u/the-assassin-

This is new
this way.

I used to watch it
from the wrong side 
of night.

no sleep
no coming down

Chemistry pretending 
to be clarity
and a room 
that would not end.

The sun used to rise
like a mistake 
I survived.

Now it comes up slower
caught through motion
pedals purging
the residue
of what I was.

same light
different witness

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1thyvtb/comment/omr3dkw/

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1thso7u/comment/omr3trb/

Back and forth
they battle.

One side aiming
to improve
relations.

Continue with
enlightened
sharing of
ideas.

Explore the
cognitive map
and
find peace
in the
shimmering pools.

The other
demands it
all.

To take
the scarlet bows.

Conquer
the peaks
and valley.

Traverse
the twin pillars
on the way
to punish the
sacred land

Stretch its walls
release a flood

Make them submit.

To own everything
and call it
theirs.

Yet held
in check.

For now.

Barely.

Written for u/Katie-x-Cat Thank you for your art, your feedback, and being an inspiration.

oh yeah and those two pictures with the poem, so hot!

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1tbazcf/comment/olgm1t4/

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1tbamfv/comment/olgokht/

We speak in two rooms at once.
One lit softly by hours of conversation
where laughter leads 
and performance is scarce.

Another
with sharpened tongue
closer to heat than speech.
Where even silence arrives already charged

Testing the distance
between being known
and imagined.

You tell me what I do to you
as if naming it keeps you safe
as if naming it makes it truer.

I learn you in return
what you offer.
What you risk offering.
Then pull back just enough 
to feel control.

There are nights we disappear.
On purpose or not. 
Still the absence behaves like presence.
Our minds fill in the outline of the other.

Somewhere inside it
beneath the names 
the roles 
and games.
There is something 
watching.

As both of us
become a little more real
than we intended. 

Whatever the fuck this is.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1t9gf9p/comment/ol2mj6h/

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1t9caux/comment/ol2n8db/

Not her fault. Almost her.
Stirrings. Desire. Want.
Surface. Immediate. A body asking not choosing.
I could take it. Easy. Call it something it isn't.
Pretend she’s there. She's not.

Not her.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1t1oapa/comment/ojkj6yn/

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1t1e0s3/comment/ojkjth1/n

Don't touch the wall.

Not born this way.
Learned it.

Which words bend the moment.
Which me fills the room
before the door opens.

Watched the conversation
from the side.
Knew what it meant for me
before it ended.

Stopped being surprised
because surprise was expensive.

The wall is not there anymore.

Still I don't touch it.

The radar still turns

not gone.

Just moved
from the outside

to the inside

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1szcyr3/comment/oj11pyn/

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1swctp2/comment/oj12ft9/

Words appear
on a screen
you won’t put down.

You read them
from a steel tube
six miles high.

About
the flat disk
below.

Not questioning how.
Trusting.

You were never required
to understand before 
it was real.

But repetition bends verity.

Say it enough
belief forms.

Standing on a sphere
now a question.

Moon landings
a hoax.

Vaccines
an attack.

Not understanding
rebranded as research.

Until certainty itself
feels dangerous.

Still you believe
what you cannot explain.

You always have.

What changes
is what gets repeated
until it feels like truth.

What disappears
is knowing it isn’t.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1sxqq3r/comment/oiswkmy/

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/1sxp38z/comment/oisx0yz/