_Land that idiot prodigal

[_Land]

So it's been a long time LOL but I wanted to share some of my more recent forays into the poetic world.

For those that don't know I am a psychic and life coach who uses the moniker of Bear Sage

And I have been writing poetry for clients and their situations for a long time now.

This poetry is very deep on the emotional sides of relationship both with others and with self. Critique is always welcome..... Although not a necessity. This poetry was written in dark moments where the release of energy received from being an empath needed an outlet.

_Land

 

[_Land]

Foreword

by Bear Sage

We don’t invite truth in.
We survive her.
She doesn’t arrive soft, with tea and validation.
She kicks the door in wearing heels sharp enough to wound,
draped in every word we’ve ever swallowed.
She doesn’t wait for readiness—
because readiness is a myth we tell ourselves
when we’re too afraid to shatter.

This collection is not gentle.
It does not offer you comfort before the cut.
These acts are not just poems.
They are exorcisms.
They are the peeling back of performance,
the tearing down of curated love,
the moment you realize
you can’t fuck your way out of a lie you built to survive intimacy.

I wrote this for the ones who stayed too long.
For the ones who left too late.
For the ones who lost themselves
performing a version of love
that never made room for their truth.

Let the lights burn your illusions.
Let the pole bruise your ego.
Let Truth dance you into clarity.

Then let the healing begin—
not with promises,
but with the courage to stop pretending.


Truth on the Pole
A Five-Act Descent into the Naked Heart of Love and Ruin

Act One: Truth on the Pole
The Awakening

She doesn't knock.
She slinks in—
hips cut from razors,
eyes like backroom mirrors:
warped, unforgiving.
She smells like ozone
and old perfume—
that scent of something about to break.

We were mid-sentence,
arguing over nothing again,
when she stepped into the room
and slid her hands up the brass spine of our history
like she owned it.

Truth.
In six-inch heels and a stare
that strips the soul bare
before the clothes even drop.

She peels slow—
first the soft gauze of denial,
the blouse of blame,
the lace of "I'm fine."
Unhooks the padded bra of our justifications
and tosses it at our feet.
We flinch.

She bends—
a smooth, serpentine ache—
and drags off the stockings
woven from half-truths and avoidance,
revealing bruises we never confessed,
knee-burns from praying
for what we refused to give.

She climbs the pole like memory,
spinning with our worst nights
hooked in her heels.
Every twist a revelation.
Every drop a gasp.
You can see the cracks in the plaster now—
hear the moans we muted
to make the lie more livable.

And then she hangs—
upside down,
bare thighs gripping the cold metal
like a crucifix,
and the room goes still.

There is no music.
No safe word.
Just the two of us
and the violent honesty
of being seen.

You look away.
But I don't.
I take her in—
the stretch marks of confession,
the scars of knowing too much.
I watch as she pulls off the last thread:
the cheap satin of hope
that we called forever.

She doesn’t smile.
She doesn’t bow.
She just steps down,
leaves us naked in a floodlight
with our sins scattered like crumpled bills.

And suddenly the air tastes different.
Like rust.
Like freedom.
Like now or never.

 

[_Land]

Act Two: Backroom Confessions
Truth doesn’t need the stage to strip you bare.

She pulls me by the wrist—
not rough,
just firm enough
to let me know I’m out of places to hide.

Backroom.
Smells like sweat and regret.
A single bulb flickers overhead
like it's too afraid to stay lit for this conversation.

She doesn't offer a chair.
Truth leans against the wall—
legs crossed, arms folded,
clad in nothing but the cold
and the look that says
you’ve run out of excuses.

"Sit."
So I do.
Right on the sticky floor
where every lie I ever told
sticks to the backs of my thighs.

She doesn’t scream.
She doesn’t shame.
She just opens her mouth
and my whole history
pours out of it.

"You knew they were slipping away."
Her voice tastes like bourbon and burnt bridges.
"You felt the rot in the walls and still lit candles,
hoping the scent of hope would hide it."

I look at my hands—
empty now,
but I swear they were full of love once.

"You stayed for the memories," she says,
"but memories don’t make good mortar."
Then she kneels—
eye to eye.
Closer than I want her to be.

"And what about your silences?
Your biting your tongue so hard
you swallowed whole chapters of your needs?
You called it peace,
but that was just fear in lingerie."

My chest caves.
The air is too thick for shame
and too dry for denial.

Truth lights a cigarette,
lets the smoke curl between us like a boundary I can’t cross.
"Answer me this," she says,
blowing ash in the face of my defensiveness—
"If you were so broken,
why did you keep pretending
you were whole enough to love someone else?"

And I can't speak.
Because I know.
Because she’s right.
Because this is what the backroom is for—
not secrets,
but the scalpel.

She stands,
heels clicking toward the curtain,
pausing just long enough to throw one last sentence over her shoulder:

"Don’t come back to the front
until you’re ready to bleed honestly."

 

[_Land]

Act Three: Lap Dance of the Past
Memory never dances without an agenda.

She returns in velvet.
Not black.
Blood red.
Like the color of old love letters
folded too many times
to still be sweet.

She doesn’t ask permission.
Truth never does.
She slides onto my lap
like she owns every inch of ache I buried,
every pulse I pretended was gone.

Her perfume is familiarity—
the scent of our first night,
that song we swore would always be ours,
the taste of laughter on lips
that haven’t touched in months.

She leans in,
lips brushing my ear like a secret I once begged to forget.
“Remember this?” she purrs,
and suddenly I do.

The way you looked at me
before the fights.
The way I held my breath
to keep the peace.
The way we danced in the kitchen,
laughing over spilled wine,
right before we both started sleeping with doubt.

Her thighs trap me in place.
I can’t move.
Won’t move.
Because some part of me still wants to believe
that memory is a doorway—
not a cell.

She moves in rhythm with the past.
Slow. Deliberate.
Every grind a rewind.
Every sway a replay
of the parts we edited for comfort.

“You loved them once,” she says.
And I nod.
Tears rising like ghosts
from floorboards we never fixed.

“But that love…” she whispers,
hips rolling like tide against truth,
“…was built on pretending.
You called it passion,
but it was desperation in drag.”

Her hands cradle my face—
gentle, cruel.
“I’m not here to arouse.
I’m here to remind.”

Then she stands.
Leaves the warmth of her weight behind.
And as she walks away,
I realize—

Nostalgia is the most dangerous stripper of all.
Because she doesn’t take your money.
She takes your clarity.

 

[_Land]

Act Four: Sweat and Mirrors
This time, the truth doesn’t dance—
you do.

The stage is colder than I thought it would be.
Sticky with ghosts.
Lit like an interrogation room dressed up for a show.
No music.
Just the hum of fluorescent honesty buzzing in my bones.

The pole waits.
A silver spine of judgment.
It reflects nothing.
Just stares back, steel and indifferent.

I climb it anyway.
Barefoot.
Bare soul.
No lace to soften the landing.
No glitter to distract from the shaking.

The mirror in front of me is brutal.
Not curved.
Not forgiving.
Just there.
Unblinking.

I start to move—
awkward at first.
The rhythm is raw.
Untrained.
But real.
And every motion sheds something:

The lie that I was fine.
The silence I offered instead of truth.
The moments I bit my tongue until it bled,
so you'd keep loving a quieter version of me.

I spin.
The pole burns my skin.
Friction is honesty,
and it hurts.
My thighs scream with effort,
my arms tremble from the weight of holding on.

But this is mine.
This movement.
This struggle.
This reclaiming.

I see myself in the mirror—
a mess of sweat,
bruises blooming like revelations.
Mascara from last night’s arguments
streaking down a face that finally stopped pretending.

Truth is in the corner.
Arms crossed.
Watching.
She doesn’t clap.
She doesn’t need to.
She just nods.

Because this isn’t performance anymore.
This is penance.
This is power.

I slide down slow—
not in seduction,
but in surrender.
Land on my feet.
Exhale a decade’s worth of holding it all in.

And for the first time,
I don’t feel naked.
I feel free.

 

[_Land]

Act Five: The Empty Club
Even the echoes have stopped lying.

The lights are dead.
The pole is cold.
There’s a lipstick smear on the edge of the stage
and a single heel turned on its side
like someone left in a hurry
or never planned to stay.

The chairs are empty—
rows of ghosts who once clapped
for performances they didn’t understand.

Truth sits on the edge of the stage,
legs dangling,
a cigarette burning between fingers
that once undressed my denial
with surgical grace.

She doesn’t speak.
She doesn’t have to.
Everything’s been said,
scraped raw across the velvet
of every vulnerable moment we tried to tuck away.

There’s no audience left to perform for.
No music to time our excuses to.
Just me
and the hollowed-out echo
of what now?

The floor is littered—
crumpled love notes,
half-spoken apologies,
the glitter-dust of old promises
we wore like armor
and called commitment.

I sit beside her,
bare thighs pressed to the wood
we once danced on like it could hold us.
It didn’t.
But maybe it can now.

“I don’t know how to start again,” I say.
Voice hoarse from screaming
into the silence of pretending.

She looks over, smoke curling like a sigh.
“You don’t start again.
You start honest.”

Then she stands.
Walks away.
No bow.
No farewell.

Just the sound of her heels echoing—
not accusing,
but marking time.
Leaving space
for me
to decide
what I build now that nothing is hidden.

The club is empty.
But the truth?
She’s still with me.
Even in the dark.

___________________________________________



Epilogue

The House After the Club

When the lights go out,
when the last song dies in your ears,
when the glitter has settled into your skin like regret—
you go home.
To the wreckage.
To the stillness.
To yourself.

You stare at the foundation
and realize every crack
was once a whisper you ignored.
Every warped beam
a boundary you bent.
Every broken joist
a truth you tucked behind your teeth
because you were too afraid they'd leave
if they really knew you.

But now?
Now you know you can’t build love
on a lie you’ve stripped out of habit.
You know that healing
doesn’t come with applause.
It comes with rebuilding—
bare hands, honest tools,
no costume, no act.

And maybe the club’s empty now.
But you are not.
You are full—
of knowing,
of reckoning,
of power.

And truth?
She didn’t leave.
She just moved in.

 

[_Land]

Love Lies Here
By Bear Sage

It began in the marrow—
a soft decay.
Not loud,
not sudden.
Just a slowing.
The way breath forgets rhythm
when it’s tired of being held.

You still touched me,
but your fingers moved like autopsy blades—
clinical,
memorized,
searching for something
already gone.

The bed became a hospital.
Sheets pulled tight
to hide the stench of what was dying
between us.
We made love
like we were writing obituaries
with our bodies.

Then came the cold.
Not winter,
but skin.
The kind of chill
that creeps in
when the soul slips out
and no one dares name it.

We stopped arguing.
Even anger knew
not to disturb the corpse.

Rigor set in around the dinner table.
Forks clinked like bells.
Your smile twitched like muscle memory,
but your eyes had already closed.

And still, we dressed it—
lit candles,
posed it by the window,
took photographs in good lighting
so we could lie to ourselves
and call it beautiful.

Then came the shovels.
Small things,
daily things.
You forgetting my favorite tea.
Me laughing too loud at someone else’s joke.
Little scoops of soil
on top of everything we swore we’d never lose.

We held the funeral in silence.
No guests.
No sobs.
Just matching black
and vows repurposed
as eulogies.

The grave was shallow—
we didn’t have the depth.
But we buried it anyway.
Tucked in under layers of
"I’m fine,"
and
"This is just a rough patch."

Now—
a stone.
Not grand.
Just enough to mark
what we couldn’t face
while it still had a pulse.

Love lies here.
Not poetically.
Literally.
Still in its wedding dress.
Mouth open.
Waiting
for the truth to speak.

 

[_Land]

Not Enough Fucks
By Bear Sage

You didn’t burn it down.
You just let it rot.
Cracked a window,
left the door half-closed,
and watched the wind do the work.

I bled in front of you—
open-palmed offerings,
words like stitched confessions.
And you blinked,
checked your phone,
and asked what’s for dinner.

It wasn’t hate.
It was hollowness.
You offered me echoes
and called it conversation.
Showed up half-alive
and acted like that should be enough
for someone starving.

You rationed your love
like it was war-time sugar.
A teaspoon here,
a crumb there—
enough to keep me hoping,
never enough to feed me whole.

Every request
was an inconvenience.
Every tear,
a guilt trip in your eyes.
I asked for your heart
and you gave me
a shrug
and half a fuck.

You let my needs dry out
on the line.
Watched them crack in the sun
and asked me
why I was so brittle.

I used to dream
of us fighting—
because fighting meant something still burned.
But you killed it
with casual neglect,
left it to fade
under the dust
of your self-importance.

And now I’m just here
brushing the ash
off a love
you couldn’t bother
to blow breath into.

Not with malice.
Not with fury.
Just apathy.
The laziest kind of death.
The kind that doesn’t need poison—
just
not enough fucks.

 

[_Land]

"Where the Nectar Lives"
By Bear Sage

Love is a garden that pretends to be effortless.
But beneath every bloom—
work.
Roots twisting like vows underground,
tangled in dirt, in decay,
in everything we had to shed
just to grow.

You came like a bee—
drawn not to me,
but to what I made.
To the sugar-slick scent of something open,
vulnerable,
aching for touch.

Your wings whispered want.
Your body, pollen-drunk,
brushed against my petals
like you were worshipping
but never staying.

I gave—
stamens heavy with hope,
petals spread wide despite the wind.
I let you taste the nectar
I had gathered in secret,
drop by aching drop
from every storm I survived.

You fed.
You swirled.
You called it love.

But you were always flying—
never planting.
Carrying pieces of me
on your legs,
scattering promises like spores
on flowers I’ll never see bloom.

And still I waited—
aching in my stem,
hoping you'd return not for the sweetness
but for the soil.
Not for the thrill,
but the tending.

Because love is not the nectar.
Love is the hive.
The honeycomb.
The staying.
The building.
The aching buzz of loyal
ty
inside the chest
long after the petals have fallen.



"What the Bee Won’t Say"
By Bear Sage

I never meant to take so much.

It started with the scent—
heady, golden,
like a song humming out of your petals
just for me.
I followed it without thinking,
the way wings just know the wind
and hunger doesn’t ask permission.

You opened
like the sun was watching,
like you’d been waiting
just for my shadow.

I tasted you—
sweetness born from struggle,
honey made from heartbreak.
You bloomed through storms,
and still,
you offered me your core.

And God,
you were beautiful.

But I am built for movement.
My body was shaped by flight.
I don’t know how to rest
without calling it failure.
Don’t know how to land
without losing the sky.

I don’t trust quiet.
Not when the world taught me
to earn love
by always arriving
and never staying.

So I left—
pollen clinging to my legs like guilt,
your scent woven into my wings,
your ache blooming behind me
like a field I’ll never tend.

What I won’t say:
I wanted to stay.
I wanted to fold myself into your petals,
to drown in your nectar
and call it home.

But bees like me
don’t know how to live
where things grow slow.

We
only know how to visit
what we’re too afraid to deserve.


"After the Wings"
By Bear Sage

You are gone,
but the wind still remembers you.
It carries your scent
like a rumor through my leaves—
not cruel,
just persistent.
Like longing that refuses to die quietly.

I do not wilt for you anymore.
But I remember.

The way your weight pressed into my bloom
like a question I wanted to answer.
The way you drank from me
with such desperate joy
I mistook it for love.

You never meant to stay—
I see that now.
You were all hunger
and no home.

And me?
I was a garden
dreaming of permanence
in the arms of a wanderer.

But absence taught me something:
I do not need wings
to be beautiful.
I do not need touch
to be alive.

I bloom for the sun now.
For the soil.
For myself.

And if another comes—
they will find me rooted,
full of nectar,
but no longer offering it
to those
who don’t know
how to stay.

 

[_Land]

Wildfire Season
By Bear Sage
some loves don’t end—
they burn themselves out

It started with a spark—
no thunder,
no warning.
Just your fingers brushing mine
like flint to tinder.

We were dry wood
and late summer air,
ripe for ruin.

You called it chemistry.
I called it fate.
But the forest knew better.

Our kisses were accelerant—
each one hotter,
hungrier,
stripped of caution.
We fed the flames with midnight calls,
hands in backseats,
promises spoken through clenched teeth
and ragged breath.

I gave you my boundaries
like kindling.
You fed me your rage
and called it love.
We didn’t fall in love—
we ignited in it.

And God,
it was beautiful.
Bright.
Furious.
The kind of blaze
that lights up the whole valley
just before it turns to smoke.

We never built—
only burned.
And when the air grew thin,
when the oxygen of obsession
ran out,
we choked on what was left of each other.

Now—
ashes.
Charred stumps of what could’ve stood.
Black earth
where nothing will grow for years.

But sometimes
when the wind shifts,
I swear I can still smell us—
burnt sugar and scorched skin,
the scent of a love
that didn’t die quietly.

 

[_Land]

Tidepool Heart
By Bear Sage
low tide always tells the truth

You found me at high tide—
waves crashing with confidence,
salt on my lips,
eyes drunk on horizon.

I looked full.
I felt full.
Like there would always be enough of me
to give.

You dipped your hands
into my shallows,
felt the warmth
and called it love.

But you didn’t stay
long enough
to feel the pull beneath.

You never asked
why my waters shimmered
only when the light hit just right—
why some parts of me
stayed dark,
even in summer.

You never noticed
how often I receded,
not to run,
but to breathe.
To gather
what I’d poured out too fast.

Tidepools keep secrets.
We hold forgotten things—
shattered shells,
barnacled bones,
fragments of lovers
who waded too deep
without learning to swim.

Still, you stood ankle-deep,
marveling at reflections,
never once asking
what lay beneath the calm.

You said I changed.
Said I pulled away.
But this was always me—
a rhythm you didn’t stay long enough
to understand.

Now you’re gone.
The moon rises
and I move,
as I always have—
not for you,
but for the gravity
that governs my becoming.

And though I ache
when I ebb,
I know:
the ocean is never less
just because it leaves the shore.

 

[_Land]

Frost Warnings
By Bear Sage

not all winters come with snow

It didn’t start with a storm.
No slammed doors,
no shouted truths.
Just chill.
Thin as breath on glass.
A quiet shift
where warmth used to live.

You pulled away
like autumn losing color—
slow,
inevitable.
Still beautiful
if you weren’t looking too closely.

I reached for you
through sweaters and sarcasm,
through routines we wore
like scarves to cover the ache.
But you were already
turning in your sleep,
facing a world
that didn’t include me.

The bed grew colder
on your side first.
Your voice lost its fire.
Even your laughter
came out brittle,
like cracked ice on the surface
of something too deep
to thaw.

I left love notes like kindling—
small, desperate offerings,
hoping one might catch.
But frost covered everything
before the flame could rise.

We stopped fighting.
Stopped touching.
Stopped asking
what the silence meant.

You can’t argue with frost.
It doesn’t scream.
It doesn’t beg.
It just spreads—
slow,
invisible,
deadening.

And when the final freeze came,
it wasn’t dramatic.
Just two bodies
sitting at a table,
holding steaming cups,
while the love between them
curled up quietly
and froze to death
without a sound.

 

[_Land]

Storm Cell
By Bear Sage

we were the warning signs we ignored

It started with pressure.
Thick air,
unspoken tension
gathering like heat on a windshield.

We were still smiling—
tight-lipped,
white-knuckled,
the kind of smiles you wear
when you’re already holding lightning
in your chest.

The first crack came at dinner—
your fork clanged too loud,
my breath caught too sharp,
a flash in your eyes
and I flinched
like thunder had teeth.

Then came the storm.
Not rain—
not yet.
Just sound.

Voices raised like floodwaters.
Every sentence a gust,
ripping shutters off the fragile house
we kept pretending was still a home.

You said things
with the wind behind them—
truths you’d dammed up for months.
I threw back every lie I ever swallowed
like debris caught in the surge.

We didn’t fight to win.
We fought to release.
To finally scream the weight
we were too polite to name.

Dishes shattered like timelines.
Memories thrown like hailstones.
Your “always” sounded like a curse.
My “never” cracked open the roof.

And when it ended—
when our voices ran dry
and the damage sat quiet
between us like wreckage—

we didn’t speak.

Just stared
at what we had torn through.
At the soggy walls,
splintered trust,
and the love
dripping down the drywall
like a leak we let go too long.

There’s peace in aftermath,
but it’s not soft.
It’s silent.
Stunned.

And in that stillness,
we finally heard
the sound
of everything
that could not be rebuilt.

 

[_Land]

Migration Patterns
By Bear Sage

love doesn't always mean home

You always came back
like the seasons—
familiar
and late.

I'd stopped setting the table
after the second year,
but still,
my eyes learned the shape of your return—
the way your silence melted first,
then your hands,
then your mouth
like spring pretending
it never froze the earth.

You never said why
you left.
Never said why
you came back.
Just stood there
like a bird who forgot the sky
wasn't a promise.

I kept telling myself
this was instinct—
that we were migratory lovers,
drawn together by some deeper pull,
a wind we didn’t name
but obeyed.

But the truth is:
you left when things got cold.
Every. Damn. Time.
And I kept making nests
out of apology and hope,
soft places for you to land
that never asked for commitment,
only presence.

And still—
you never stayed.
Not long enough to molt.
Not long enough to root.
Just long enough
to stir the leaves,
wake old longing,
and leave feathers in the doorway
like excuses.

I learned the pattern by heart.
And I hated how beautiful
you looked in flight.

But I’ve grounded myself now.
Wings clipped
by choice.
I don’t wait for returning anymore.
Because love
that only knows how to circle
was never meant
to land.

 

[_Land]

The Nest
By Bear Sage

We wove it slowly—
with threadbare intentions,
twigs of half-truths,
and bits of borrowed dreams
we thought would hold.

You brought laughter.
I brought silence.
You offered charm.
I offered patience.
Neither of us noticed
how hollow it sounded
when we called it home.

The nest looked perfect
from a distance—
curled in a tree of maybe,
tucked in the branches of one day,
lined with soft lies
we mistook for love.

But it never held warmth.
Just weight.
Hope heavy
on a foundation of splinters.

You said we were growing.
I nodded,
too scared to name
the stillness between us
for what it was:
waiting.
Stagnating.
Pretending motion.

No eggs.
No hatching.
Just the echo
of what we thought could be—
a future we planned
but never planted.

And still, we stayed—
perched beside each other,
silent birds
too afraid to fly
because we didn’t know
if our wings still worked
outside of us.

Now,
the nest is empty.
Not abandoned—
released.

And maybe
we were never meant to raise love there.
Maybe it was only ever
a place
to learn how to let go.

 

[_Land]

Rootbound
By Bear Sage

We began in fertile soil—
sun-drunk,
eager,
twisting toward each other
like vines newly kissed by spring.

For a while,
we were lush.
Green with want.
Blooming in places
we hadn’t even known were barren.

But we never repotted.
Never checked the roots.
Just kept pouring water
into a container
we’d long since outgrown.

I bent toward you
out of habit,
not hunger.
And you clung to me
not for connection,
but because the walls of this pot
left no room to reach elsewhere.

Our leaves dulled.
Joy wilted quietly.
Not all death is dramatic—
some just forget to stretch.

We smiled for guests,
our petals still bright enough
to deceive.
But beneath the surface—
spirals of strangled roots,
wrapped too tightly
around what we once called home.

Love needs space.
Needs air.
And we were too loyal
to the container
to admit
we were slowly suffocating inside it.

Now I sit in a garden
you no longer tend,
soil clinging to my ankles,
wondering
if freedom means breaking the pot
or learning to leave it behind
before it cracks on its own.

Because even love,
if left too long without room,
will strangle itself
just trying to stay alive.

 

[_Land]

Photosynthesis
By Bear Sage

I fed myself the sun they kept from me

I used to lean
toward your light—
head tilted,
heart cracked open,
aching for warmth
that never stayed long enough
to soften the frost.

You called it love,
but it felt more like weather—
unpredictable,
conditional,
flickering behind clouds of silence
and sudden storms.

I bent for you.
Turned my face
toward the scraps of glow
you rationed out in good moods
and half-kept promises.

And still, I bloomed—
thin,
fragile,
reaching.

But even the hungriest leaf
learns eventually
to make its own light.

So I turned inward.
Split wide at the seam
and found the sun
inside the wound.

Now I feed myself
in quiet ways—
books and breath,
laughter with no audience,
dancing with no music,
joy that no longer waits
for permission.

I don’t need your light anymore.
I don’t even need the sky.

I am my own greenhouse,
my own season,
my own warmth.

And if someone comes now,
they will find me already full—
radiant,
self-fed,
untouchable
in the golden way
only survivors shine.

 

[_Land]

Mates for Life
By Bear Sage


They say wolves mate for life—
but they don’t say
how long life feels
when the winter is empty
and the den stays cold.

You were myth
before you were mine—
a silhouette in moonlight,
breath steaming through your teeth,
eyes that glowed
like they had seen my soul
and memorized it.

I followed you
through frost-bitten forest,
left my softness in paw prints
behind us.
Let my ribs grow sharp
from running after you,
always just ahead,
always just out of reach.

We hunted love like it was blood—
hot, reckless,
fleeting in the snow.
And when we found it,
we tore it open with our teeth,
fed until we were full
of each other’s ache.

But your eyes
began to drift with the wind,
nose tilted toward
some new scent
I couldn’t smell.

You stayed,
but you didn’t curl into me anymore.
You howled less.
You grew quiet in the chest.
You started sleeping with your back to the cave wall.

And I?
I gnawed on old bones
of what we used to be.
Made a blanket of memory
to survive the frost.

They say wolves mate for life.
But I’ve learned—
even wolves leave
when the hunger changes.
Even wolves forget
how to return.

Now, I run alone.
Not broken—
just wilder.

And if I howl,
it’s not mourning.
It’s the sound of a creature
who remembers the cold
and chose to burn.

 

[_Land]

We Bloom Anyway
By Bear Sage

Even scorched earth remembers spring

They thought it would break us—
the leaving,
the frost,
the drought of months spent loving someone
who never learned to water us back.

But here we are—
bruised maybe,
bent a little,
but upright.

Not because it didn’t hurt.
Fuck, it hurt.
The kind of pain
that teaches roots to hold deeper
just to survive the shaking.

We bloomed with tear-salted soil.
Petals sprouted through grief cracks,
colors brighter
because we had to be our own sun.

No one saw the work—
the slow stitching of the self,
the silent mornings we unclenched
from old wanting.
The way we pulled light
from memory
and made it enough.

This is not revenge.
It’s resurrection.
It’s the proof
that healing doesn’t always look like joy—
sometimes it just looks like life continuing
when it had every reason not to.

And so, we open—
not because it’s safe,
but because it’s time.

Let the bees come.
Let the wind stir.
Let the world see
what grows
when no one thought it could.

We were never just made to survive.

We were meant
to bloom.

 

[_Land]

Composting What We Were
By Bear Sage


not everything dead stays useless

I used to hold our memories
like relics—
fragile,
sacred,
untouchable.
Now I bury them.

Not to forget.
To recycle.

Every lie,
every apology that came too late,
every almost and ache
is mulch now—
softened,
broken down
into something that can grow.

Your absence?
It’s nitrogen.
Tears?
Water.
The rotted petals of our past selves
become soil,
dark and alive.

We never learned to thrive together—
too many roots
competing beneath the surface.
But still, I learned.

I learned how to decompose
grief into grit,
bitterness into bloom,
hope into something sturdier
than longing.

There is beauty in the breakdown—
in the slow unraveling
that makes room for the wild.

Now when I touch the past,
it feeds me.
No longer hollow.
No longer holy.
Just nutrient-rich shadow
from which new things rise.

We may not have lasted,
but we weren’t wasted.

Some loves are not forever—
some are fertilizer.

 

[_Land]

The Weather Inside Me
By Bear Sage

all my seasons still live under this skin

I used to blame the sky—
the way it opened without warning,
drenched me in goodbye
before I’d even found shelter.

But the storm was never out there.
It was in me.

I carry every forecast
like a second spine.

Thunder in my throat
when I speak what I never could.
Lightning in my fingertips
when I finally let go.
Drought in my chest
from giving too much
for too long.

There’s still fog in places—
grief that rolls in slow
on quiet mornings,
making me question what’s real.

And sometimes it rains
just because a scent
reminds me of your hands.

But I am not afraid
of my own weather anymore.

I’ve built a home
that doesn’t collapse
when the wind rises.
I’ve grown gardens
in my gut
that bloom
despite the shifting sky.

I am not always sunny.
I am not always safe.

But I am mine.

And that’s enough forecast
to carry me through
whatever comes next.

 

[_Land]

Return to the Wild
By Bear Sage

Take off the stories
they stitched to your skin—
those too-tight narratives
that told you love must ache
to be real.

Let them fall like petals
from a bloom gone dry.

Stand barefoot
in the wreckage of what you once called home.
Feel the earth beneath you—
not polished,
but pulsing.
Not perfect,
but alive.

The soil knows your name.
It remembers
how you bloomed
through storm seasons
and silence.
How you bent,
but never broke
all the way.

You don’t owe beauty to anyone.
You don’t need to flower for watchers.
You are not a show.
You are a forest reclaiming itself—
one stubborn root at a time.

Let the past rot.
Let the ache sink deep.
Let it feed the next thing
you dare to grow.

You are the wilderness now—
raw,
unfenced,
undone
in the most sacred way.

The ones who left
do not name your bloom.
The ones who failed to stay
are not the architects
of your return.

So plant something
wild and unruly
in the bruised ground of your chest.

Call yourself home
without whisper.
Say it like thunder
wearing honey.

And walk—

not toward anyone.

Just forward.

Because you made it.
And that's the most holy thing
you’ll ever do.

 

[_Land]

Angeline, a little nostalgia from a long past challenge

“Sax in the Mirror”
By Bear Sage


Snap—
there I am in the mirror,
slick-soul swagger and cigarette eyes,
dripping truths like candlewax
off a beat-up upright bass line heart.

I move in time with my own undoing,
a saxophone confession in skin and scar,
sliding between notes
only I know how to play.

See—
the world tried to mute my rhythm,
tie my hips to 4/4 expectations,
but baby, I’m syncopation incarnate.
Off-beat. On fire. Out loud.

I got bruises that scatted back,
“do-ba-damn, you survived,”
and a laugh like a cymbal crash
after too many years of silence.

Some nights,
I slow dance with my shadow,
let it lead across hardwood floors of memory—
but I always dip it back into grace
before the lights cut out.

Truth?
I am my own smoky club,
my own favorite act,
a velvet-voiced spirit
crooning lullabies to my ribcage.

So pour me neat—
no ice, no pretense—
I’ll toast to the funk in my flaws
and the jazz in my joy.

'Cause baby,
connection to self
is a solo so rich,
it don’t need no encore.

It is the show.

 

[Angeline]

Welcome back, stranger.

I like the poem. I'm listening to jazz right now (Horace Silver).

 

[_Land]

Welcome back, stranger.

I like the poem. I'm listening to jazz right now (Horace Silver).

Thank you . Life is full of twists and turns

I have revisited a few times over the years but not been in the space to share or engage as much as I used too. I'm still with the love I found on these pages, almost 25 years now .......... Holy shit