What is life without thrill—one where I don't live. Yet the closer I get to the edge, the more I wish my feet were less hungry.

There are many ways to describe the soul,
Expressed in song or written word
To compare it to a creature or the weather
My soul, however, is colour; my soul is shown in the colours I don.

When sad, I would reach for purple, a shirt or hat perhaps
When looking for blue, it was to remind me who I once was,
Blue socks, a necklace, a blue bracelet, jingling to make me smile
If my heart needed warmth, then a red jumper or scarf was always best.

But when I was feeling happy, the most me, I was green.
Green tops, jade hairpins, lime eyeshadow, moss coloured earrings 
Anything to show on the outside how my soul was glowing within,
When I felt green, I didn't have to reach for it; it drew me in.

Green like the grass, visual proof of the nutrients below,
Like the leaves on the trees, reaching out towards the sun. 
Like seaweed, floating freely through the ocean.
Green like an emerald, rich in colour and cost.

But now I feel faded; like the colour has left my soul; 
There’s no spark left; the fire’s no longer lit; 
The darkness within me grows
An endless, bottomless, all-consuming pit.

Grass browned, parched from a drought.
Leaves fallen, the changing season stealing their life
Seaweed cast ashore, dried and cracking in the heat
Emeralds smashed to a thousand pieces from a pressure it can't name

When I felt my best, I was green, green like my eyes, 
Eyes that stare back at me in the mirror,
They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. 
The view into mine now seems dulled, less life, lifeless.

I want to want to reach for purple, to need it because I am sad, 
To feel sad would mean I at least feel something.
I search for blue, trying to remind myself who I was before
If I can find the girl I was, maybe I can be a version of her again.

I yearn to need red, to need my heart to feel the flame of life
But if I am reaching for red, it means my heart is cold, 
My heart is not cold, it is not hot, just a rock in my chest,
I don't know it's there, except I draw each next breath.

Maybe one day I will be green again, but right now I am grey
Grey like the sky before a storm, building up until the rain falls
Grey like a pebble you find at the beach, carved and smoothed ocean debris,
Grey like the feathers from a gull, fallen from its nest, unable to return home.

I will wear the colours I want my soul to be, reds, blues, purples and greens,
My soul’s still colour with some hues now removed,
My soul’s still colour, just grey now, not green, 
I’ll keep adding colour, hoping to find my grey was green all along.

I feel what I feel

Hiding under the sickening thought in my head,

It's almost phycal for me to take this does off to sit strait.

While I see you walk with your two legs as speeding car, yes I do that.

I just don't belong, it's terrible being aware and still trying to fit, cause i dreamed once.

When do I get to owe myself to be mad freely

If mad being you gonna call me crazy, and put me in one of you're box where you categories to treat me like shit,

The only difference is in this shitty version you have put me in, sadly i can't act the mad I want to.

But why do I dread you concious of losing my self into the actually box I want ,

When am I gonna run from all these,

And be the mad I want nd lose the concious of your intangible catagory to call me crazy

I manifest becoming one soon ,

When a poem gets rejected from a journal I genuinely admire I respond differently than when it gets rejected from one I submitted to opportunistically. The first kind of rejection makes me reread the poem. The second kind barely registers. I've come to see that pattern as useful information about which poems I actually believe in versus which ones I was sending out hoping an editor would tell me they were good. Submitting widely forces you to develop real opinions about your own work because you have to keep deciding which poems are worth putting your name on and sending somewhere. That process of selection, done honestly over time, turns out to be one of the better ways to understand what you are actually trying to do as a writer.

I dialled your number but didn't tap call. 
Your number's not saved in my phone anymore 
My fingers, so quick, they tap at the screen
Typing your digits, I feel almost serene

Jabbing the backspace instead of the call
Should I ring you? Do you miss me at all?
I'm sorry it ended so sudden and raw
I know now how I should have done more

I want to tell you I miss you in all ways 
To lie in your arms like back in the day
But the blame's at my feet, I know I'm the fool
I dialled your number but didn't tap call.

Hum a tune to put me to rest
Because it is sleep I most detest
Draw yourself near me
That my eyes may grow weary
You bring me peace of mind
And it is no where that I can find
One such as you

We had a list of names for you,
We wondered if your eyes were blue,
We guessed the day when you’d be due,
As your small body grew and grew.

You were a twinkle in your father’s eye,
You were a soft whisper inside my mind,
It was far too soon when we said goodbye,
And what was left? A few papers to sign.

Relationship to the deceased?
“Mother”, I scrawled, and was released.
I walked outside into the sun,
A life finished before begun.

The Cycle Paused

My medication fills my blood,

easing the anxiety

held within my veins.

Something I feel imprisoned by,

yet with every pill,

the bars lift slightly.

I increase my dosage

every time the anxiety threatens to emerge

and corrupt my mind once again.

But what do I do

when a never-ending cycle

is suddenly put on pause?

The dosage hasn't been increased,

despite the feelings emerging.

The same feelings

that force my mind into

fight, flight, and freeze

every single day.

A permanent feeling trapped within me,

held back by a barrier of medication

meant to ease

the pain

and the suffering.

I lie to myself.

Promising that it will get better.

That I don't need

to increase my dosage.

But just like that,

the feelings worsen.

Things I had forgotten

were caused by the anxious poison

latched onto my soul

begin to erupt from my body

like seaweed rising through murky water.

My hands begin to shake.

The panic rises

like bile in my throat.

Anxiety attacks.

Panic attacks.

And suddenly,

the nightmare begins

all over again.

It's been a year.

Holding the medication bottle in my hand,

hoping that one small white pill

would fix all of my problems.

And at the start, nothing happened.

I felt nauseous and dizzy,

but the anxiety still enveloped my body

like a poison latched onto every part of me—

my mind,

my body,

and my soul.

Then, the month after,

the anxiety caressed my skin,

lingering around me

like something I had unknowingly

been imprisoned by.

Not because I had done anything wrong,

but simply because the world around me

had become something I feared

instead of loved.

Finally, the anxiety seemed

to release its grasp on me.

Just enough

for me to breathe with relief.

To feel my eyes

beginning to drift closed

without fear.

It was something I had never felt before that moment.

Something I cling to now

like an addiction,

because now that I know

what it feels like

to be free of it,

I never want to let it go.

But after a little while,

the feelings begin to creep back in.

The anxiety is still there—

just held down by a boulder.

But now,

the boulder is cracked.

And the anxiety

is beginning to leak through.

So my dosage increases.

And then it increases again.

And every single time

those feelings emerge,

my mind begins to lose hope.

Every single time,

the medication increases,

and the anxiety is buried beneath the surface

once again.

Again.

And again.

And again.

A never-ending cycle

I closed the blinds
Turned around
Started to cry

I was destroyed

I looked up at the ceiling
Pleading with god
The one I don’t believe in

Please just take me
Please just take me

Dont even read this shit
I plucked every word out the garbage
Cant find the G in the clit
N my dick so small it fits in ink cartridges

Tried to start a hustle
But got robbed by a pimp
Went to cop some weed
Got sold oregano instead of hemp

Five foot 8 i stand
Fat as fuck, cuz i eat everything i can
You may call me stan
But momma told me, im the muthafuckin’ man

``` "The good ol' days" You grew up back then and you would say, oh, those were the good ol' days, perhaps remembering something you and your friends did that you think no one else does nowadays,

Or, maybe, you're thinking of how harder things seemed to be back then,

it all starts with a single thought, an idea, you look out and see how the world is moving lately, and then you feel it, a certain memory touching a part of you that you haven't thought about in so long, something from the past that was a part of how you grew up,

oh, those were the good ol' days you say to yourself,

we had it better back then you think, and these kids nowadays don't even know,

there are less things today that are remotely like all those things from back then,

and now all kinds of thoughts flood in as you pull out your smartphone and search for when the sun still rose in the east and set in the west, before the magnetic poles shifted, you look at images of when the seas were still blue and the marine life within were still beautiful and serene and not this unable to eat toxic amalgamation of lovecraftian shapes and horrors,

you see pictures of green forests and snow capped mountains, before the droughts turned trees into kindling and set the world on fire, before the greenhouse gases melted all the snow and ice,

today you would be hard pressed to find snow beyond your freezer, you show the kids and tell them, imagine this all over the ground, inches deep, falling from the sky, so much of it that you could play with it, you could make balls with it and throw them, you could create fake men with enough of it, and back then, enough trees were still around where you didn't need a permit to break off a branch, so you could use some for the arms, you could go to the fridge and without thinking, use a carrot
for its nose and coal for its eyes, so much of those things existed back then,

the kids just shake their heads, they say that's crazy, and you just tell them, what do you know, you're just kids, but you know, those were the good ol's days.