Details |
Toria Vd Poem
What haunted me the most, was the myth of clean.
Soap with its pale arrogance, its perfume of forgiveness.
Water pretending to be neutral, pretending it could rinse a history.
As if purity were mechanical.
As if turning a handle could unmake a person.
As if the stain were not the self.
Copyright © toria vd | Year Posted 2026
|
Details |
Toria Vd Poem
At the estate sale, among the widow - things --
mourning brooches, teeth in a saucer,
a fur stole shedding its cloak of moths --
the mirror lay wrapped in black silk.
The auctioneer would not touch it barehanded.
Even through gloves, he held it
the way priests carry difficult relics: at a distance from the heart.
I bought it because it was drawn to the way it ticked.
Not loudly -- a patient little sound, delicate as an insect worrying the lid of a coffin.
The frame exhaled the smell of rain-rotted cellars,
mold climbing the ribs of old houses,
wet roots, photographs glued together by floodwater.
It showed no reflection. Instead: the room emptied of me.
My lamp furred over with dust.
The fern beside the window sagged into threads.
The chair beneath my living body rotted into its patient skeleton of wood and springs.
I watched snow collect through a crack not yet born in the ceiling.
And behind the black glass—
not mirrored, but embedded impossibly within it—
the silver pendulum swung. Left. Right.
A small immaculate metronome
keeping faith with something terrible. Hours passed.
The future in the mirror altered by increments.
When my pulse quickened, mold flowered darker along the walls.
When panic seized me, another century seemed to enter the room.
Neighbors claimed she fled.
But I think she simply reached the end of herself.
Because the pendulum is not measuring hours - it is spending them.
Each swing subtracts something minute and irreplaceable—
not seconds, but permissions:
one more breath, one more swallow of sleep,
one more astonishment of blood.
The mirror does not show the world after your death.
It shows the world as death prepares to remember it without you.
Tonight the pendulum has grown almost still.
In the glass, the dust has settled completely.
Even the curtains hang with the composure of the deceased.
And there in the ruined chair
sits the mirror alone, awake in the dark,
waiting for whoever next mistakes its ticking for a clock.
Copyright © toria vd | Year Posted 2026
|
Details |
Toria Vd Poem
Nette Onclaud
Into Quiet Becoming - Paz
06-01-2026
The ancient wood performs no roll call;
the bark has swallowed your stride.
You are not lost beneath the canopy;
you have simply thinned into the quiet, unmeasured air.
The chest ticks like an engine,
a violent friction where the obsolete self comes undone.
To exhume an immortal spark from this rooting floor is to demand
that the frost possess a memory of the sun.
Submit to the blinding dark until the stillness proves
that to disappear is the first step toward becoming whole.
Copyright © toria vd | Year Posted 2026
|
Details |
Toria Vd Poem
In the quiet of the crowd, you caught my eye,
a delicate silhouette against the night sky.
Your amber gaze was weary, deep, and dry,
bearing heavy truths you'd always deny.
Your paper skin was creased; folded pages where shadows lie.
I felt a sudden grief, and began to cry,
to see your hidden pain, no words could buy.
You offered up a smile, gentle and shy,
and it changed the landscape like a sunrise nigh -
lifting up the dark, without a sigh.
For brokenness is not the end, say I -
with the deepest grief, the gold will lie.
Copyright © toria vd | Year Posted 2026
|
Details |
Toria Vd Poem
Times like these
are not times like those;
what lies in the future
only God knows.
What a silly thing, that is
to pray to the sky;
to cry into your palms
until your eyes dry.
You wouldn't believe in God
if you were me, too;
the years I begged for relief
just for the pain to pursue.
I understand he doesn't heal,
that bad things happen to all,
but I was a young child
who needed my suffering to fall.
I begged him for mercy,
plead for some air;
don't tell me there is someone
listening up there.
Go ahead, keep doing your thing;
talking to the clouds.
Maybe peace is something
you will be allowed.
Copyright © toria vd | Year Posted 2026
|
Details |
Toria Vd Poem
Victoria D
'What's With The Box'
05/04/2026
I open a cardboard of memories
dust breathes from sealed corners
each shoe a version of me
names I outgrew still whisper
time folded like worn paper
I am inventory of selves
the box remembers what I forgot
but it is empty when I look inside
Copyright © toria vd | Year Posted 2026
|
Details |
Toria Vd Poem
It was not the cruelty that shattered me;
it was the slow, treacherous alchemy of the heart -
how each wound you dealt seeped deeper into my bones
and, against all reason, taught me to love you more fiercely,
as if your abuse were proof of my inadequacy
and loving you harder might finally make me worthy.
Copyright © toria vd | Year Posted 2026
|
Details |
Toria Vd Poem
I do not want your love
unless you know precisely how repulsive I am,
and, knowing it,
find yourself compelled to love me all the more.
Copyright © toria vd | Year Posted 2026
|
Details |
Toria Vd Poem
The emphysema of night presses into our lungs
and I walk towards you like a thought I should not keep
no glow - only the purple bruise of air between us
your silence is jagged, honed as a blade
somehow, this view left me ... dismantled, piece by unseen piece
fear feels domestic here, like folded linen in a locked room
I dissolve before I can speak out loud
and still, I step closer because trust is the only light we are allowed
and when we finally reach for one another, it is not sight that holds us -
but the quiet certainty that neither of us will let go
Copyright © toria vd | Year Posted 2026
|
Details |
Toria Vd Poem
Speaking of Sedoka
Nette Onclaud
05-24-2026
Highway signs blur past
I rush toward far exits
missing the view beside me
I lift up my gaze
drive slow, let the world unfold
enjoying the journey, now.
Copyright © toria vd | Year Posted 2026
|