The Life and Times of a Spider or a Fig Tree

Sunday, June 7th, 2026

what am i to do

when all the people that formed the basis of me

aren’t around anymore

ghosts are just the haunting of what's here

the scraps of life remaining shaping silhouettes

Saturday, June 6th, 2025

I know you’re tired of my antics

‘cause my face is too pretty for you, 

and it sounds like a good thing,

but my ego keeps pushing through.

And I feel with every moment the withering

of my willingness to pretend

stay up late waiting for a phone call,

like ‘How dare you leave me on send!’

And I bait you in with a picture

I know I have no self-respect,

my mind convinces me I’m in control

when I know I just want to be worthy of your bed.

Looks like tonight's another spoke within the cycle,

connects the wheel with the frame,

and the pedals keep it turning 

Friday, May 22nd, 2026

When your body goes numb, you still feel the absence 

What once was your tongue is replaced by cloudiness and knowing

It’s almost as if your body is mourning the pain it doesn’t feel

///

I try to knock it out.

What once was regret is now replaced with numbness.

I try to fall and picture us, all I feel is a tingling nothingness.

///

Rinsing my mouth, yet my tongue can’t feel a thing,

Not the salt that gleans my teeth nor the salinity within my eyes,

That peer to you but never pierce the surface,

My hands could trace your body, but could never feel what’s underneath,

Akin to grazing chiseled stone, your truth is unfamiliar, 

Tuesday, May 12th, 2026

My hair sprawls out like a bird’s nest

No tucking beneath my headphones would make do

Today I have no one to perform for,

No talking heads, now in reclusion

A matter of perspective.

Perhaps silences looks nicely on me

Tight jeans I must become accustomed to.

In the awkwardness of mistranslation, 

Saturday, May 2nd, 2026

The people want the short

They want to read your words like a whiff of a crocus flower

Such subtlety, to which they can glean their own wisdom 

Tuesday, April 21st, 2025

So here I sit, on the curb to your street

While, undoubtedly, you sleep above.

All that separates us: the front deck and your heart.

So here I sit, back to the wall that has been put

Between my mind and yours,

And I watch the passerby, hoping to see your eyes

And for this to all be some misunderstanding.

But I know deep down that if I were to silence every noise in this town,

All I’d hear would be your snores, and that’s your choice,

Being ignored.

So here I sit and contemplate.

Maybe I’m more fallible than I once thought?

But you and your newfound words hooked me, like the latch to your room.

Convinced of something more than what was

Is now is. 

Tuesday, April 15th, 2026

You stand for so long you forget how to lay down

Speeding past castles and prisons, I wonder how these things can exist on the same plane

How can they be one?

How I can peer into one’s eyes from the bus window while they sit on the curb

And see two different worlds, two separate lives

Two different understandings of home, two separate reasons why

And still one.

//

Is that what love is, to go from a multiple to one?

Love connects us all, makes you and me into we

When the lovers’ hands dance their grasps toward each other 

Does that clutch, the togetherness, make them one? 

However fleeting, does it bring sense over individuality?

If we touch, my skin meeting yours, will I finally understand what it means to be whole?

Sunday, April 12th, 2026

Taking pictures of pictures

People posing for portraits painted centuries ago

Staring into paintings like mirrors 

And into mirrors like cameras

Thursday, April 9th, 2026

It wasn’t so long ago, I walked these streets empty-handed,

Singing songs in the lowest key,

Only stopping for the rats to scatter past into the dark,

With, perhaps, a tear to bring home with me.

But the words you bring exit like a sign of relief,

A present I wish I received under the tree,

I let myself spin my own fate into web and story,

Typical, how I bring down the earth over misunderstanding, believing

It was only happening to me,

And you bring the sigh of relief.

Now I walk these streets like the blossoming tree,

Something to look toward, something to breathe,

No more moving the dial between cabin fever and reprieve,

Yes, you give me something to breathe,

And you give me something to see,

Hope is Spring, once again I believe,

And evermore, and evermore, 

Saturday, April 4th, 2026

“Does the loss of habits signal a loss of yourself,

Or is it the revelation of the you who's been hiding all along?”

I use the church pamphlet to fidget,

I’ve been relapsing on things I thought I quit

Walking around searching for a table with a seat to take.

Every time I see a parking lot, I think of it

Thursday, April 2nd, 2026

Stepping with your ankle and walking out, alright 

With the slight discomfort as an omen?

I fear my body, a delicate machine, each gear made of china.

All my sprinting has caught up to me with the fluttering of the eyes, 

And my absence draws me closer to rest with every click of the letter.

I didn’t call for your birthday, happy April Fools,

I’m falling apart with all the mundanity, it’s all I know and all I hate,

I hate you, I hate that I like you, I hate that I like that I like you, 

I hate that you text me with concern, but never give it up,

It’s the same sensation of waiting for the train in the midst of the delay

You resent your commitment, but you never falter.

I don’t hate you. I like you. But in words I cannot say. So I mask it with the act of liking you.

I don’t hate you, I like you, so I pretend that I just like you, while I fall asleep to your name.

I hate you. I hate what reflects onto me when I like you. I hate that I’m so bad and that you are good enough to not notice.

I hate that I notice. How do I not notice? 

Monday, March 23rd, 2026

Of all the illusions and all that eludes me, 

you’d think I would have learned to leave the fading spirits alone,

Yet I persist, hardwired to seek out more, dissatisfied with ambiguity 

I cannot nibble, I must devour

I cannot be brief; I must extrapolate all over you

And I need for you to extrapolate over me, unto me

I had nightmares that I wouldn’t be the one to rip that mask off of you 

In the shallowest of waters, for I think I might have scared you off

Thursday, February 19th, 2026

What are the words to say I Love You 

When the teeth are hollowed out by your presence 

How can I bring these hands to forgive

If this house left us both with splinters

In letters you highlighted my your absence 

It was not intended

But the knife cuts deeper even so 

Because your absence of mine is your presence

Still, despite the bluntness, I search for the words to say I Love You   

You nurtured but you brought pain

And I am no angel in your story, not even in my own

Still I hold hope for your betterment, I wish you nothing but love

Wednesday, February 18th, 2026

All my life was a push and pull

But I never had to contend with the fact I’d never be

For the I was never clear to me

And the me was metaphysical, basked in dreamlike haze

Friday, February 13th, 2026

I think I might be a bad person,

And sometimes the silliest things will make me cry,

And sometimes I wander around, haunted by the thought that I can never live any life but mine.

Everything I do feels like a conglomeration of words constantly vomiting from my mouth,

So much that I feel I am going to choke myself from my own impulsivity,

And all I can hope is for someone who can pick through the words left behind in my wake 

And find, underlying all the crashness and the hyperbole, the language to give me breath again,

Saturday, February 7th, 2026

Snow always falls on a Sunday 

Mail never comes on a Monday 

The wind always blows in my face

Don’t wear gloves ‘till it’s too late

Never floss ‘till the toothache 

Hoarding it in ‘till my heart breaks

Pushing it off, and it’s not great

//

I wake up at 12 

Go to sleep when I’m needed 

My vice is convenience 

Waiting for an answer to come from cabin fever

I wake from a nightmare

Or rather a dream?

Where all the things I’m avoiding 

Sunday, February 1st, 2026

I must admit a part of me resents you for moving onwards

While I drift further and further behind

It’s odd, normally I’d love a sunset

But now it’s night, and all I can feel is your absence