amber pasture
How poetic . . . how cruel . . .
that the world can turn ruin into verse,
that my anguish finds rhythm while my chest finds no rest.
They say beauty is born of suffering,
but who asked to be the cradle of such beauty?
Who asked to bleed just so the page could drink?
How poetic . . . how cruel . . .
that silence answers more faithfully than prayer.
I cry into caverns and hear my own voice return,
mocking, familiar, intimate as a knife pressed slow.
I wonder if the sky feels shame
for how often it has been asked to listen,
yet still empties its pockets of nothing but storms.
How poetic . . . how cruel . . .
that love teaches us devotion,
only to abandon us at the altar of endurance.
I held my own heart as though it were scripture,
turning each scar into verse,
each loss into testimony,
but the congregation has long since left.
The pews gather dust,
my hymns rise to no one,
and still I keep singing as though salvation lingers.
How poetic . . . how cruel . . .
that even in despair I find arrangement—
a cadence, a pattern, a rhythm in the ache.
I write my downfall into elegance,
dress my wounds in metaphors
until I no longer know where the pain ends
and the poem begins.
How poetic . . . how cruel . . .
to be alive in this way:
a vessel of beauty only when breaking,
a relic of devotion only when discarded.
If there is mercy in the world,
it hides behind ink,
refusing to show itself except as art,
except as ache rewritten until it gleams.
And so I whisper it once more—
How poetic . . . how cruel . . .
that even in naming the cruelty
I cannot help but shape it into song.
prime lion