Letting go is not a single act-
it is art made in fragments.
Like tearing a beloved photograph
Pixel by pixel
until smile fades.

It begins with silence,
the kind that grows like moss
over memory.
You stop correcting their name
when people ask.
You stop replaying the what-ifs
like your breath depends on them

It is an unlearning-
of their laugh, their scent,
their rhythm when they walked away.
You erase them
not with fire,
but with absence.

There's no applause in this gallery.
No frame for your pain.
Just the brushstroke of each
morning
where you choose not to look back.

You start to fill your lungs with now,
to water seeds you almost forgot
to plant.
You realize your heart
was never meant to be a museum
of people who left,
but a garden
for who you're becoming.

Letting go isn't moving on-
it's moving in.
into yourself.
into peace.
into the blank space
where you finally
begin again

“I smile a little,
every time nature takes back.
A factory once booming,
weeds growing through the cracks,
vines enwrapping walls,
shards of glass in tall grass.

I cry a little,
every time nature gives too much.
concrete slabs for carbon-emissions,
tall brick towers for heating,
glass cages for the parasite,
aluminum and plastic in short grass.

I stare a little,
every time nature retaliates.
Waves crashing against metal,
seas forming in concrete bathtubs,
wind flattening itchy points,
sun melting neat grass.”

A.V.

an exceptionalist insisted on praying for my recent heresies -
-- answer or devote a moment of silence... my mortal flaw
--- ask not if you wish you never need account for knowing

Done lightly, is it ever done right, or must
devotees be cognizant to the right use
of dedicated hearts and minds,
by kings and courts many holier than most of us.

We can easily agree, no heavy hueristical premises,
what a participent in a war party accepts as duty
to God and Country, locally, those convinced,
converts given reason to die, where none was.

Duty in a warring society is to that social order's under lay.
Say, who first told the local version of labor class duty
to rear children fit for battle at the nation's call…
or, at the authorized voice of truth's spirit's call…

Give us more John Waynes and Ronald Reagans
-but we settle for Donald Trump and cheer,
signs are clear, God is still on our side
of the Gulf of Mexico…

devote(v.)
1580s, "appropriate by or as if by vow,"
from Latin devotus, past participle
of devovere
"dedicate by a vow, sacrifice oneself, promise solemnly,"
from de "down, away"
+ vovere "to vow"  ---{bend, bow, raise the right hand}
--- remain so devoted, in most faithful silence ---
----- banking on inside sacred signals ---

From c. 1600 as
"apply zealously or exclusively."
{For fear sake, we may imagine}

Auto d'fe, show of devotion- aithunk,

From 1640s as
"to doom, consign to some harm or evil,"
and the word commonly
had a negative sense in 18c.:
The second and third meanings
in Johnson's Dictionary (1755) are
"to addict, to give up to ill" and
"to curse, to execrate; to doom to destruction."

Related: Devoted; devoting.
To devote indicates the inward act, state, or feeling;
to dedicate is
to set apart
by a promise, and indicates primarily an external act;
to consecrate is
to make sacred, and refers
to an  act affecting the use or relations
of the thing consecrated .... [Century Dictionary]

From <https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=devote>

It need never stop. Participation in the answers, devoted
to thinking words redeemed
at the most first recognized cognation,
- we say that this way, a vow is spiritual by nature true.
- we agree we think so, sorta,
- we swear on air, as Donald Trump did left arm dangling…

What a Hoo-mon does is speak make believe done.

We can lie to whomever believes and, doing so, prosper
eh,
furrowed brow, go soft then,
smooth, feel face smooth, cognosis fresh,
fed and walked
until relieved, smile, feel the belly join, breathe, feel heart
full wills worths worked up
into  feeling slick
in some frictionless first intent

Participle past tense, first fret faith musters, why lie about
the very basic first premis being no doubt whatsoever, a lie?

Thus devoting the gadflies this particular damnation.

I cannot romanticise the fact
That I have no clue what I mean
My thoughts are an uncoordinated scramble
Here this
That
Something else
Something something
Something with meaning
Elusive words I pass through like mist
It is cloudy in my mind
I itch to knock on a door
And have it be Clarity who opens
But I only ever stand on the threshold
My feet glued to the ground
As a voice calls “come in!”

The moon kissed the forehead of the pond,
as trembling stars embraced its calm,
as if the heavens, vast and deep,
had found their home within its arms.

The marsh watched on with murky eyes,
laden with a heavy gloom,
no star had ever called its name,
no light had graced its silent tomb.

It whispered low, a voice of silt:
"Why must I drown in shade and hush?
Why does the sky refuse to rest
upon my waters, still and lush?"

The wind, a sage of wandering fate,
brushed softly past and dared to say:
"The less you swallow, the more you see,
for clarity holds eternity."

Yet envy wrapped the marsh in dark,
it clutched its depths, it pulled them tight,
it drank itself into the void,
and severed all from warmth and light.

The pond, so quiet, asked for none,
yet bore the stars within its chest—
and in its stillness, silver-clear,
it cradled time. It cradled rest.