My chair is old, a ragged sight,
Its stuffing spills to left and right,
The fabric’s torn, the woodwork groans,
It’s weathered crumbs and midnight moans.
I’ve parked my rear on seats unknown,
Sat on plush thrones in stylish homes,
But none have matched your firm embrace,
Or cupped my cheeks with such bold grace.
These newer seats may pout and preen,
All glossy curves and showroom sheen,
But none have ever gripped so tight,
Or held my bum with such sheer delight.
// initialise body → if heartbeat == true, proceed
// else: wait
1. Waking
Try not to panic. The light will hurt.
So will gravity, noise, the realisation that none of this is optional.
2. Skin
It is not armour. It will not keep out the world.
3. Emotions
These will override logic. Frequently.
You may want to uninstall.
You can’t.
4. Connections
People arrive unfinished.
Do not try to complete them.
They will resent you.
Love them anyway, or not. Both will hurt.
5. Hunger
Feed more than the stomach.
You will hunger for touch, for purpose, for quiet.
Feed carefully.
Excess = corruption.
6. Joy (beta feature)
May arrive unannounced:
a smell, a chord progression, the way a stranger says “take care” and almost means it.
7. Loneliness.exe
This runs in the background. Always.
Ignore it if you can.
Or listen. Sometimes it whispers useful things.
8. Mortality
Yes.
(This is working as intended.)
9. Error Handling
You will break.
You will be rebuilt by time, or other humans, or not at all.
That’s not failure.
That’s versioning.
10. End Process
Do not attempt to understand everything.
Do not wait for perfection.
Begin anyway.
// commit changes
// save draft
// run again
Each night the house smooths its skin.
Cracked plaster seals, paint blushes fresh,
floorboards remember how not to groan.
In the kitchen, tiles reattach themselves,
grout knitting seamless as if no pan
was ever thrown, no water ever spilled.
The window we shattered last winter
glimmers whole by dawn,
its glass cold as a withheld word.
Upstairs, the mirror forgets
the arguments it has reflected.
But your eyes do not.
My joints ache in a language
the house does not speak.
Your hands tremble, unplastered, unpainted.
By morning, the house is immaculate,
a museum of absence.
We move through it
like old ghosts,
unmended.
Here’s to the child I never named,
the call I never made,
the song I hummed once,
then forgot.
To the painting left in my head,
streaked with colours no hand
ever mixed.
To the house with the yellow door
we never lived in,
the city I passed by,
the stranger I almost loved.
There is a cemetery
not marked on any map,
where all the unlived lives lie:
the apology unsaid,
the poem unwritten,
the “yes” I swallowed,
the “no” I let rot on my tongue.
I light a candle tonight
for the almosts,
for the flicker before the flame,
for the ghosts
with no names to answer to.
Somewhere, they bloom—
delicate as breath,
wide as regret.
There was a young man in a hat,
Who fell quite in love with the Moon;
He courted her nightly with howls in the night,
And serenades played on a horn.
He sang, “Oh my lunar delight!
Oh roundest, resplendent balloon!
Come down from the sky, and we’ll merrily tie
A knot by the end of the June!”
So he built a vast ladder of cheese,
(With the help of a wayward baboon),
And up he did climb through the highest of clouds,
To wed his bewildering Moon.
But alas! when he reached for her hand,
His fingers met nothing but glow—
For the Moon, though she gleams, is made wholly of beams,
And cannot be met far below.
Now he floats in a coat through the sky,
With a pocket of onions and rye;
And the people below shake their heads as they go,
At the man who made love to the sky.
We borrowed the stars—
calcium for our teeth,
iron for our blood,
carbon laced in each breath we press against the dark.
We walk, brittle and shining,
wearing the debris of old collisions,
the soft ash of suns
that burned themselves out long “before”
the word meant anything at all.
In the marrow, in the nailbed,
in the white gleam of an eye catching light—
the stars pulse their call:
Return to us.
We are brief trustees of brilliance,
temporary vessels of a flame
we did not strike,
cannot keep.
One day,
when the chest quiets,
we will give back each atom,
scatter them to dark soil, to sky,
to dust adrift through things unnamed.
And somewhere,
in the cold ache of a young galaxy,
the raw gold of our bones
will vibrate into shape again.
I said I would buy the flowers myself—
Step into the morning, become someone else.
The day is a ribbon, the sky’s like a bell,
And the hours chime softly, though no one can tell.
I pass through the sunlight, all lilac and glass,
But I’m always becoming the girl I once was.
Who am I now, in this glitter of air?
The city forgets me—yet I’m still there.
Not quite the hostess, nor quite the wife—
Just a breath between moments, the shape of a life.
And the hours—they slip,
Like rain from the wrist.
Like parties and petals,
Like kisses half-missed.
Was I ever a self?
Was I only the light
That danced on the wall
Then vanished from sight?
There’s something in June that is just like a wound—
All beauty and sorrow, entangled, attuned.
Peter once loved me—his knife of a gaze—
But I chose the safe harbour, not passion’s blaze.
Yet even now, as the bell strikes the day,
I wonder what girl he saw walk away.
I gather my guests, I smile and I stir—
But who is this woman they take me for?
A thread through a drawing-room, always composed,
Yet aching with silence where nothing is closed.
And the hours—they slip,
Like rain from the wrist.
Like parties and petals,
Like kisses half-missed.
Was I ever a self?
Was I only the light
That danced on the wall
Then vanished from sight?
I think of the boy who jumped to the air,
Fell through the sun like a prayer unanswered.
Septimus, stranger—your shadow is mine,
Both of us slipping the ropes of time.
The soul is a secret, it does not grow old—
It burns and it flickers, it never is told.
And the hours—they pass,
But leave no trace.
I gather them all
In silence and grace.
The self is a mirror,
The self is a sound—
The toll of Big Ben
And the hush underground.
There was a child who might have danced
barefoot in the summer dusk,
her laughter rising with the fireflies,
her life humming something soft in the meadow—
but never did.
There was a child who might have asked
a thousand questions about the stars,
kept his soul awake with whys,
believed in answers like bedtime stories—
but never did.
There was a child who might have painted
oceans on the inside of his walls,
made ships from crayons and faith,
and sailed beyond the reach of grief—
but never did.
There was a child who might have wept
only for broken toys,
whose wounds healed with time,
whose nightmares ended with morning light—
but never did.
There was a child who might have learned
the weight of kindness,
how a single held hand could keep the dark at bay,
how not to be afraid to live—
but never did.
And the world,
stone-faced and busy,
folded them into its silence—
as seeds in pockets,
waiting for ground soft enough
to grow again.
The kettle screamed—
but no one moved.
She stood at the sink,
hands in cold water,
not washing, not—
“It’s not that I…”
(pause)
“—never mind.”
The calendar still says June.
(He went in April.)
No one took it down.
No one—
There’s a photo face-down
on the dresser.
You don’t ask why.
She doesn’t
…explain.
At dinner:
chairs scraped.
Forks grazed plates.
Chewing,
swallowing,
nothing else.
You almost said
“Do you miss him?”
but instead asked
for the salt.
It was already right in front of you.
Words crossed out.
Sentences left half-born.
Ink bled
where shoulders once trembled.
No one cries.
No one says
why.
No one says
his name.
Still,
the house listens.
Cassiel’s work was illegal.
More than illegal—
unspeakable.
The Mourning Authority
called it
corporeal sabotage.
She called it
remembering.
Once,
there were funerals.
Eulogies.
Flowers
left to rot
on graves.
Then—
the Purge of Names.
the Vaulting of the Remains.
They said grief
was a contagion
of the old world.
It held back progress.
It was
dirty.
Now—
no mourning.
no monuments.
no ashes scattered in beauty.
Except
by her.
She scattered
D.S.
over a ridge
where snow still clung
to the heather.
She did not know
who he had been.
Soldier, maybe.
Teacher.
Someone’s father.
It didn’t matter.
Each scattering
was a restoration
of dignity.
Each ritual
a quiet rebellion.
Cassiel disappeared
that day.
Vanished
before they could name her.
But the ashes
had already risen.
They clung to
suits and sensors,
streaked the government’s
white walls,
caught in the antennae
of every tower.
By morning,
the sky
above the capital
had turned grey.
Not from rain.
From
memory.
They’re stealing light behind your eyes,
With pretty lies and lullabies.
You feel alive but something’s
wrong—
You can’t remember your
own song.
So
turn it off, come back to you,
There’s deeper fire than they can view.
Unplug the noise, let silence fall,
You’ll hear the voice beneath it all.
It’s slow, it’s deep, it’s
yours alone—
The place where all true things are grown.
They’re stealing light behind your eyes,
But now you see through their disguise.
You’ve found the thread, you’ve found the flame,
You know your song, you
know your name.
So
turn it off, come back to true—
The world can wait; the soul needs you.
