reflections of an unquiet mind

I am born lost—
a breath unclaimed, the echo of a shadow,
held in the cold, indifferent dawn.
The earth hums beneath me, its ribs rising,
and I wait, an unwelcome guest of light.

I am drawn to empty spaces,
to wells long dry and fractured mirrors,
to songs unsung and ghosts forgotten.
The world wears its bruises deep,
and I am the ache it never chose to hold.

I am a visitor here,
in a house that aches with my name,
walls that whisper when I turn away.
I learned early how to make silence a friend,
to weave it around my wrists,
wear it like a scarlet thread of belonging.

They say the stars chart our paths,
but mine slipped away—
a spark caught in wind, a faint memory,
smudged across the night like an afterthought.
Born lost, what guides me?
What compass pulls when even the earth
spins in its hollow, unsteady hands?

I speak in the language of ghosts,
cracked syllables and slivered breaths.
I peel back my skin like paper,
searching the lines for some map,
some sign that there was ever more to me
than dust, than bone, than the shadows
that have always known my name.

Born lost, I drift,
a moth at the window of this world,
fingers tracing the cold glass.
I wonder if it would be enough—
to feel the heat of a single, steady flame,
to be whole,
to belong, if only for a moment.

Leaves are turning to stone,
and I’m clutching at the wind—
resisting the pull of the soil,
the gravity of your absence.

I feel it: the weight beneath—
a slow drag to the depths,
where words sink heavy,
too heavy to carry alone,
too fleeting, like your love,
slipping through fingers
that once held tight.

Leaves are turning to stone,
and I’m caught in between:
falling and floating,
the crush of silence,
and the ache of words unspoken.

###

This one is about the fleeting nature of every struggle. It’s time for me to cut people out of my life. And it is also time to support friends who are struggling. Even in their silence, I love them very much. Even when I get angry or feel abandoned or neglected, I love them very much; and it is just a projection of my own emotions anyway. Leaves are turning to stone. Feather do too. I am fighting off a headache since last night – migraine. I stayed offline most of the day. I was not missed in any way or form. That’s sobering.

What if one thought slips away, and another takes its place? Like a shadow overtaking the light, shifting without warning, almost invisible in its arrival. I wonder sometimes if I even catch these transitions, or if they settle somewhere deep inside, like layers of sediment, one thought buried beneath the next. Can I trace where it all began, or does it matter?

There are thoughts I keep hidden, even from myself, carefully tucked away like pages in an old book no one opens. I wonder if they know I’m afraid to face them, if they understand that their weight is too much to carry in daylight. Maybe they know, and maybe they wait patiently, resurfacing when the time feels right. Or maybe they trickle out in words, slowly bleeding onto the page in fragments I barely understand.

Why do I hide them? Perhaps it’s fear, or perhaps they’re too raw, too revealing, exposing layers I’m not ready to show the world—or even myself. There’s a quiet comfort in their hiddenness, a quiet rebellion against the pressure to always know, always confront, always explain. These thoughts can be like ghosts—gentle, lingering, waiting for their moment to speak.

And somehow, they always find their way into poetry. They slip through the cracks, dressing themselves in metaphors, hiding within the rhythm and the lines, surfacing in ways I don’t fully understand until the words are on the page. Poetry becomes their disguise, and I let them take that form because it’s safe. In poetry, they’re less direct, cloaked in images that speak without revealing too much.

So I write, letting the hidden parts emerge—not as confessions but as echoes. The words come as if they’ve always been there, as if they’ve waited for me to release them in a language that feels close enough to truth without the sharpness of full exposure.

Is that what poetry is, in the end? The place where hidden thoughts breathe, where one thought turns into another, shifting and evolving until it lands, shaped but not caged, raw but somehow gentler. And perhaps that’s why I write—because in the lines of a poem, those hidden thoughts can live freely, beautifully, without the weight of judgment.

He sat alone in a room that seemed to shrink with every passing hour, the walls pressing in, their silence thick and unyielding. The air was stale, tinged with an old, sour smell that clung to him like a second skin. Outside, the night stretched on, suffocatingly still. But within these four walls, something breathed—a faint exhale, a slow, measured pulse woven into the silence, as if the room itself had absorbed lives long since gone.

It began softly, the way smoke curls and lingers in still air. He couldn’t pinpoint when he’d first noticed it, this strange, almost inaudible whisper that rose and fell, threading itself into his thoughts. It wasn’t a sound he could trace but a feeling, a silent watcher lurking in the corners of the room, just beyond his reach. The walls seemed to shift in their stillness, their breath a faint, unnatural pulse that matched his own, stretching and compressing, as if holding fragments of those who’d been here before him.

He tried to ignore it, to shake it off as exhaustion, but shadows began thickening in the corners, seeping like spilled ink, crawling up the walls. They inched closer, each movement deliberate, silent, until fragments of memories flared to life—sharp, jagged flashes that pulled him under.

A memory rose: his mother’s voice, quiet but fierce, urging him to stay still, to listen. She sat in her chair, her hands clinging to a faded cloth, her gaze fixed on something unseen. She’d had a way of watching him, almost as if she’d known something would catch up with him, a shadow that waited patiently. She’d reach out sometimes, her hand hovering in the air, but she’d never finish what she wanted to say. The look in her eyes haunted him—a shadowed knowledge, a warning she’d carried to her grave.

The shadows crept closer, brushing against his skin, cold and damp like earth after rain, carrying faint whispers. He couldn’t tell if the voices belonged to him or to the room. They murmured fragments of words he couldn’t piece together, sounds too familiar to dismiss, too twisted to ignore. He pressed his hands to his ears, but the whispers curled through his mind, insistent.

“Remember,” they seemed to say, each word prying open closed doors in his mind. The walls pulsed tighter, their silence broken only by that steady, rhythmic breath, so quiet it felt imagined. But he could feel it now—an unseen presence, woven into the walls, lingering in every crack and shadow.

The room was dense with memory, a weight he’d thought he’d left behind. He’d spent years running, locking doors in his mind, hiding fragments in places even he couldn’t reach. But here, now, the past rose like a tide, inescapable.

A faint smell—antiseptic and dust, the scent of hospital rooms and sleepless nights. He saw himself by his mother’s bedside, her hand slipping from his, her final breath so soft he almost missed it. The silence that followed had settled into him like a stone, a silence that seemed to breathe now, alive and waiting, as though she’d passed some part of herself into this room to find him again.

The shadows pooled at his feet, rising slowly, pressing close, their breath cold as the grave. He couldn’t move, couldn’t shake the feeling that they were waiting, that they knew him better than he knew himself. The walls loomed, their breath heavier, carrying secrets he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear.

“Remember,” they whispered again, louder, almost pleading. The room tilted, the walls pressing in, trapping him within his own memory. The breath of the walls thickened, and for the first time, he wondered if he would ever leave this room.

The shadows stilled, the whispers fading to silence. But he knew now the room would never be empty. The walls had taken part of him, absorbed his secrets, his past. They would carry him, his memories, until he too was part of the silence, woven into the breath of walls.

###

My little story for spooky season. Thoughts?

I carry silence like stones in my pocket,
heavy as shadows cast at dusk,
each one a relic of words swallowed whole,
of moments that pass, untouched by light.

In empty rooms, I listen to walls breathe,
their quiet pulse a secret life
echoing the places I forgot to feel.
This solitude – it clings, it hums, it holds.

Outside, the night bleeds into itself,
a bruise spreading under the skin of sky,
and I wonder if anyone else can feel
how darkness finds its home inside.

I trace the outline of forgotten things,
fingers brushing the ghost of warm voices,
the scent of rain-soaked streets, a flicker of light—
pressed thin between walls that don’t forget.

I sit, let the silence settle like dust.
There is no need to chase it away.
This weight is mine alone to hold,
a quiet proof, a steady pulse in the dark.

There’s a corner of my world that remains untouched by the noise and demands of everything and everyone around me. It’s not a place you can find on a map. No one else knows how to get there, and that’s how I need it to be. This space feels sacred—simple, but safe. I go there to find my breath, to listen to what I’m really thinking beneath all the layers of doubt, worry, and expectation.

Some days, it’s harder to reach. But on the hardest days, it’s where I find a sense of calm that feels more like myself than anything else. This isn’t about shutting people out or hiding; it’s about giving myself a quiet place to be. Here, I’m not fighting for approval, not weighed down by history. It’s just me—free from the expectations of what I should be doing, who I should be taking care of, or who I should try to become.

In this space, my past doesn’t have power over me. The scars I carry are present, yes, but in here, they lose their grip. They don’t define me. They’re just reminders of how far I’ve come. This is where I sort through my own thoughts, letting them fall apart or build into something meaningful, depending on what I need in the moment. Here, I write the truest words and find some clarity amidst the contradictions.

This isn’t a place I can explain to anyone else, and I don’t need to. All that matters is that it’s real and it’s mine. It’s where I anchor myself when life feels like it’s pulling me in every direction, stretching me until I don’t recognize myself. In this place, I gather strength, courage, and the quiet resolve to keep moving forward. I can be whole here, just as I am. And maybe that’s the only thing I really need. Being safe. Feeling safe. Here.

Message to my 20 year old self

“Trust the strength you already carry within. There will be people who recognize your worth, but don’t depend on their recognition to define it. Seek validation from your own resilience and accomplishments, rather than from others who may not see your full value. You are more than the sum of others’ perceptions of you; you are worthy of love, respect, and acknowledgment simply for who you are.”

I stand where the water meets the land, the salt clinging to my skin like an old memory that refuses to wash away. The ocean is endless, and today, it feels like a mirror, reflecting everything I’ve tried to bury beneath its surface. I watch the waves roll in, their whispers tugging at me, pulling at something buried deep, something I haven’t yet learned how to name.

The horizon stretches out before me, bleeding into the sky, a place where everything I’ve lost hovers—untouchable, unreachable. It’s not the first time I’ve stood here, staring into the blue abyss, hoping the answers might emerge from beneath the surface. But the ocean doesn’t offer answers. It simply is, vast and unmoved by my presence.

I walk along the shore, leaving footprints that won’t last. The sand is soft beneath my feet, giving way with every step, and yet I feel anchored here, as though I’m meant to remain still, to listen. The tide ebbs and flows, erasing every mark I leave behind, but I can still feel the imprint of my steps. I know where I’ve been, even if no one else does. Even if the ocean itself forgets.

There’s a kind of comfort in the way the waves carry on, in the way the sea never questions its place in the world. It just moves. Seagulls cry overhead, cutting through the quiet with their sharp calls, reminding me that life goes on, that the world keeps spinning even when I don’t feel a part of it.

I think about everything I’ve left behind. The choices. The people. The memories that cling to me like the salt in the air. It’s all fragments now, pieces of a life that no longer fits neatly into a narrative. Some days, I’m not even sure what the story was supposed to be. But standing here, at the edge of the world, it’s hard to ignore the weight of everything I’ve been carrying. The ocean, in its indifference, offers a strange kind of solace. It pulls me in, deeper, as though inviting me to let go.

I move closer to the water, feeling the wet sand beneath my feet, the coolness of the ocean’s edge brushing against my skin. I want to step into it, to let the water wrap around me, pulling me under, quieting the noise in my head. There’s something about the unknown that feels safer than the world I’ve been walking through.

I’m not sure how long I stand there, the tide rising and falling at my ankles, but eventually, the sky begins to darken, and I know I need to leave. The ocean doesn’t have answers, but maybe it’s the questions that matter. Maybe standing still and listening is the point.

As I turn to walk away, I realize the ocean doesn’t care if I come or go. It will keep crashing against the shore, erasing every trace I leave behind, but I’ll remember. I’ll carry the sound of the waves, the taste of salt, the pull of something deeper with me.

###

As I was looking for a picture, a memory really, I stumbled across a picture of my feet being tickled by the shore and I was inspired to write this. There is something about the ocean that makes me happy, it also makes me think about how small I am or how big I am. Both, actually. I love the ocean and the waves. It’s a place of calm and serenity. Something I crave often for myself but can’t have. Seeing the ocean, feeling the waves – that’s a luxury for me.

I could disintegrate in your soul
and disappear, never to be found again.
Not even the stars would recognize
my light shining through your eyes.

With every breath you steal,
I lose myself a little more,
fading into the heat of your skin,
where boundaries blur and dissolve.

Your hands are the flames
that burn away my edges,
melting me into the spaces
between your heartbeats.

In the stillness of night,
our shadows tangle and twist,
until I am no longer mine—
only yours,
a pulse within your veins.

Let me vanish into the curve of your smile,
taste the sweetness of our silence,
until the world forgets
we were ever two,
and we are only shadows,
bound by whispers of a love
that never needed words.