tarisj_97

Awaiting a dawn that wants nothing of me | I write of you as though I ever had the right to | insta: @tarisundone

[tarisj]

Held in Heat

I begin where warmth still feigns restraint, a courteous hush along my veins. The pipes awaken with a low, old song, and I wait for it to find my pulse. A slight turn— the water learns to speak in warnings, its touch a bright, insistent script written along my shins and wrists. Another measure, and the air grows dense. Steam gathers on translucent curtain; my breath shortens, my skin grows loud, each drop a brief, stinging signature against the curves of breast and bone. The heat coils within me, bright and unsteady, each droplet a scorching echo tracing the memory of your hands, an imprint left upon every nerve, it touches my neck— and I find my pulse but respond. Thought thins; the edges of the room dissolve. I sway beneath the relentless cascade, suspended between sensation and memory, delirious and unmoored, a body learning the sharp pleasure of swaying at the brink. One final twist of the hand— not surrender, not retreat, but a held communion with the burn, before the body, wise at last, asks gently to be spared. I step out and draw my hand across the clouded mirror, just enough to clear a sliver of its fog. Through it— your eyes stare back at me. I linger, suspended between heat and memory, the world tilting, nerves alight, teetering at the edge of myself.

[tarisj]

Undertow

I am tired of marveling at the ocean while my feet remain in clean sand, tired of calling the horizon beautiful while my pulse stays steady and untouched, as if distance could ever be enough. What is devotion if my lungs never taste the weight of salt, if my ribs are never pried open by something vast, relentless, insistent, something that presses against me, drags at me, pulls me into itself without care for my readiness? I have stood at the edge long enough, letting the waves skim my ankles, my calves, retreating as if I were fragile. But I am not fragile. I want more. I want to feel it all. I want to be undone. Let it take me past the shelf where the ground forgets its promise. Let the water cling to my skin, cold and alive, sliding along every curve, curling into every hollow, tracing the edges I have hidden, the edges I sharpened to survive. I want the pull— the undertow that does not ask, that tugs and twists and presses, that bends me until I cannot tell where I end and where it begins. I want to swallow brine and truth, to taste salt on my lips, to feel the sharp edges of me blur against stone older than my fear, against currents older than my understanding, against a force that will claim me at the slightest falter of my conscience. I want it everywhere— pressing against my chest, along my spine, wrapping around my legs, sliding along the hollow of my neck, curling along the small spaces where I thought I was safe. I want the ache of it, the hunger of it, the delicious weight of its insistence. I want my breath caught, my pulse pounding, my body alive to every inch of touch, every pressure, every tug. I want it to press me open and hold me there, leave traces of itself, let the cold slide against me like heat, leaving me raw, trembling, and wanting more. If it tests me, let it be honest. Let it drag me under, press me to the point of breathlessness, leave salt in my wounds, in my mouth, in my lungs, so I know I was here, so I know I gave myself fully, so I know I let myself be taken, claimed, consumed. Because awe that never seizes you, that never presses close enough to make your body ache, is only admiration. Only distance. Only longing without surrender. I am done standing safely on the shore. I want to step forward and let it close over me, let it coil and drag and press until I am undone, reshaped, gasping with the rush of it, feeling the truth of brine slide deep inside me, making me ache in every nerve at once. I want to disappear in it, to surrender fully, to feel it everywhere, to let it move through me, over me, against me, until all I know is that I am alive and consumed, trembling and craving it again. I do not want the shore anymore. I want the edge where breath falters, where every nerve is awake, where every inch of me is pressed, pulled, and claimed, where the tide consumes me wholly, dragging me into itself until I am undone, reshaped, and swallowed, where awe becomes obsession, obsession becomes surrender, and surrender becomes everything I have ever wanted.

[tarisj]

In Defense of Icarus

We are very comfortable calling Icarus foolish. It costs us nothing to judge him from the safety of the shore, where the tide obeys its boundaries and our feet rest upon unshaken earth. From such distance, restraint masquerades as wisdom, and caution adorns itself as virtue. But place us upon that same precipice. Set upon our shoulders wings stitched by our own uncertain hands. Let the wind rise to meet us, let the sun pour its golden warmth upon a face long accustomed to gravity— and tell me, with an honest heart, how many of us would not lean upward? How many of us would refuse the invitation of the sky? It is simple to speak of limits while rooted in solid earth. It is another matter entirely when the air itself yields and lifts you higher than you have ever stood. The first taste of height is a dangerous sweetness— the first ascent alters a man. It whispers that he is not merely earthbound matter, but something capable of defying it. Icarus was not undone by stupidity. He was overtaken by revelation— the sudden, intoxicating awareness of possibility. In that bright and perilous instant, fear loosens, and a man mistakes the expansion of his spirit for the absence of consequence. The elders say the one who has never left the valley calls the climber reckless. He has not yet beheld the horizon. The young reach for the sun because longing compels them; the old counsel restraint because memory tempers them. Both speak truth. Ambition is a sacred fire— without it, we perish in cold obscurity; too near it, we are reduced to ash. Wisdom does not demand the extinguishing of flame, but reverence for its heat. Yes, the boy rose too high. Yes, he fell into the waiting sea. But do not forget for a second— he rose. And if we speak from honesty, we do not condemn him in ways we say we do. We recognize in him the immemorial hunger that dwells in every restless heart— the yearning not merely to survive, but to ascend. So when you behold his fall, do not ask only why he dared too much. Ask quietly and without pride, whether you have dared too little— mistaken safety for virtue; and whether some part of you has always wished to taste the sun.

[tarisj]

THE TEACHER'S PLIGHT

God placed a trust in humble hands, Not wealth, nor crown, nor worldly claim, But hearts that shape the future’s plans Through patience, loss, and quiet flame. A teacher stands where futures turn, With steady voice and borrowed light, They give what they may never earn— A mind awakened to what is right. Yet now they face the mocking smile, The rolling eye, the careless word, Disrespect dressed up as a style, A lesson lost before it’s heard. The Prophets taught us: its the learned who lead, That ink outweighs the martyr’s blood; To honor those who teach and read Is counted high in sight of God. For character is who you are When pride is loud and guidance near; It’s how you treat the ones who scar Your ego just to make you clear. So guard your tongue, respect the way, For God records what hearts display; He lifts the ones who walk with grace, And those who taught them how to stay.

[tarisj]

Witnesses

My words have found their way to heaven, but not his ears somehow. They rise each night, are heard, are held— just not by him, not now. The sheets have drunk my silent nights, my tears absorbed without a sound. My eyelids carry all my fights, and bend beneath the weight I’ve found. The trees all know. The birds do too. The cats, the flowers, all. They listen when I say his name, they'd never let it fall. I pull the petals from their stems, soft hopes I can’t outrun: He’ll love me one day, love me not. He will. He won’t. Each one. The earth has felt the grief I claim, The sky has heard my whispered plea, The night has held its breath the same, The angels know his name from me. Even God, and even heaven, keep their vigil through the night. Still his ears are closed, untouched, and I fall unheard tonight. The night keeps all my words in thrall, and yet I give him my all.

[tarisj]

Sajdah

I bow in prayer where earth is near, My forehead pressed to humble ground; To God I speak his name sincere, In silence where no vows resound. I pray he’s safe, I pray he’s well, That peace walks softly at his side; That health within his body dwell, And joy in him still does abide. And when he’s gone from where I stand, I ask for nothing bold or wide— Just that at times his mind would softly land, On thoughts where I may still reside. If ever should he call my name, I’d turn back then, without delay; Not driven wild by ice or flame, Just knowing where my heart does stay. So still I bow patient and true, Let heaven bear witness what I won’t show: I wish him good in all he does, And love him more than he ever could know.

[tarisj]

The Mirror's Testimony

The mirror is a witness stand, and I walk in already judged. The glass keeps records— every hollow at my hips, the soft rise of a stomach I swear was flatter yesterday. The image trembles— then betrays. It stretches, distorts, turns my body into a rumour I begin to believe. By night, dread settles like a stone in my throat. I measure worth in silence— by how quietly I fade, by how little I can become before the guilt finally loosens. The bathroom becomes a chapel to a doctrine I never chose. The faucet whispers, the light refuses mercy, and this body bows to a ritual that promises relief and leaves only ache. Salt and shame on the tongue, fire in the throat, a small, practiced violence— and afterward, a thin, temporary stillness pretending to be control. My hips keep their inward crescents, those ordinary hollows I’ve rewritten as wounds— as if something inside me is clawing back to life, dragging me toward a version I call monstrous. I remember that hideous body— years buried in fabric, rooms that felt hostile, the sense of taking up too much air. I fled her with hunger, with punishment, with bargains whispered over sinks. Now the fear shadows me: what if she returns— heavy, unforgiven— and I’m locked again inside a shape I cannot bear. Everything scratches at me— the seam of tight fabric, a passing reflection, a number I never meant to see. I live in a constant inquiry, held between the ghost I outran and the mirror that will not release me. And still— I stand here, breathing. Not redeemed. Not damned. Just a body trying to exist beneath the noise, while the glass delivers its verdict in a language I hope someday to refuse learning.

[tarisj]

Would you ask?

I ache to be questioned— not because I doubt myself, but because being asked feels like being seen. I want to feel your gaze linger with quiet curiosity, your voice gently opening a space for me. I want to hear you say, “Tell me.” Those words live only in my imagination because you would never ask; though I wish oh so hard you would. Without that invitation, everything I carry remains folded inside me, too delicate to offer unprompted. So much of my heart exists in silence. It beats with a devotion I rarely dare to name, your presence etched through it like writing that refuses to fade. You are there in my hopes, in my hesitations, in the parts of me I guard most carefully. Yet the silence stretches on— not harsh, but painfully cautious; and I find myself waiting for a question that never arrives. When I imagine you asking, it feels like safety, not interrogation. It feels like there might finally be room for my trembling honesty. I don’t crave grand confessions or dramatic gestures. I long for something quieter— a moment where I can simply speak so you could know. I wish you would ask so I could open my heart and show you just how deeply I adore you. I don’t ask for miracles or explanations— I know whatever was between us if there ever was– has already been broken. Still, I carry my feelings quietly, not because I expect them to be returned, but because they are real. Maybe you will never ask, and maybe I will learn to live with that silence. But if, one day, you did open that small door with a question, you would see my heart as it always has been– steady, bare, sincere, and still, somehow, yours.

[tarisj]

𝕿𝖔 𝕾𝖍𝖔𝖜 𝖄𝖔𝖚 𝕸𝖞 𝕳𝖊𝖆𝖗𝖙

I want to tear apart my shell, To break the cage where shadows dwell. My hands, they quake, my chest it shakes, I want to show you what love makes. I want to dig through bone and skin, To find the heart I keep within. It thrums with words I never say, A silent scream that bleeds away. I want to lift it to the light, The one you stole, denied my sight. Your name engraved where trust should bloom, A scar that grows inside the room. I want to scream, “Look here! See what your absence left behind!” Anger bites sharp, like winter frost, Sadness pools deep in every loss. I want to feel the hollow tear, The weight of all the nights of care. To hold my heart, both raw and true, And let it bleed because of you. I want to stand, unbowed, unchained, To let the storm inside remain. The shift will come, not yours to see, But mine alone— it sets me free. I want to show that love can scar, Can burn like fire, leave every mar. Yet still it lives, though torn and raw, A fierce devotion none withdraw.

[moonlit-serendipityy]

[tarisj]

I will eat this

[tarisj]

𝕰𝖉𝖊𝖓

This garden fashioned softly in my heart, A secret realm where dreams of you still grow; Its blossoms rise though we stand apart, Their colours kissed by dawn’s first trembling glow. I paved each path with reverence and care, And watered hopes that shimmer through the night; The wind drifts slow, as if it longs to bear A whispered plea for you to enter the light. No weight awaits you in its gentle shade, No thorns to snare, no tempests left to rue; Just memories in drifting petals laid, And vows that stir because they breathe of you. So come— just once— to soothe this quiet ache, To walk the tender dreams I’ve grown out of longing's art; For all I ask, for all the love I wake, Is that you touch, at least once, this garden in my heart.

[reeces--pieces]

dreams of flesh

i wish i could take a bite out of your skin, to absorb it to make it mine, to make me whole i wish i didn't need to take from you

it keeps echoing in my mind the last thing we ever spoke just don't leave me alone i'm nothing without you

i want to become one with you i want to think with you with four arms and four legs a deity made of the love we share

and when it ends, it'll be together without anything to divide us we'll answer to who we need to but without an ounce of shame

[tarisj]

𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝖔𝖓𝖊𝖘 𝖇𝖊𝖋𝖔𝖗𝖊 𝖓𝖔𝖜

I stand in a room that’s overflowing, voices rising like tides against the walls, laughter spilling over tables, stories weaving into each other— but none of them reach me. I smile like I’m stitched into the moment, but I feel the seams tearing quietly. Every sound around me grows louder, yet somehow it only deepens the silence inside. They aren’t unkind— just not mine. Not the souls who carried pieces of me when I didn’t even know I was breaking. Not the ones who spoke in the soft language my heart still remembers. These people shine in their own rhythm, but my pulse beats to the footsteps of ghosts— friends, memories, moments that belonged to a different version of me. A before. A once. A home. So I drift at the edge of this crowded room, a shadow looking for familiar light, yearning for the warmth of the ones who knew my quiet without asking, who made me space without effort. Maybe one day I’ll find a new orbit, a place where my heart finally settles. But tonight— in the echo of too much noise and not enough connection— I miss my people. I miss the version of me who never felt alone in a crowd.

[tarisj]

𝕭𝖑𝖊𝖘𝖘𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝖔𝖗 𝕮𝖚𝖗𝖘𝖊?

Some nights, memory arrives gently— a thin wash of light across my thoughts, steady enough to make me breathe differently. It brings back the pieces of myself that once believed tenderness was something safe to lean into. Other nights, it strikes without warning. A single thought curls tight, and I feel my teeth sink into my lip— a quiet attempt to keep the ache contained. But tears still gather, then spill and cascade down tired cheeks with the same old insistence, as if the past refuses to be forgotten. And yes— your name leaves my lips softly, the way a prayer slips into the dark when no one is listening but God. Memory can be gentle: a reminder that I’ve touched joy, that closeness once felt easy. It holds fragments of softness I thought I’d lost forever— quiet proof that my heart has known warmth before. But memory can be brutal: it drags me into the empty space you left, where every breath feels heavier because you’re not in it. It brings your absence too close, turning silence into something that claws, and tears into proof that some losses keep living long after they’re gone. Blessing or curse— memory blurs the line, and I’m left holding the echo of you, a name I never meant to carry— not this far.

[tarisj]

𝕱𝖆𝖗-𝖋𝖊𝖙𝖈𝖍𝖊𝖉

Far-fetched, but what if one day I’m at the altar, draped in red silk and ceremony, the air thick with the metallic tang of something unsaid, and beneath the vows I don’t believe in, my heart still beats your name— jagged shards, echoing unburied? Far-fetched, but what if I flee so far from you that my life splits into riven shards— new country, new skin, new faces— and yet the first time another hand brushes mine, I flinch, a sharp taste of iron in my mouth spilling: this is not his hand. Far-fetched, but what if disaster tears the world open around me— sirens shrieking red across the smoke, flames licking the edges of everything, and debris raining like knives— and through all that chaos, my lungs burning and vision stuttering, the first name my body screams into the violence is yours?

Far-fetched, but what if in a crowd gone feral— limbs smashing, flesh colliding, teeth glinting in the crimson blur— the ground trembling like it might swallow me whole— even as bodies pitch and scream, the one thread I grip in the red storm is still the sound of you? Far-fetched, but what if the day everything collapses— blood that isn't mine streaked across my hands, breath ragged, heartbeat hammering like a drum of war— the only thing I cling to, the only anchor in the violent surge, is your name, whispered through the roar of ruin? Far-fetched, but what if I am scattered into wind and fire— a thousand fragments ripped from myself, red dust swirling through deserts and oceans— and every shard still arcs toward you, a violent compass of memory and flame?

Far-fetched, but what if the stars themselves burn out, and the universe exhales a final, searing dark— a sky of crimson ash and black wind— and inside that collapse, the last spark in me refuses to die, burning stubbornly with the memory of you? And far-fetched, but what if when I’m finally lowered into the quiet soil, the earth begins its patient feast? When the ants thread through my ribs like corridors, when beetles make a slow cathedral of my bones, when the dirt drinks me grain by grain— what if they reach my heart last? And what if, even then, all they taste is you? A final sweetness. A final ghost. A final flavor that isn’t mine.

[tarisj]

𝕳𝖔𝖜 𝖉𝖔 𝕴 𝖘𝖆𝖞 𝕴 𝖒𝖎𝖘𝖘 𝖞𝖔𝖚?

How can I tell you I miss you in a way that makes your heart ache the way mine does? These words feel too fragile, too quiet for the ruin they make. How can I breathe the same air when it doesn’t taste like home? The world moves on without you, but my soul refuses to roam. How can I dream of other skies when yours is where I learned to pray? Even my sleep betrays me— it keeps finding your face halfway. How can I carry this ache without letting it swallow me whole? You are the wound and the reason, the absence that teaches my soul. How can I beg the night for peace when it only echoes your name? Every shadow wears your memory, every quiet burns the same. How can I keep on living with half of me still where you are? I count the distance by heartbeats, and each one dies a little more so far.

[tarisj]

𝖂𝖍𝖆𝖙 𝖘𝖎𝖓 𝖜𝖆𝖘 𝖑𝖔𝖛𝖊?

My heart prays, and its rhythm calls your name, Over and over, like a silent song. If I could pick the most beautiful moments From the branches of my life, I would live each one with you— For even in the storm, it’s you I chase. I’ve walked through mirrors, lost in your eyes, Torn the veil between heaven and ache. Each tear I shed rewrites the skies, Each smile you give, the world remakes. I burn and bloom in the same heartbeat, And every flame still spells your name. No matter what the future brings, I want to face it with you. Every breath I take, I want it to be with you, Every step along every path, I wish you beside me. And yet, this distance remains— A quiet barrier I cannot cross, A mirror that shows you but won’t let me through. If madness is the price of love, Then let me pay it without remorse. Let every thought become your dove, Flying circles around my course. Even pain tastes sweet when it’s from you, Even silence hums your name. Let me break apart, so I can meet my heart as it truly is. These moments will not return. I want to dissolve into you, To live in your arms, to hide in your heart— For love has already unmade me. Distance mocks me—soft, invisible glass, A wall I touch but cannot break. Your absence is a shadow that won’t pass, And yet, it’s you my soul must chase. I love you like a secret gone too deep, A wound that glows instead of heals. Where else could I go but toward you? From you alone come the memories That belong only to me. I want to live in your thoughts, To visit your dreams, as you do mine— Two souls wandering the same sleep. But I know the truth: Wishing cannot bridge this gap. Even if my heart reaches for you endlessly, Even if I pour myself into my longing, You remain just out of reach— A dream I cannot grasp, A song unfinished in my chest. One day this fever will quiet down, And I’ll forget how your name once burned. But tonight, let me lose my crown, Mad with the love I never earned. Let the world call me wild— I’ll still belong to love. What sin was love, to make me this undone?