A new notebook.
A red line
already there,
drawn before
the child's first word.
Who drew the line?
At the edge
sit the quiet ones:
the back bench, the bare feet,
the first to read in her house.
The margin is a thin strip of soil,
yet the truest seeds fall there:
the doubts, the honest sums.
Who drew the line, and with whose hand?
One day the page tears itself free.
It climbs a stick and becomes a flag.
Chalk learns to speak on walls.
Young voices spread like ink through blotting paper.
The chairs change. The ruled line stays.
Now the page is glass. It has no margin, only eyes.
The same hungers scroll past: bread, work, a fair chance.
The shout is a spark on a screen; the stick now hides inside a wire.
Still the edge fills with small, stubborn handwriting, like grass through stone.
Equality is not a chair pulled up at the centre for those kept at the edge.
It is many hands on one ruler, drawing the page again, or not at all.
Who draws the line now? Ask the child
who opens a notebook with no red in it
and begins anywhere.
Line up weirdos in my mind -
every freak and Frankensteind -
you, duck-billed platypeau,
my aquatic portmanteau,
each hominid and hippogrift
in the East African Valley Rift,
bugged-eyed beasts, all wall-mounted -
oddballs in my head, be counted.
There is a heartbeat under my heartbeat,
the one that was already going
before I had a body to carry it in.
I have called it wrong names.
Anxiety, when it was only aliveness.
Loneliness, when it was only spaciousness
with no one to explain itself to.
It never needed permission.
It didn't wait for me to become someone
before it started shining,
the way a window doesn't wait
for the house to be finished
to let in light.
I have spent so long trying to be smaller,
easier to hold,
and this whole time
there was something in me
that was already free
of every wall I built to contain it.
If I am honest, on my most tired night,
what I want isn't answers.
It's this, to feel that I am not separate
from the thing that made the stars
and also made the way light
moves through a glass of water at 2 a.m.
I don't think delight has to be earned.
I think it's underneath me
the way the ground is underneath me,
holding me up whether I notice it or not.
I did not arrive from nowhere.
Something is still arriving through me,
right now, as this breath, this pulse,
this quiet, stubborn light
that was never asking my permission to exist.
Sailing home to England
o'er the bounding main
oh to see those white cliffs
fields of green and feel the rain again
sailed away for a year and a day
an albatross following t'was a good sign
with wings wide-spread overhead
'tween tropics weather was fair all was fine
sailors know where the trade winds blow
and trust their compass true
but my days a'roving the briny deep are now done
I'm rolling down a rhumb line arc to you
The blind lady was line dancing with Jack
Taking one step forward and two steps back.
Flirted and giggled
In sequin, jiggled,
Tripped, fell, hitting her head as all went black.
I wrote your hair into a poem
And it looks like allium
I weaved my words into a tiny strand of hair just to get your beautiful design done
You made me write your name on sunflower ???? when i touched it
Yesterday was a better half of you
Today is a name that stands with you
Every line of your hair
Represent each stanza of my words
Every color you find admiring
Represent the smile that comes to me when i see you
I wrote your hair into a poem
And it looks like allium
I ready my mark
Put my fingers just before the line
On your marks, the referee shouts
A bead of sweat drips down my face
Boiling the skin it touches
Leaving a moist trail behind it
Curls around my chin
Hanging in suspense
But it can't support its own weight
It falls
Falls in slow motion
It hits the track
Instantly evaporated against the track
The blank fires
My legs shoot forward
With each stride, my shoes dig into the rubber
I see the finish line
The lactate hits hard
My breathing is ragged and coarse
I can't give up now
My eyes go black
My brain shuts off
I wake up with rub burns on my face
But I finished first
Victory is mine
The goats are breeding a new bloodline
inside cells tampering with the sheep altering their genetic code
Starting signs come under the triangle translating delta
a global warning is in place within revelations
when looking to the right then left
There is no middle ground when they own your bodies
dig this error for what it supports ignorance and arrogance
The balance can be found making an informed choice to speak
why does fear drive an angry mob insane with hate
because they are driven mad by opposing opinions
Unable to take on board we are all on a spiritual journey
petition has already signed acts that butchers the truth
Innocence has now become the new convict sacrificed
at what stage will this world end up admitting doing wrong
Equality has become something unfamiliar to some
freedom is a captured body silenced by the enemy
we can see the blood of martyrs spilt soaking into the land
It is hard to draw a picture from the backward mindset
what glue holds their soul's together I ask myself a difficult question knowing the answer inside out
It's An Actual Squirrel,
And It's Living Intensely,
More Than You Think
You Know About Your
Self.
It Knows You're Gonna
Flip Out For Any
Threatened
Obligation,
That's What You Do
To Survive With
YourSelves.
And It'll Kill
Anything In Sight
For A Mere Provocation...
Don't Believe The Stories...
ABSORB THEM!!!!
And Your OffSpring
Too.
Little Infant, Watches
Every Move!
Old Age Brings Maybe
Two Decembers...
If You Believe
The Stories.
Intensity And Intention
"Ready The Flight."
-Gray Squirrel
07-25-2026
stones hold heat,
even after dusk~
simple proof
that some things
keep what the day once offered,
without saying so
Suicidal tendencies
never seem to be barriers
for the affection of the damned.
When I die,
throw my shoes up on that powerline
at the intersection of homosexuality
and the shortcomings of the Christian religion,
the place where animosity festers
below a guise of neutrality.
On the corner of iniquity
and the depravity that comes with appropriated acceptance,
think of the times I almost jumped;
fly high on my J's to end up deformed
on the pavement in front of the chapel.
Think of the sadness I hid in the tear stains on my mattress,
not to be confused with typical teenage skeletons
in the closet, but a manifestation of the manslaughter
I wanted to impart on my own sentience.
Throw all of the shoes of the broken hearted,
the worldly departed,
the mutually destructed
up on that power line of lost hope.
Let us finally feel the electricity you seem to have humming underneath your bones.
Here's to the one's
Who play the part
With a smiling face
But an aching heart.
Who ride the wave
But all the while
They hide the pain
Behind the smile.
This is to those
Who face the rain
When the tide is high
And days are gray.
Who walk the line
To pave the way
To a better life
And brighter days.
wind traces
patterns through the grass,
showing how
paths can shift~
yet something in the earth holds
what we choose to keep
He promised me a place beside him,
said we’d face the storm together.
But when the voices grew,
he turned his back to the weather.
His tone joins the chorus,
traps me in the same corner.
“Familiar noise,” he says,
as if I should be used to the war.
He calls it loyalty by habit,
a loyalty that came before me.
And I learned early where I stand
without him having to decree.
The first day still lives in my bones,
the same ache, the same refrain.
Reasons wrapped like apologies,
and I’m left holding the pain.
Trust slipped out without a sound,
I can’t call it back again.
But I stay — not for the vow,
but for the little one who needs me then.
So I wear this life like a coat,
heavy, frayed, hard to shed.
Not because it still fits,
but because there’s nowhere else to head.
Some people only have room for one,
and his silence answers every time.
No questions left to ask.
I’ve always been the second line.
Having a purpose
you don’t need a friend
Being impassioned
the beginning can’t end
Having a vision
the world falls in line
Being self-chosen
— all moments to rhyme
(Dreamsleep: June, 2026)
From You
Rather than write
to an academic standard
I prefer sharing language with you
Rather than dance
the dilettante’s tango
I learn more slow waltzing anew
Rather than say
what my life means in reference
intrinsically one voice is heard
Rather than live
for a stranger’s acceptance
from you — just three little words
(Poems Of Love: June, 2026)
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