You lose all touch
when limits lift the brush—
both reason and heart
fall still in the hush.

No balance endures
once the self flames to star—
it cleaves unto kin,
the near and the far.

You and I purge
through the void’s pale hiss.
No breath, no urge—
when nothing’s amiss,
none wake from abyss.

Don’t knock.
Just rattle the door like the wind did
that night I sat in the bathtub
eating ice with a steak knife.
Bring your worst self—I’ll know what to do.

I’ve buried better men under worse moons.
Named stars after bruises and made constellations
out of what never touched me.
Still called it love.
Still called it mine.

I painted my ribcage lavender
to trick the vultures.
Grew silk in my throat
just to scream prettier.

There is no map.
Only muscle memory and perfume
that smells like the lie you almost told.
The one you rehearsed
but lost the spine
to say aloud.

I practiced not loving you
like it was piano.
Every night, slower.
Quieter.
Wrong keys, on purpose.

So if you must come,
come wrong.
Come ruinous and unready.
Come like someone who forgot the story
but wants to hear it again.

I won’t read it to you.
But I left the pen uncapped.
Go ahead. Ruin the rest.

There is an ache that folds
like paper
soaked through,
crumpled in the cold,
collapsing
centre
of me.

With nothing more than a whisper,
it returns,
as if just moments before
I suffered this mortal injury.

Its power unbound—
ready to consume me
if I let it.

Some days,
I beg this ache to vanish,
leave me hollow, free.

It guards me from healing,
a quiet, faithful dog,
licking old wounds
to keep them open.

I sink into this quicksand of memory,
then fossilize in grief’s amber—
trapped, not treasured.

How can I let it go,
when its grip
is all I have known?

And yet, I breathe it still,
not by choice,
but because forgetting
would mean losing the last of it.

I move through sorrow’s veil,
a torn page curling on wind,
almost-free.

Your family hates me for leaving you
They don’t know
I would have died had I stayed
Even a cactus can die of thirst

© 2025 Joan Zaruba. All rights reserved.

I hold a pen
              It’s yours
It won’t write for me
Suit my hand
My words
My mood
Even if it did
                 I think memory
              Is best left within
Rather than releasing ink
That’s beyond written expression

I wake with a quiet ache,
scrolling to our thread,
your name still there,
but silent.

Still, I send a message,
something small,
as if it might stir you
through the silence.

I picture your reply,
how you'd type and pause,
then send a heart,
or something silly,
just to make me smile.

Late nights were our ritual,
voice notes at 2 AM,
arguing over latest movies,
sharing dreams,
too fragile to say out loud,
except with each other.

The world spun with just us in it,
so selfish,
we never needed another.
We joked that anyone else
would steal our thunder,
dim the glow we found
in each other’s laughter

Days pass like drifting leaves.
I tell myself you're busy,
or resting,
or just forgot to reply.
And then,
the words I never wanted to hear,
you’re gone.

Gone,
while I was still waiting
for the next story,
the next laugh,
the next moment
with you.

Now our memories
live in unread messages,
and I’m still here,
talking to the past,
hoping it hears me.

Written by Micko.
All rights reserved.
30.April.2025.©️

volatile observation suspended amidst reality and fiction,
subdued voice echoes down a hallway of convictions;
like a despotic fog blurring options for a swarm of insects
who eventually finds way to a lizard's grotesque carcass.

a feeling, in my gravel ribs, this might be a dead end
staring up at the sky, an atheist's hollow vision;
air and venom flowing through wires of flesh,
tired abusive drunkards- returning home a mess.

my dear texts~"what if, it's nothingness which spirals into life?"
I am left in my bathtub with a glass of honey or wine,
and the last ray of optimism, living vicariously through my mind.