r/LonelyPoetsDepartment

(Hook)

I want to paint you a picture, a Van Gogh if you will,

Where the brush is a pen and the canvas? Sheer will,

when the walls boiled with flame and the temperature spiked,

You jumped from the ramparts and left from my life.

(Verse)

I have no sympathy for your lack of sight,

Beginning to think that maybe Dax was right,

As men in an unreasonable plight—destined to slog,

Unconditional love really is for women, children and dogs,

You don’t ever do favors, you keep a backlog,

All along, I couldn’t see, I held up the walls while they were closing on me…

I’m gonna paint a picture of you, thorough as hell,

Using words as a brush, dipping ink from a well,

Until it sits bigger than the billboards off of US-12,

You thought you were the only voice but well,

That isn’t quite true when you try to drag a good man to hell,

That has the ability to use words as weapon,

Not to just sit back and relax but shape em and set them,

Bricks into mortar, filling the cracks,

Exposing the foundation that you so desperately lack,

You wanna go back?

I’ll Sharpen my pen, if it worked once why wouldn’t it end up workin again?

I’ll point it out once, won’t do it again,

Shady did it, put you in it, showed you his life with a pen,

So I’ll show you my world, transposed, lyrically here,

Then the picture will remain clear here for eternity, no more “they’ll see” threats, posturing lies, severing family ties to keep me from recognizing everything was a lie,

Webbed together, fractals spun forever,

Running with the tears and pain you said would get better, but never did, back then it felt like it did, hope was a tangible thing, looked kinda like smoke, until it filled up the space and I started to choke.

I held my daughter for the first time,

And realized everything I knew about being a man was a lie,

It wasn’t a man’s place to work himself to the bone,

Spend all his hours stuck at work, none at home,

Filling hearts with presents instead of presence,

Building before the foundation is present,

I redrew a system, asked for you present,

For it to be built and you grew to resent it,

So brick by brick I built my own foundation,

Even inside a psyche under hostile occupation,

Built by my hands, with mortar and trestle,

I knew that my mind would have to be the vessel,

Because you reached in and tried to distort and scheme and wrestle with the hallow cost, but it’s a holocaust, you missed the hallowed cost, and now your picture hangs in the Hall of Cost with all of my regrets, you’re programmed with settings that never will progress, a human being—flawed but lacking interest in the things that give the future hope, instead you waged a war based off of emotions never spoke,

Lobbied for vacations as a way of separation from reality,

Now you’ll see the implications that hit invocation years ago, in our broken home while I was driving up to Kokomo,

It really is possible to do everything you can and still end up with nowhere to go,

But never again will you cast the Pall inside my sacred home.

not with hands around my neck

not with force pushing against my voice

not with anything the body could confess to

But I need the residue

Your name not in words spoken

But kept

Like ritual, like worship,

Like something repeated until it becomes belief

place it softly

at the back of my throat

and let it sit there

heavy with intent

let it swell

until speech forgets itself

until every word I try to form

collapses into you

I want to breathe you in wrong

I want the quiet panic of it

the way a wave hesitates

before it breaks

Knowing it will

Knowing it must

Let it fill me

Let it fill me

until I am full of you

and nothing else fits

until even silence

sounds like you

Your fingerprints, unseen, upon my flesh

until I forget

where I end

and you begin.

I have this constant overflow of emotion that causes me to put them into rhyme or plain verse and I am glad that I am able to share my words.

Yet.. sometimes these emotions emit into tears of deep set anguish that I cannot share in words or verse. Yeow! It is painful indeed.

Please tell me I can keep my sanity…. Because I often yearn to be set free from this unspoken - unsettling urgency.

What better way than if I could interpret my tears into words. Perhaps I then could create a nuanced and soothing new set of songs to still my soul!

©️4/4/2026

the way she smiled so sweetly..

one day, the face is bare,

next time it’s framed by glasses.

the certain kind of confidence had only by

someone who sees the boundaries clearly,

Here am I, you are there, that’s the divide.

With the guard let down for a little bit-

the gaze is direct and the awareness is not subtle.

design by intention.

couple new braids in your hair,

looking back - at me, saying: "Hello, there".

Did you think I would not stare?

There’s no reason to hide that i see you-

And that you see that I see and it becomes

a little dance, and you smile.

With hair of honey, it’s always a fair act.

Ditch the script and tell me something else

What are you thinking about?

I bet it's someones else’ words:

How much of it is serious?

How much of it is play?

Less than forty-eight hours

and you had me.

Before it had time to mean anything,

I was already yours—

though neither of us said it.

Something in me had already leaned

toward you—

too easily.

Inadvertently—

completely—

hooked on something our innocence had not yet learned to fear.

I’d call it funny

if fate hadn’t already claimed it

for something cruel.

The first words I got out of you?

‘I do.’

Of course.

You radiated a purity I thought the

world had lost,

a grace so rare it felt like a

discovery.

You didn't just capture my gaze;

you wove a spell around my soul,

claiming me from crown to toe.

Soul.

I told you

you were a beautiful soul—

you said

no one had ever called you that before.

You felt like something

that wouldn’t survive force.

Not fragile—

just not meant for it.

So I adjusted.

I chose to loosen my grip.

And that was the first time I realized

there was a volatility in me I hadn’t faced yet.

I knew what lived in me.

It was loud,

hard to miss.

You… you never looked like someone

carrying anything that heavy.

And I—

I believed what I could see.

So when it finally surfaced—

it didn’t feel like truth.

It felt like something

that couldn’t possibly belong to you.

No…

not to you—

not to someone

who softened the world just by being in it.

And so I had to face it.

Oh, babe, if only you had told me…

If only there had been the slightest of signs…

I would’ve done anything to shelter that light.

I still think someone like you

should’ve been protected by the heavens

from all that darkness.

But you proved yourself worthy

of that weight—

of all of it.

Oh, you did.

You had the version of me that

was at its purest.

If I’ve ever been able to be selfless

that was for you.

Vulnerability?

Thanks to you.

Your beauty blinded my eyes.

Your grace blinded my heart.

I mistook you for something sacred.

Oh, what a dangerous thing to do—

to place a crown

on someone who was never meant to carry one.

How unfitting—

they named you bright, clear, luminous.

And yet, even the devil

disguises himself as an angel of light.

I cried.

First, because I thought I’d mishandled you.

Then, because I was in love with you.

Finally, because I had lost you.

You chose deception.

You chose to fabricate the most horrendous of lies.

You chose to erase the version I had known of you—

to begin again.

And you never gave me the choice

to forgive you,

to walk beside you.

I tried to understand you later—

no.

I could never have gone that low.

My friends hated you.

I might have lost the love of my life because of you.

And still—

I chose you

every time I could.

And so, I cried—

again,

and again,

and again.

First, I cried for you.

Then, because of you.

In the end—

I cried for myself.

But I did not cry when, years later,

we met again.

And I told you, to your face,

I wished you were dead.

And so it was—

you’d become the first ghost.

— Crownless.

I’m standing here now, in hopes that I’ll be,

Something bigger, someday, than just being me,

See I have a dream, to be a lighthouse for those,

That were broken and thrown to the side and were told,

That their efforts were nothing, that their best work was trash,

That every time they feel like they try hard they crash,

While the rest of the world they just sit there and laugh,

Pointing and asking “what the fuck was that?”

I built a Mansion, way deep within me,

It functions as a layout of my inner psyche,

Inside, my world is far deeper than out,

And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention there's no clout,

In this for me, indiscriminately, I just feel like it’ll help someone to see,

They aren’t alone in their fucked up home,

Their truth is valid, psyche scarred to the bone.

Ruin has witnessed hell, catalogued in kind,

Battle after battle waged and transcribed,

While Keystone took up the sword and defended the line,

But lately, The Architect himself sits in the tower alone,

For Ruin and Keystone are fighting in the West Wing for home,

The ghost in the halls, they come in with a zap,

They're neurological gremlins, let's establish that,

The ghosts? They're named Shadows,

For that's what they are, they come and they rattle,

The bones of the structure, the very walls,

They're quite strong for something that simply wanders the halls,

So Keystone and Ruin, they fight together,

No matter the size of the hoard or the weather,

And report back to the Observatory they're taking a header,

So The Architect drafts up a plan, a manifesto a letter,

And sharpens his pen to protect this land,

To outline the stakes and draw the line in the sand,

He descends from the Central Tower,

Bringing with him all the firepower,

In the arsenal for he knows, If they attack it together,

They'll destroy the Shadows, and the West Wing will be better,

From now on, here and forever, they'll fight together,

Come hell or high water, to keep the Mansion from filling and being left in squalor,

Shadows replacing the air that's needed to breathe,

Being pushed out by all the machines.

The other day, I woke up and I realized,

The thing that very nearly ate me alive,

Was the very thing that should have gave me a life,

But instead it gave me trauma, worry and strife,

My brain made it a tornado, in black and white,

And I developed a need to analyze everything with my mind,

Through you, I learned that I wasn't safe deep inside,

So I compartmentalized my trauma, locked it up, lost my pride,

And the saddest thing is? I did all this to survive.

To you, my brain was a problem that needed fixed,

You claimed I "had an attitude" and I was "being a dick",

Listen up now, it's my turn you insolent pricks,

The fucked up thing is, you started off by blaming a kid,

It couldn't have been the result of adult behavior, to you,

It was just an example of what a "disrespectful" person would do,

But you see, dissent doesn't equal disrespect to me, only you,

And you see boundaries as a slight pointed at you.

My entire life, I’ve been the black sheep,

Everyone in the family was treated better than me,

Thats why I always felt like I was somewhere I didn’t belong,

And also why I stayed behind so often while you went on long,

"Vacations" to see family, to places where I'm always wrong,

Didn’t fit in, they always treated me wrong,

I could tell, they didn’t want me there,

You see, they're part of the reason I never had any air.

The other reason, well, it was you,

You couldn't understand me, claimed that I belittled you,

When I used logic to explain why I misunderstood you,

But in reality, this entire system misunderstood me,

It wrecked me, dropped me to my knees,

It forced me to hide, so you couldn't see,

The very things that made someone like me,

Feel so small and so out of touch,

Completely went against what someone who loves

A child should do when their child needs love,

Fucked up thing is you disguised it as something sent from above,

It wasn't, it was a boomers need to sweep drama under the rug,

To hide the fact that you failed your daughter,

And then the family tried to make me into a martyr,

Whether intentionally or just a product of "generational needs",

Everyone in my world was heard except me,

And for the longest time, I couldn't see,

That you only see Mike when you're looking at me,

I don’t understand though, because that shouldn't be,

I'm here now doing the work of 2 generations before me,

While you hold housing over my head,

While I fight to wrestle with this in my head,

And simultaneously fight to keep you from poisoning her head,

Destroying her mind, filling her with dread,

You don't respect boundaries, you get angry instead,

She doesn’t need the same parents that nearly left me dead,

To have any input or guidance in her life at all,

Because my goal is to stop this runaway train,

Before it ruins a third generation inside one picture frame,

You see, I recognize the words of abuse,

And every time they're employed all you'll do is you'll lose,

Access to her, for your treatment of me,

For keeping me for 30 years on my knees.

For wasting my mind, sated on nothing,

Doubting my ability, eroding me, Slowly

destroying the desire for me to heard,

So here we are now, and I'll be the first,

In the family to say no, I don’t understand,

I don’t know how you treated a child as a grown man,

I was a little adult, I never played,

I just hid in a book and wished it would all go away,

But simultaneously, you've never had faith in me,

You've bet against me continuously,

In every endeavor, but you say that you don't,

But when faced with betting on me, you won’t,

You have never had confidence in my will to be,

Better than all those that came before me.

My child, she'll be allowed to make mistakes,

Because this time? This is her safe place,

She'll never feel the way that I felt,

Tornado on the horizon while my Mansion's a hell,

Walls of flames on the outside, with a moat all around,

Chaos and screams and all other sounds,

Disappear in a vacuum that I just can’t get out,

But I promise that she'll never doubt,

She's loved, and in time she'll know about,

All the trauma I stopped and how this family about-

Faced, when I woke up and dedicated my life,

To making the next generation better than mine.

You see, I'm an Architect, more creative than most,

But I've never designed something that made me boast,

Until I realized that I was the one that matters the most,

To break the system, my brain went from being the most,

To being exactly what was needed to turn trauma into a ghost,

A ghost that will never cross the veil again,

Because it wont have a home in the Mansion she's in.

By Nekro

I survived all the snakes,
real ones, coded ones,
the quiet hiss of doubt coiling in the mind.
Venom became language,
pain became repetition,
and I learned the discipline of breath,
like a blade drawn slowly from the soul.

Inside FitXR,
I fought ghosts that wore my face,
boxed shadows that never bled,
sweat baptizing me in artificial light.
A cathedral of pixels,
yet my heart did not care,
it only knew war,
and the rhythm of survival.

I rewrote gravity,
trained in worlds that did not exist,
but demanded everything.
The body obeys no illusion,
effort is truth,
pain is honest,
and discipline is the only god,
that never lies.

I became harder than the things that tried to break me. Snakes, storms, silence,
all conquered, catalogued, forgotten.

Then!!!
a butterfly.

No venom. No warning.
Just softness landing where armor had grown too proud. A fragile interruption,
a quiet beauty that asked nothing,
and took everything.

And I understood,
it is not the monsters that end us,
but the moments we stop guarding,
the gentle things we underestimate,
the breath we assume will return.

So live like the simulation is watching,
like every strike echoes beyond the headset,
like every drop of sweat writes scripture,
on the fragile body you pretend is permanent.

Because a day worth dying for,
is not forged in comfort,
it is built in fire, repetition, collapse, and rise.

Survive the snakes.
Respect the butterfly.
And step back into the arena anyway.

I waved at the Ocean

and she waved back.

Reaching, arm outstretched, as if to summon the storm.

The ocean and I… mirrors in exultation.

Crying our rage into the lightning caught in the sky,

our voices held by thunder coming to meet us.

Salt beneath our nails and pearls between our teeth

we cry.

Our two hearts breaking in the bowl above us,

Crashing into the rocks.

Only hers will mend by morning.

Mine dissolves in the froth.

Time Machine

I remember when the dark would frighten me to bits

Waking up in terror sometimes sending me to fits

I waited for a beacon that would aid my listing ship

A guiding star lit overhead that doesn’t seem to quit

I remember growing up and always feeling so different

Than all the other kids whom I tried hard not to resent

For the ease in which they spoke, and how they dressed, or came, or went

Jealous of their belonging to a culture that seems spent

I remember heartbreak like it was only yesterday

Drowning in my tears over a simple short display

Carrying the weight of being no one’s final say

Pretending that I’ve lost what really never went away

Now that I’ve grown old the darkness seems more like a friend

It’s meditative silence making space for things to end

Or take a break, then grow, becoming something else to tend

A place where I can hesitate before my fingers can hit SEND

Now that I have grown I see that I was just the same

Another little minnow in the pond playing the game

Polishing the picture of my person in his frame

Maturing at the speed of someone never to reach fame

Now that time has passed I see myself from where you sat

A hard lense to examine from if your confidence runs flat

I see the signs I missed back then that showed I was a brat

These days I’m just thankful when we both have time to chat ❤️

He wakes and finds her not in bed,

Sitting by the window watching the moon,

Watches her silently admiring his view,

Arch of her back, fullness of her hips,

She looks back ,smiles and licks her lips,

Neck having slight traces of his bites,

Shoulders innocent ,girlishly slight,

There was a part of her that unnerved him,

Her eyes huge,dark and innocent,

Eyes that held volumes of information,

Eyes that laughed,eyes that smiled,

Eyes that saw through him and all his lies.

She looked at him musing, wondering what his thoughts could be,

Knowing that at times he looked at her doubtfully,

She wanted him to know she is no mystery,

She was a goddess, she was a siren,

She was an angel, she was a vixen,

Give her respect, she will give you nights you won't forget,

Show her generosity,

you will have her undying loyalty,

But if you play with her dirty,

She will amputate you like a rotting ,flesh smelly,

The simple truth was-she was who she wanted to be,

It all depended on what she received.

Four days.

That’s all it took

for the ghost of seventeen years

to come clawing back through my ribs—

wearing a different face,

speaking in a different voice,

but pulling the same old strings

stitched deep into my bones.

Four days…

and I felt it—

that familiar ache to bend,

to soften,

to shrink myself into something easier to love.

That reflex to chase,

to fix,

to beg without using my hands—

just offering pieces of my soul

like currency I was always running out of.

Seventeen years

taught me how to disappear

while standing right in front of someone.

How to call it love

when it felt like starving.

How to bleed quietly

so no one would accuse me of making a mess.

Seventeen years

turned my voice into an apology

before I even spoke.

But, somehow, some way,

something changed

in those four days.

The pattern showed up

like it owned me.

Like I would fold again,

like I would reach again,

like I would abandon myself

just to be chosen.

And for a moment—

God, for a moment—

I almost did.

I felt the panic rise,

felt the old hunger claw at my throat,

felt that desperate, aching need

to be enough for someone

who was never going to see me.

But this time…

this time

there was something else standing behind me.

Seventeen years.

Not the pain—

no, not just that.

The wisdom.

The scars that finally learned how to speak.

The version of me that survived

everything I thought would destroy me.

She stepped forward.

And she didn’t beg.

She didn’t bargain.

She didn’t break.

She took my shaking hand

and whispered—

“Not again.”

And God…

it hurt.

It hurt to not chase.

It hurt to not explain myself into exhaustion.

It hurt to let someone walk away

without trying to prove

I was worth staying for.

It felt like withdrawal.

Like ripping out something

that had been living inside me for years.

But underneath the pain…

there was something else.

Freedom.

Quiet, terrifying, beautiful freedom.

Because for the first time in my life

I didn’t choose them.

I chose me.

I chose the woman

who was buried under seventeen years of trying,

of fixing,

of breaking herself into pieces

small enough for someone else to hold.

I chose the woman

who knows now—

love is not something you earn

by disappearing.

So I walked away.

Not because I didn’t feel it.

Not because it didn’t matter.

But because it mattered enough

to stop.

And maybe you’ll never understand

what it cost me

to leave after four days.

But I do.

Because it took seventeen years

to learn how.

And if you listen closely—

you can hear it—

Not the sound of something ending…

…but the sound

of a woman

finally coming home

to herself.

To bid farewell

There,

a faint memory brushing gently over my shoulders

lovingly reminding me of a sweeter time and place.

I was comfortably overcome by a strong feeling of longing

Longing for something once known and loved

Long gone, lost forever and sealed for the remainder of the eternity one calls existence.

And yet there it is, not so much as hope but like a soft wind flowing through and waking my tired bones for a brief moment.

A Calling

And

a caressing touch

Not unlike a dream i hung onto so dearly that it carved itseld into flesh and marrow.

With The wonnders of my mind now already fading again into the great paleness, i bid my farewell to what never was.

So Long, what was never meant.