☙‽❧

Perhaps I’ll be a wordsmith someday Fleuron ❦ she/her, maybe ❦ 18 I throw my bad poetry into the void

[keatsonthebeach]

Meditation

don’t look back back is thistle’d begin again New Year unwritten

jk

artist -Andrew Wyeth

[fleuronterrobang]

my room, an imitation of.

My room feels like a hotel room.

Let us be honest. I am too familiar with hotel rooms. I am used to the boxes; the suitcases; the packing cubes of my most essential clothes, shirts, trousers, too much underwear, all fitting neatly into a carry-on; hotel amenities; white, straight, sheets—

—let me rephrase. My room feels like someone's room.

A shoddy imitation of one, to be fair. My room feels like someone took all of my earthly possessions and forced them into shelves and storage compartments and stuck appropriately sentimental objects up on walls and open surfaces to create a poor semblance of domesticity—

—my room feels like a movie set; here We (the author's We, you, me, the audience) will eat. here We will dress. here We will invite Our friends in and have conversations with a warm, sodium-lamp glow inside of our hearts. The camera pans over our smiling faces and the scene fades out to slow and upbeat music. End scene—

—my room feels like fake-distressed clothing sold on vintage reseller sites, "pre-worn" flannels sold for the price of textbooks at fast fashion retail stores, a heart dragged through dirt roads tied by a string to the back of a bike, hitting snags on protruding rocks—

—my room feels like an aestheticized morning routine video of some elevated being of a human, whisking matcha in a bowl at 6 AM and swirling it around with oat milk, Here is my skincare routine, Here is my outfit of the day, Here is an excellent member of society, and you would believe it, you Will believe it—

My room feels like forcing a person into existence through flat pack furniture

My room feels like lying to myself and making myself believe it

My room feels like I should have kept my clothes in the packing cubes.

-

2025.01.05

[fleuronterrobang]

three old friends

And now my friends of days gone by have been sent off to war,

their forefathers', passed on to them, alongside blood and gore,

as my once friends take up arms to bloody hands in each other,

here I stand, far, far away, watching, frozen, in horror.

Was it naive of us to dream of our futures shared together,

when ten years ago those same hands were clasped one in another?

Three old friends of yesteryear splintered off for our survival,

two, faced off for endless war,

one, witness to the slaughter.

-

2025.06.28

[fleuronterrobang]

Potentilla indica

Deceit, my mind supplies, upon seeing red, warted fruit,

peeking upwards, demanding, “pick me, eat me,”

blatant, obvious, herring-like mimicry,

alas, a mockery of some better counterpart.

Might a weary traveler trance upon it,

and bite, with hardened, bloody determination,

they’d be met with bland, watery lies,

disappointment upon a single morsel.

And yet.

And yet, it is red, still,

bright, amongst the weeds, still,

spring, amongst decay, still,

and would you blame man or plant, still?

And might our traveler have felt then,

if for just one fleeting second,

sweeter than any true strawberry,

suspended in fermata, a taste of hope?

Spring, my mind supplies, upon seeing red aggregate fruit,

peeking upwards, as if saying, “hello, hello!”

adapting, surviving, against these odds,

I seek out thee, the mock strawberry.

-

2025.05.20

[fleuronterrobang]

You have two options.

As it stands, both will hurt.

In one, someone will find it, eventually. Inevitably.

It won't be pretty. You cannot control it.

You will not find anything.

The alternative that you seek cannot exist sans witness.

More simply: There would be Nothing.

In the other, is pain. That does not change.

It will exist, for you will too.

Entropy increases regardless. The eventuality is promised.

A longer route, of course. But you shall be permitted to ask.

This is a plea.

Why hurry?

-

A note to self. 2025/04/26

[fleuronterrobang]

At times I feel fuzzy around the edges, like someone had drawn me into existence from the tip of a worn whiteboard marker and onto a white sheet crinkled at the corners. Like the plumes of a feather, or the thistle seed, far less appreciated than its golden-haired compatriots, I float from place to place wherever the currents may take me. And despite knowing otherwise, I feel small, inexplicably small, as if I ought to be snuffed out by a mere droplet or a careless tread.

2024/12/19

[fleuronterrobang]

At other times I am dragged down by the trenches beneath my eyes. My skin, a cling film barrier blasted with six-hundred watts for three minutes, tender, tender, a whisper from melting. This is my skull, I say, and all shall witness its fracturing under unyielding gravity. My limbs do not lift; my hair, mycelium; I am decay.

[fleuronterrobang]

At times I feel fuzzy around the edges, like someone had drawn me into existence from the tip of a worn whiteboard marker and onto a white sheet crinkled at the corners. Like the plumes of a feather, or the thistle seed, far less appreciated than its golden-haired compatriots, I float from place to place wherever the currents may take me. And despite knowing otherwise, I feel small, inexplicably small, as if I ought to be snuffed out by a mere droplet or a careless tread.

2024/12/19

[fleuronterrobang]

At dark I ride my silver steed,

its gallop, barely a whir, rhythmic,

from yond rounding a glow, a spirit,

fellow traveler, weathering this frigid realm.

The being nears; a star, a pulsar,

humming at is grows, swiftly, blinding,

and just as it comes, it whirls by in a flash—

—leaving me, once more, to cycle alone.

2024/12/14

[yesterdaysprint]

The Paducah Sun-Democrat, Kentucky, August 21, 1939

[fleuronterrobang]

You are eighteen.

It's strange, isn't it,

how long it's been?

Maybe you forgot,

it was a real thing,

or maybe you yearned,

for this proverbial spring,

to bloom in your life?

But you are eighteen,

and you sit there and wonder,

because what does it mean?

Neither adult nor child;

Somewhere in between.

But now it's upon you,

and you cannot leave.

for try as you might,

you cannot flee.

You are eighteen.

[eughty]

an automated message

[screenshotsofdespair]

[totally-ikea]

Shout out to all the Third Culture Kids who still wonder what the smell of home even is

[fleuronterrobang]

roots, entangled, enmeshed;

the fate of the untended pothos.

depotting is a kindness, for all of its violence,

to break what its molding has wrought.

coils, dense, straining,

as shallow as this dwelling was,

what once had housed must be felled,

once comfort, now heavy with woe.

hacking with shears, trowels,

or butter knives, chipping, breaking,

through sweat-slicked hair and angry red knuckles,

grant emancipation from its own flesh.

roots, clumps, loosened,

gone now, the form of the pot

mangled, mauled by a wounded beast,

leaving freedom, only melancholy.

soil, fresh, inviting,

to rest your protruding feet,

might serenity be granted here,

even temporary, might this be home.

when did i become too big for this house? or, leaving, for the root-bound third culture kid. 2024/08/29

[fleuronterrobang]

Yellow-tinged, like looking through film,

or washed blue through a digital camera lens,

starkly, I know, right as I live it,

this shall be the stuff of memories.

From eye level I lower my phone,

for this refuses encapsulation.

Nothing I could've done, no sleight of hand;

These moments are not made to last.

A dissonance of present and past, a wrongness,

for this is too fleeting (why must it be fleeting?)

If only we had eternity in this single minute—

together, forever, in cinematic bliss.

"Do you ever wish you had the skills of great artists so you could capture what those moments feel like?" 2024/08/19

[fleuronterrobang]

sunshower - 2024/7/9

A thunderous applause as the skies open up,

to the cries of the unsuspecting below.

From the heavens—still bright and unassuming grey,

string beads of twinkling glass and quartz.

From the streets—a susurration as cars go by,

like ocean-static, crawling, crawling, receding.

And just as it begins, the choir hushes,

as if naught a blip in the ordinary calm,

leaving only steady drips from roofs above,

and the unmistakable smell of petrichor.

[fleuronterrobang]

You are eighteen.

It's strange, isn't it,

how long it's been?

Maybe you forgot,

it was a real thing,

or maybe you yearned,

for this proverbial spring,

to bloom in your life?

But you are eighteen,

and you sit there and wonder,

because what does it mean?

Neither adult nor child;

Somewhere in between.

But now it's upon you,

and you cannot leave.

for try as you might,

you cannot flee.

You are eighteen.