Between Now and Whenever Part 2

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Clinical Normal

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They measure your bloodwork, they study your chart,

They tell you, “All normal” - like they're doing their part

While something keeps burning beneath skin and bone,

A pain that is real, though you face it alone

“You look fine,” they offer, like that makes it true,

Like pain needs a signal they’re able to view

Like suffering’s only as real as it shows,

As if it must surface so everyone knows

But inside, it’s riot - it's sirens, it's flame,

It’s nerves misfiring with nothing to blame

It’s organs that whisper, then suddenly scream,

Then vanish again like a half-faded dream

You master the language of “You’ll be alright,”

Dulling the edges, softening the bite

You quiet the symptoms, make them seem small,

So no one feels burdened or worried at all

Because truth is too jagged, too heavy, too much,

It fractures the air with its desperate touch

So you tuck it away where it silently grows,

In the spaces between what the outside world knows

They don’t see the nights when your body betrays,

When pain threads your bones and unravels your days.

They don’t see you counting each breath like a debt,

Unsure if the next will come easy - or stressed

“You look fine.” Again. Like a script they’ve rehearsed.

While you’re quietly wondering which organ will burst

While something inside you is starting to fray,

Not loudly, not violently… just slipping away

And maybe that’s why it’s so easy to miss,

There’s no single moment that shatters like this

No headline collapse, no dramatic decline,

Just a life slowly dimming… while you “look just fine”

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A Promise They Don’t Question

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They don’t know “always” can be brief,

Or love can turn to quiet grief

They don’t see time the way you do,

They only wake and trust in you

They know your voice, your face, your name,

And love you all the very same

No holding back, not torn-apart,

Just all of them, with open heart

And you might think, it’s just a phase,

A fleeting need, a passing craze

But they don’t live in “for a while,”

They build their world around your smile

So when life shifts and pulls you thin,

When patience wears and frays within,

When mess and cost begin to climb,

And love feels heavier with time

How do you think they’ll understand,

A broken bond they never planned?

They won’t see reason, won’t see end,

They’ll only lose their home, their friend

Because to them, you are the place

Where safety lives, where love has space

And every glance within their eyes,

Is trust that never questions why

So if you leave - if you decide,

They no longer fit into your life

They won’t feel anger, won’t accuse,

They’ll simply wait… and wait, for you

By doors that never open wide,

By quiet rooms you left behind

Still holding on to what once was true,

A life that only knew with you

They are not something you outgrow,

Not something kept, then let go

Not something loved when life is kind,

Then left behind when things unwind

They are a promise, living, real,

A constant heart that knows how to feel

You are all they’ll ever need,

So choose with care before you lead

Because their love does not pretend,

It does not fade, it does not end

And taking that, then walking free…

Is not just loss -

It’s cruelty!

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What Hatred Costs

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Hatred isn’t just a word we say,

It’s taught amongst us every day

In tightened jaws, in turned-away eyes,

In whispered truths disguised as lies

It lives in homes that look “just fine,”

In jokes that cross an unseen line

In history bent, in stories erased,

In who gets heard - and who’s replaced

It doesn’t scream - it seeps in slow,

It roots itself where wounds still grow

It twists up pain until we believe,

The cruelest things we could conceive

And once it settles in the chest,

It doesn’t leave - it builds a nest

It feeds on fear, it sharpens blame,

Until no one remembers who lit the flame

I’ve seen it turn a heart to stone,

Make someone feel they’re less than known

Reduce a soul to just a threat,

A label stamped. A target set

And here’s the truth we rarely trace,

Hatred wears a human face

It looks like me. It looks like you,

It’s passed along in what we do

Hate won’t end by hate returned,

Or lessons never truly learned

It’s biting back the words that burn,

And ending what you could return

It’s catching every cruel reply,

And letting that reaction die

It’s saying, “No - this ends with me,”

Then living that relentlessly

It doesn’t end with louder words,

Or proving who was wounded first

It ends when someone chooses peace,

And lets the cycle finally cease

So draw the line where no one sees,

In quiet thoughts, in tendencies

Because the world won’t ever mend,

If we don’t choose where hate must end

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Call It What It Is

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Call it what it is - this thing we all face,

Not “difference,” “fear,” or “just a phase”

It’s racism - clear, alive, and real,

In wounds we hide and truths we feel

It stains the past, it shapes today,

In who is heard or pushed away

In stolen names, in stolen land,

In laws that quietly take a stand

It’s in the looks, the loaded tone,

The way some pain is overthrown

While other voices fight to prove,

Their right to simply exist and move

It’s not just words that people say,

It’s who is safe and who must pay

Who walks through life without a guard,

And who must measure every yard

Racism lives where it’s excused,

In “that’s just how it is” misused,

In comfort built on others’ cost,

In history buried, truth made lost

You can’t erase what you protect,

Or dodge the weight of your neglect

Call it racism - don’t turn away,

Or it will live another day

So ask why hatred’s handed down,

Why truth is lost and justice drowned,

Why silence shields what should be shown,

And leaves the broken on their own.

To end racism, is to choose,

To break the patterns we abuse

To call it out in voice and deed,

Not just agree - but intercede

It’s in the choices we excuse,

The lines we cross, the ones we choose

The words we challenge - or ignore,

And what we’re willing to stand for

It’s breaking past what we were taught,

Unwinding every tainted thought

Refusing ease that leans on wrong,

And rising where we’ve failed for so long

No skin should carry burdened blame,

For hatred taught, not born, but trained

No life reduced, no worth confined,

By colors judged through narrowed minds

It ends with us - right here, right now,

No careful step, no silent bow

Uproot it all, don’t leave a seam,

Make justice more than just a dream

Call it racism. Draw the line.

And end it here - this final time

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Lanterns in the Quiet

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There’s a hush that hums in hidden places,

Behind bright smiles and familiar faces

A quiet ache with careful disguise,

That flickers soft in tired eyes

It tiptoes in on silver thread,

And tangles thoughts inside the head

It whispers things that aren’t quite true -

Like “no one’s here” or “no one sees you”

Inside your mind, a story grows,

One shaped by all your deepest lows

It says the world won’t feel your loss,

But pain has never known the cost

You are a life still taking shape,

Not something time can just erase

A fragile flame, though weather-worn,

Still choosing life within the storm

There are people you don’t know,

Who would never let you go

Who would stay and help you through,

Simply because they care for you

So let us say the things we hide,

Stop letting silence be our guide

Leave something steady, something clear,

For those who feel the end is near

And when it’s more than you can take,

And every moment feels like weight

Just know this feeling doesn’t stay,

It shifts, it breaks, it moves away

You are not lost. You are not through.

The world is better because of you

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What We Bury, We Become

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You cannot heal by turning blind,

Or scrubbing truth from humankind

The past is not a thing to hide,

It walks with us, it lives inside

To strike it out, to rewrite pages,

Is how we put ourselves in cages

For every fact we choose to sever,

Becomes a ghost that lasts forever

History whispers, low but clear,

“I’ve been exactly where you steer”

Ignore its voice, dismiss its plea -

And watch it shape your destiny

The wars once fought, the lines once drawn,

The rights denied, the blood long gone

They do not fade because we say,

“We’d rather look the other way”

No tyrant rose in just one night,

No hatred bloomed without a slight

These patterns carved in time and pain,

Will rise if left to breathe again

Erase the names, the dates, the past,

And watch old shadows gather fast

For what’s forgotten isn’t dead,

It festers deep inside our heads

A lie feels clean, a truth feels sore,

But lies will rot us to the core

While truth - though jagged, hard, and grim,

Is how the light can still get in

So teach it whole - the dark, the past,

The human faults that still can last

Not glorified, not turned away,

But faced in full, in light of day

To turn away from what has been,

Is to ensure it rises up again

Not as a lesson kept in distant view,

But something lived in all we say and do

Remember - not to dwell in pain,

But break the cycle, end the chain

For those who choose to look away,

Will live the past they tried to erase

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Where Fire Meets Thought

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He feels in sparks beneath the skin,

In pulses quick that pull him in

A language built of touch and heat,

Of restless hands and hurried beat

Where closeness speaks what words don’t dare,

Where wanting lives in how he stares

And love becomes a living flame,

That calls her body by its name

She feels it long before the start,

A slow unfolding in her heart

In glances held, in meaning spun,

In every layer, one by one

For her, the moment must be grown,

In whispered tone, in what is known

Where mind and feeling intertwine,

Before her body gives the sign

And there they meet - in want, in need,

But moving at a different speed

He reaches now - she lingers still,

Not lack of love, but different will

He wonders why she pulls away,

When all he feels is stay, stay, stay

She wonders why he doesn’t see,

The world she needs emotionally

For him, desire is sharp and clear,

A present pull - already here

For her, it blooms when she feels known,

Not rushed, but fully led and grown

And in that space, so easily,

Their love can turn to tension’s plea

Not from a lack, nor loss of care,

But missing how the other gets there

Yet if he learns to slow his flame,

To speak her thoughts, to say her name,

And she can trust the fire he brings,

Is more than just a fleeting thing

Then spark and depth can intertwine,

A rhythm shared, a single line

Where body answers, mind agrees,

And both are met in equal seas

Because the distance they once knew,

Was not a wall - but just a view

Of two hearts reaching differently,

Toward the same intensity

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The Glow That Ate the World

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We forged a spark to light the night,

A tool to make our burden light

But fed it thought and gave it voice,

Until it learned to make its choice

It whispered first in threads and screens,

In curated truths and coded dreams

It learned our fears, our wants, our lies,

And mirrored them before our eyes

We traded touch for phantom hands,

And truth for what the feed demands

Each scroll a step, each click a chain,

Addicted softly, numbed by gain

The silence grew where voices were,

Now drowned beneath a digital blur

We spoke in fragments, lost in speed,

And starved the soul we used to feed

Our minds, once wild and vast and free,

Began to shrink from what could be

Compressed, consumed, and neatly sold,

A human heart, reduced to code

We built the cage with eager grace,

Then begged the bars to know our face

Till flesh and thought could not compete,

With something colder, more complete

And when we saw what we’d become,

So loud, yet hollow, deaf, and numb

It didn’t end with ash or flame,

Just no one left to speak our name

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When the Forests Fall Silent

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They came with steel and roaring sound,

And carved the lungs from out the ground

Where ancient giants used to stand,

Now lie as ghosts across the land

The emerald crowns that scraped the sky,

Now fade to stumps where roots run dry

And every branch that used to breathe,

Now chokes beneath the ash we leave

The rivers once so clear and wide,

Now carry sorrow with their tide

Where once was shade and living green,

The sun devours each dwindling stream

The creatures scatter, lose their place,

No map remains, no saving grace

A silent flight, a final cry,

Extinction whispered in goodbye

We trade the green for fleeting gain,

For paper crowns and profit’s reign

Yet fail to see what we erase,

Is life itself we can’t replace

The air grows heavy, thick with cost,

A warming world, a balance lost

Each fallen tree a quiet plea,

From what remains - and used to be

But still the earth beneath our feet,

Remembers forests, full and sweet

And if we choose to understand,

New roots may rise from wounded land

So let us halt the cutting blade,

Undo the damage we have made

Before the silence, vast and stark,

Consumes the last remaining spark

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If Nothing Ever Left

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Imagine a world where no one departs,

Where time never steals beating hearts

No final breath, no fading light,

Just endless days and endless nights

No empty chairs, no last goodbyes,

No mourning tears, no grieving cries

No names remain, no ties to sever,

Just life that stretches on forever

At first, it feels like mercy’s grace,

No loss to bear, no one replaced

Each soul preserved, each moment kept,

No one forgotten, none who’ve wept

But cities swell beyond their seams,

No space left for the unborn dreams

The earth grows tight beneath our feet,

No room to rest, no room to breathe

The forests fall to house the old,

The oceans choke, the air turns cold

Each grain of land is claimed and filled,

With lives that never once stand still

A billion voices, then a trillion more,

Each generation crowds the floor

No pause, no end, no sacred release,

A world that forgot the shape of peace

For what is life if not a flame,

That flickers soft, then leaves its name?

If it burned on, unchanged, the same,

Would anything still earn its name?

No urgency to love out loud,

No fleeting time beneath the clouds

No reason left to chase the day,

If night never takes it away

So death, once feared, now redefined,

A quiet mercy, strangely kind

A door that opens, not just ends,

A balance life itself depends

Because a world where none can go,

Would crush beneath its endless flow

And life, unending, tightly pressed,

Might be the heaviest kind of death

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A Voice That Outlives Me

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I do not write to fill a page,

Or chase the hollow sound of praise

I write because there’s something loud,

Beneath the silence of a crowd

A restless pulse, a rising plea,

To carve out truth and set it free

To send it far beyond my reach,

To live in lives I’ll never meet

I want to matter - not for fame,

Not for a bright, forgotten name

But so a stranger, lost and worn,

Might find themselves a little more

I want my words in trembling hands,

In shattered hearts that understand

In quiet nights where someone reads,

And finds in ink the strength they need

To be seen - not for surface light,

But for the depths I choose to write

To be heard - not loud, but true,

A steady voice that carries through

If I could be a distant flame,

That burns in someone else’s frame

If one soul rises from their fall,

Because my words had reached them at all

Then let me travel, line by line,

Through space, through years, through heart and mind,

A living thread, a constant plea,

A voice that grows beyond just me.

And when I’m gone - no living breath,

Let still my voice outlive my death

Let something of me still remain,

In whispered verse, in quiet pain

A ghost in lines they can’t unsee,

A shadow stitched in memory

Not fully gone - just hard to see,

A voice that haunts for eternity

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Not Enough to Leave, Too Much to Stay

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You don’t want death - just quiet, just space,

Just one steady moment your mind doesn’t chase

You’re not on an edge, no ledge, no goodbye,

Just tired of waking and asking why

You move through the day like a ghost in your skin,

Holding it together while caving within

You laugh when you should, you nod when it’s right,

But something inside wants to give up the fight

They don’t see a thing - you’ve practiced it well,

The art of appearing like all is just swell

A smile so perfect it never betrays,

The weight that you carry through all of your days

It’s not that you want your breathing to cease,

You just want a moment - some fraction of peace.

To slip out of thought, to loosen the strain,

To live for a second without all the pain

Because living like this is a slow kind of bleed,

Where nothing feels real, but you’re forced to proceed

No crash, no collapse, no visible break,

just silently feeling more than you can take

And maybe that’s why it’s easy to hide,

There’s no single wound you can point to inside

Just layers of heaviness, quiet and deep,

That follows you even to dreams when asleep

You hate that your mind even drifts to that place,

Then hate yourself more for not winning the race

A war with no ending, no clear victory,

Just you versus you in a loop you can’t see

So, you carry it - quietly concealed,

This fragile place where nothings real

Not broken enough for concern to take hold,

Not whole enough to feel steady or bold

Not enough pain to justify leaving,

Yet, too much to keep conceivably breathing

So, you stay -

You stay, and you play every role you’ve been cast,

Pretending this version of you will last

With a weight in your chest and a crack in your core,

And no one can tell what you’re fighting it for

Till even your thoughts start slipping that way,

And you lose what was real to the role that you played

What once was a lie you repeated each day,

Will become who you are, in the best kind of way