u/Broad-Animator8629

some men arrive in flames, 
they take the room by storm, 
turning every head at once 
and making danger warm.

some men arrive as shelter, 
quiet hands and patient eyes, 
making safety feel like home, 
soft enough to hide the lies.

some men dress in laughter, 
with quick wit and crooked grins, 
lowering every guarded bridge 
before the siege begins.

some men come as mystery, 
half-answer, half-withheld, 
leaving just enough unknown 
to make the silence felt.

some men notice everything: 
the book, the bruise, the glass, 
the smallest shift in posture 
when an old wound whispers past.

some men sell tomorrow— 
all promise, shine and speed— 
turning hunger into vision 
and calling vision need.

but the clever ones are careful. 
they do not force the door. 
they study what she starved for, 
then offer something more.

not quite love. not quite danger. 
not quite truth. not quite deceit. 
just the perfect move laid softly 
at the place she feels defeat.

that is the oldest gambit: 
not a trap she sees too late, 
but the shape of what she wanted 
placing both hands on her fate.

The velvet curtains parted,
and the music lost its sound.
A breathless hush swept through the smoke
as every head turned round.

I crossed the floor, a silhouette
of dangerous, practiced grace;
every glass forgot to clink,
and every man forgot his place.

I floated through the smoky room,
slow enough to make them stare,
with emerald silk along my thigh
and diamonds woven through my hair.

A smile here.
A glance there.
A hand upon an arm.
I made attention feel like privilege,
and suspicion lose its charm.

The pianist missed a measure.
The dealer misread the cards.
The watchmen by the marble walls.
forgot that they were guards.

While I laughed beneath the chandelier
and let them drink me in,
quiet hands relieved their pockets,
opened safes and slipped within.

A safe gave up its strands of pearls.
A locked drawer yielded gold.
A painting left its gilded frame.
No one noticed.
No one told.

I raised my glass at midnight,
gave the room one final smile,
then drifted toward the doorway
with unhurried, practiced guile.

The music slowly found its rhythm.
The room had passed my test.
They never saw the ruin coming
until I’d vanished with the rest.

By morning, every vault was empty.
Every camera showed a blur.
They blamed the staff, the locks, each other—
but no one thought of me.

After all,
I had done nothing.

I had only made certain
that every eye
was exactly
where I wanted it to be.

All eyes on me.

They smiled, nodded and waited for me to finish, never realizing they were watching me drown.

Hey.

So,
this is awkward.

You’re still here.
Not here here.

Obviously.

Just somewhere
between my first thought
and the one
I keep trying
to replace it with.

I thought maybe
you’d fade.

People do, you know.

But then something happens—
a song,
a word,
someone laughing
from another room—

and there you are again.

Like my mind
has been saving your seat.

I’m not saying
I miss you.

That would imply
I ever had you.

And we both know…

Still,
sometimes absence
feels strangely specific.

Like there is a space
shaped exactly like you
in a life
you were never part of.

That’s ridiculous.

I know.

Anyway.

I just wondered
whether I ever appear
in yours.

Your thoughts, I mean.

Not your life.

If you did think of me,
even once,
what would it look like?

Anyway.
Never mind.
Hey.

Stepping into the kitchen, I found a fresh plate of warm rolls waiting on the counter next to a handwritten note that read, "For no particular reason, just wanted to make you smile."

I laughed along with him through the static, completely forgetting for a brief moment that I was the one who had survived the crash.

I know exactly what to say
when someone else is breaking.
I gather up the scattered pieces,
name the strength they cannot see
and remind them that one failure
does not make a failed life.

I tell them:
trust the voice beneath the doubt;
walk away from what diminishes you;
stop apologizing for taking up space.
You are not too much.
You have always been enough.

I place each word carefully
into their open hands
and watch them carry it away.

But I never keep a copy.

I face my own reflection
with nothing kind to offer—
questioning every instinct,
measuring my life
against impossible things.

Still, the words I give away
have a way of circling back—
meant for me:

trust yourself
choose yourself
forgive yourself
begin again

The advice I give so freely
comes flying back,
asking only to be caught.

Perhaps healing begins
when I stop ducking.

a sudden angle of afternoon light
finds you already in motion

in the theatre of my mind,
I enter the room unseen
and watch you move
through the beautiful chaos—

turning, reaching, pausing,
each gesture slipping into the next
with the ease of choreography
known too deeply to require thought

you do not walk through the space
you waltz

your hands keep their own rhythm,
sure and unhurried,
while the subtle shift of your weight,
the incline of your head,
the measured arc of your arm
become a language
I feel before I understand

the air seems to yield to you,
disorder gathering itself
beneath your touch

I follow each movement—
the reach,
the turn,
the lingering pause—

until the world narrows
to the grace of your precision,
the quiet command of your presence,
the space between one movement
and the next

you believe the art
is what is taking shape before you

you do not realize—
in the theatre of my mind,
you are the choreography,
you are the dance,
you are the art

What if the moon came down for tea 
And stirred the stars with silver spoons? 
What if the clocks forgot the time 
Or calendars granted two Junes?

What if the wishes whispered low 
Came tumbling brightly from the blue? 
The house, the love, the second chance— 
What if the what-ifs all came true?

What if the road not taken turned 
And wandered back to find your door? 
What if the one who went away 
Had never really gone before?

But what if every anxious thought 
Could also step outside your head? 
The creak downstairs, the sudden storm, 
The things you feared but never said?

What if the monsters under beds 
Came out to share your daily bread? 
What if the bridge you crossed with ease 
Collapsed beneath your careful tread?

Perhaps what-ifs still need their clouds, 
Their distant castles in the air; 
For some are meant to lead us home, 
And some should never take us there.

So wish—but leave a little room 
For life to choose what it will do. 
Because the world would lose its charm 
If all the what-ifs should come true.

As she leaned in for a final goodbye, his grip tightened with terrifying strength and his lips barely moved, “Don’t let me go alone.”

My mind is cluttered with the years I’ve wept,
A crowded room of rules and ancient scars.
I guard the secrets where the old grief slept,
And count the lines behind my self-made bars.
 
I stand before a choice long overdue.
Am I ready? Is this what I must do:
 
Unlearn the way my heavy armor fit
And feel the chill of standing almost bare
 
Unsee the places where old traumas sit
And turn my eyes toward what is truly there
 
Untie the knots of every old defense
And let the tangled threads land where they may
 
Undo the patterns that have lost all sense
And let the need for answers fall away?
 
Now clear the shelves and let the corners breathe;
The hardest part of healing is the pause:
To step outside the webs I choose to weave
And love the quiet—stripped of consequence or cause.

Before the LLMs learned how to speak, 
I parsed every sentence; I was a geek. 
I didn’t need prompts to construct a phrase,  
Or follow a bot through syntactical haze. 
As algorithms learned to sound more like me, 
I used the em dash before ChatGPT.
 
I know when a semicolon fits just right, 
A stylistic choice, both elegant and bright. 
The Oxford comma is a lazy design  
That adds needless clutter to a pristine line. 
Give me crisp syndeton, fluid and fast,  
Where structure is sound and cadence will last.
 
Give credit where due to those who know  
Just where each clause and em dash should go. 
Exact vocabulary, precise and profound, 
With each of my modifiers properly bound. 
A well-diagrammed sentence—balanced and true— 
Is an elegant art no bot taught me to do.

     

training wheels left on the garage floor 
a brave push off from the driveway shore
 
ten feet of freedom, a wobble, a tilt 
down went the courage he’d carefully built
 
a scraped-up knee, a loud, sharp cry 
defeat’s tears welled up in each eye
 
but loyalty arrives on four quick paws 
to heal the damage from gravity’s laws
 
a favorite stick dropped into the grass
waiting for the sting and the shame to pass
 
no words were spoken, the message was clear   
It’s okay, Buddy, your best friend is here

I pull the curtains tight against the light, 
And try to hide the terror of the night. 
I told myself I'm safer on my own,  
That love is just a trap of flesh and bone.
 
It makes us do such clumsy, foolish things,  
Then clips the fragile hope beneath our wings. 
The armor built to keep my body whole
Becomes a heavy cage around my soul.
 
I try to love while hiding from the blade,  
And freeze inside the fortress I have made.
I guard the barren ground where cold wind blows,  
Where nothing hurts, and nothing ever grows.
 
So understand:  I did not turn away 
From lack of feeling or a wish to stray. 
I fled because the closer that you came, 
The more I feared I’d lose myself to flame.

She simply fears that reaching out, knowing nothing about what she wants has changed, will disturb the fragile peace they are each trying so hard to rebuild.

(had to write something corny to break writer’s block)
————-

Every time I see you,
My heart races at full throttle.
The feeling is just like.
Catching lightning in a bottle.

From the corner of my eye,
I see your smile. My day is made.
I pause and clutch my heart
As it throws a ticker-tape parade.

The world is so chaotic,
But we are perfectly in tune,
A rare collision of the stars
That happens once in a blue moon.

another evening closes,
and she is not there.

he sinks into the cold, crisp sheets.
in his mind’s eye,
he traces the geography of her body:

the familiar ridge of her collarbone,
the warm valley
where her neck met her shoulder,
the gentle rise of her hips
beneath his hands.

he reaches across the bed,
seeking the boundary
where he ends
and she begins.

his fingers graze the linen beside him.
for a moment,
the fabric gives way to phantom warmth,
and he swears he can feel her contours
pressed indelibly into the cloth.

before sleep takes him,
he whispers into the space
she once occupied:

i miss you, my love.

The air is still before we break

The space in which another stands.

What impact will our words now make:

A heavy weight, or helping hands?

Some words are like an evening rain

That cools the dust and lets things grow,

While others leave behind a stain

That settles deeper than we know.

We do not always mean to trace

A line of thistles where we go,

Yet every phrase takes up its place

Within the hearts of those we know.

So sit a while and hold the thought,

And trace its shape before it flies—

Is it a gift that should be brought

Or merely cruelty in disguise?

Yet, surrounded by all that cold perfection, she finally recognized the fortress for what it was: a gilded cage she had helped him build—and one she could never leave.

The clock keeps chasing down the sun,
A breathless race we never win.
We count the miles of what we’ve done,
And lose the space we’re living in.

But look! The afternoon is sweet,
The shadows stretch across the floor.
So kick the shoes from tired feet,
And leave the worry at the door.

The world can wait another hour,
The sky is painting something new.
There is a quiet, steady power
In letting life catch up with you.