Shattered illusions.
Shattered hopes.
Shattered dreams.

A house with no structure
built from the remains of ruin.

A powerful soul
in a trembling body.

A house meant to fall.
A house that realized
it’s not a house at all -
just the memory of shelter
pretending to hold.

It asks,
"Then what am I?"

But no one answers.

And so,
what’s left
sinks into the soil,
quietly turning
back into earth.

Broken crayons still color,
She'd say, "I'd be ****** if I forget,
And let the water wash my spark away."

Jumped where the tides barely speak,
She'd say, "I'd be ****** if I left,
And deaf to the calling waves I keep."

Heavier heartbeats marked the tide,
She'd say, "I'd be ****** if it didn't,
And erase the memories I couldn't hide."

Stones in her thoughts sank the soul,
She'd say, "I'd be ****** if that's true,
And sinking in the shallow end? That ain't what I do."

Dragged into the darker tide,
She'd say, "I'd be ******, but this hurts,
And I'll drown happily with my heart, embracing the burn."

Broken crayons still color,
She'd say, "I'd be ****** but it's true,
I ain't wax, mama!
I'm shattered glass, betrayed, in my break."

Lost in the moment—
as you fixed my loose dress.
Click, as you laughed
when the pin pierced my flesh.
Pain dressed as care,
The quietest attack.

Red dress, stained.
Ruby red blood.
Your favorite color,
was it not?


I smiled in the mirror
while you stood there,
frozen in cold contempt.
You expected me to flinch,
to scream, or to feel,
but alas.

That rush of sadness came in a hurry,
No trace of fear, no hint of worry.
Just silence where indifference marked its territory.


All the regret
bled out through my capillaries,
pooling beneath the dermis
staining the irregularities.
A quarter of my lifetime,
amputated clean from memory.

Replaced,
by that one selfish sliver of a night.
You loved anatomy,
did you not?


Anatomy, how poetic.
Cutting things open,
Watching what spills out, the cries,
Scalpel-sharp lies, incisions in disguise,
No remorse, no regret,
Behind your hooded eyes.

You called it curiosity as you pulled me apart,
Just another patient, dissected for your art,
It's funny how clinical you were with my heart.


Thirteen.
*******. Years.
Dragging silence cause it owed me tears.
You stood by me, loyal n blind.
You, the anchor babe
I unhooked just in time.

Maybe he was right when he called you fat,
At least not literally but **** it, it fits.
You always loved metaphors,
did you not?


Shipwrecked our fairytail,
Rotting over the reef,
You were looking for mermaids,
While i drank with the fiends,
******* our love for Elsa,
I did finally let you go. Neat.

My drink sank faster than our wrecked old ship,
Laughed as the whiskey scorched every sip,
Not once did your tears leave that kind of burning.


Hearts were shattered
Plural, if I’m honest.
(******* liar)
Goodbyes were said
Lit a fire in the forest,
You know how it goes,
Nothing says closure like a little gasoline.

All that love we swore we'd never unlearn
Flames in my thorat, as i watched it all burn.
Ashes lay there, waiting for the phoenix,
Tell me babe, was it now "aesthetically pleasing?"

Putrid,
Repulsive,
Disgusting;
is but human nature.

A deceitful smile brings hurt;
yet a frown brings concern.
No one is out to get you;
yet no one is there to help you.

I want to be great;
a human without hate.
Am I worth something;
worth at least a couple of glances.
Before I die, I want at least a goodbye.
Humans are horrible —
yet I crave their attention.

I crave every part of her, not just the smile she wears in daylight for the world, but the silence between her sobs when the night presses too heavy on her chest. I want the rawness in her breath when pain steals her voice, the anger she keeps caged behind her ribs, the secrets buried beneath her insistence that she’s “fine.” I want the scars she won’t name, the ones my fingers trace like prayers. The shame others turn away from when it begs to be held. The flicker of old memories in the mirror that still make her flinch. I want the parts of her even she’s afraid to love. Because real love doesn’t live on the surface, it digs deep, waits patiently in the shadows, learns the shape of locked doors and kisses bruises no one else knows exist. She’s been told she’s too much, but they only ever saw the outline of her being. I’ve memorized the weight in her voice when she lies and says, “I’m fine.” And I believe her, not the words, but the weight of the burden she carries behind them. If she let me, I’d carry it all. They love her like a still photograph, pretty, posed, and flat. But I love her like a novel, long-winded and tangled, pages missing, ink running into the margins. What I feel isn’t fleeting infatuation; it’s a quiet knowing, a deep-rooted truth. She was etched into the marrow of me long before fate ever brought us face to face. And if she runs, I’ll be sure to follow, not to catch her, but to remind her that she’s already home.

A Marionette In The Dark
By: E.J. Crowe

I drip puke and spit blood.
Bags under my eyes—
heavy with contemplation,
under the toxic spell of drugs.

The alluring call…
the pills whisper to me from behind the walls:
“Come home.
You belong to me.”

I stumble to my closet, slow—
covered in glistening sweat and dried *****.
I muster the strength to find my pills—
my beautiful percs,
so pretty,
so good—
a potion to forget
the awful, decaying wound
of this festering world.

I SEE THE LIGHT.

I trip—
fall
into the darkest corner of my room.
Huddled,
knelt,
dumping out my faded RX bottle.
Counting them.
Smelling them.

The demons finally have their hold.

I look around—
my musty, dry room,
a sliver of light peeking
through a busted makeshift curtain.
Dust particles dance
in the sunray like Ashes

I haven’t left the house in a week.
Haven’t showered.
Haven’t changed.
The floor’s a graveyard—
scattered crushed pills,
broken beer cans,
whiskey bottles,
dried blood.

What have I become?

The addiction became possessive—
controlling.
I was its marionette.
It weaved the strings of my bane existence.

Hopeless.
Lost.
Beautifully scared.

I hear the faint laughs
of my friends walking by the house.

***** them.
They don’t care.
My family doesn’t care.

****,
my dad gave me the pills.

Only the pills love me.

My beautiful white powder.

I use my knife to crush them.
Sweating heavy,
smelling like a living zombie.
As I drift to sleep,
my only company
is the warm embrace of my
euphoric state,
and dilated pupils.

God…

when can I be normal?