engels travels

engel • they / them • " achilles come down " - gang of youths • angsty poetry galore.

[engels-travels]

BEG ME FOR ONCE (09/08/2026)

Worn eyes seek warmth where they don't belong

I'm done crying for you like a dog for it's bone

Tracks in the dirt on my cheeks, where the moonlight hits my skin and drips off cheap

I'm done looking for you in the reflection of the glass

I'm done looking for your doe eyes where the sun meets the grass

I won't plead for the blade anymore and I won't

Beg you to stay anymore

[engels-travels]

Hesitant,

Because I dreamt about you last night

In the way you talked about the sunset

I dreamt you reached out first,

I dreamt I wasn't your drifting memory

Or an afterthought for deciding you care

I dreamt I mattered to you in that moment.

I wish I had mattered to you before.

I'm trying to not treat myself like the problem

I took accountability for your hurt

I flinched when you doubled over

I took punches for you where I should have just left

I'm trying to treat myself better, like I could be the forethought in someone's head

But I keep thinking about that letter, or that time where I wasn't good enough or

My gut feeling telling me it was time to let go.

I keep thinking about those sad doe eyes, and whether I want to think about blue ones instead

Because the ocean hurts less to think about than your forest right now.

[engels-travels]

LIE LONGER 07/08/2026

The Last Thing I Wanted

Was The End All

But I'm Chasing You Like

A Kicked Dog

I'll Love You Even If You Hurt Me

I Lie Until It Doesn't Hurt Me

I'll Drink Until It Doesn't Hurt Me

[engels-travels]

Hey, can I ask you something?

Do you ever miss someone who's right there,

Right there in your peripheral vision.

Right there and stagnant in my day dreams

(Its like you've settled in my guts like a parasite

But you're a parasite I'd let destroy me)

Do you ever miss someone who hasn't moved an inch

But it feels like they're a million miles gone already?

Do you—

Do you—

(And I'd let you crawl into my guts

And I'd let you reach into my chest with your claws

Grab my heart

Twist the knife

And I'd let you sit in the cavity of my ribs

Take up the space where my lungs rest)

...

Hey, can I ask you something?

Do you miss me?

[engels-travels]

I fall too quickly when the trees start turning green

And when their leaves turn twisted shades, I turn dim as day

I can't help but ache, a temptation I will not sate

Though tonight I am not so sure it's reciprocated

Your heart does not tend to show

And I can't read your voice

I can't read your body language,

And I don't understand the language your eyes speak

I'll try to be here, stay in your orbit

But it's hard

It's so hard. I can't breath when I don't know what you're thinking.

[engels-travels]

Stupid by who's intention?

Because Einstein isn't here to judge

And if he was he'd say the same damn thing

That stupid is the inability to learn

And I do that all the time

I learn to stay away

From the people that act like weights

From people that tie me down

until I can't swim back up, like lead

Left unattended, left to rot, to drown

To fester in my self hatred— people who keep me down

I am my own cracked mirror

With a warped reflection

[engels-travels]

Hiding Pt. 1

There's something to be said for being held by the throat

And still gasping breaths

I love you, I hate you

I can't breath without you

Steps out the door but too hesitant to walk

Trembling legs, weak from the weight

I am the atlas of your power,

I am not strong, but I hold because the opposite is crushing

What is left of my dignity

And when there is blood on my hands

And my eyes glaze over

And when I can't see through the ashes

Of a fire you had smothered

I hope your hand rests in the recesses of my skin

Could I?

[engels-travels]

The beautiful thing about having such a shit memory is I don't have to remember what painful feelings grabbed on to whatever poem I wrote.

The beautiful thing about having a shit memory is I am gripping it with the hands of my soul, and it's like they're peeling my fist away, and I let them, because I am in a box. I am enclosed

[engels-travels]

I'm wasting away

With you on my mind

Mistaking roses for the thorns that prick me

'Til blood runs down my fingers

This game we play has made me see

The cruel ways you operate

Walk away from you—

Or as far as I can with chains like these

Hanging weights, imploring you

To see me, once

Just today

I know you're waiting for

The day I break

Walking away with a crown of thorns

Free? I wouldn't know

Wouldn't know, wouldn't know

[engels-travels]

Glass Shards

I was looking for love in that box

Red warmth, small love, any hint of a heart

I would have taken even a grain of sand then,

Where I only found disease

Does it make you feel

More like a man?

I only asked for warm hands

Not bruised knuckles

I only asked for

Riding bikes

And playing catch

And being a kid

Not for my head to catch up and my brain to start screaming and now I'm looking at you through a window with the curtains pulled aside

And I'm looking at you through stained glass

Sitting alone inside my head

There's no easy answer why I still reach for

The boogeyman

My head is making noises

Remnants from the scene

A contaminated crime in my rattling skull

And I don't know how much time has past

Sitting here in this broken car

With "daughter" playing a reflection I never held

This forever doesn't feel like home

[engels-travels]

music makes me fall for you

it's savage rhythm and sharp daggers

it's some sort of metaphor for heartbreak I think

you're making me crazy

really driving me mad (that's alright with me)

as long as our song keeps playing

keeps playing, beating like a heart

thump-thump-thump in that specific patter than makes me want to curl up

listen to the rain

Baby, please— please show me your world

the inside of your head

it just doesn't make sense to me

I really don't know

why you'd stick right next to me

wherever I go

music makes me fall for you

in our drunken hour

our specific little pattern

I'd give all my valuable time

to listening to your song

[engels-travels]

I wonder if it'll be the reaper sitting in my back seat

While I'm driving down Shand

With a gun to my head, telling me where to go

He threatens me with Death, like I don't think I'm heading down

A cigarette is gripped between the void of his teeth, and bones wrap around a heaving throat

But he seems almost sorry, sorry to repeat the story that's been told a million times

They still don't know how my grandfather died.

[engels-travels]

my head feels too busy to much all that empty space buzzing with angry letters to a man who sits and wonders

I can't wait for him to shut his incessant chatter for just one night constantly replying to sharp complaints and sharper lamentations of a poor life past

I haven't slept well in a century dark circles curl beneath dampened brown that bruise skin that reflects all my worries better than the reflection in my eyes do

urges drowned by caffeine and drugs and work work work work work that never quite feels enough like I'm not even worth the effort to myself not worth getting out of bed for nothing worth the hard path

God do I love this it's like an all encompassing feeling of dread it likes to settle in my bones and sleep there like a cat curled in a patch of sun when she decides to shine her face

except this heaviness is hand shaped and suffocating and likes to grip without relief.

[engels-travels]

I love you

more than you know, more than you think

more than you'll allow yourself

I love you

it's a profound thought that settles in my bones

I reuse words like every great writer

and yet there will never be a word reused to properly express

I love you

and I love you and that is a truth I struggle to comprehend

a truth that sometimes feels insurmountable

I love you and sometimes it hurts to love you

to care

and crave

I love you

when you hurt, when you doubt, when you cry, when you beg

I love you because there is nothing of you that is unlovable

not a hair on your head, a bone or an inch of your skin

I love you

and sometimes I want to promise you forever

a forever that feels distant and terrifying but sure

I love you, and the day I hold you in my arms for the first time is the day I never let go

[engels-travels]

leaders

fearless

dizzy hands

grab the noose

( does freedom exist?

does freedom exist?

does freedom exist? )

to leave all of this

and all of it, it insists

( does freedom exist? )

trust in me

in the silver tongue that weaves

track down the wolves

with lethal minds

simple minds

infecting, spreading,

imperfecting undefined

pick up the pieces

( does freedom exist?

does freedom exist?

does freedom exist? )

of sound

to lose

ones

mind

delusion

try and drown

burn beneath the light

reflection

throbbing

betting on wolves and violence

bang upon my brain

survive?

thrive

lies

illusions

undefined imperfections

defining waves, throbbing

Do I offend you? crawling

but yes it's meant to

( DOES FREEDOM EXIST? )

Does the blind man

does he see

does it lead

[engels-travels]

it's that artificial heartbeat that leaves me waisted

the thrum of a beating heart

when it's alive, when it works

it's that need to hold, to feel blood pulse through veins that leaves me

wanting and aching and so fucking sad.

I missed thirty beats a minute

half a heart later and I'm still reeling from the force

from the force of the stake in my undead vessel

body's still warm with the residue of life and I'm

begging for a second beat. One more pulse in my chest—

just to prove I'm alive.

[engels-travels]

" guts "

It's a breathing thing that

lives in your guts,

Thrums and pulses like a heart,

Pulses like it's at its end.

Drips.

It drips like it's bleeding,

Wet and choking on spit.

Drips.

When that first

frost hits it hits like it's violent.

Like it's got a vendetta against the flowers

It's angry at the sun.

It's a bitter creature

with claws.

It's an angry entity with

blood in it's eyes and a

need to hurt when it's angry.

It's mean and it's harsh,

Like it's cold and doesn't know how to be warm.

It's a living creature.

It throbs with its anger,

Brittle with a crushing

ache, and it needs to feel.

Feel like it's normal.