Wear Shadows Wait (The House Keeps Receipts)

Last night, I tried to fall asleep, but suddenly, I heard creaks from the floorboard.\nIn my half-sleep state, I closed my eyes just in time to hear the faintest hint of laughter.\nTime distorted, so I’m unsure if this came before or after.\nI picked up my phone and hit the button to record—I guess it’s time to explore.\n\nKeeping my footsteps light, I try to see, but in the dark, I lose my sight.\nNot sure if I should run or if I should prepare to fight.\nTime felt like an illusion; am I wandering through the early morning or the dead of night?\nWith shaking breaths, I brace myself—something here isn’t right.\n\nI stand beside the wall, allowing it to assist in holding me upright.\nIn my head, a whispered prayer loops, playing on repeat as I fight.\nIs this the moment? Is this where I meet my demise? Is this where I accept defeat?\nIn the stillness of the air, all I can feel is the pounding drum of my heartbeat.\n\nI close my eyes, hold my breath, then count to three—throwing myself forward at full speed.\nAround the corner, I half expect my eyes and another pair to meet.\nOr maybe a half-assed wave, a smirk, some twisted game from a creep.\nBut all I find is a couch, draped in a plain white sheet.\n\nTaking a moment to catch my breath, I hear it again—the sound of softly padding feet.\nI stand stiff as a board, my eyes adjusting as I force another visual sweep.\nShaking with adrenaline, I remind myself—don’t move, don’t make a peep.\nWith each passing second, the air thickens, the heat turning up degree by degree.\n\nMore seconds pass me by—a decision has to be made, no more time to ask why.\nWith uncertain steps, I turn the corner again, but this time, I’m met with my own sigh.\nEverything is still, the silence pressing in, thick enough to swallow the room whole.\nAnd then I notice the old clock on the wall—its hands stuck at the very second I stepped inside.\n\nIt’s at this moment that I have to choose—to fight or to hide.\nThe questions posed may have had parameters that were set too high.\nBut I steady my breath, plant my feet—whatever this is, I refuse to abide.\nIf the clock wants to hold me hostage, then I’ll be the one to decide.\n\nMaybe the question was never fight or flight, but to comply or to defy.\nYears passing me by with shadows dancing along the walls—ghosts I can no longer deny.\nEnergy trapped in a room from history that passed in the blink of a sleepy eye,\nAnd in this realization, the house went quiet after the soft whisper of unspoken goodbyes.

I remember the times I was alone running through the forest, the moon my only friend\nUsing the shadows to hide myself away at the sound of soft crunch of approaching footsteps\nLooking up, I take a deep breath to steady myself—searching the sky for the North Star\nLost myself along the trail—instead of counting steps I started to count the scars\n\nMonths of running alone with nothing but the branches and the leaves\nMaking friends with the critters scurrying along with the unexpected breeze\nI don’t remember what caused me to scream; I’ve since blocked out what brought me to my knees\nThe moments come back to me, but only with enough time to really notice the sudden freeze\n\nA shock to my system—an unavoidable kind of dramatic defeat\nWaiting for the heavy red curtains to close before realizing they were only sheets\nCounting each drop of blood that escaped the fresh wounds—how much can one person bleed?\nQuestions that still linger—an echo that wakes me up out of the deepest of sleeps\n\nStanding at the edge of the rocks looking down at the drop—at least a few hundred feet\nWas it days, months, years of time that have somehow managed to disappear\nLines that constantly shifted underfoot, keeping each future step just a little too unclear\nWaiting for the sun to shine down, begging for a little bit of warmth—a lingering heat\n\nThe ticking of the clock and the slow deterioration of fragile and aging skin\nThe truth is buried—pieces of the story remain, but the entirety will never be told again\nForgotten dialogue between actors throwing out false accusations meant to condemn\nThe ever-present lingering of a karmic lesson masquerading as a false twin\n\nListening, again, to the echoes—the only sound remaining is the howling of the wind\nWatching as the branches waver—the silent threat: will it break or will it bend?\nTrapped inside of this scene until the break of morning, the ticks of the clock still offend\nI take a deep breath to steady myself—staring at hundreds of pages I once penned\nI close my eyes and start to type the final words; the keys clacking—“The End”

All we are is a collection of fabrics woven tightly together—the creation of a tapestry.\nA collection of fragmented pasts bound together—a cluttered anthology.\nWith pages still waiting to be read and voices still begging to, for once, be heard.\nA binding agreement, carefully written, but they seem to have left out the conditions and terms.\n\nA journey that was somehow both repulsive, yet apprehensively inescapable.\nThe more time that passes, the more I realize which moments still remain inexplicable.\nEach chapter viewed through fresh eyes—counting on each finger how many times I tried.\nTruths that aren’t spoken, because I never found a place for them to hide.\n\nHow many stops were made along the way?\nHow many passengers decided they couldn’t stay?\nHow many mistakes were ones that had to be made?\nWhich version of myself survived and is standing here today?\n\nStaring into the mirror, I pause and decide to hold my breath.\nBehind my eyes, there’s a hidden map of every statement that I’ve ever said.\nEvery thought, every memory, every hope and dream, locked in a room inside my head.\nThe answers to questions unasked, tangled in the ever-fraying thread.\nLife would be easier if we were able to forget the past and keep looking straight ahead.\n\nThe chime of the clock reverberates through the bathroom walls,\nbringing my eyes back into focus—it dawns on me that I’ve missed a call.\nAn unknown caller—I think I forgot to save it under a name.\nThe voice on the other line seems to echo, setting my brain aflame,\nreminding me that sometimes life isn’t about the game; it’s more about how it’s framed,\nand each day a page gets added—nothing in life is consistent but change.

Bad things happen. To bad people\nBad thing happen. To good people\nBad things. Happen.

Manic pixie dream girl\nIs at it yet again\nRun off to the woods\nWith notebook and pen\nHer hair frolicking in the wind\nNot concerned with foe vs friend\nJust searching for meaning\nA thesis to the continuous ends\n\nManic pixie dream girl\nWakes from a dream where time bends\nCold sweats and hands that shake—\nLost words floating inside her head\nThe sun rises as she plants a smile on her face\nIt’s the start to a brand new day\n\nManic pixie dream girl\nShe’s at it yet again\nHeart on her sleeve\nThoughts in her hand\nStating the obvious\nWith laughter unplanned\nAt least the night wasn’t bland\n\nManic pixie dream girl\nAlready had a plan\nLeaving before midnight\nHer hand holding her bag\nCreating a safe distance\nBefore the moment could land\n\nManic pixie dream girl\nMastered the art of an escape plan\nLearning the fastest routes\nAnd the lay of closed-off lands\nDecisions made in simple ways\nLike blindly throwing darts at a map\n\nManic pixie dream girl\nSomehow she’s leaving yet again\nHer bags in the trunk\nThrowing all of her caution to the wind\nShe left a note on the table\nHer chicken scratch handwritten goodbye\nBut kept the notebook and the pen

My first poems were carved into a composition notebook while tears slid down my face\nSitting cross-legged in the corner of a dark room on a four-poster bed, fingers stained with ink\nThe words poured out faster than I could fully consider or think—line after line after line\nA collection of moments I no longer recall, all told in chaotically selected slant rhyme\n\nThousands of words that eventually blended together until they were hard to decipher\nCrafting sentences until the dark of night turned orange, almost rust-colored\nSleep was something that always escaped through the window I kept cracked when I was younger\nSentences strung together, sounding as if there were a truth that needed to be uncovered\n\nSleep lingered, offering its hand while I scribbled away under the flashlight\nUnsure of the time—back when things were analog—but it had to be after midnight\nLost inside the landscape I was carefully crafting, details added until they almost clashed\nAdding periods, commas, edited grammar, words crossed out with bright red slashes\nInspiration only ever came to me in small, strategically calculated flashes\n\nThe flashlight dimmed as I stayed bent over the page, rereading each uneven line\nMy hand began to cramp somewhere past legibility, but I kept writing beyond the warning sign\nThe notebook filled unevenly, ink thinning in places where I paused too long to decide\nA clutter of half-formed sentences, revisions layered until the meaning bent and multiplied\n\nMargins narrowed slowly as I learned how much space each thought insisted that it needed\nCertain lines rewritten repeatedly, others left untouched exactly as they were completed\nOutside the window the sky conceded night, bleaching stars into a diluted gray\nI closed the book when I ran out of room and not when I ran out of words to say

Another year that came and went\nWords spoken and money spent\nHighway hypnosis - trees that blend\nBass thumping - neither the start nor the end\n\nI made a wish but I think I forgot to hit send\nSome losses are just costume wearing wins\nBridges burned that you can’t always mend\nAvoiding spots on the map that hold red pins\n\nThe past reverberates like half rolled windows fighting wind\nSentences kept hidden are now sentences carefully trimmed\nThe truth is still the truth— no way for us to rescind\nSome storylines leave an inescapable, unexplainable imprint\nEventually coming to the realization that there weren’t missing clues or hints\nJust a million images stored inside of your head as if they were in print\n\nAnother year archived in the glovebox dust,\nwindows half-rolled, carrying echoes I trust.\nThe highway keeps secrets I’ll never outrun,\neach mile a reminder the story’s not done.