Echoes of the past

I was so young, too young to know
that it wasn’t just a game.
They told me it was normal,
something everyone did,
a secret shared between us
that no one else would understand.

I didn’t know what was wrong
or what was being taken.
I thought it was just how things were—
their hands on me,
their whispers in my ear.
It didn’t hurt,
not in the way I imagined pain.
It felt strange,
like I was supposed to smile,
to play along.

But something inside me twisted,
unraveled a little more each time.
They told me I was special,
that this was a secret I should keep,
so I did.
I didn’t know how to feel it,
how to name the feeling that settled in my chest.
I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to like it or hate it.
I didn’t know what was happening,
but I knew I couldn’t say anything.

I didn’t know it was wrong.
I didn’t know I should be scared,
or that my body was mine.
I didn’t know it wasn’t normal
for someone to take what didn’t belong to them.
They made me think it was just a game,
and games don’t have rules,
not when you’re that young,
not when you’re still trying to figure out
who you are,
what you are.

But the shame came anyway,
settled inside me like a stain.
It wasn’t visible,
but it was always there.
It grew heavy,
dark,
and I carried it for so long,
feeling filthy in places I couldn’t touch,
feeling like something had been stripped away
but I didn’t know how to ask
or what to say.

I looked at myself in the mirror
and saw a stranger’s face,
someone who had been bent and twisted
in ways I couldn’t undo.
I wanted to scream,
but I didn’t know how.
I wanted to run,
but I didn’t know where to go.

I kept the secret they gave me,
kept it locked in my chest
where it festered,
becoming something darker,
something harder to carry.
The wolves circled,
their eyes full of hunger,
but it wasn’t them I feared.
It was the silence,
the way it seeped into me
like a sickness I couldn’t cure.

And then there’s Medusa—
her gaze turning everyone to stone,
but no one saw
what she had been made into.
They didn’t see the child
who had been taught to be quiet,
to be still,
to endure the things they didn’t understand.
I wasn’t her,
but in the reflection,
I saw parts of myself
that felt just as cold,
just as broken.

I didn’t know it was wrong.
I didn’t know how to make it stop.
But I learned,
eventually,
that I wasn’t the one to blame.
I learned that I didn’t have to hold their secret anymore,
that my body was mine,
and I had the right to say no.

But the shame never quite goes away.
It shifts,
it changes,
but it stays—
like the echo of their words,
like the weight of their hands.
And I carry it,
but not as something that defines me.
Not anymore.

I wasn’t a game.
I wasn’t a secret.
I was just a child.
And I deserve to be whole again.

Breathe in Empty Space

hello.

I like how spacious this is. It’s like our galaxy, where each solar system is cloaked in light years of empty space.

I wish life was spaced out like this. Sometimes life feels so cramped with work, noise, blue light screens, and everything in between.

Life feels like a squashed paragraph of words, criss crossing each other as they fight to come out on top.

Sometimes it feels like we forget the value of simple things like silence

And empty space.

Thanks (Ghazal)

You met me by the railroad tracks with a pain quotidien. Thanks
I said as I kicked at the new stakes, black as obsidian. Thanks

for the time you scribbled a note and slipped it in my pocket.
I pulled it out to find advice from the Enchiridion: “Thanks

to this world of things, some depend upon ourselves, others do not.”
What do the stoics know? They never crossed the prime meridian. Thanks

for the time I dropped your birthday cake and you just laughed and shaped the
globs of frosting into a seal, a slug, an ascidian. Thanks

for finding Orion when I sent you photos of the stars, rating
the sunsets and moons, our nightly rituals quotidian. Thanks

for naming the fish you could never keep alive after me. We
buried them together, apologies into oblivion. Thanks

for making this goodbye so hard. I can almost hear the soundtrack
for this moment: heartbreaking chords and echoes in lydian. Thanks.

Living In The Subway System

As I rode the subway,
Rumbling like thunder
Screeching like it
Flashing like lightning
Growling like it,
I saw a rat scurry past.

It wasn’t a large thing.
But certainly larger than the ones I’ve seen
Seen back home
I think it saw me
I think it saw me staring
I think it saw me staring at it
I think it saw me wondering about it

“Hello” I said, “you’re a rat.”
“It would seem like it.” It replied.
“How do you do?”
“I’ve been well. You?”
“Quite nice.”
“Good, good.”
Silence fell.
“What is it like being a rat?”
I ask. I’ve always wondered.

“Comfortable.”

“When it’s hot, we find ice boxes
Near markets and bodegas.
When it’s cold, we find vents
From tubes of steam and grates of heat.
When it rains, we find shelter
In homes and stores.
But people don’t like it when we’re out.
Up on the surface.
Their surface.
So like the pigeons and the cats,
We scurry away to hide
Hide in the skeletons and flesh
Of the city.

“The pigeons have the skyscrapers,
The squirrels have the parks,
The cats have the streets,
And us rats have the subway.

“We aren’t really welcomed there either,
But still, we live.
We live in the cracks in the tile walls.
We live underneath the old benches.
We live underneath the subway tracks.
And we live in the tunnels,
Shrouded in darkness.

“We live in the veins of the city.
The bones of the city.
The system of the city.
We call it home.
Our home.
As the trains pass,
They rattle the stations,
The tunnels,
Like a storm overhead,
Warm and strong.”

“That sounds difficult.” I say.
“It’s not difficult.” the rat responded,
“It’s complex.”

“We are still important,
Whether we seem like it or not,
In this big old city.
We survive. Live. Just like you.

“So, what is it like to be a person?”
It was the rat’s turn to ask.
I couldn’t answer.
Not for a long time.

“It’s just as complex as yours.
We’re all wound up in this big old world,
The same way, really.
I think you would like living like me.
I think I would like living like you.”

“But of course, you are content with your own life, yes?”

“Of course.” I say.

The subway stops.
I bid goodbye to the rat.
It runs away.

One, Quick Second

As we stand on this stolen land,
others fear us, and judge us based off
our looks. Dark hair, brown skin from
our ancestors. “Beautiful” my family says.
but when others look at us, all they see is a
“dirty illegal alien”. Laws forced upon us like
a root in the ground, they’re trying to get rid of us. ‘Mass deportation’ all over the news,
reminding us why we live in constant fear.
multiple posts of us getting hated
and discriminated on.
A sunny, nice day at the park turns into a nightmare. “La Migra!” the gringos yell.
They think it’s a funny joke, not knowing
our family could be torn apart in
One, Quick second.

art

People say
it would be best if you stepped back
and enjoy the bigger picture

What if?
Instead you
JUMP
forward
and gently examine
each brush stroke,
each crack the paint

What if?
You look behind the canvas?
You lean against the wall and set your gaze on
the side
of the canvas?

Mabey
even touch it,
feel how each stroke
flows
into the next

What if
you make
every kind of color
on this canvas
we call the world
feel seen?

don’t fall in love

The Weight of What Was
Love stands as a specter, silent and grim,
Its promises etched on the fragile rim
Of a trembling heart that dares to believe,
Only to shatter, only to grieve.
Its touch is fleeting, a warm deceit,
A fleeting balm that turns bittersweet.
You drink of its cup, you taste its wine,
Then choke on the dregs, a cruel design.
The smiles it brings, the moments rare,
Are daggers waiting, cloaked in care.
What begins with laughter, soft and pure,
Ends in shadows none can endure.
You’ll carry its weight like an unseen chain,
A quiet ache, a familiar pain.
It whispers of hope, then fades to dust,
Breaking the sacred bond of trust.
So turn from love, let it drift apart,
Guard the quiet of your steadfast heart.
For to love is to fall, and fall you will,
Into the void where time stands still.

Broken but Okay

I’m flying, I’m free
But it’s pretend as I crash into a window
It’s clear
No one told me what to expect
The knot in my chest tightens
Can you hear me
Screaming
Screaming
Screaming,
As I’m
Falling
Falling
Falling
Into a hole and
I wake up and my
Wings are torn, my
Lungs are crushed
I’m broken, a broken little bird
Who will forget how to fly
and What am I if I’m not supposed to fly?

I’m walking, I’m alive
Its big
the World around me
I survived, I’m existing but not living
I’m going to learn from my mistakes
Can you hear me
Hoping
Hoping
Hoping
As I’m
Trying
Trying
Trying
I’m healing, it takes time
every day its a bit better
the sun seems brighter
the sky seems closer
I’m okay, an okay little bird
who remembered how to fly
and I am a bird and I am supposed to fly.