Pocket Abacus & Other Tiny Prophecies

I opened the door just wide enough for the water to spill through,\nClearing the fog and that ever-present shade of blue.\nFor a moment, it didn’t matter what was false or true—\nThere was only me. And then there was the water, too.\n\nOn the shelf sat an abacus—meticulously aligned,\nBeside a chaos of books and objects half-defined.\nAnd just for a breath—a fraction of borrowed time—\nI slipped from the sentence of solving unsolvable lines.\n\nQuestions left unanswered, I’m conflicted that I’m somehow not confused.\nA moment in time no one could ever intentionally reproduce.\nTracing full sentences into my skin, a war for two with no intent of a truce—\nThe answer hanging in the air—you whisper under breath, “It’s easy to deduce.”\n\nConstellations dancing across the ceiling, something in that moment was healing.\nI had opened the door for the water without so much as a hello or a semblance of a greeting.\nJust me and the flood standing in a room with no sound other than a heart too quickly beating,\nIgnoring the world—and the floorboard beneath us slowly creaking.\n\nI stepped into the hush where no promises were owed,\nWhere even the ghosts stood still, their memories stowed.\nNo map, no guide, just a thread I somehow followed—\nNot an ending, but a place where something finally glowed.

I’ve been stuffing down the words until they no longer make sound\nLike a ball of yarn you keep spinning in hopes it’ll become unwound\nBelow the bass you can barely hear the tires continuously pounding the ground\nAnother night feeling lost and wondering when I’ll finally feel found\n\nAge is supposed to bring wisdom, at least that’s what they tell us as kids\nAll it takes is resilience — some sort of natural born grit\nSmeared black ink on disorganized pages— the outline of a conduit\nAvoiding the excessive white spaces— conjuring memories like a forgotten Druid\n\nMost nights I’m stuck in an endless game of tag— chasing the concept of dreams\nI always was my best when I was balancing out two sides of what seems extreme\nA weird melancholic blend of feeling both happy and sad\nA constant assessment of what we should subtract and what we should add\n\nNumbers weren’t my thing— if I were being honest neither was math\nI’d rather be hidden in a corner holding a pen precariously above the pad\nWaiting for the words to flow; hiding my thoughts inside of a blot of ink\nWatching the lines as they grow and then as some of them start to shrink\n\nLife is just a dizzying array of stories waiting to unfold— waiting to be told\nReminders that each of us go through passing seasons even if some of them are cold\nWisdom isn’t as simple as knowing what’s right and what’s wrong\nSometimes it’s just learning and expanding the places where you belong

I think the night that I met you my frequency changed—\nIt’s either that, or maybe I’ve finally, truly gone insane\nI don’t think it matters, honestly, if it’s either way\nSilver linings now painted on the ceiling that once held clouds of grey\n\nIt felt like finding pieces to a puzzle left unseen\nA shifting of the static into something calm and clean\nIt’s strange to find a refuge where confusion used to lean\nA frequency so quiet it feels almost like a dream\n\nMost things aren’t what they seem, regardless of how they’re portrayed\nTrying to thread a needle with a string that’s deliriously frayed\nThe undoing of an overly complex puzzle or an unseemly braid\nUnraveling the answers to questions that you continuously try to escape\n\nI stopped searching for reasons to pretend I didn’t care\nStopped forcing every feeling back behind a practiced stare\nThe walls I’d built for safety now just echo with your name\nI laid my weapons down and you stayed all the same\n\nNo longer examining the constellations, trying to find a clue that this is a mistake\nNo longer lost inside the walls of an ever-shifting garden maze\nClosing down the files and notes—the ending of a dead-end case\nI turned a corner, and suddenly all that was left was your face\nA lesson in patience silently folded into an unexpected embrace

I find myself silently watching, waiting for the sleight of hand.\nUnmentioned moments that I don’t think either of us had planned.\nFighting against the pull, my feet slowly sinking in the quicksand.\nThe constellations above me hum with things I’ll never understand.\n\nDo I keep trying to run, or do I accept the defeat?\nQuestions I ponder each time you don’t miss a beat.\nI could ask the thought out loud, but you’d render it obsolete—\nA moment that reminds me maybe it would be safer to stand on concrete.\n\nI find my mind floating somewhere above, wrapped in clouds,\nPondering my sanity and pushing down the hidden doubts.\nDancing beside the line of stars, mapping the bruises from forgotten bouts.\nA single drop of rain—the completion of what felt like a never-ending drought.\n\n“Sometimes I just know things.” Our eyes meet from across the table.\nJust for a moment, I didn’t care if this ended up another story or a misguided fable.\nAnother synchronicity that I refused to announce or label.\nAn invisible string that’s starting to feel more like a bungee cable.\nThe more you fight, the faster you sink—be careful, the risk could be fatal.

What if it’s not about the answer, but instead about the question?\nA world that skips the journey—eyes glued to the destination,\nLost in the weight of others’ perceptions, not reasons for celebration.\nPerhaps we all just need to breathe, or find some form of meditation.\n\nAlone, pondering: does the story truly end, or does meaning grow beyond the page?\nOr do you find its wisdom only as you truly start to age?\nSome arcs are fleeting—a glimpse of light that fades again,\nYet life’s most beautiful moments are often quiet, mundane.\n\nEven the leaves know—the only certainty is change,\nLife isn’t a series of chapters, carefully chosen and arranged.\nHappiness and power aren’t bought; they’re earned with thoughtful intent,\nAnd even in the darkest shadows, guard the spark of your own flame.

What would happen, if instead of running—we both decided to stay?\nA door we locked years ago that’s somehow now left slightly ajar.\nHow many times can we repeat the same cycle of mistakes\nbefore one decides the prize is no longer worth the cost of the stakes?\n\n“You know the definition of insanity, right?”\nMy cheeks, a vibrant scarlet, as I look at the floor.\nI could make a run for it—\nmy hand, mentally, already on the knob of the door,\nrecounting the steps I took before\nthat led us into the coldest of wars.\n\nI choose to avoid the soft spots on the wooden floorboards,\nescaping the heaviness that creaks from the baseboards.\nAt this point, I can’t tell who wanted it more—\nthis chaos I’ve spent ten years trying to explore.\nSynchronicities we try not to define,\neach one dismissed as something that isn’t a sign—\njust a coincidence, just bad timing,\njust a version of you I kept rewriting.\n\nBut what if the story never needed a plot twist,\nnever needed a war to make peace exist?\nWhat if the ending wasn’t meant to be clean—\njust two broken people choosing something unseen?\n\nAnd still, I hover in the doorway,\nunsure if staying means losing the game.\nBut maybe the real insanity\nwas thinking we ever left things the same—\nwhen neither of us ever truly leave.