Longer On (a prelude in drift)
Longer on, I stayed
in the echo of a toothbrush still wet
but never moved.
Unrinsed silence.
Unbuttoned air.
The hour broke like glass on a piano key
and bled a lullaby.
I made tea for someone who no longer existed.
Watched steam write a name I didn’t recognize
on the kitchen window,
watched it fade with a chill’s indifference.
Longer on I stayed,
in a conversation I never had,
with a lamp that flickered only when I cried.
Dust gave me advice —
be light, float, forget.
I wrote it down on the back of my hand
then washed it off before dinner.
Longer on the breath that trembled,
not from fear but the absurdity of feeling.
I stitched metaphors to the ends of my hair
and they tangled in the fan
like secrets in an attic.
I waited for God
but a squirrel arrived
and stole my last biscuit.
Which made more sense, honestly.
Longer on, I walked a loop of memory
so many times
I wore a groove into the wood of my skull.
There,
my thoughts now fall automatically,
like marbles into a rigged game.

Loneliness (a dirge in colorless ink)
It’s not a room,
it’s the idea of a room
you can’t turn off.
A wallpaper peeling from memory
but memory refuses to repaint.
Loneliness is the hum
beneath the fridge,
the sigh of the floor
after the last footstep is archived.
It wears corduroy socks and walks without noise.
It chews on hours like stale bread.
I spoke to the mosquito,
asked it how it dared
to be so intimate.
It answered in blood.
The night offered a dance.
I forgot the steps
so it tripped me gently,
then left with my shadow.
I once folded a blanket
just for the illusion
of someone having left it messy.
Once,
I laughed into an old voicemail
just to hear my own echo recoil.
Loneliness is creative,
a choreographer of vacant gestures.
A mime in mourning.
It brews nostalgia like rot
into jam jars with no labels.
You open one,
expecting raspberry —
but it’s the silence of your mother’s tired eyes.
A basement of aching cupboards.
I asked the moon for advice.
It told me to wax, to wane, to wait.
Leave It (a severance in surreal crescendo)
Leave it —
the apology that never ripened,
hanging green on the branch of your tongue.
Leave the words that coiled like ribbon
and failed to become a gift.
Leave it:
that song that ruined 4 a.m.
the scent that vandalized
an entire season.
The way their name
still puts your lungs on probation.
Leave that too.
Leave the mirror that lies.
The friend who sharpened your sorrow
into weapon-grade empathy.
Leave your need
to fold chaos into origami animals.
No one asked for paper dragons.
You are not obligated
to hold the door open
for every ghost.
Leave the archive of looks.
The heat in that glance.
The tremor. The pretend.
Leave it —
the wanting.
It costs too much in moonlight.
Leave the spine you keep straight for pride.
Bend.
Fold yourself into a pocket.
Let Go (a falling into freedom)
Let go —
not like a balloon,
but like a vine
unwinding from an old gate.
Let go of what you embroidered
onto your skin
and called identity.
Let go of answers
that made too much sense
to ever be real.
Let go of being understandable.
Unpack the myth
that pain has to mean something.
Sometimes, it’s just Tuesday.
Let go of the maps.
Burn them.
The destination is in the forgetting.
Let go of rehearsals.
Live badly.
Live wrong.
Live loudly enough that the silence complains.
Let go of needing to be chosen.
Choose yourself
and surprise even your shadow.
Let go of memory
like deadweight feathers.
Let go, not with grace —
with chaos,
with salsa on your shirt
and tears in your soup.
Let go like a dam breaking in laughter.
Like a child who no longer cares
whether their shoes match.
Let go
and see what rushes in
to take its place.
(Spoiler: it might be you.)
Linger On (a contradiction in bloom)
Linger on —
in the scent of oranges crushed on the windowsill.
Not everything must vanish.
Linger on the laugh that misfired
and turned into a hiccup of joy.
On the mistake that wore perfume
and still made you dance.
Linger on that one strand of hair
stuck in the corner of your mouth
from someone who left
a decade ago —
some residue belongs.
Linger on the velvet decay
of things that held beauty
but forgot what it was for.
On that sticky middle
of the poem that got bored of itself
and wandered into prose.
Stay for the long, ugly parts.
The awkward silences.
The overcooked rice.
Linger on the clumsy love
that tried — tried so hard it broke itself.
On the way a dog waits by a locked door.
On the warm cup left half-finished
next to your bed —
what fidelity.
Linger where the song warbled,
where the thread pulled wrong,
where you forgot the name of your sadness
but still remembered its handwriting.
Let the bruise stay a little longer
so the skin can remember
not just the pain —
but how it learned color.
Linger on the kindness
you almost deleted from your inbox.
On the sound of your name
when spoken by someone
who didn’t need anything from you.
Linger on, not to prolong —
but to witness.
Because sometimes
you don’t need to leave or let go.
Sometimes, you need to be there
as the moment breathes its last
in your open palm.
(a singularity in reverse)
And then:
Just the hallway,
quiet,
after all the footsteps have dissolved.
You open the door
not for arrival,
but for air.
No grand farewell.
No orchestral cue.
Only
the subtle symphony
of self
beginning to
begin
again.
#Poetry #UnfinishedGoodbyes #LetGo #LingerOn #LonelinessInVerse #PoetryOfHealing #SurrealPoetry #ModernVerse #EmotionalAlchemy
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