I tend to feel hot, so I much rather lay in a room so cold.
Need few more pillows for each pair of limbs to comfortably hold.
Some nights my snores are unladylike, or so I am told.
I know I'm second-hand
Filtered out to feed ur addictions
It's bad for my health
But I can't help relapsing over the touches
They take the cigarettes to their lips
and blow the leftovers at me
And I inhale with everything I have
I'm out of breath
But when im with them
It feels like something to live on
I'm an addict for the 2nd hand
I can't avoid it as it blows through me
Around me
Hazing everything I used to be familiar with
It becomes a part of my bad habits
My new form of oxygen
Different from the one I was taught about
I'm second-hand
And I hate that my lungs are worse than u thought
It burns when I think about it
I shouldn't have gone
I promised I'd stay away
Find something to give me purpose again
But turns out it's all I'm good for
A product of what I was made of
2nd hand on what I grew up on
I’m wishing things were different.
I question what I absolutely cannot change.
I catch myself praying for petty wants.
I see the pretense of my ways.
Some old habits die hard.
AP: 3rd place 2025
scavenger coyotes crave carrion
gobbling down roadkill of which they are fond
they will eat anything crawling, stumbling, dead or alive
just saw of pack of them, I think there were five
jackals are like their cousins the coyotes too
except they also eat berries, they especially like blue
It’s difficult to share the great unknown
residing somewhere cloaked and undercover.
Hiding in nooks and crannies
that deep abyss of darkness
quite content to remain nameless.
Eyes ever watching peering glaring
in silence loud with echo
while half-truths ride wild rollercoasters.
Stonewalled with straight poker face
denying any inadvertent slips of telltale signs
the mystery that wants to be deciphered
remains the epitome of enigma.
You’d think it’d be to my advantage
to open up and spell things out.
I’m not in tune with inner feelings
and expressing emotion is a foreign language
… unfortunately old habits die hard.
Lineku: 3 stanzas 5-7-5 lines of 5 or 7 words
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
some people have to sleep on the softest fluffiest bed
Others cannot slumber without a fan at their head
my mother could get shut eye with her eyes open, laying on bricks
In the woods she could go into a trance state on a pile of sticks
I can snooze on a couch with a TV glaring on level thirty-nine
In a backseat of a car, with the radio blaring, I can fall asleep fine.
Our past we can't change,
but can reshape our future
with better habits.
She looked pretty at the Zebra crossing,
weaving slowly, her shampooed hair tossing,
cars stopped still, to allow her go across,
who wouldn’t stop to let a beauty pass!
She looked neither to her left nor her right,
body cutting out shape in pants bit tight,
eyes fixed on the messages on her phone,
tripping when side stepping a traffic cone.
She continued her walk on the pavement,
her gaze on phone, no other engagement,
people just getting out of her long strides,
moving out, leaning against walls on sides.
She will, let us pray, march on and reach home,
Walking in a dream with eyes on her phone,
Smart phone habits have made people road blind,
live in a cyber, not engage their mind.
a habit that has cost many their lives,
smart phones kill more now than do guns and knives,
when use road pay attention to surrounds,
watch each step well as your feet touch the ground.
not fashionable if on phone walking,
drivers, road users find it annoying,
drop habit, urge others to do the same,
can save lives, limbs, if this habit we tame!
.When I was younger if I saw a box store I turned into the drive.
Spent an hour there, buying things I probably never needed.
Today I am sitting across from one, will be here an hour.
No desire to go across the street or into that store.
I am older now, not wiser, but I do not want to be poorer.
So I stay right here, in my car, saving fifty to a hundred dollars.
Swimmers don't sink
until they lose ATP -
transferred energy,
warming the waters
that will soon encase them.
You are no different -
sucking in the energy
I continuously emit.
Someday, I admit,
you will be the warm
waters I drown in
"Sometimes, the heart holds on in silence—tied to old habits, haunted by what could never be.
cry swallowed by shadows, a confession born from obsession and self-betrayal. This is not a love poem. It’s the echo of wanting what was never mine to hold"
The past still hums beneath my skin,
an ache, a whisper, soft as sin.
The urge returns—
to speak his name
and stake my claim
without a shame.
But oh,
I weave deceit
with every breath I dare repeat.
It’s not the world I seek to fool—
it’s me,
the liar,
the longing fool.
And now,
these thoughts, they bloom and burn:
What if I claimed him in return?
As if my heart could rewrite fate,
as if desire could recreate
the right to love,
the right to stay—
when I threw that all away.
I know—
don’t I always know?
He shines beyond what I could show.
Cazzo...
Still, I dream him mine
in secret rhyme.
And so, I wear the silence well,
a ghost who lingers in his spell.
No kiss, no word, no sacred sign—
just old habits
and the lie
that he was ever mine.
Of all the reasons why I love you
Perfect is not one of them
My flaws that you accept so well ,maybe?
No thats not why I love you not at all.
My habits that annoy you sometimes and you still tell me you love me anyway, hmm hmm that's not it either.
I love you because even though I can live without you, I choose to not live without you.
I love you because It's a decision I make everyday without fail.
Mysterious habits have no limits
I do what no one can
And don’t what no one ban
Opposite yes I am
A bless? No just a damn
For me alone
Run in blood, flesh and bone
One touch and you are dead
Or listen to one word said
Be not fooled by the look
It is a deadly hook
With poisonous bait
One bite and you are out of fate
Though I say this
A lot will fall for a kiss
Lethal yes, it is
Monday 8/11/1999
9:50pm
He who disregards truth and justice
Will sooner or later go the whole hog;
His bestial appetites and habits,
His love of cruelty and power eventually will take over
Perhaps without him ever realizing the danger.
He is not only beyond the control of others
But beyond his own control.
He does no good ( like rainless clouds or fruitless trees,
Heaping abuse on anything he doesn't understand;
Spoiling the fellowship meals with his irreverent behavior.
He lives at the mercy of his brutish instincts,
Looking after Himself instead of caring for his brother.
Like storm, he leaves behind him shame and disgrace;
like the dirty foam left along the beach by the wild waves.
He's like stars that have wandered into outer space and give no light,
He grumbles about everything and have a huge chip on his shoulder.
He is one in reign,
A loud-mouthed show-off
Who flatters others for his own advantage
And give free reign to his evil desires.
Good or bad, we see-
Addiction forms easily-
As birds and the bees.
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