Existence is a frail leaf
battered by the storm
Tossed about by winds’ desires
vibrance turned forlorn
Why cling we so to what we know
returns to ash and dust
To make our mark, to light a spark
a candle midst the dark
They ask me what is race —
I say: a border drawn in skin,
a lie that learned to breathe,
A wicked seed planted from within.
It’s not blood. Blood doesn’t know color.
It’s not bone. Bone doesn’t hold grudges.
It’s a story — told so long,
so loud, so often,
we mistook the telling for the truth.
Race is a costume
A made up competition
Of existence.
HIS-Story made us wear.
Prejudice is the cousin
Of racism for they both go hand in hand.
While they prevent every color and creed from coming together and joining hands.
Some days it fits like armor,
some days it cuts like wire,
but underneath it, every time,
is just a person
asking to be free
of the box somebody else built.
So don’t ask me what race is.
Ask what it costs.
Ask who it protects.
Ask why we’re still drawing lines
on a map that was never really there.
Upon me, I have seen so many things come and go,
from my creation to my extinction.
I’ve seen plates come and go,
I’ve seen tempers flare,
I’ve seen asses come and go,
I’ve seen centuries pass.
I’ve seen hands come and go,
I’ve seen wings take flight,
I’ve seen declarations made,
I’ve seen people part ways.
It was 10:35, August 21
I woke up, and through the window
The rain gone, there's only the sun
I love the rain, I've been loving sorrow,
Perhaps, I'm done for things undone,
And there's nothing really to do
But face my own new year through.
The street was long, endless really
My sweat drew maps on my shirt
The street was long, leading nowhere simply,
All in all, below the asphalt is earth
Despite the wails of motorcycles and cars
Sooner now, I'll be back to the stars.
For now the flowers still smile a smile,
But the food have become tasteless
All that remains of what Time defiled
Sooner too, they'll wilt, in baselessness
Continuing anyway for one more mile
As there's nothing to do, more or less.
The sea wind welcomes me
Like a woman's hand on my hair.
Years drift to the limited continuity
I laughed because I could not despair.
With a pudding in my hand, no sorry
For the sunset falling over me.
Aug. 21, 2026
You were never supposed to exist
You breathe too loud
You have been the worst of nightmares
Maybe you shouldn't ever have existed
Why are you sick
Why couldn't you be normal
You were supposed to take care of me
That's the only reason I ever let you stay
You were destined to be the scapegoat
You were born to be the punch bag of this family
Why don't you respect your elders
Why don't you give in to your destiny
You weren't supposed to have ideas
Or thoughts or feeling or emotions
You were born
To take the weight of all our faults
To be made to believe your existence caused this
To never blink, to not flinch
To accept all blame, to never fight back
Why don't you just accept your role
This is what fate destined for you
Long before you were born
We decided not to have you
You should be grateful
You're alive and breathing
Clothed and fed
You are too loud
In your needs and demands
Born to be invisible
You were never supposed to exist
They say suicide is a sin
and I want to die pure.
I want the Heaven open for me,
the absolution of my sins,
(is it hating yourself a sin?).
I want the white robe in my coffin,
the children playing,
the adults crying.
Plant tulips around my grave.
I was pure once.
I’m pure now, but
Lord knows I’ve been corrupted,
(maybe that’s why I hate my body).
Cold down, go beneath the skin,
look at my heart, my lungs.
How they move.
Still a human.
Still a being.
(If I suicide
There would be an absolution?).
Simple being is what I worth the most
Any lofty ideals I won’t justify
I ditch principles and credos of those
Who are chosen to rule, born to lie
The existence I own makes enough
Foundation for the rest that I need
Like perceiving music, arts, feeling love
Taking care of the garden and weed
Hamlet’s question seems idle to me
Hope I don’t sound stiff or too proud
I’m your happy sad Jack - just to be
Is the most comfy thing I have found.
If every river longs to find the sea,
what shore is waiting for a soul like mine?
Why was I taught to count the passing years,
yet never taught what they were passing toward?
If mountains rise by carrying the earth,
what unseen weight am I supposed to bear?
Why does my heart recognize homes
my feet have never found?
If every star is placed within the night,
who scattered us across the dark?
Was I made to bloom,
or merely to become the seed
of someone else's spring?
If time is only borrowed breath,
who is waiting for its return?
Why do we spend our lives becoming,
yet never arrive?
Is the horizon always distant
because meaning was never meant
to be reached—
only followed?
And when this small flame
returns its borrowed light to dawn,
will I finally know
what I was meant to become?
Am I the sea?
Am I a bird?
Or am I an unknown existence?
Oh, me,
Floundering in that pitch-black darkness.
Is the reason I truly do not know who I am
Because I do not know you?
Am I the sea?
Am I a bird?
Within my very existence, how I long to become you.
These feet plod. This heart
Heavier drags
Less motivated, whose mire
Of foul greeds through.
Filled up with creatures
With claws for hands.
Who, sinking deeper not one
Glint, gratified
Thereout is shown too ,upeyed.
Devil's outlands!
if the future is tomorrow,
and today was once tomorrow,
then future has already past.
if time is constant,
then life is constant
and this pain will never last.
if i am me
and you are you
then who are we,
if not me and you?
life is constant
light, waves, and sound
always in motion
collapsing into itself
oscillating to and from
arriving to the return
life is the diameter
between then and now
shapes of lens
flattening the dimension of time
determining,
whether you float
or sail through the journey
Don't come find me, cause I'll be gone
Don't text or call, cause il be gone
Everywhere you look, everywhere you go, I'll be gone
Some day, somewhere, I'll just disappear
No evidence that I was ever here
Simply vanished from this universe
As if I never existed
Not a trace left behind
Forever forgotten
No one will remember who I was
For darkness will consume me
And I'll be gone
Time to time, live alone
Walk on the fields
All the foxes are witnesses
They're just looking at my life
Who is this guy?
Ghost of fields and woods
So many times I visit this place
Good to be alone here
Studying my past and life
Fate, fate, why is this mine?
I see others' lives
Between us, the ravines, differences
How can I find anyone to this fate?
How? There is no answer. I am sorry, I can’t fly there
“You are so sensitive”, said Satan
Satan, hmm, he helped me many times
I remember when he first spoke to me
He gave me new hope and life goals
And the true faith to new worlds
Other planets mean new opportunities
In my youth, I loved science fiction
Now I know alien lives exist
And the next life, so it’s no fantasy
But how could I get there? How?
Live and start an extremely different life?
New goals, new relationships, new fate
This dream very high
So far
But it will be realised
Ages of Time…
We split it into fragile parts,
Seconds, minutes, hours,
Measured life in numbered beats,
And called this structure “ours.”
Yet time won’t count what we keep,
It does not rush or wait,
It passes beyond our grids and lines,
Unaffected by our fate.
Time was never born of clocks,
Nor carved by ticking hands,
It stretched before the stars and earth,
Not ruled by human plans.
It runs its path, it never stops
Unbroken perfection, vast and free.
Yet never a glimpse has been seen by me.
Norman Van Etten
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