delos ~ a poetry collection

I refuse
And to the sweet monsters
sketched among the trees,
rotting into maggots and wood,
I say no.
I refuse half-truths,
unbreakable promises,
and oaths that scream
of danger/
I refuse rotting fruit,
I refuse molding bread,
I refuse dust-aged wine,
I refuse gold to lead.
I refuse illusion, enchantment,
and glamor.
I refuse kinship under promise of gain.
I'll die in a blink,
they'll live on the brink
of constant death,
won't count their breaths
to live and die
afraid and ashamed. I
ponder
and I refuse.

~
written April 30, 2026 after reading An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson

lupine pain: what we'd do if we were werewolves
we press marks of silver
into our skin,
the crescent moons filling
as we press them in.

~
written May 5, 2026

a threat
one day, i will
write a song about you.
maybe then, you'll understand.

shame
and all that i can feel now
is this deep, unending shame--
the kind that sinks from throat to stomach
that i don't want to name.
it's like an anchor sank right down
and got buried in my gut.
i'm too ashamed to even frown
and i keep my mouth sewn shut.

picture
it's easy to take
a picture of something and
hope the moment
lasts longer.

~
written May 19, 2026

dancing in the sand
dancing in the dry sand
our feet seem to catch
every crab mound
and grain of sand.
dancing in the wet sand
i wonder if my tendu's
will stay imprinted long
after i leave.

~
written May 19, 2026

poetry, escape
i woke up last night
to poetry running rampant
in my mind, spilling
from my lips until
i reached for paper and pen
to have it spill from there, too.

waterfall words cascade.
ink flows fervently.
i spy with my little eye
a girl escaping from the corners of her mind,
climbing out the window using ladders and rope.

silly little girl
silly little girl--
undeserving of love yet
deserving of hate.

silly little girl.
burn away your useless tears
before they burn you.

silly little girl.
if you don't stop, they'll give you
something to cry for.

silly little girl.
keep staring at the spaces
in between the seen.

you know
they mean nothing.
you know
they mean you.

special
and we laugh and laugh and laugh,
for how could anything else ever be as silly
as the idea of believing we're special?

odd little fool
i like to think i can be a pretty little thing.
it's the easiest of my "am nots" to mask.
it's hard to mask stupidity and folly.
it's hard to mask selfishness and woe.
it's so much harder to mask everything,
so i fool myself into prettiness.
i cannot fool myself into thinking i am
more than infinitesimal, more than useless,
more than worthless, more than foolish.
i'm an odd little fool, and my poetry is turning to madness and dust.

paragon of life
and suddenly you
are thirteen again.
it's summer and you
don't have any friends. you
go to the beach and
prefer animals to people.
you laugh and you're tired and you're rushed and you steeple
your fingers together because it makes you feel better
sometimes.
turning on your brain
and picking up your body--
these daily tasks feel too much like chores.
you're awake but you're elsewhere.
you're here but you're gone.
what a paragon of life you are.
thank god it's only for snapshots of moments on odd days.