Smoke curls over shattered walls,the sky bruised in shades ofsorrow,yet beneath the rubble,a flower presses through stone,tiny and defiant.Gunfire writes its harsh rhythm,shattering windows and hearts alike,but in quiet corners,laughter spills like warm tea,soft as unbroken promises.Soldiers march with boots ofthunder,and children trace chalk rivers oncracked streets,their songs ripple acrosstrenches,a fragile bridge over moltenhatred.War rages with all its teeth,but peace waits in the spacesin between,in hands clasped,in eyes meeting across ruined fields,in stubborn pulses of hope.

Your voice, like a river rippling, waves of goose bumps, awaken my inner spirit, fill me with delight. Your gaze, magnetic, blue moonlight bright, clear as the evening night, gently captures my inner light. Your heart, speaks softly, soulfully, whispering faithfully, sometimes silently, but never in spite. Your touch, captivating, tranquil, slight, caressing me slowly, surrounding me, with all of your might. Your smile, brilliant, bright, tantalizing, on a steamy summer night, summoning me gently, to be your wife.

Pain opens doors I never builtStairs fold, ceiling dropsBones hum in MorseThirty years, drippingTime leaks like marrowSilence gnawsJoints scream their coordinatesFog curls my throatNerves twist into knotsSkin whispers treasonMuscles clutch shadowsDoctors pass,Feathers of languageFlutter, uselessManage cope chronic -Words swallowed by boneNight folds itself inside meCountsEach breath a ledgerMercy absentPain grins through ribsI wakeI am fracturedScattered in mirrorsSmoke collects in my spineHabit grows clawsInsistsI persistI persist

I stretch my legs like rubber bands,then flop sideways without a plan.My whiskers twitch at empty air,my tail flicks twice, then swats a chair.I pounce on shadows no one sees,my paws land soft, but sometimes sneeze.Ears rotate like satellite dishes,nose sniffs crumbs, then hasty wishes.I knead the couch, then bite my paws,stare at walls in perfect awe.I blink slow, judge every move,and nap again - because I approve.I curl in circles, tight and small,claiming the sunbeam as my all.

The night exhales along the breathing shore,tide loosening its silvered seams.Salt rocks remember older namesthan those we give to longing.This sea that bares her bosom to the moonholds nothing bac…

The night exhales along the breathing shore,tide loosening its silvered seams.Salt rocks remember older namesthan those we give to longing.This sea that bares her bosom to the moonholds nothing back.Light drifts across her skinin slow devotion,a hush taught only by distance.Stars hover, while clouds learn restraint.I stand emptied by the listening dark,heart tuned to the pull and release.Foam speaks once, then repeats itself.Morning waits, patient and undone.

We are born reachinghands empty but alreadyshapedlike questions.We learn the weight of timeby losing what we love -first toys, then peoplethen versions of ourselves.Hunger drives us forward:for touch, for meaningfor proofthat this brief spark matters.We build names, stories,nations, gods,trying to steady the groundbeneath us.We hurt each otherby accident or on purpose,and spend our lives learningthe difference.Joy arrives unannounced,a laugh, a morning light,someone saying our name andmeaning it.

Under foxfur dusk, ponds sealshut with glass,lungs of soil exhale frost andiron sleep.We hibernate, embers cuppedin ash and silence throughwintered veins.Listening for sap, for bones,for snow-drifted hours,slow heated dark inside earth.

She doesn’t want to be toucheduntil she is understood.Not the outline,the weight beneath it.She carries longinglike a second pulse.Quiet. Persistent.Learned from being unseen.When desire come…

She doesn't want to be toucheduntil she is understood.Not the outline,the weight beneath it.She carries longinglike a second pulse.Quiet. Persistent.Learned from being unseen.When desire comes,it's braided with memory,every time she stayed,every time she left,every time she loved anyway.Her body opensonly when her chest does.Only when the achehas her name.She wants connectionthat lingers after the lights.Hands that don't rush.Eyes that don't look awayonce she's bare.There is heat in her, yes…

The Tule fog has stayed too long.It presses against the windowslike a thought that won’t finish.Days blur into the same gray breath.Cold settles in my bones.Even light feels tired,arriving la…

The Tule fog has stayed too long.It presses against the windowslike a thought that won't finish.Days blur into the same gray breath.Cold settles in my bones.Even light feels tired,arriving late, leaving early,as if it too is discouraged.I walk through hours half-seen,wrapped in layers of waiting.The world feels muted,like sound swallowed by wool.What am I to dowhen the sky forgetsits own color,when warmth is only a memory.So I make small fires.A cup held in both hands.

Choose one of these three artworks and let it take you wherever it wants. Write whatever it stirs in you — a memory, a question, a scene, a poem. All images are open-use selections from the National Gallery of Art website. They lean against the angle of the street,bodies balancing where the buildingsbend like tired backs underinvisible weight.A man pauses at the corner, hand brushing the brick,as if it might steady him, hat tipped, eyes following a linethat refuses to be level.

Loving you is like pressing my earto the hollow of your wrist,as if the rhythm therecould teach me how to breath.Your lips on mine are like a secretI've always known,as if every pause and sighwas written into my bones.Being in your arms is like sinking into a roomonly for us,only our heartbeats.Your touch lingers like a shadow that refuses to leave,as if even lightcan't pull itself away from you.And when you leave,it is like forgetting how to move,as if the part of me that knowsI remain behind, waiting.

Love is a dim motel signflickering vacancy/no vacancy,never quite telling the truth.It's a locked briefcasewith your name etched insidethe code changes every timeyou think you've cracked it.Love is a subway mapwith one forbidden line,the route you take anywaybecause it hums like fate.It's a pair of borrowed keysthat fit doors you didn't knowwanted to open.Love is a neon confessionbuzzing at midnight,too bright, too loudand impossible to ignore.

Where I Grew Up: Before the homes and towers,before blue-lit hum of servers,this valley was a kingdom of fruit -rows and rows of apricot,cherry, plum and grapesstretching toward the low hillslike orderly prayers.In spring, petals driftedthrough the air likepale confetti,carpeting the ground so thicktravelers swore it looked likesnow.Families rose before dawn,stooping beneath branchesheavy with sweetness,hands stained gold by the harvest.Railcars waited on sunburnt trackstheir metal bellies eagerto haul the valley's sugar…

My body sends a push notificationbefore my brain can catch up,a sudden spike,heart glitching like bad code.Something's off.The air encrypted,the room buffering inslow frames,corners pixelatingas if reality.I check my breath,thin, throttled,running in the backgroundwithout permission.A tremorclimbs my spine,a quiet vibration,like unseen messagestyping itself into my nerves.instinct kicks in,primal software,older than logic,shouting movewithout explaining why.And that's whenI know:the threat isn't in the hallway,or the street,or the feed -It's inside me,rewriting my pulse,line by lineuntil I can tellwhat part of meis still me.

Your smile was an applique pressed onto the morning, a bright patch hiding the frayed places.My thoughts ran in crooked backstitch, looping around themselves,unable to move cleanly forward.We walked the bias of truth, tilted, slanted, never quite straight,held together only by fragile binding of good intentions.A memory spun inside of me, a restless bobbin winding and unwinding a gold version of you.The heart's buttonhole opened with a daring dart of hope,but the ease we wanted never arrived.Your silence became a facing, turning inward,

The granite and schists of my dark and stubborn countryloomed ahead like a grumpy old giant, arms crossed and refusing to budge. I had packed only a backpack, a dubious map, and an overinflated sense of bravery. Rocksjutted like teeth, trails twisted like pretzels, and everysquirrel seemed to judge my clumsy feet. Somewhere agoat - or was it a wild-eyed hermit?, bleated a warning. I slipped, tumbled, and somehow ended up dangling from a cliff by my shoelaces, like a confused marionette.Yet, through sheer luck, stubbornness, and an embarrassing…

You come to melike a midnight orchid,unfurling only in shadowswhere my name trembleson the edge of your petalsYour words brush my skin,soft as rose-silk,dangerous as thorns.I lean closer,letting your breathtrace the rim of my longinglike a fingertip circlingthe mouth of a lily.You open slowly,deliberately,as though revealing color.An act of devotion,and I ache to touchyour secret gardenyou guard with a whisper.Between us,desire rises like heatfrom a field of night-bloomingflowers,each pulse a new blossom,each sigh a deeper shade,until we are nothingbut two wild bloomstangled in darkness.

Lips crash into mine -a storm breaking open fleshhunger without a pause Your nails down my back raking fire down my body I burn willingly Breath tangled, stolen your mouth claiming every gasp I drown in the glideHip against hipthe rhythm hard, unhiddennight shakes with our pulse Sweat drips between us heat folds like molten steel we forge into each other

Your breath on my skinthe night folds its wing aroundour quiet burning Moonshine in your eyes I fall into shimmer like tide to the shore Two hearts in one bed listening to the same pulse beneath di…

Your smile opens dawn -petals waking in the lightof a gentle spring I find home in you warmth settling in my chest like a small sunrise Your laugh carries me the way soft wind lifts a leaf weightle…

Your breath on my skinthe night folds its wing aroundour quiet burning Moonshine in your eyes I fall into shimmer like tide to the shore Two hearts in one bed listening to the same pulse beneath di…