Fourlinegraphia

  You need not shed a tear for me again, For I have spent my eyes upon your name; Our dreams were snatched like flesh by circling wings, And I beat my skull against fate’s dark wall. I never heard your footsteps leave my shore, Nor saw you cross the threshold of my home; You sailed away to seek another door, While I was drowning, thinking you would come. A little stream once whispered through my life, Like silver silk beneath a tender moon; It carried dreams as fragile as spun glass, And sang your name beneath the summer moon. But now that stream has swollen into wrath, A blackened river tearing through its bed; It drags the roots of everything I loved, Like corpses from the grave of yesterday. The whirlpools spin like mouths that hunger still, The waves rise tall as walls around my chest; Yet nothing in their fury frightens me- A heart already drowned can fear no death. Uprooted trees come crashing through the flood, Their branches clawing at my broken head; They strike like memor...

  Today I threw the diamond ring away, A promise that had slowly turned to stone; It once spoke of forever, bright as day, But now it only tells me I’m alone. For years I held a black rose to my chest, Its thorns went deeper every time I stayed; I called the suffering a form of love, Until I learned that love should not leave scars. So I pulled every thorn out of my skin, And watched the blood become a memory; Some wounds, like winter, teach the heart to breathe, And some goodbyes are doors to being free. I carry no resentment in my hands, Nor do I need your shadow on my road; A soul that walks away from needless weight Discovers freedom is its lightest load. Go where you choose-to heaven or to hell, The road you take is no longer mine to know; I have released the story we once held, And learned that letting go can heal the soul. You chased the flame of yesterday’s desire, While everything we built began to fade; Like one who follows sparks into the night, You never saw the stars y...

  ************ You killed my children, you wounded the children I loved. You gave them a whip, when they needed a helping hand. You left scars upon their bodies, and deeper wounds inside their minds. You saw their frightened faces and answered their pain with a smile, as though their suffering were something to enjoy. Your dark vision swallowed their night souls. Your hidden smile was never a savior. Sometimes they showed their hands, opening them toward you, hoping for kindness— but you gave them pain instead. You wanted their silence. You wanted their submission. You wanted minds that could be controlled, souls that could be treated like property. But we have no children for sale. We have no souls for slavery. A child is not a slave. Innocence is not a possession. Parenting is a mature human responsibility: to protect, to guide, to listen, to nurture, to hold a child when they are afraid, and to teach them how to stand in freedom. You may leave scars, but you cannot own their fut...

  They taught me how to kneel with grace, To wear a mask and soften tone, To hide the wildness in my face, And call obedience my own. They dressed me in the roles they made, And stitched their laws into my skin, They drew the paths where I obeyed, And locked the doors I was not in. We turn like cogs within a scheme, A mirror shaped by what they knew, Mistaking borrowed rules for dreams, And calling chains a freedom too. I felt their expectations grow, A quiet weight beneath my breath, Yet something fierce began to show, A fire that would not bow to death. Who wrote the rules I must obey? If custom is yesterday's decree, Why must tomorrow kneel today? Who gave the first command to be? Was it a hatred in my heart, Or hunger for a life divine? Was love a cage disguised as art, With golden bars made soft and fine? If I refuse another’s crown, Why should I seek to rule instead? If I reject the master's throne, Why place that throne above my head? I do not seek to rule the land, Nor ...

  The Princess with Starry Eyes Princess, with eyes where the starlight gleams, What secret light awakens in your dreams? Deep in the quiet chambers of my heart, Your painted image never fades apart. Like moonlight resting on a silent sea, Your distant image keeps returning to me; A beautiful mystery I cannot disguise, A world of wonder hidden in your eyes. Did you stitch the veil that conceals your face, To hide from the world your tender grace? Was it woven from memories of pain, From broken trust and promises made in vain? Then let me weave you a scarf of silken light, From threads of affection, tender and bright; With love for its warp and compassion its thread, To comfort the dreams your wounded heart has shed. Not to hide your beauty from the world outside, Nor claim the heart you have chosen to hide; But simply to shelter, if love ever can, The fragile soul beneath the veil you began. For if your picture can leave me this way, Breathless and lost in its beautiful sway, What ...

  Without your presence, I am as the moon bereft of night, a silver pilgrim wandering beneath a heaven that has forgotten how to cradle the stars. *** Tell me- is this love, so profound that it has become fear, or have I made your nearness the very breath upon which my soul depends? *** As your lover, I find in you the spring within my winter, the harbour where my restless heart lays down its weary tides. When you are near, even the leaves seem gentler, and the wind carries a tenderness it does not bestow upon the lonely. *** Yet when you depart, my heart becomes a forest at twilight- every rustling branch a question, every wandering breeze a foreboding. I fear the silence after your voice, the emptiness beside me, the long and solemn hours in which your absence becomes almost tangible. *** As your mother, I love you with an ancient tenderness- the tenderness of earth toward the seed, of rain toward the parched meadow, of the dawn that watches faithfully over a sleeping world. *** ...

  I entered where the ancient corridors Held dust and dusk in equal, solemn keep; The house seemed built of centuries and stone, And every silent chamber seemed asleep. Yet by the hearth, where dying embers glowed, A little figure stood beyond the flame; She bore no terror of the grave or night, But looked upon me quietly, as if by name. Her eyes were deep as wells of vanished years, Her face as pale as moonlight on the floor; I knew not whether she was dream or shade, Nor why my heart had known her long before. I asked no question of her troubled eyes, Nor sought to learn what kept her spirit there; I sat beside the cold and ancient wall, And let the silence breathe its secret air. Then slowly came the tale she could not tell In life, but carried through the years unseen: Of greedy hands that measured blood and land, And weighed a child against a family’s gain. They spoke of lineage, inheritance, and name, Of fields that must remain within the line; And beneath such words, so grav...