The Weight of Holding On: Poems collection No.2

The House That Was Never Mine

There is a house I return to in dreams,
though I have never lived there.
It stands at the end of a road
where the trees bow in reverence,
their roots tangled in something
too deep to name.
The wind does not move here.
The air is still, watching.

The house waits, hollow and breathless.
Its windows glow with the ruin of memory,
but no warmth lingers in the walls.
I place my hand against the door—
wood, then silence, then nothing.
I do not knock.
I know what waits inside.

Somewhere, footsteps press into dust,
a slow, deliberate rhythm,
the sound of someone remembering
and someone trying to forget.
A voice hums low in the bones of the staircase,
a sorrow so old it has no language,
only echoes.

At the window, a boy stands,
his back to me, his hands ghosting the glass.
His shoulders are too still,
his presence too thin,
as if he is waiting for the world
to call him back.
I know him. I know his name,
but my tongue refuses it.
My throat locks around the truth.

The walls sigh. The air thickens.
The house knows me.
The boy does not turn.
A door swings open somewhere—
not for me. Never for me.

The wind moves through the hallways,
tugging at the edges of something unseen,
pulling at the seams of time.
The boy stays where he is,
untouched, unchanged.
Or perhaps he was never there at all.

I step back, my hands unclean,
the cold settling into my ribs,
filling the spaces where knowing once lived.
Perhaps it belongs here more than I do.

I wake with the taste of forgetting
caught between my teeth,
like a prophecy swallowed too late,
like a truth I have always known
but could never bear to speak.

There is a house I return to in dreams,
though I have never lived there.
But the walls have memorized my name.
And the door has always been open.

The Traveler and the Moon

You wander beneath me, lost in the dust,
Tracing your fate in the glow of my rust.
But I am no omen, no tethered light,
Only the echo of something more bright.

I have watched prophets kneel in the sand,
Seen lovers carve names that time turns to land.
I held the last breath of men built to fall,
But I could not save them—I am nothing at all.

Cradled in silence, I wait for the night,
Willingly fading, bereft of my light.
I don’t even fight it, I slip from the tide,
A ghost of the sun, with nothing to guide.

Oh man, oh man, stop pleading to me,
I too long for things you’ll never see.
I want a son, but I am just a reflection—
A cold, distant witness, with no connection.

The stars you follow are ashes and bone,
They burned out in silence, yet still you atone.
But I am no fire, no keeper of fate,
Just a shimmer of gold that comes far too late.

People come to me in their loneliness,
Seeking solace in the silence I confess.
They whisper their pains, their dreams gone cold,
But nobody ever asked me if I feel old.

No one wonders if I long for the same—
A touch, a word, to speak my name.
I stand in the dark, watching it all,
A quiet observer, never to call.

I do not crave to change, to seize or to strive,
I am content merely to witness, to stay alive.
To watch the world turn in its endless dance,
Silent, unshaken, caught in a trance.

So wait for the dawn, don’t cling to my glow,
The sun will return—this, I do know.
For I am a witness, nothing more, nothing less,
A mirror of light, a pale second guess.

The Peacocks and the Fox

Oh, how they flutter, how they preen, how they shine,
Dipping in mirrors, sipping on whine.
A kingdom of beauty, a court full of grace—
At least, if you never look too close at the face.

The first, draped in silk, a delicate thing,
Moves like a whisper, hoping they sing.
“She thinks she’s above us,” she murmurs, so wise,
As she studies her nose from the wrong angle twice.

The second, devout, a woman of worth,
Clutching her rosary, proving her birth.
“She lives for their gaze, she craves to be seen,”
Said the one who won’t eat past six seventeen.

And there you stand—how dare you stand tall?
How dare you not need their courtship at all?
A woman untouched by the hunger they bear,
A fox in the field who just does not care.

See, that’s the crime, the horror, the sin—
You were never competing, you already win.
You never once begged for the scraps that they fight,
Never once twisted your shape for their sight.

Oh, how exhausting, how cruel, how unfair,
To meet someone breathing their own precious air.
What is a peacock if no one admires?
What is a queen if no one conspires?

And so, they dress you in colors obscene,
A villain, a temptress, a creature unseen.
“She takes, she steals, she plays with their minds!”
Screeches the one who rewrites her own lines.

But tell me, dear peacocks, with feathers so bright,
If I am so lowly, so wrong, so trite—
Then why do your whispers still carry my name?
Why does my shadow still dance in your frame?

Oh, do keep talking, keep flapping, keep grand,
Keep living in castles you build in the sand.
For I need no throne, no jewels, no decree—
And nothing burns peacocks like a woman set free.