Deo Volente

i fall in love with sentences

the way other people fall in love with people

fast, quietly,

and with no guarantee of being understood.

but where i am from,

words don’t always count as work.

they ask, “but what do you really do?”

like imagination is a side quest

and not the entire map.

i write anyway.

During lectures,

on the backs of receipts,

in my phone notes called

“IMPORTANT DONT DELETE”

that i absolutely delete later by mistake.

sometimes it feels like building sandcastles

in a place that only values bricks.

and i want to explain

that i am not wasting time,

i am translating life

into something that won’t rot as quickly in memory.

but explanations are exhausting.

so i write instead.

i write when i’m happy

so i don’t lose it.

i write when i’m breaking

so it doesn’t swallow me whole.

i write when i’m bored

because silence gets too loud

when you listen too closely.

sometimes it feels like nobody is reading.

like i am whispering poems

into a room that only echoes back.

but still

there is something stubborn in me.

a soft rebellion.

because even if no one claps,

even if no one understands,

even if “writer” is not a respected job title in the conversations that matter here

i still choose the sentence.

i still choose to turn pain into paragraphs

instead of letting it rot in my chest.

and maybe that’s what they don’t understand.

i am not writing for applause.

i am writing because if i don’t,

everything i feel will turn into something heavier than me.

so i keep going.

a writer in a place that doesn’t value writers

is still a writer.

just more determined to make language

if things still aren’t perfect over there,

that’s okay.

i think i’m starting to realize

healing was never going to look cinematic.

sometimes it’s just

replying to emails,

washing your hair,

surviving thursday,

and resisting the urge

to disappear completely.

i don’t need you to be extraordinary.

i just need you to be alive

in a way that feels real.

promise me you built a life

that sounds like your laughter

and not society’s expectations.

promise me we didn’t abandon ourselves

trying to become lovable.

with love,

from the one who is still trying,

still hoping,

After giving it much thought,

I finally understand what people mean

when they say

some die at twenty-one

and aren’t buried until seventy-five.

YOLO was never really about recklessness.

Not truly.

It was about refusing to become a ghost

before your body gets the chance to.

It was about calling the person you love.

Taking the trip.

Wearing the ridiculous outfit.

Starting over.

Failing publicly.

Living loudly enough

that your soul leaves fingerprints behind.

Because one day

the earth will take all of us back anyway.

And after giving it much thought,

I would rather die exhausted from living

If reincarnation is real,

I hope it remembers me softly

not as a punishment,

but written with better ink.

I still want to be Black,

sun-kissed like I am now,

but shaped like those runway girls

all long lines and quiet confidence,

like I was sculpted by patience.

Not starving, not chasing

just existing in a body

that doesn’t feel like a fight

every time I look in the mirror.

And if I don’t return as human,

don’t give me anything loud or heavy.

Let me be a cherry blossom tree,

standing somewhere people slow down for.

Let lovers carve their initials under my shade,

let strangers point their cameras at me like I matter,

let my petals fall like I’m always letting go

without ever disappearing.

And if I come back as an animal

make me a swan.

The kind that glides like silence on water,

dancing with just one person in the world

for eternity,

just motion that feels like devotion.

Or maybe something else softer still

a song that finds people when they’re alone,

a memory that doesn’t hurt,

If reincarnation is real,

don’t make me fight to be seen.

Make me something

that is already loved

They ask what I am

as if I am meant to stay still long enough

to be named.

I will not harden into one shape

just because the world likes labels.

I am paint still wet,

a sketch with moving lines,

a song changing keys mid-heartbreak.

Every version of me

is only a temporary address.

And as long as I am alive,

I refuse to be fully known.

I refuse to be complete.

I will remain unfinished

becoming, unbecoming, becoming again.

I was not blank when you found me

don’t let the quiet me fool you.

There were fingerprints already pressed into my edges,

colors that didn’t belong to me

bleeding through like secrets I never got to tell.

I had been handled before

not always gently.

Some called it love

but left streaks that wouldn’t wash out,

brushstrokes too heavy,

too careless,

like they were trying to paint over me

instead of with me.

So when you came close,

I almost warned you

told you I was already ruined in places,

that some parts of me would never take new color the same way again.

But you didn’t flinch.

You didn’t try to cover the stains

or pretend they weren’t there.

You traced them slow, careful

like they were part of the story,

not something to erase.

And somehow,

in your hands,

the mess stopped looking like damage.

It looked like depth.

Like every mark had been waiting

for someone who knew

that broken color still makes art,

that blurred lines can still mean something.

You didn’t repaint me.

You didn’t start over.

You stayed.

You added light

where everything felt too heavy,

softness where I only knew pressure,

space where I had been crowded by too many hands.

And for the first time,

I didn’t feel like something that needed fixing.

I felt… seen.

So if I am a tainted canvas,

then let me be one

that tells the truth.

Let me be something imperfect,

layered,

real.

Because what you created with me

was never about perfection

it was about choosing to stay

When I say I love you like the sky,

I don’t mean just the color of it,

or the way it stretches endlessly above us.

I mean it in the way it holds everything

the storms, the quiet, the thunder it never apologizes for.

I mean it in the way it is always there,

even when you forget to look up.

When I say I love you like the ocean,

I don’t mean the surface people admire from afar.

I mean the depth

the parts no one reaches,

the parts that could swallow whole worlds

and still remain full.

I love you in the way people stand at the edge of water,

terrified… but unable to walk away.

And when I say I love you like fire,

don’t mistake me

I don’t just mean warmth.

I mean the way it consumes,

the way it changes everything it touches,

the way it demands respect

but still invites you closer.

I love you in the way people gather around flames,

knowing it could burn them,

but choosing to stay anyway.

So when I say I love you,

I’m not talking about something soft and simple.

I’m talking about something that holds,

and pulls,

and transforms.

Something that existed before I understood it,

and will remain

even if I run out of words to explain it.

Because I love you

is the smallest way

Some days I feel like the break in the bloodline

like everything before me was strength

and everything in me is chaos.

I carry confusion like it’s my name,

mistakes like they’re stitched into my skin,

and I wonder

if I’m the one it all finally falls apart on.

Because this life?

it doesn’t feel guided.

It feels loud, messy, unfinished

like I’m moving with no map,

just consequences.

But then it hits me

I am not just someone’s descendant.

I am someone’s beginning.

There are names that don’t exist yet

resting quietly in my future,

people who will look like me,

move like me,

carry pieces of me

in ways I will never fully understand.

And they will come here

through whatever I choose now.

Through how I heal or don’t.

Through what I break or rebuild.

Through the way I survive this.

So even when I feel like I’m failing,

like I’m too lost to lead anything

I remember

somewhere ahead of me

are bloodlines waiting for direction

I haven’t figured out yet.

And maybe I don’t need to be perfect.

Maybe I just need to not give up

because one day

someone will stand where I once stood,

lost, shaking, unsure

and the only reason they make it through

will be because

I did

You are not just you

You are a long line of “almost ended here”

You stop explaining yourself as much.

You start noticing how people treat you instead of making excuses for them.

You sit in silence more, not because you’re lonely, but because peace finally feels better than noise.

And yeah… it gets lonely sometimes.

Outgrowing people, habits, even parts of yourself you once loved that kind of growth isn’t pretty. It’s quiet, confusing, and a little painful.

But there’s something powerful about choosing yourself, even when it means starting over in ways nobody sees.

You’re not losing people.

If time just… stops,

right here between a heartbeat and a breath,

I wonder if you’ll feel it

all the love I buried in laughter,

all the words I swallowed

because I was scared they’d mean too much.

I wasn’t perfect.

I loved you in pieces sometimes,

in overthinking

in silence when I should’ve fought louder.

But it was real

If tomorrow never comes,

will you be okay

with the version of me you had?

Or will you reach for something

that’s no longer there?

if this is all we get,

did I love you enough today

for it to last in your memory?

If tomorrow never comes,

I hope you don’t measure me

by the moments I got it wrong,

but by the way I tried

even when I didn’t know how.

And if this is all we get,

just this messy beautiful almost

then let it be known

you were the softest place

I ever landed.

So if tomorrow never comes…

maybe it won’t matter

what this was called.

at least tonight,

I loved you

doesn’t lead me

to pain.

It leads me

through it.

And every mark on it

whispers the same thing

She carries life like a secret bruise

no one ever pressed hard enough to see.

There are layers to her

people will never reach.

Not because she is hiding

but because they never thought to look deeper.

She has walked through versions of hell

that don’t make noise when they happen.

The kind that teach you how to smile

while something inside you is still shaking.

She has been alone in rooms

where even her thoughts felt far away.

She learned how to survive herself

before she learned how to live.

And still, she is here.

Not because it is easy now.

Not because everything is better.

But because it is not what it used to be.

There was a time

she didn’t imagine a future at all.

Five years ago

life could have folded her into anything.

A life she didn’t choose.

A quiet suffering she would have called normal

because she wouldn’t have known otherwise.

But she is not there.

She is here.

Trying.

Still building something out of a life

that didn’t start gently with her.

She cries at night sometimes.

Silently.

Like the world would not understand

if it heard her.

And yet she wakes up again.

And she moves again.

And she continues again.

Because even in the struggle,

there are small things left

a few reasons to stay,

a few breaths that still feel like proof.

And maybe if karma is real,

she has already earned something

just by surviving what she did not deserve.

So I stay.

Not because it’s easy.

But because life is still on its way to me

What if

everything we know

is just something we were told

early enough

to never question?

What if truth

is just repetition

said so many times

it became law?

What if “right” and “wrong”

are lines drawn by people

just as lost as we are?

What if heaven and hell

are stories we were given

to keep us in line

not out of cruelty,

but out of fear

of what we’d become without them?

What if consequences

had to be eternal

just to make us behave

in a temporary world?

What if without that fear

people would unravel

no limits,

no hesitation,

just impulse wearing human skin?

What if we are only “good”

because we’re scared

of what happens

after?

What if balance

isn’t natural

what if it’s enforced,

carefully, quietly,

through belief?

What if chaos

is the real default,

and everything else

is just control

dressed as order?

What if nothing

is watching us…

and we’re the only ones

deciding who we become?

What if that’s more terrifying

than any hell

we’ve ever imagined?

What if…

we’ve been free all along

and just too afraid

People talk about “perfect”

like it’s something you can hold,

like it exists somewhere

waiting to be found.

But “perfect” is just a word

a placeholder

for when “good” isn’t enough,

for when language runs out

and exaggeration takes over.

Nothing is flawless.

Not people,

not love,

not moments,

not even the things we swear

we’ll never forget.

Everything carries something

a crack,

a flaw,

a quiet chaos

we try not to look at too closely.

And maybe that’s the point.

Because if everything were perfect,

nothing would feel real.

It’s the imbalance,

the rough edges,

the almost-but-not-quite

that gives anything meaning at all.

So no,

nothing has ever reached perfection.

And nothing ever will.

Because “perfect” is an illusion…

and the truth

I came home with the road still shaking inside me,

three hours of noise sitting heavy in my bones,

dust in my throat,

and silence waiting at the gate like it knew

I had nothing left.

My name feels expensive.

Even breathing feels like a bill I forgot to pay.

They say “keep going”

like going is free,

like strength is something you can borrow

when your body is already asking you to stop.

I counted on hands

that closed before I reached them.

Counted on love

that only shows up when it’s convenient.

And still

morning will come,

whether I am ready or not.

So I sit here,

half-breaking,

half-breathing,

trying to convince myself

that survival is also a kind of purpose.

Because even now,

with nothing steady under my feet,

with doubt louder than hope