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Embers
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Embers

PoemsPithMarch 18, 2026
Embers
2 min read

“You are meant for more,” he’d say,

Voice like iron striking flint, sparking something I still chase

“The wise shall sit with kings,” she’d declare,

as if the throne was already measured for my shoulders.

But now

That “more” hangs like smoke I can’t grab

A dream that flickers just beyond my reach

And the wise? I can’t find wisdom in my own cracked mirror

Empty chairs

A room gone hollow and accusing

Their absence a slow blade turning

Why the hell did they leave so soon?

I’ve been robbed.

Robbed clean.

“You are not enough.”

“You will always be mediocre, average at best.”

The voices slither up from the basement of my skull

Old cassette tape hissing, stuck on repeat

An enemy curled fetal inside the ribs,

patient, venomous

Waiting for the moment my guard drops

to claw out every half formed dream

Feed it to the same darkness that swallowed them.

Most nights I sit at their graveside bonfire

Staring into the only warmth left that answers back

Sparks claw upward, frantic

Small orange screams swallowed by the black vault of sky

A nightly telegram to anyone still listening

To  the indifferent moon

To God if He ever bothered to tune in

Whispers dressed as hope

Thin

Frail

Still trying.

Cemeteries carry a strange courtesy, though

A hush that doesn’t judge

A stillness that almost forgives

The grass doesn’t care about your failures;

The headstones don’t grade your grief

There’s a cold kindness in the quiet

The way dirt and marble

slowly force the screaming days

into something smaller

Something you can almost hold

without bleeding.

Chaotic tranquil.

 

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