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Kewayne Wadley Nov 2024
I flip the pancake over like  
you've flipped my love for you.  
The skillet hot with butter  
and a splash of oil.  
The batter becomes thick,  
flattening on one side
raising before falling.  
The edges becoming crisp,  
a mix of heart and soul  
and all the simple, consistent
consideration in between.  

When I am alone, I can make  
the perfect pancake.  
But when someone is watching,  
I flip the batter too soon.  
The circle is broken, and the batter  
bakes unevenly on the skillet.  
It still doesn't take away from the taste.  
Sometimes, I still feel like a fool.  

All it takes is the heat of reciprocation
whether the spatula is cheap or  
expensive.  
I eat it anyway,  
just like you've flipped my love for you.  
I brought a better spatula.  
I'll drizzle you in butter and syrup,
and eat until I can't anymore.
Maggie Nov 2024
I will die on this hill
Of never letting you know how I feel
Because that’s just too silly
I don’t know you really

You’re a figment of my imagination
A man of my own creation
A newly made hyper fixation
Maybe a fleeting fascination

Yet I think of you in the quietest nights
Building stories, chasing distant lights
But it’s safer to keep this all concealed,
Because how can you hurt, what’s never revealed?
To that perfect, perfect boy I made up in my mind with the face of a person I know
Angie Nov 2024
If I stay a nervous bud
my full bloom will not encroach upon the grandeur of another
& I will invite no retribution
Though the artist in me knows
that a whole field in bloom
Pollinates the world.
Bloom with the artists.

If I stay silent
my words cannot be smithed into a weapon of censure,
and be used to cut me into smaller pieces.
Though the poet takes my words
& alchemises them
into an elixir for healing.
Speak with the poets.

If I smother my fire
I inspire no ire from neighbouring Suns
for whom my shine is a punishable theft of thunder.
Though a sister moon mirrors my light and illuminates the next.
Shine regardless.

If I stay in my armour
my vulnerability cannot become the missile launched at me
by the traitor who begged for my truth
Though an ally reveres my courage
and meets it with the honour of their own open heart.
Open, even though.
Lemon Black Nov 2024
That kind of longing you learn once you miss.
Goes by a name only a heart knows how to pronounce,
and doesn’t hesitate to call when you care to listen,
so it absorbs as it unfolds yours every ounce.

Of all the things, it’s absence that can’t be overcome,
a void of crushing torment you have to sustain
alongside hope that one day it will leave.
But that’s like hoping for a night of clear skies
that guides your way home in the middle of the storm.
You might as well sink. As there’s no burden
heavier than the love you can’t give.
A feeling that, once settled in, leaves you asking questions about the meaning of all of this, never hearing back, or worse - learning haphazard explanations. No matter the intention, indifferent to your plans, it’s always there. You know it’s there. Waiting for a dram of attention, ready to overflow you, to petrify your lungs, leaving you gasping for air fighting its waves adrift. A chasm of terrifying depth, frightening the eyes to avert, wanting to never look back. Yet, left unattended for too long hollows the interior with apathy, offering a coup de grace of sweet numbness one step ahead, out of reach, unless you’re willing to take it one step further. The small things come to the rescue, small wins: some chores, routines, comforting others. The clipping works, occasionally watering, but better not reach for the roots, definitely not unprepared.
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