More poetry I’ve been dabbling in the last year and a half. Fixed Signs, Broken Time They said we were fixed and true, two stubborn stars that don’t know how to move, I held on like the water holds a stone, you stayed like earth stays, even left alone. Still checking clocks like they’ll turn back for me, still tracing patterns where you used to be, the calendar moved on, I didn’t note it, some part of me just never got the memo. They say the stars don’t lie, but I’m not sure, if fixed things stay, why aren’t you here anymore? I read the horoscope, it says let go, my chart says patience, but my heart says no. Time’s supposed to soften what I feel, but I don’t fade, I just conceal, I wear the calm like it’s a second skin, while somewhere underneath, I’m still stuck in the version of us that never said goodbye, still arguing with ghosts, still asking why you left me here to drown in all the things we never wrote back down. They said we’d balance, fire held by ground, but grounding isn’t holding when it’s gone. So here I am, still fixed, still moving.​​​​

Is it just me or have the gays become meaner to eachother lately? I keep having these aweful interactions with guys and it’s clear it’s rooted in insecurities and hurt, but I don’t understand the approach of taking others down because you disagree or if you get rejected. Yes it’s sucks, I also feel terrible when I’m putting myself out there and I’m not being met, but I always try to lead with compassion and understanding, I also try to be curious, but at the moment I’m being met with this anger and resentment for no apparent reason, and I’m at capacity with having to deal with this energy from strangers. Am I the only one that feels this way?

The early 20s make it easy to believe there will always be someone else. Another match. Another date. Another chance. Hearts get broken without fully understanding how deeply someone else was feeling. Then time passes. One day, the roles quietly reverse. The waiting begins. The overthinking. The unanswered messages. The silence that suddenly feels louder than words. Maybe that’s karma. Not as punishment, but as life’s way of teaching empathy by letting every heart experience both sides of love. What do you think? Is this karma, or simply a lesson that only time can teach?

Fell in love for the first time With a friend, who was here a while Feels heaven like maybe he is mine 31 took a lifetime. People say he looks happy Because he’s sharp and skinny. Old him is still him, Maybe the real him. Look, I made him pretty He still cries I don’t know why. Makes me smile. Is he acting his age now? When will he be on his way out? He stepped off the stage, like a bird in a cage. Told him, he’s my secret He didn’t get to keep. People are hungry for the meanest, Somebody has to feed. Does he still cry? Still makes me smile. He never did any wrong. His patience is gone. He’d loved and lost for too long.

i just want someone who gets me, not only that but someone who wants to know me. every time i talk to someone on the apps, im always met with conversation that burns out quickly because there is a lack of want or curiosity. it’s always, “hey how are you?” and never “hey, mercury retrograde is messing with me right now, how is it for you?” the how are you’s seem routine based, and don’t even get me started on when someone just says, “i’m good.” like excuse me??? do you not care how i am? immediate no no. i’m just so over it. the last guy i had a genuine conversation with who knew how to keep it, i found out a week later that he has a girlfriend. not in the chill-polyamorous way, but in the she-doesn’t-know-but-she-knows-tove-lo kind of way (iykyk). i also had a meaningful conversation from grindr of all places and learned how he was homeless in college and lived in someone’s shed in the backyard with no AC in the heat of August. it was beautiful, all the stories he told about being on drugs and not really caring about anything except the experience of what it’s like to be young back in the 2000’s. and then just like that, i’ve never heard back from him again. but i understand some connections and conversations are made only once and never again. i just seem to ponder on my ex more and more due to not having someone new in my life since. the memories unravel through inanimate objects, a laugh i hear in a restaurant, songs i know were written about him specifically, and my mom has brought up missing him a suspicious amount of times lately. there aren’t enough words to embody how im feeling. i don’t even know what i feel most days. but to sum this all up… i crave for someone to drive me up the walls. challenge my routines. take up space in my life. taste when i’m hungry. deal the cards with me. i’m not sure if this makes sense whatsoever. but this is how i’m feeling right now.

Körper zu besitzen ist kaotisch. Mehrschichtige lebendige selbstfünkzioniernde Organismen und dann bist du. Das du Trifft Entscheidungen und behält Erinnerung. Das Köper passt sich an und lebt in einem konstanten Veränderung. Der Geist lernt sich den Rhythmus des Körpers anzupassen. Das du ist auch vergänglich. Als ich aufgewachsen bin hieß es, es solle männlicher werden, es soll Kraft haben. Nun das männliche Körper ist sowohl als Segen und Gefängnis zugleich gesehen. Sie findet keine Platz für Romantik. Sie ist isoliert und denkt durch Disziplin könne sie befreit und angenommen werden. Ich verbringe viel Zeit damit meinen ganzen Körper mit Rasierer zu schneiden nur weil ich mich weich fühlen möchte. Ich bin stachelig. Ein Körper ist nicht wertvoll weil sie attraktiv ist, sie ist wertvoll weil sie da ist. Sie ist schön weil ich sie beschmucke. Sie ist da und hält das wahre Erfahrung, das Leben und das tot.

The Last Two Hours Flash Fiction Don’t ask why but the world is ending. My parents and I said our goodbyes, and they asked me where I was going. “[Name],” I said, his name registering with them both. They'd always known I loved him. I drove. The sky had gone the color of a bruise, purple black bleeding into orange, like something enormous was pressing down on the horizon. The radio was static now, every station gone quiet or screaming the same warning until even that cut out. The streets were chaos, cars abandoned at angles, doors flung open, engines still running like their owners had given up mid thought. I swerved around a stalled minivan, clipped a trash can, didn't stop. People ran in every direction and no direction; some didn't run at all, just stood in the road, looking up. I almost killed myself twice. Once when a truck blew a red light and missed me by inches. Once when I looked up and the sky rippled wrong, the road bending for one long heartbeat before I wrenched it straight again. The barricades came up fast, orange sawhorses, flashing lights, nobody left to man them. I left the car running in the street, door hanging open, and I ran. I hit the first barricade at a sprint and went over more than through it. The second I climbed, fingers scrabbling, and fell hard on the other side, then kept moving, because stopping meant thinking, and thinking meant realizing how little time was left. His street. I knew it before I could read the sign, the slant of his porch light, the tree that always dropped its leaves too early. I ran up the walkway with my chest on fire, my hand already raised to knock before I'd reached the door. He answered before I finished. Tears in his eyes, like some part of him already knew I'd come. The world went dark, but quietly, peacefully. Our embrace the last thing to happen in billions of years of life.

“We all know about the fight against cancer, but what about parasitic worms? It doesn’t make for such a good charity music video, but these tiny creatures have led to 1 billion people worldwide being infected with Neglected Tropical Diseases, causing ongoing fever, horribly swollen limbs, and blindness. These conditions are far easier to treat than cancer, but we never hear about them because they very rarely affect rich people. An important rule of thumb to remember: if you’re going to raise awareness of an issue, pick one that everyone isn’t already aware of.”

Did anyone else keep a diary when they were younger? How does reading it now make you feel… do you cringe or laugh or even recognise that person? Is the life you wanted then the life you led in truth? I see in the writing from my 20s the typical self-serious know-it-all arrogance of youth. How I’d love to relive that period with the compassion and lightness I’ve developed since then. But I also miss the optimism of that young man… I should thank him for where I am today. I suppose I wouldn’t have got this far if he shared the pragmatic resignation of middle age. A note for myself in 20 years; yes I know I’m being dreadfully wistful and I’m sorry if we have a mid life crisis despite doing my best to be self-aware about that. 😅