I set track with this map of mismatch
That just tracks, and it stacks, and its lax,
On everyone — yet it drains, and it saps
The codex, the freakin’ stats of anyone who fights back
Try to relax, take a sip, but they snap
When I’m sad, like it’s bad, like I’m whack
Like I’m trash yet have the audacity to
bid no eye, and just wave and goodbye
To the ones who just **** up to you while I’m passin’ 'em by
And it’s always just them, and them, and again
And again and again man it pains me to bend — even then
I’m denied to take a stand, but ******* — enough is enough
Of this band — I’ma snap, I’ma crack, I’ma jest, I’ma Laugh
I’m this far away from the end of my thread
But I swear on the pain that I won’t let it end

For The years of torment, and the pains I couldn’t vent
You’ll feel till the end so just relax and repent
These verses are godsent, You fools better flinch, better **** in your pants.

And since birth, I’ve been cursed with this curse to just curse
And blurt this berserk and bizarre **** that works
And it helps in itself, it’s relief in the tension
That’s seepin’ through these sentences, stress in extension
That’s been eatin’ me recently off of my chest
And I still can’t even rest peacefully
No patience is in me, and if you offend me
I'm liftin' you ten feet in the air
I don't care who was there and who saw me, just jaw you
Go call you a lawyer, file you a lawsuit
I'll smile in the courtroom, and buy you a wardrobe
I'm tired of all you
I don't mean to be mean
But that's all I can be, it's just me
And I am whatever you think I’m not
If I wasn’t then why would I say I’m not
In the paper, the news everyday’s a ****
Everything I’m not made me everything I’m
                                                                    -Asher Graves

In beauty's embrace, majestic with grace

Soothing, yet a lingering sense of sadness filled up the place,

Unwanted thoughts wind up like a haphazardly tied lace

Been alone countless times won't deny

Maybe it'll be over soon, sighs

I did cry, but I won't pry, I must try and try and try, relentlessly, I don't know why?

Something tells me to do so, and no I won't ask any questions, I'm too tired.

My head feels heavy and it feels cold

Yes, I am a reckless fool, but let truth be told,

hold up, behold,

A free soul, got locked up, in a stronghold, due to freefall, did a reroll, felt an unease, faulty threshold, with a default,
Setting.

Yet I thrived on, not with violence, but with a smile on,
Dreams engulfed in darkness, yet persevered and fight on.
Emotions masked, I fight on, a battle of silence, I reckon

I'm a lost soul at a crossroad, with no hope, yet I try on,
I hold my head up high, a bit shy, but I try
To change the narrative, to rewrite my sky.

I see the highs, I see the lows,
Life's a cinematic film, beautifully composed.
It's real though, no retries, no cheats,
A mistake made, a life fades, "Scream!" echoes in the streets.

Skill issue, you say? Perhaps it's true,
The presence of another is a dream I pursue.

Alas, my fumbling technique never ceases to amuse,
Back to solitude, melancholy's muse.

Walking up the road less travelled by, devoid of any gleam,
A haunting daydream, or so it would seem.

No destination, no direction, just endless extremes,
A conflicted response, a ghastly gleam.

Alone through the time, a truth I've known,
Helplessness grips, a silent pathetic moan.

Guilty, vulnerable, yet a soul set free,
I hate to admit it, but I won't concede.

Heartbreaks, anxieties, failures persist,
Giving up is foolishness, not on my list.

Break me, bury me, all for your thrill,
My body may perish, but never will my will.

Intrusive thoughts roam around, Like I’m fallin’ off of a cliff
The desire to bounce back is sharper than you think
I'm not the one who's drowned here man,
I stand alone, like a “Poneglyph”
My spirit untouched, my soul unbound like a monolith

A rowdy spirit, scorned with disdain,
I'll mock you still, throughout the pain.

I choose my role and I define my fate,
Your words, your arrogance, I disrespectfully negate.

In defiance, I speak with a voice loud and clear,
"The path is treacherous, hearts break, I fear."

The soul’s burnin’, seeking a purpose anew,
To burn it all down, tired of feeling blue.

A voice echoes, a spiteful chill,
Fate falters frivolously front of a mortal's will,
The birth of a legend, just like the Hercules’ will

The poem concludes, a profound standstill,
A journey through emotions, in verses that I instill.
                                                                             -Asher Graves

It’s a miracle that I’m still around
After I lost my skin
And walked all over Tehran’s streets,
Absorbing all the noise and pollution
Directly into every little muscle and bone.

It’s a miracle that I still love—
Even if very selectively,
And surgically cautious.
Even if from a distance,
From my carefully curated living space
Where only music, art, and fashion are allowed,
With no pre-screening and constant monitoring for letdown and betrayal.

It’s a miracle that I still smile—
Even though, if you look closely
At the corner of my mouth,
You would notice a trace of unbreakable sadness.
That’s why, when I feel too deep,
I look away.

There was a time, when I was younger,
When I loved so freely,
So carelessly,
So curiously—
But I got pushed and pulled,
Hurt and burnt
Beyond the point of my breaking.

You cannot see it,
But my soul carries all those wounds
And burn marks on her skin.
And she carries them
Like a badge of honor.

Because it’s a miracle that I still breathe.
And it’s a miracle
That I kept my dreams.

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.

Furies surge and heave with passion
Where swells music of love’s lost lore,
As deep a longing in ocean’s roar,
Only to break, and retreat into silence.
No matter the force, an unreachable moor,
A lonely cadence played upon the shore.

Fates, like gales that pull our sails
Through calm or strife, pale or grand,
Leave us longing for the strand.
Bitter pangs of waking woes
Storm loud as immortal command,
All these lines drawn upon the sand.

Furies, lashed out from the sea,
Lie broken down on ocean’s floor,
Softened, smoothed, by ocean’s score.
For if, unscathed, we return from depths,
By what star shall we guide the oar,
That we might sail free, evermore?

Fates give not a brief repose, but
Sails unfurl, and worlds expand,
That we might explore the hinterland.
With no lines upon the sea, our fates are free –
Love removes its scouring brand,
As tide moves high upon the land.

[Narrator:]
A bird once flew with joy, chasing the horizon.
But the sky grew heavy, and his wings grew tired.
One evening, he fell by the quiet sea.
A young girl found him, her hands full of dreams.

She knelt by his side and asked:

[The Girl:]
I found you trembling near the dreaming tide,
Your feathers torn as though the heavens cried.
Tell me, worn traveler, where have you flown?
What hunger drove you past the worlds you’ve known?

[The Bird:]
I chased the rim where fire and heavens kiss,
A line of gold no hand can ever miss.
I sang to suns, I danced where eagles dared,
I broke my heart on dreams that never cared.

I rose, I fell, I rose again and bled,
Until the winds unwove the life I led.
The sky, sweet child, is vast, but it forgets;
It makes no grave for those it once begets.

The sky is not a temple, but a field of knives.
The stars you seek will teach you how hope dies.
To fly is to wager all you are and own,
And to be forgotten even by the stone.

Freedom is a flame that eats its own,
A summit where the winds strip flesh from bone.
Dreams build their monuments from broken wings;
Songs leave behind the silence that they bring.

[The Girl:]
I hear the hollow echo in your song,
The mourning stitched between the bright and wrong.
Your wings are altars where the old prayers bled;
Your eyes, a ledger of the tears you’ve shed.

Yet if this is the price that freedom claims,
If every flight must carve itself in flames,
Then I will pay with all I have and more.
Better to burn than to be chained ashore.

[The Bird:]
Bold soul, you walk the edge where light falls blind;
You court the storm that cracks the clearest mind.
I too once roared against the tethered clay,
Believing wings could tear the night away.

But listen:
Not every fall redeems the climb.
Not every song survives the mouth of time.
To dream is to accept both birth and grave,
To build, to lose, to give what none can save.

[The Girl:]
Still would I leap, though cliffs erase my name;
Still would I sing, though silence be my claim.
Let it be said: she lived, and she was free
And when the end came, she did not flee.

If dreams devour, let them feast on me whole;
If stars betray, still shall I bless my soul.
Better to vanish in a sky of flame,
Than bear a life untouched by any name.

[The Bird:]
Then fly, fierce child, into the ruthless blue;
Let winds unmake you, they will make you true.
The sky is cruel but it remembers one:
The heart that dares to burn brighter than the sun.

I left an earring on your nightstand
like a dare,
like a dog whistle only I could hear,
like a lie I could almost live with,
like a warning you didn’t read.

You wrote me like you were killing time.
I let you.
I was tired—
tired of being the intermission
between things you actually wanted,
tired of holding out my hands
just to catch the sound of you leaving.

It was raining the next day.
Of course it was raining.
The whole city smelled like last chances
wrung out in the gutter,
like a bouquet dropped
when someone realized it wouldn’t change anything,

You said,
"Take care of yourself."
And I did—
by breaking every mirror
that still showed me your mouth,
by smashing every reflection
that looked like hope.

There's a version of me
still waiting at that train station—
wearing the wrong jacket,
gripping the wrong book,
mistaking longing for directions,
carrying promises like ballast.
I'll know it's you
by the way my spine recognizes the disaster
before my eyes do.

I hope she never learns.
I hope she keeps looking up every time the wind shifts.
I hope she believes in arrivals.
Even when no one steps off.

Harder to imagine, Difficult to trust
if you have the will, you gotta clutch.
                                                             -Asher Graves

I tended a garden once,
behind walls too low,
in a pasture too wide.

The vines reached for strangers
with reckless kindness,
begging to be named beautiful.

You came with smoke clinging to your sleeves,
promises falling from your mouth,
and I, fool that I was,
welcomed you.

With greedy hands, you plucked petals,
stepped on seeds meant for tomorrow,
your breath embers against my harvest.

The skies darkened.
The rivers boiled.
The orchard withered from root to leaf.

And there I stood,
ash stuck to my skin,
silence heavier than stone.

I stayed to bury what you left behind:
The wilted vines,
the broken promises,
the ruined songs.

From the shattered soil,
I built a citadel from broken things.
It stands, heavy and hollow,
Strong enough for silence to live inside.

I am no longer waiting
for careless hands to stumble upon me.
I do not open gates for ghosts.
I hope their hands break before they knock.

up and over hills
we go, we go
but on the drive in
those hills
those wonderful hills
the ones that catch my breath
and lock it in their grass roots
the impossible to climb
but on the drive in
so wonderful to see