Ember Wants to Remember

The quiet hum of Sunday slows the pace,

A steady breath within the rush of days.

The week dissolves, a shadow out of sight,

As golden hours dissolve into the light.

The work remains—the discipline, the strain,

The strength that grows beneath the steady rain.

A blueprint held within a focused mind,

Leaving the noise of yesterday behind.

No need to rush the turning of the page,

Or pace the confines of a weary cage.

Just fill the cup, replenish what is spent,

I have never, in fact

Believed the lies

You told me about life

It would be austere

To imagine life

Between the rigid limits

Of birth and death

This life,

As we know it

Is nothing but a sojourn

That lasts a blink

For a soul that ages in eons..

A moment, worth remembering

A chance, worth the risk.

Akin to the breeze

Infinite... Eternal..

We touch and move on

Carrying with us

The whiff of memories

Is it not beautiful

To dream a dream you love

And to wake up

(did you know a redwood often only burns on the inside and can continue growing even after its core is reduced to charcoal?)

I met myself last night

Or not quite.

I met a younger me,

Barely past my knee.

He was.... I don't know.

His face was hidden.

Like an object's place is forgotten.

I told him that he would die.

That he would spend his youth watching his own grave being dug,

And the realization is exactly what kills him.

I told him he dies,

But he wouldn't end.

There's a great many things I don't remember.

The older I get, the less I remember about who that child was.

I honestly couldn't say I know him anymore.

But I still know our nature,

The essence I share with him.

And when I told him of his inevitable death

And of my birth from his dreams,

He stared at me with stars in his eyes.

And while his last words replayed

were obscured by my waking moments,

I know he saw the freedom of his aching heart,

having crawled still beating out of that grave,

Finally walking,

Breathing in the scents of life.

Though I may forget him in time,

I'll always honor him.

Try to live the loving life he could only dream of,

And find all those details,

Those flowery scents,

play the strings of my brain again

play a viscous imagination

like an electric cello

oh gods my fingers

bleed

the circles of my heart turn

like music box drums

discordant, oh gods

my fingers twitch, they dance

i create something from nothing

again, again

The rain that drums your windowpane

was once the breath of a jungle leaf,

evaporated in heat, carried by trade winds,

and borrowed by a cloud above you.

You drink it. It becomes your blood.

Your blood feeds thoughts you’ll share tonight,

and those thoughts will catch in someone else—

a spark that lights a distant street.

My grandmother’s hands kneaded dough in 1952.

The yeast she used still lives in mine,

passed loaf to loaf, stranger to stranger,

until it reached your breakfast this morning.

Every text you send pings a satellite

built by a man who loved the same song

your neighbor hums while sweeping her porch.

His daughter teaches math to the engineer

who designed the bridge you crossed at dusk.

We are not islands. We are estuaries.

Rivers of choice and accident

pouring into each other, salt and fresh,

unable to say where one ends.

A laugh in Kyoto shifts air pressure.

The pressure tilts a wing over Peru.

The plane lands late. Two people meet.

Their child cures a fever you’ll never get.

So cut an apple. Watch the seeds.

Each one holds orchards you won’t live to see,

but someone will taste them.

as you answer

every sharp edge

with open hands

fingers resisting

the reflex

to become fists

wrapped around

an olive branch

are you a masochist

or an angel?

hearth is your armour

warmth is impossible

to conquer

mercy makes

a better breastplate

than steel

you have learned

to make a shield

of yielding

there is nothing to

call it

but beautiful

Another old poem.

I gather every small flame I can,

telling myself I have survived this season before,

my hands still trembling

around the light.

There are names I carry,

echoes still waiting

for a voice.

Where were your hands

when mine had forgotten how to hold?

Why did the rooms learn my weeping

better than the people I loved?

I’m expected

to braid daylight

from the loose ends

of dusk,

yet no one asks a flower

to bloom

without the sun.

I want

to lay down the armor,

be held instead of holding,

to believe

someone else

might keep watch

until morning,

for once, closing

my eyes

without fearing

They said, “Be quiet,

keep the peace,

don’t rock the boat,

just sign the lease

on silence — it’s safer,

cleaner, kind.”

But cages don’t need bars

to keep a mind.

So I spoke.

Not loud, not brave,

just honest, with a voice

they didn’t save

a space for.

It shook. It cracked.

A little light came in

through what I lacked

in polish, power,

permission slips.

Truth doesn’t need

a podium. It slips

between teeth,

through tweets,

on cardboard signs,

in jokes that cross

the jagged lines

we drew to feel

clean and correct.

And yes, some words

cut and wreck.

Some lies wear suits.

Some hate sings.

That’s why we answer —

not with strings

to tie their mouths,

but with our own:

louder, sharper,

not alone.

Because every right

we think we’ve won

was once a sentence

someone shunned.

Was once a whisper

called a crime,

until enough voices

kept the time.

So say it.

Fumble it.

Let it break

the quiet we mistake

for peace.

The boat was never

meant to keep

still water.

Rock it.

I think I want to feel empty

I know I’m not okay

But you’ll believe whatever I say

I just want to numb what I try to ignore

I want to starve the pain

Until it’s so small, an apple’s core

We keep it movin’ because the world spins on

I know you won’t but

The moon, your breath, the breeze… a caress and our first kiss, and you, in spite of time, still stuck in me.

An afternoon, a morning, and another kiss. Your hair, your mouth, your eyes, and in disguise, your heart printed on mine.

First love, that flower, this desire… Your warmth, that voice, . Your last tear, a cry, and that implausible goodbye.

Would you give me up

when things get tough?

Would you say it's for the greater good?

Would it be the right thing to do?

Would it save me from hardship?

Would you find this preposterous?

Well then, may I rephrase?

Would you do it if i were a hound?

Would you do it loudly

or make no sound?

Would it keep you up at night?

Would you easily continue

on with your life?

Would you do it if I were a cat?

Chriping excitedly as you enter

through the front door;

could you imagine that?

If I relied on you?

If I loved you so profoundly;

trusted you so deeply

but never kept score?

Would you do it in a hurry?

Would you even have a worry?

Why do you think I wonder?

How can you think I'd ponder?

Does a fur coat and four legs

mean they are less than I?

Don't you dare say yes;

don't you know thats a damn lie?

Do you believe I try?

Do you believe me?

Why do you insist I give up my home?

Why do you insist I give up my life?

Why on earth would you insist

I give up my girls?

Don't you know,

they are my whole world?

Written by Aprilfool🐸

It’s been within lost amongst

such rust and decay

Need it to awaken

Given the will one must

find a way; cannot delay

Was I mistaken?

why oh why do I defy

what should be sacred

what should be sainted

which once was secure

Left with only this hum-drum

of mine own existence

Seek it not, such games leave scars

and dear I am shaken

And you’ll find me beneath the stars

a garden of wilted poppies

promise I’ll try until my heart

turns cold from these dark arts

Love letter to Terry Donahue by Pat Henschel

Always - I’ll Remember This Night

‘‘It might have been just one more walk beneath the moonlight hue

But, darling, it meant everything because I walked with you

It might have been just one more night

A single night of seven

My darling, you were there with me

‘Twas one more night of heaven

On we sauntered seldom speaking

As we passed through Moonlight Lane

Happiness walked there inside of me

When you smiled and called my name

Hours fled like winged moments

Hand in hand, we walked alone

It was one night I shall remember,

The station learned your weight by heart,

Yet never carved your name in slate.

It knew the hour we’d fall apart…

I only came to question fate.

The tracks bent inward, vein by vein,

As though emptiness concealed a scar.

I stood upon a ghostly train;

It never knew where living are.

I saw nothing but your eyes,

And how they’ve gone so dimly dead…

Staring out at butterflies,

While I sat there as our soul bled.

The train then unsealed said wings,

Your shadow answered it with breath.

You ran to all forgotten things…

A smaller, gentler form of death.

“You cannot reason with the devil.” Fine.

Then may I reason once with fate?

If mercy never crossed that line,

Will I always love you a breath too late?

I called your name. The lack replied.

It knew a language made of leaving.

The echo reached the other side;

Why did my believer stop believing?

I crossed the silence, the lack left no trace,

My shaking hands enclosed your face.

You looked at me and softly smiled,

No triumph there, no grand farewell;

Then shook your head… a gesture mild,

Too merciful It broke my will.

Don’t leave me learning butterflies,

Don’t trade your living, human eyes.

If you depart, then what goes through

My love… or everything I knew?

Still smiling, you denied me twice…

Once with your lips, once with your gaze;

The first forgave the cost of life,

The second mourned my future days.

I felt it then.

Not in my ribs…

But somewhere language cannot start.

As though your answer reached inside

And gently undid half my heart.

So before the train could steal the air,

I gathered you against my chest;

I thought if all of me held you there,

Perhaps the void would spare the rest.

Look at me.

Not at the train.

Not at the place that never grieves.

Look at the hands that still can shake.

Look at the chest that still can heave.

Don’t choose a sky that cannot rain.

Don’t make me learn your absence twice.

Don’t make me memorize your face.

With wings instead of living eyes.

But something yielded in my hold,

Not flesh, nor breath, nor blood withdrawn;

You thinned like sunlight leaving gold,

Like frost persuaded into dawn.

I held you tighter… far too much,

Your edges blurred beneath my touch.

You buried your face against my neck,

While desperate fingers chained your frame;

I folded every part of you

Into the hollow of my name.

Your voice dissolved against my skin

Whispered “Thank you, but It’s too late.”

And what’s worse than this damned sin…

To know we cannot reason with fate?

Not for the tears. Not for the fight.

Not for refusing to let go.

You thanked me like a dying light,

Who mourned the one he’d leave below.

I crushed you close, there was no home;

Every breath was a little gone.

You rested right where my heartbeat broke.

With the last words of gratitude you spoke.

I never felt you slip away

There was no moment, sharp or true.

There only came a time my arms

Were holding less… and less… of you.

—————————

One waiting train. One open door.

One passing by. A love no more.

What waits beyond that silent train?

Where living carved such endless pain?

What calls your name more loud than him?

That death now tastes like sacred sin?

If I have written both souls in rhyme,

Why must one sentence lose it’s line?

No blame to give, you couldn’t have stayed.

For you were a love born halfway decayed.

—————————

But If we were written from one breath,

Then let us be together, together in death.