lee;

mom, i’ve committed a felony.

blood rushed, dripping down the sink.

oxygen buried itself among the atoms

of this once-white cloth,

now a rusty brown

that used to blaze a vivid red.

washing with water

wouldn’t do much,

would it?

twisting visions and shadows unfold.

i stumble upon the scene of the crime before me.

am i the killer,

the victim,

or merely a witness?

standing frozen

within the void behind my pitch-black eyes,

i simply couldn’t discern

what was surreal

and what was reality.

could it have been the beating heart

i once cherished

inside such a fragile vessel

that wounded itself—

or somebody else’s?

yet now i’m convicted,

or at least that’s how it feels,

of something so grievous

and so unforgivable

that no gods

could redeem me anymore.

if the motive was never there,

only as hazy

as the roads through the forest,

perhaps the greatest crime i committed

wasn’t the thought itself,

but leading them astray,

offering false hope,

leading them on

while i remained uncertain.

cuffed

and stripped of my own freedom,

beneath sharp eyes

that pierce straight through me,

i know my crimes

and my felonies all too well.

now i’m the antihero

in everyone’s story,

pulverized,

stomped into the ground,

once kicked aside.

now everything vanishes,

and slowly,

so will i.

to be free

from the felony

i know

i feel like an ant. metaphorically, i guess. hypothetically, maybe. when the whole world begins resembling some massive supernova of things, all orbiting too fast, too far, too beyond my own comprehension.. i’m an ant. with tiny grippers and wandering toes against soil and grass, carrying all this brute force and microscopic persistence that exudes almost nothing to the naked eye.

i’m an ant. a small terrestrial thing beneath systems much larger than itself. i can only look upward toward the trees and flowers that continue to bloom with such effortless grandeur, so dainty and beautiful that even the mere thought of reaching one of their pollens feels absurd for a creature like me. but they’re too far. and i’m too small.

when the merciless rain poured—

the heavens unbridled their wrath

it did not stop

until the water reached my lungs—

suffocating,

an unholy kind of burning

catastrophes have a way

of reminding me

how fragile i am,

how easily i break

—lays my frailty bare

i once prayed

to be struck with pain,

to be tempered by fire

but not like this—

not now, not at the eleventh hour

not when i am

standing at the edge of something bright,

on the cusp of the luminous

thirsting for the view of success

after clawing my way

out of the abyss that kept me

i wish i were not this frail,

not this tender, not this easily undone—

so easily repelled,

so easily wounded

when my own body turns against me,

when flesh betrays its keeper,

who is left to defend me?

—who stands sentinel?

my mind is quiet,

but the weight of the world

has settled on my shoulders

a yoke i cannot cast off

i beg for it to stop

i ask when the rain will end,

when the storm will relent

when will i see

green again—

verdure, softer days,

maybe the ground isn’t shaken quite as much,

or maybe the rain no longer feels so raw upon my skin,

or perhaps the sun shines a little brighter these days—

but I’m not nineteen anymore.

the cracks of the window let sunlight leak and peek upon me,

the dampness of the blanket when I squeezed it a little too tightly on a cold day,

the softness of the socks I’ve never let go of.

I’ve waited for these moments for so long,

but I’m not nineteen anymore.

when the roots of my chest no longer pull

through valves and atriums penduluming around the clock,

when silence and quiet finally turn to grace—

eternal grace—

when flowers grow beneath my bed once more,

but I’m not nineteen anymore.

when your name no longer haunts me

as much as it always did,

the droplets of tears once stored

now forgotten,

my heart could be a little wiser,

a little healed—

but I’m not nineteen anymore.

when love comes knocking on my door,

but ignorance, my friend, is the greatest bliss I could ever wish for;

because it braids my walls together

only to break them down once more.

love feels more like a familiar face to me,

not even a neighbor—

but I’m not nineteen anymore.

I open my eyes to the new dawn of morning.

things remind me of what could’ve been,

what should’ve been.

strangers pass along the sidewalks,

in the moving petals of my disarray, calling out my name.

otherwise I might have looked back—

but no, I’m not nineteen anymore.

when the chirps resonate and whistles fling through the air,

when my hair flows with the childlike bliss of a maiden so fair,

life could still be a little unfair—

but at least

tainted with a rush of maroon and burgundy,

the white sheets i’ve warm-pressed over the weekend,

with the cold breeze releasing upon every motion,

exhausting itself into the tender air with smoke and dust,

find themselves splattered, unapologetic.

forgiveness is futile to a sinner like i am,

for no amount of pleas and silent protests

dismiss the grave case acquitted to me—

a demolition and life sentence rampaging through.

father, punish me for my sins and crimes.

but i am no evil—yet to what extent can humans be “good”?

what standards must be met?

as i knock on heaven and its door,

an angel seeps through and looks at me

with eyes full of longing and contempt,

and i fall back into a pit of wonder and fear.

i am no monster, but i am no angel in disguise,

with the feathers that fell from my scapula,

as i reached far too much for the sun.

the heat ablaze scorched and melted what kept me intact.

i have now fallen, with all shame upon my back,

like an angel stripped bare of its own wings.

lost my being, i find myself at the doorstep,

like fragile darkness welcoming my footsteps,

a voice reaching out, calling out my name,

where light and shadow collide—

i knock on an angel’s door.

silently, quietly hoping she’d open it,

for even a sinner like me

might deserve parole on this sentence—

a sentence i must serve, maybe not in this life,

but even in the afterlife.

i knock until my knuckles forget my name,

until prayer sounds like hunger,