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

BoomBox in Compton
By Bear Sage


Check-check one…
Nah.
Check me.
The fuckin’ source.
The throat of the block.
The box that boxed God
and won.


---

I don’t play songs—I breathe bombs
got woofers for lungs and a tongue full of psalms.
My breath is 808, my pulse is decay,
I loop pain on tape and spit futures in delay.

They call me BoomBox but I’m preacher and pimp,
speaker of the streets,
ain’t a single part limp.
I got Pac in my ribs, Biggie in my spine,
and every bar I blast
is a motherfuckin' landmine.

Hood confessional—press play, say Amen.
I spit truth so loud I make God flinch again.
I’m the soundtrack of shootouts,
of mothers who pray,
of cyphers in alleyways
where angels won’t stay.

---

I’m the motherfuckin’ beat,
the steel-toe in the street,
when the verse gets hot
and the pulse won’t stop
I eat silence
and shit out heat.

I’m the motherfuckin’ beat.
Clap back, don't retreat.
When the rhyme gets raw
and the soul gets scarred—
I ain’t dead,
just on repeat.

---

They tagged me up with names
of boys who ain’t come home.
I carry ghosts in my wires
and grief in my tone.
But don’t you dare call me relic—
I’m reliction, I’m spell.
Each decibel a resurrection,
every kick drum’s a yell.

I seen boys with bars
harder than prison walls,
freestylin' their trauma
in the back of strip mall stalls.
They fed me their fury,
their fears, their flow—
And I gave ‘em back rhythm
to outrun the po-po.

--

I ain’t Bluetooth.
I ain’t clean.
I ain’t slick.
I’m the shit that raised 'em
when the lights went click.
When rent was late,
and the fridge was bare,
I was the drumline
in despair.

---
I’m the motherfuckin’ beat,
the preacher on repeat.
The choir of the block,
the scream that knocks—
I drop jaws
and I don't deplete.

I’m the motherfuckin’ beat.
Still stompin’ concrete.
From the cradle to the cipher
to the chalkline tape—
I stay live,
even when they delete.

---

I ain’t never been quiet.
Don’t start that shit now.
Long as breath got rhythm,
I'm still how
the hood remembers
how to survive
out loud.



30/52
 
It began as a presentiment, not even that,
A thought, creeping through the seams,
Il y a, á la Levinas,
Such gravitas that it reeled,
Peeled me into the night, autumn deep.
Save for the mawkish glow of city lights,
Everything was sightless, formless.

Then I knew what it was that brought me there,
L’Autre, mais au de la, the obsidian lady of the Meads,
Winged, taloned, darkness in flight. It called out,
In its tenebrous song of the night.

What folly made us, what cretinous impulse to be heard?
I replied, mimicry befitting young Harry, my reformation,
Glittering o’er my fault,
hoot-hooted across the obsidian
Air, till it must have – I can only conjecture –
Fallen upon its tufted opercula. Silence.

Dark was its shadow that impelled towards me.
Its span of wings, vast as the revolving cosmos.
I was prey, sitting duck, caught in the headlights
Of Night’s Prince.

Noblesse oblige. In a flash, he checked himself,
And passed overhead, Garuda Nocturne. And I?
I wept, soiled, and I knew he had taken me,
My Prince of the night.

Poem 13/52
 
Epitome Of Ecstasy

Your fingers must play the harp
They are as gentle brush strokes
Splashing abstract etches of your love
Across every inch of my slopes

Shades of heavenly blues and blood reds
Sweat and sweetness mixed to perfection.
Chants of loves apex seeps out in sensual sighs.
The notes elevated amid this colliding progression

Traversing the epitome of ecstasy in fiery unison
Quenching our desires in each other's fountains
Lips tasting nectarous infusions of euphoria.
Tremors magnitude 9.5, crumbling mountains

In the wake of our explosive entanglement
Lying in our scalding drenched bed of lust
Gasping for air in an exhaustion, our bodies aching
Smiling at each other our faces flushed
 
There is a Cake Fridge in Shetland

There is a cake fridge in Shetland,
Along the Voe to Aith Road, north of Sand,
Off the Bitzer junction, pass the Ruins,
Where Bill O’Shaughnessy breathed his last.

You will find her there, thrice a windswept week,
With her van and dog and silence.
She makes cupcakes, meringues, and friands,
Some pies and tarts, and biscuits for tea. And
An honesty box, full of notes and coins of the world.

On bonny days, if she gazed across the mead,
She would just make out the testy sea, wild and free,
And perhaps, hear old Cregan’s ancient melody. But
Not once will she ask after the man,
Who lives in the abandoned chapel,
By the Old Sand Junction way.

Poem 14/52
 
The Burning Tree
There is a burning tree in my head,
And its leaves rise up above its crimson halo,
In tufts of dark fire.
The flames grow, grow in my head;
It is all fire, raging nightmare.

What lies beyond the tree is a mirage –
Figures slip and slide – and in a blazing moment
They appear – a lost cat looking for a home, a man’s
Twisted face, like Dix’s Skat Players, the ruin
Of the years, like the vegetable bed overgrown
With nettles.

The blaze from the tree never relents. The tongues
Are endless, the sky is awash with black snow.
Even when I finally awake, I feel my fingers tingle,
Crackling like kindling in a bonfire. No one notices
My singed hair, as the 10.20 screams through
The Sydney tunnels.

Poem 15/52
 
The Honky Tonk Trough

Name’s Earl.
Third stall on the left.
Chrome chipped, cracked at the lip—
I’ve seen more dick than the Devil’s doorbell.
And baby, I ain’t blinked once.

I’ve caught the sins of cowboys
mid-two-step regret,
held the whiskey sweat
of cheatin’ hearts
and last-call lies.
Hell, I know when a man’s cryin’
even if he calls it piss.

I’ve swallowed gold rings,
blood from busted noses,
a lonesome wedding band
someone flushed like a curse.
He whispered “She’s better off,”
but his knees said otherwise.

They don’t see me
just the neon glow
bouncing off tile
while they unzip their shame
and pretend the night didn’t gut them.

I hear prayers.
Drunk ones.
Mumbled to God,
to mamas,
to ghosts of good women
they pushed out the door
for a jukebox dream
in denim.

And still—
I stay.
Warm porcelain prophet
of broken men,
catcher of remorse,
patron saint
of “I shouldn’t have.”

So go ahead, cowboy.
Relieve yourself.
But don’t think I ain’t listening.
Every drop tells a story.
And I remember them all.

31/52
 
Oracle of Anonymity

They treat me like a secret
they don’t want to need.

A slit in the wall,
two inches wide—
but deep enough to swallow
the truth they choke on
every goddamn day.

I know who they are.
By the twitch of a thigh.
By the way their belt hits the floor—
fast if they’re hungry,
slow if they’re ashamed.

They don’t knock.
They invade.
Shoving their cocks through me
like I’m a grave
they’re dying to crawl into
and moan their way back out of.

On the other side—
the mouth waits.
Quiet.
Hot.
Jaw tight from holding strangers.
Tongue slick with repetition.
Knees raw on cold tile
that’s never been cleaned properly.

You think this is about sex?
This is about erasure.
This is where men go
to forget their fucking names
for sixty seconds.

I’ve smelled the lie
on their skin.
Cologne meant for their wife.
Sweat from dancing too close to someone
they swore they weren’t into.
The stench of guilt
is heavier than cum
and twice as thick.

Some of them cry.
Mid-thrust.
After.
Biting their own fist
because this is the only place
they’re allowed to feel
without a name attached.

I’ve felt them tremble—
not from pleasure,
but from breaking.
From years of pretending.
From needing this
more than they ever fucking wanted to.

And the ones on their knees?
Don’t you dare pretend they’re not prophets.
They know how to read a man
by the weight of his groan,
by the pressure in his palm
against the stall wall,
by how long he lingers
after he finishes.

They take it all—
the hate,
the hunger,
the holy fucking wreck of a man
trying not to feel anything
while begging to feel something.

And me?
I never forget.

I’m not a wall.
I’m a witness.

I’m not a hole.
I’m a vault of every filthy,
panicked,
beautiful breakdown
they never had the guts to say out loud.

I am the oracle of anonymity.

They come here to be nameless.
But I remember
every single one of them.


32/52
 
“Cunnilingus in Rain Gear”

She said “It’s storming.”
I said “Exactly.”
Zipped the yellow slicker
up to my collarbone,
dropped to my knees
like a goddamn offering.

Wind howled.
Rain spit sideways.
And there I was,
parting her thighs
sky cracked open
to let me in.

Vinyl sticking to my elbows,
knees deep in mud,
but her scent cut through it all—
hot, feral,
that hurricane honey
dripping down
while my face became an altar.

I pulled her panties to the side
like a curtain in a cheap motel,
and dove in,
tongue-first,
goggles fogging from the heat of her.
She was steam under pressure.
A squelch I could feel in my bones.

The rain hit my back like applause.
My mouth was sloppy.
Loud.
Greedy.
I mouthed her like a meal I’d waited all my life for—
groaned into her
until thunder answered back.

She grabbed the hood of my jacket,
yanked me closer.
Her hips rolled
like ocean waves
with something to prove.

My chin was dripping.
Not just rain.
She gushed like the storm wanted to fuck her too.
And maybe it did.
Maybe we all did.
But I got there first.

Teeth grazing.
Tongue swirling.
Two fingers in
as I sucked the storm out of her.
She came like lightning—
no warning,
just a jolt that bent her knees
and filled my throat with rain and reckoning.

When she collapsed against the hood of the truck,
slick with weather and sin,
I wiped my mouth with my sleeve,
stood up,
and let the storm clean me.

Best part of rain gear?
I don’t feel a thing—
except her.
Every drop,
every tremble,
every fucking flood
she gave me.

33/52
 
Barbara

June 3rd, 1967
we sat on a bench. Spring
was blooming toward summer,
trees a whirl of green and lilacs
scented the air. Fireflies floated
on the waning day and Respect
played on someone's car radio.

It was magical.

I must have known you
in a thousand lifetimes.

We talked for hours, we laughed
and knew the rising excitement
that comes with instant karma,
with connection deep and unshakable
that would see us through years,
decades, love and loss,
births and funerals and always

our jokes, the looks, a word or two
meaningful only to us, acceptance
after foibles and missteps that might
have broken others apart.

I don't have time for anything
less than forgiveness


you once said and you didn't
even know then that you'd be gone
six weeks later, carried away
by aggressive cancer, another ghost
to populate my busy inner world.

Fifty-eight years. Are you still
with me? Do you know
how much I love you?


Week 23, Poem 1, Total 21
 
This Poem Is Best Ignored
by Anyone with Good Taste


I think I'm in love with a poet.
She's innocent and doesn't know it.
My thoughts, all the time,
Are of her and of rhyme.
I don't have the skills, though, to show it.

A limerick isn't the best form
For lyrics of love. Rather lukewarm
And strictly small-time
In no way too sublime——
Like a sonnet that's lost in a snowstorm.

But geez. I am writing my heart out,
My words drip as through a downspout.
Their expression I rue,
Though their feelings are true
Although fishy as three-day-old brook trout.

I guess that is all I can manage
To minimize poetic damage.
Though it hasn't much charm,
May it raise no alarm
And not show me to much disadvantage.

Week 23 : Poem 1 : Total 28
 
The Quiet Autopsy
By Bear Sage

I do not flinch at blood.
I flinch at the lipstick smeared like a prayer
on a girl who didn’t plan to die that night.
The mascara runs like a final confession.
Every wound tells a story,
but no one stays to listen.

They come to me
not as bodies—
but as broken biographies.
I read the chapters carved by seatbelts,
by needles,
by fists,
by despair.
I trace each scar like braille,
and sometimes, I swear, they whisper.

I hold the hands of the dead
more gently than the living ever did.
In this chilled theater of stillness,
my tools are not cruel—
they are translators.
Bone saws speaking for ribs that cracked
under the pressure of silence.
Scalpels translating sorrow.

I see the beauty too.
A tattoo of a hummingbird
right above a shattered ribcage—
a symbol of joy
over a heart that gave up.
A wedding ring still warm,
metal clinging to love
longer than breath ever could.

I zip up more than flesh.
I seal secrets.
The ones no one could carry
but me.

There is poetry in the aftermath.
In the hush after the horror,
in the dignity I restore
when the world has stripped it all away.

Call me the final witness.
Call me the last to weep in silence.
But know this—

Even death
deserves
to be held
with reverence.


34/52
 
The Womb Laughs Last
By Bear Sage

I
sit high—
hips wide,
crowned in stars,
throne carved from constellations,
ankles soaked in tide.

They call me too emotional to lead,
while I cradle universes
in a body that breaks and bleeds
and builds anyway.

Let them beat their chests—
hollow drums of ancient fear.
Let them roar “DOMINION!”
while I pour life
from between my thighs
like holy wine
on a temple floor.

Their kingdoms?
Flaccid.
Flimsy.
Propped up on
plagiarized thunder
and ego erections.

They invent gods
in their own image—
and still
none of them
can create
without stealing something soft
from someone like me.

I see it—
their crusades,
their cock-measuring monuments,
wars dressed up as rites of passage,
their fear of softness
so loud
they named it sin.

But listen.
I’ve labored through pain
they couldn’t name
with every dictionary combined.
I’ve wept oceans
into womb-shaped chalices
and they
still
call it weakness.

They raise swords
to mimic my cycles—
sharp, brutal,
eager to spill.
But I bleed monthly
and don’t die.
That’s a superpower
they’ll never write in their holy books.

I see them,
building walls out of laws,
trying to trap my magic—
as if my cunt
wasn’t a cosmos
long before their gavels
ever struck wood.

They preach
like they invented purpose,
but I
nursed it.

I made teeth and tongues
from scratch
and taught them
how to speak.

So let them pretend
they own the narrative.

Let them build their Babel towers
on the backs of broken mothers.
I’ll be laughing—
not softly, not sweetly,
but with the raw howl
of a thousand birth screams,
with the power
of ten generations
of midwives and witches
and women they burned
for daring
to know too much.

I don’t need their thrones.
I am
the altar.
I am
the offering.
I am
the fucking miracle.

And while they cry
over not being gods,
I’ll be over here—
suckling suns,
rewriting bloodlines,
laughing loud
into the soft center of eternity.

Because
the womb
laughs
last.


35/52
 
The Womb Laughs Last
By Bear Sage

I
sit high—
hips wide,
crowned in stars,
throne carved from constellations,
ankles soaked in tide.

They call me too emotional to lead,
while I cradle universes
in a body that breaks and bleeds
and builds anyway.

Let them beat their chests—
hollow drums of ancient fear.
Let them roar “DOMINION!”
while I pour life
from between my thighs
like holy wine
on a temple floor.

Their kingdoms?
Flaccid.
Flimsy.
Propped up on
plagiarized thunder
and ego erections.

They invent gods
in their own image—
and still
none of them
can create
without stealing something soft
from someone like me.

I see it—
their crusades,
their cock-measuring monuments,
wars dressed up as rites of passage,
their fear of softness
so loud
they named it sin.

But listen.
I’ve labored through pain
they couldn’t name
with every dictionary combined.
I’ve wept oceans
into womb-shaped chalices
and they
still
call it weakness.

They raise swords
to mimic my cycles—
sharp, brutal,
eager to spill.
But I bleed monthly
and don’t die.
That’s a superpower
they’ll never write in their holy books.

I see them,
building walls out of laws,
trying to trap my magic—
as if my cunt
wasn’t a cosmos
long before their gavels
ever struck wood.

They preach
like they invented purpose,
but I
nursed it.

I made teeth and tongues
from scratch
and taught them
how to speak.

So let them pretend
they own the narrative.

Let them build their Babel towers
on the backs of broken mothers.
I’ll be laughing—
not softly, not sweetly,
but with the raw howl
of a thousand birth screams,
with the power
of ten generations
of midwives and witches
and women they burned
for daring
to know too much.

I don’t need their thrones.
I am
the altar.
I am
the offering.
I am
the fucking miracle.

And while they cry
over not being gods,
I’ll be over here—
suckling suns,
rewriting bloodlines,
laughing loud
into the soft center of eternity.

Because
the womb
laughs
last.


35/52
https://ibb.co/TxLD4BVk
 

TO PAPER, FROM PEN​



What if…

Poems synced at the end…
Built like a house
Frame by frame
Sentiments, feelings
Sounding the same
Nailed to paper from pen

Or had internal rhythm…
Like the thought part
Of my heart where
Plans of words depart in
Curves of stanzas birthed in
Particular heated moments
My beating ventricular notices
Your hand rests on my breast

Is it 5, 7, 5?
Blissful! Not knowing its life
Syllables numbered

Or is there something to be said
About wandering aimlessly,
Naming clouds.
Remembering the taste of
The salt from your skin.
Finding poetry in the struggle
Of never being able
To adequately explain to you
This thing called Love.
 

TO PAPER, FROM PEN​



What if…

Poems synced at the end…
Built like a house
Frame by frame
Sentiments, feelings
Sounding the same
Nailed to paper from pen

Or had internal rhythm…
Like the thought part
Of my heart where
Plans of words depart in
Curves of stanzas birthed in
Particular heated moments
My beating ventricular notices
Your hand rests on my breast

Is it 5, 7, 5?
Blissful! Not knowing its life
Syllables numbered

Or is there something to be said
About wandering aimlessly,
Naming clouds.
Remembering the taste of
The salt from your skin.
Finding poetry in the struggle
Of never being able
To adequately explain to you
This thing called Love.


What if you bled for it?

Not just ink, but the kind that
sticks to your teeth when
you try to speak it.
What if poems weren’t safe
or syncopated or symmetrical—
what if they broke like bones
cracking under the weight
of what was never said?

What if the rhythm
wasn’t a heartbeat
but arrhythmia—
chaotic, gasping,
your chest caving in
under a memory
you can’t fucking write pretty?

What if clouds don’t need names,
they need altars?
Need thunder-split confessions
instead of metaphors
dipped in honey and hope.

You want to taste salt?
Then scrape it from the wound
left when “I love you”
wasn’t enough
to make him stay.
That’s the flavor of real poetry.
It doesn’t wander—it haunts.

And if Love
could be explained,
it’d be math.
It’s not.
It’s grief
that sometimes moans
like pleasure.
It’s a scream
that gets mistaken
for a song.

36/52
 
The Cabin
By Bear Sage

It doesn’t call out—
no haunting,
no whisper through pine—
just stands there,
swallowed
by decades of green hunger.

Moss has stitched curtains
where glass once trembled,
and vines have bolted the door
like nervous fingers
folded in prayer.

The roof sags,
tired of holding in
the weight of untold winters.
Each floorboard creaks
with the sound of something
almost remembered.

Inside:
a cradle of dust,
a rusted spoon cradling shadow,
a bedframe spine
with no mattress to soften
the ache.

Cobwebs lace
the rafters like
silver secrets.

And still,
some light spills in—
where the walls
cracked,
where time forgot
to finish what it started.

A red marble waits
in the corner,
half-sunk in the floor’s soft rot—
as if a hand once meant
to return
but never did.

And somehow,
in that breath between
forgetting and knowing,
you ache
for the echo
of the child
that once called this home.

37/52
 
A Talk between two, now in the Evening News

"You again," the voice murmurs,
soft as silver mist at dawn.
"You always come, yet never speak,
only stand and watch me on."

A silence hums between the words,
then, softly, something sighs.
"You look unsure," the voice returns,
"No more riddles. No more lies."

A laugh, too quiet to belong,
flickers, brittle, in the air.
"Would it matter if I changed?
If I wasn’t really there?"

A pause—longer now. Too long.
The silence waits, sways, lingers.
"Say something," the voice insists.
But only breath curls at its fingers.

"You always hesitate."
The words fold into the hush.
"What are you searching for?"
A glance. A flicker. The rush—

"I don't know."
A whisper now. Thinner. Bare.
"If I say it, it will be real.
If you don’t, it stays nowhere."

A hand rises.
A pulse stills.
A shape blurs—

Then— Shatter.

Splintered shards catch the last breath.
A fractured silence. A hollow hush.
No answer. No echo.
Just an ending carved in dust.

A glint—sharp, fleeting—
slides along the edge of shadow.
Something warm unfurls,
slow as a secret spilling over.

The floor drinks deeply,
its grain darkening,
a map of rivers tracing
paths that twist, then vanish.

A rhythm falters—
shallow, uneven,
a tide retreating
from a shore too still.

The air grows heavy,
weighted with copper,
a scent that clings,
unseen, unspoken.

And the dust—
it settles,
soft as a sigh,
on a surface now glistening,
now quiet, now vast.

№11 of 52
 
Last edited:
"She turns"

[Stalker’s Voice]

She slips through the crowd, unsure, too fast—
A flickering flame not meant to last.
No one sees her. But I do.
Only I know what she’s moving through.

Footsteps quick, breath held tight,
She runs like prey too close to light.
A rabbit skimming midnight stone,
Fleeing fast—but not alone.

Her panic spills in every glance—
That lovely ache, that silent dance.
She knows. She feels. But does she see?
Turn around—just once—just once for me.

She will. She must. They always do.
The hunted look—when danger’s due.
Fear is curious. Terror slow.
She’ll turn. She has to know.
---

[Girl’s Voice]

Walls blur in. My chest won’t rise.
A breath too close. A voice behind.
Too near. Too slow. Too wrong.
This street has stretched a mile too long.

No breath. No face. Just sound that bends.
A shape that shifts. A step that rends.
The ground feels thin, my pace unsure.
I’m running still—but through a door.

No names, no signs. Only him.
That steady pull, that crawling limb.
A whisper brushing past my ear—
Where do I run? It’s almost here.

Don’t stop. Don’t breathe. Don’t fall.
He’s coming fast—he wants it all.
My skin can feel the reaching fear.
Someone’s close. Someone’s—near.
---

[Reversal]

She stops. She turns. Her gaze—unblinking.
A smile too wide. Her teeth—too many.
The air goes still. His heartbeat stutters.
Blood calls blood—pure thirst that flutters.

She stops.
She turns.
She grins.
He runs.

But not
fast
enough.
---

Epilogue

One body found in alleyway.
No visible injuries.
Cause of death unknown.
Witness say seeing
“a girl with glassy eyes” nearby.
But there's no trace.
---

№12 of 52
 
An awakening call!

She steps away—silent, unseen,
Dust slipping beneath her feet.
The sea exhales. The stars blink once.
The wind hums low in her wake.

She walks, weary—
Until weariness claims her,
And under a lone tree, far from the world’s noise,
She folds herself into sleep,
A cocoon of shadow and sigh.

"She rests," murmur the wheat, golden and tall,
"But will she rise?"
"She dreams," sighs the air, brushing her brow,
"But will she wake?"

Fireflies gather—tiny lanterns aflame—
"Let us guide her," they flicker.
Moths circle, hesitant.
"Let her stay," they murmur, wings trembling.

A single ember drifts—
Falling against her skin like truth,
Too bright. Too sharp.
She stirs.

The stream surges forward, restless.
"She must move," it urges, lapping her ankles.
Cool fingers trail up her soles,
Whispering promises in liquid syllables.
Pull. Whisper. Wake.

The moths dive at the water's edge,
Wings beating back the silver tongue
That speaks of morning, speaks of movement.

The bee alights upon her wrist—
Bold, insistent.
"I offer memory," it drones, and stings.

Her breath catches—
Pain blossoms, seeps into slumber.
A crack in the dark.

The crow tilts its head, all shadow and question.
"She does not belong," it caws.
But the dove coos beside it, soft as forgiveness:
"She will learn."

A broken mirror drinks the starlight,
Each shard holding a different sky.
She turns toward it in her sleep—
Seven selves she may never recognize.

The donkey brays—sharp, shattering silence.
She jerks, the weight of dreams fraying.
The hyena laughs, cruel and gleeful:
"Stay lost," it sings. "Stay forgotten."

And then comes he who casts no shadow,
Whose footsteps leave no mark in dark.
The golden wheat bends away.
Even the stars forget to shine.
The tide trembles at the edge of decision.

As he bends forth, between mercy and malice—
He extends one hand.
And when his choice takes root—
She wakes.

Her eyes snap open—not to light,
But to the weight of the weary delight.
The world exhales. The spell breaks.
She is no longer who she was.

The wheat sighs. The sea exhales.
The fireflies retreat, their glow fading into dusk.

She rises, kicking the silvery sand,
Weighed by the silver left deep within.


№13 of 52
 
There once were three men in a bed
Who all slept head to head
Two dreamt they were rubbing
But the middle one was blubbing
As he dreamt he went skiing instead!
 
Master Pieces
By Bear Sage

Beauty quivered
on the cusp of form,
waiting for the hand
that would decide
where her breath should catch.

He circled once—
not like a predator,
but like a sculptor
studying marble
already aching
to be made smooth.

Silk rope braided
against pale wrist—
not tight,
but perfect.
Just enough to teach
stillness.

He painted with pressure—
fingertips dipped
in command,
brushing discipline
across the canvas
of her waiting skin.

A collar fastened
with the patience of ritual.
A look—
razor-sharp,
measured in inches
and held breath.

She bloomed
under the weight
of his silence,
each pause a permission
to ache louder.

When he struck—
it wasn’t violence.
It was shape.
A red welt arched
like a crescent moon
bent into obedience.

Beauty happened
in the curve of her spine
as he carved a yes
without a word.

He built her
with shadow and sweat—
a cathedral of moans,
an altar of bruises
meant only
for his hands.

Not broken.
Arranged.
Not taken.
Claimed.

And when she shattered—
she did so
beautifully,
because he told her
when.


38/52
 
Histrionic

Lipstick on his cock—
a crooked signature smeared across
the final draft of last night’s lie.
She left it there.
Like graffiti on the side of a train
that never stops long enough to be admired,
only captured in blurred passing
and whispered about
by voyeurs in passing windows.

The hotel room is theater—
curtains drawn shut like a hanged man’s last request,
bedsheets twisted in scriptless chaos,
and the minibar—
half-emptied like her mascara bottle
when the crying started for the third act.

She’s barefoot in a silk robe,
spinning,
arms wide,
monologuing to no one
and everyone:
the ceiling fan,
the cracked mirror,
the unpaid room service tray
that watches with the silence of a jury
already bored of the trial.

He is off-stage.
But his scent is a soliloquy.
Smoke and ego.
Chlorine and bourbon.
A ghost made of cologne and closure.
He didn’t slam the door.
He whispered it shut
like a curse with lipstick teeth.

She performs collapse with precision.
A slow fall into the armchair,
legs spread like accusation,
cigarette held like a microphone,
ashtray applause raining down
with every drag.

The neighbors upstairs
mistake her sob for climax,
but she is rehearsing grief
in five emotional dialects.
Each tear timed
to the crescendo
of last night’s voicemail
replayed again and again
like a director yelling, “Cut—
from the top.”

She will rise soon,
rewrite the ending,
and deliver her lines
to the next fool with a room key
and a taste
for tragedy.

Because heartbreak—
for her—
isn’t a wound.
It’s
a role.
And she plays it
like lipstick
on a cock.

39/52
 
A Penny for Your Thoughts


I was a whisper once,
pressed warm from the mint’s mouth—
a newborn with Lincoln’s spine,
gleaming like a sunrise
on the stoop of commerce.

Held between prayers and palms,
slipped into the Sunday tray
like redemption in miniature.
I jingled inside children’s pockets,
bought bubblegum and belief,
felt the soft pulse of a wish
as I kissed fountain water
and sank with hope stitched to my skin.

I have known the tremble of first dates—
the counting of exact change
when dignity rides on dimes,
I stood beside the quarters,
equal in the eyes of the broke
who knew the worth of every damn cent.

But altars fall.
Hands that once held me
with hush and intention
now fumble past me—
searching for something louder.
The reverence went silent
before I did.

I became the pause no one takes.
The small grace no longer given.
Not enough to offer,
not enough to keep.
Their fingers learned to skip me
like a skipped prayer—
too slight for blessing,
too slow for the rush
of a faster world.

They rewrote worth
without me in the sentence.
My copper tongue
no longer speaks
the language of exchange.
I am folklore in a cashier’s sigh—
my weight once sacred,
now inconsequential.

They still say
a penny for your thoughts
but leave their minds
untouched.
Unspoken.
As if even thoughts
have become too expensive
for something like me.

And so,
I vanish—not discarded,
but unwritten.
No longer cast,
no longer carried,
just the ghost
of a glint
that once bought wonder.

40/52
 
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