


Week 21 poem 7 of 8

 

[Bn2f]

1 + 1 Makes 3


“Yellow and blue makes green.”

So silly a statement to say to me
So odd a time for you to think to convey
While I held your hand in mine tightly
As the EMTs began to wheel you away

“Santa, can you hear me?”

Concussions can make the subconsciously imagined sometimes be believed
Your chest vitals became beeps from heart monitors
Tho the snapping of the head we surmised the cause to be
“Don’t worry,” I was told, “We’ll take the best good care of her”

“1 + 1 makes 3!”

Now that forceful claim gave me grave cause for concern
And they hurriedly strapped you securely in for ride preparation
It felt like just a bump from behind as we maneuvered a right corner turn
The kids, our house, and will! Is this how it starts - the eternal life separation?

“Henry, you forgot to take the damn trash to the curb!”

The responders stopped and stared with blank faces
It was then that I was relieved knowing you would be okay
“We’ll fast-track a scan to find just how scrambled the state of her brain is.”
I smiled for that’s the type of thing the wife I loved would remember herself to say

 

[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