i watched the clouds flow and change shape
the puddle was reflecting it all while i was list in my thoughts
i whispered myself how serene it looks
then a dragonfly flew past it
and a sudden breeze sent ripples in the water
distorting the sky and flinching me
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Oh, Jesus, I wanted to be like you~
to bleed
without flinching,
to kneel in the dust
and mean it.
Instead, I clutch
my own crown,
not of thorns
but of ego and want~
sharp, crooked,
never quite fitting.
They told me salvation
was nails,
but my hands
are soft,
my wrists
unbroken.
I whisper forgive me
to an empty room,
and the silence
answers: Try harder.
Somewhere, a mother teaches her daughter
to carry water on her head without spilling-
balance, she says, is everything.
In another country, a different mother
teaches her son to carry his name
without flinching when strangers mispronounce it.
We are all learning to carry something.
The refugee carries a photograph,
edges soft from touching-
proof that home was real.
The prisoner carries tomorrow
in the calluses of his palms,
counting days like prayer beads.
What if peace is not the dove
but the earthworm, turning soil,
making everything fertile again?
What if justice is not the gavel' crack
but the quiet hand that helps a stranger stand?
We build monuments to freedom
while forgetting freedom is built
in the small spaces between us-
the breath before forgiveness,
the moment we choose to listen
instead of turning away.
So here is my offering:
not grand words carved in marble,
but this-the admission that I am still learning
to carry the weight of your name,
your story, your right to be here,
as carefully as you carry mine.
Fig and Feelings
Silhouette the wary Shadow
Swaying away
flinching from the beaming Sun
Virtue a hallowed vacuum
embroiled amidst a hollow world
Bemusing minds
Wrath, swaying with swagger
Swirling with astonishment
Dripping wails and wills
along with a tempest
A bell tolls — with a single chime.
Igniting the spell of dawn’s regret.
It halts the breath, suspends all time,
Foreboding with threats you can't forget.
You flinch—one foot on the stepping stone,
The wind's first touch scalds your face.
Just one finger grips your hand alone.
You wait for relief from bell’s disgrace.
The silence palls where echoes die—
The ring bell toll fades with no reply.
There's no sign, no sound, no reason why,
You're left here dangling from the sky.
A bird attempts one fragile note.
Bashful in the spelled applause.
The breeze catches breath in its throat.
Afraid to continue through the pause.
You toll the haunt of some unspoken spell,
A pact with ghosts to stop the feeling.
While winds and seas rise on the swell,
Sending your hopeful plans reeling.
A lone bell tolls—no one answers now.
So old scars and doubts take the blame.
For dismembered memories you can’t avow.
In the flinching cringe that has no name.
Bubbles hit the walls of the dome and pop.
Hurting sounds.
Flinching tree branches.
Feeling bored in here.
As if my car won’t start.
No one believes that my car won’t start.
Or that the dome is getting warped.
I’m like a failed science fiction story.
I wish I could turn into a stone and get flicked away.
I wish I could shrink so that I won’t need to eat much.
Feeling bored still.
Bored and trying to be whimsical.
By playing in the swampy old puddles.
In this place where it never rains but has endless, sloshing puddles.
I think everyone else is happy.
Rusty water hits my face again.
Irkish the feeling impels
Impulsive of it's own action.
Disfigurely quenching,
And on it's feet it commands
A riot so clenching
Flinching the heart's
Utmost fibres none can comprehend.
"Xeno" it calls aloud
For it looks in it's shadows.
Perkish, yet Meek, and sleek
As it sneeks around alert for
It's next prey to be caged.
Eat me,
a voice hymns in my ear.
I snap back
I can't eat you.
Please,
the voice begs.
I furrow my eyebrows,
impatient.
"You don't exist."
But you can hear me,
the voice says lightly.
I stay silent.
If you eat me,
you can take all my softness.
You can take all my whimsy,
you can take all my pride,
and all of my serenity.
I know the person you crave.
And I know you're not that person.
I know it keeps you up at night
knowing you aren't
who you wish you were.
Eat me.
Tear me to shreds.
Rip my heart
out of my chest.
To become who you want to be,
you just have to do something
this version of you
would do without flinching.
Be yourself
one last time
to be someone
you can be
for the rest of eternity.
Eat.
Me.
~ B.J
I stopped explaining.
Stopped folding notes into doves.
Lit matches—
not out of anger,
just to see what would burn
and what would follow.
Held the line.
Held it higher.
Watched him trip
and told myself
that’s not my fault.
I sleep well.
I eat better.
I say no without flinching.
But lately
when someone walks away,
they look at me
like I’m the story
they’ll tell
about good people
gone wrong.
Just turned 22
Six years flinching at you
Six years of you leaving me blue
Our love is an engine
And it runs on nightmare fuel
The weight I carried has settled,
not vanished, but pinned in place -
a fragile truce between my mind
and the pills I swallow, trembling.
They don’t call it a cure,
and I don’t ask for one;
but it’s enough to feel the unraveling slow.
I feel the world bleed into softer shapes,
colours no longer clawing at my skin,
the air no longer suffocating with noise.
The chaos still growls, caged but alive,
watching, waiting,
but I stand, grounded,
no longer flinching at silence,
or the darkness I once begged
to swallow me whole.
I don’t ache with every breath anymore,
the oppression of my thoughts no longer crushing,
gnawing at my chest.
I don’t fight shadows that cling like chains,
or drown in static, my mind splintering.
Now, I wake, and the world’s
no longer a battlefield -
for the first time in years,
I feel the weight of the earth beneath me,
no longer lost.
It’s not perfect,
but it’s enough to stand on.
Has Islam a demands
for its followers where death
itself has a meaning
Never have we seen a people
like the Palestinians, in Gaza
taking on suffering without
flinching, what happens is in
the name of Allah
While modern Israel, suffers
a fear of the violence she has
orchestrated sinks into apathy
and leave the promised land
Down the corridors of mortal existence
He pursued me without ceasing,
Never yielding in his search of the lost,
Nor flinching from the wounds he carried
To gain admittance to my broken heart.
Out of a love beyond finite understanding,
He poured his abundant grace
Like a cascading fountain,
Showering me to cleanse and heal.
He gave himself for me,
When he brought his heavenly kingdom
To reign within, where
Once I ruled in my life.
Nothing compares to the mystery
Of God's holiness being implanted
In this empty vessel
Because of the sacrifice of one pure Man
Upon a cross of guilt and shame.
I can only surrender to his invitation,
Knowing I am known
Since before the dawn of creation -
Made in his perfect image,
Now restored in gold.
If by thought, word or deed
I mar the redeemed body,
I am impelled to confess
Before him, who stands in my defence,
Since he has atoned for all my sin.
At peace in the presence
Of him, who is the Prince of Peace,
I look to a time out of time
When I will be in eternal glory
To bow before him as Lord of lords
And King of kings -
My brother and friend.
Mammoth cold this morning.
There’s been an ice-storm.
Creaking and walking
boots talking
shovel in heavy hand.
Robins pounce on frozen worms.
The wide spade
snatches at the frozen turf,
its red plastic mouth scooping up
small glacial heaps.
Soon I tire, soon I sag,
flinching beneath the wind's frigid lash.
I throw the shovel down,
defeated -
going to toss bird seed,
feed those robins,
maybe save the life
of a few stiff worms,
make hot cocoa.
I had a love, I swear I did;
I know it must be true,
Because my soul still bears the mark,
The imprint of her hand.
In desperation, before the mirror, wide I rip my shirt,
And search, with manic eyes, the reflection bared therein.
Surely there must be a trace, a mark, a sign,
An inscription, a signature, anything at all
Upon the space above my heart.
Maddened, I scan the breast endlessly.
Nothing.
I had a love, I swear I did;
I know it must be true,
We shared our selves, our life, our love,
One body, mind and spirit.
I know that she was mine, I know;
She told me it was so.
But here I am, where she is not,
Mumbling like a crazed and sorry fool;
And sooth, I know that she is better off without me,
So tell the truth now,
That at least you owe yourself;
At least that motley sum;
Look in the mirror once again, no flinching, hold it steady;
A prize I ain’t.
So at least pretend to be a man,
You sniveling little bastard.
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