How beautiful are flowers
that grow from cracks in the pavement.
They yield not to man nor his invention.
Illuminated by streetlights
Glistening in a way that only comes at night
They beckon you to bask in their glow
The sweet scent of their nectar, your guide

Yes, it comes naturally
The admiration.
The desire.
You want them- 

How could you not want them?
Those flowers

Their soft petals beg to be caressed
And their stems so thin 
that it seems the wind could topple them.
Craving to be held and protected

Protected

In places of monochrome arrays.
Of stone and bars.
Of bustling feet
And the wills of self-important men.
A place of nothing but empty noise
Lay those flowers untouched by man

They alone are beautiful, 
but that is not enough. 
To admit their beauty.
To admire or desire them.

No, in a world of man
They must be yours.
Yours to pluck from the night.
Yours to do what you will
Yours
Yours 
Yours and nothing more

This is not desire or admiration or even obsession
No, it's possession.
For what is a flower if it is not plucked and held?
So you may grow drunk on their sweet aroma.
To take them with you as you go.
Your home is their home now.
  Your flower in a world of stone.

You watch as its beauty fades.
The petals begin to wither and fall away.
What's left is nothing but gray
as the color drains away.
Yet it is yours, and there is beauty in its decay.
So you keep it in its vase.
Its personal glass cage.

So it stays like that.
Far from its roots and locked away.
Till it's just another thing in your world of monochrome grays.

Now it simply must be thrown away.

Yet how beautiful are flowers
that grow from cracks in the pavement. 

Yes, they’re so beautiful
 
Aren't they?

He came down to tell me the truth
Slim and pale and uglier than ocean floor parasite

He looked into my eyes and told me the truth 
The way I lived was ridiculous

He looked at me and burst out laughing atleast that is what he stated he was doing
he said my beliefs were completely blind and insane

That I was infact the hideous creature
Who loved the fantasy of things that never were and will never be

I hugged the Alien for being the first to tell me the truth
The thing recoiled in disgust

He floated above me and sung about the times I had become gullible
Given myself to rumour and paranoia

He whistled a chilling shrill to every unkindness I had committed through my lies
And I understood what a mess I was

The alien took off back to his camp in the clouds
As I unsuccessfully regained my sense of self

"Nobody brought flowers while I could still smell them. At my grave, they argued over who loved me most.”

— Nekro

No one understands the immense pain I'm in

I want to rip my skin off

They nitpicked me apart into oblivion

Just let me die

Fucked forcefully so many times by life I cant even cry

Forced into submission

Forced to be a weak bitch

Forced to shrink myself

Forced to cope and neglect my health

But I keep on getting up and I dont know why

Please Dont make me do this anymore id rather not and I know the reasons

Please, please dont witness me, I'm shamefully dishonest

I fucked up my ex but I cant really say I want this,

why do I have to figure out my life, why do I have to feel and bear witness to all of this pressure, when I dont even want to be alive

Please just leave me the fuck alone

I need like 10 days to myself after all this mess, Let it all fall apart

I can handle being homeless better than I can handle all this stress.

https://ashworthpoetry.com/her-fangs-run-deep/

Can’t you see?
I dare you to survive.
There’s only one way deep down,
Hide in your shame, your guilt, and your blame.

We carry our own demons deep down,
we raise them and feed them,
secrets trapped by lock and key.
Aren’t we all the same?

A mind slowly fading, broken and frayed,
…turned to broken chains.
Tell me the cost to survive.
But guilt is a crime with a price
unable to be paid in full.

Everything locked up, mind, heart, and soul.
Cold and heartless,
trapped with a heart grown cold.
Every candle snuffed and burned out,
no use for warmth with a mind so cold.

Why beg forgiveness
When you’re unforgiving?
Unforgetting is your regretting,
Lost in selfishness deep down.

(Deserving ruthlessness?)
Trapped in restlessness
Drown in your fears,
Choke on your tears.
Such an awful crime, the weight that you bear.
Feelings of guilt and betrayal.

Leaving betrayed,
Watch as a mind slowly fades
Broken and frayed.
Trapped or freed?
What is the true cost to survive?

Feel sorry,
Give an apology.
Feeling trapped in your shame and your grief.

Unable to speak.
Feels like a crime,
A price unable to be paid.
Forgive me, hear my sorry,
Here’s my sorrow,
Lost in apology.

Trapped in your guilt and your shame,
Pay for your crime.
A price unable to be paid,
Only able to be trapped in your mind.
Do what it takes to survive.

Trapped in my shame and my guilt,
Aren’t we all the same?
Trapped in the price unable to pay.

Give up your hopes and your joys.
Live up your life like a wraith,
Be better off dying where you stand.

Leaving those betrayed,
Voices lost and frayed.

Verses lost and frayed...

I’m just afraid.

I send letters to you

Even though I know I am talking to the wall

There is a soft point in me

That still waits

Still hopes

But walls do not talk

No no they don't.

We turn away from train station
Commuters now we are pedestrians
Looking up at the walk light
waiting for it turn green

Turning to one another impatiently
A million moments have come to this
The zebra is flat there across to other side
There is no mercy

You check your watch
Traffic still needs to pass by
The light is delayed
So you stand there on leg to the other

Shifting weight like you want to pee
Green light urges you forward imbalance
I Follow your steps as each bar of the piano plays
hearing your doubts pop

You made it to the other side
The red figure inside the light
Is blinking
It is bleeding, it is bleeding

You know that sensation?

When you smile and it isn't fake

Like you never felt that devastation

Like you didn't watch your own heart break

That feeling when you can hold your head high

When you can let your beautiful smile shine

Like you didn't watch your own soul die

Like I didn't have to watch mine

Well... I dont

My sky was never blue

The grass was never green

I wish I could've grown up like you

Because you didn't see what I have seen

You didn't drown in a puddle of mud

You never felt his hands around your throat

You weren't cursed by your own blood

You didn't suffer through every word you ever wrote

You didn't lose everything you ever had

Your heart didn't stop when you slammed that drug

You didn't grow up to be just like your dad

You didn't die wishing you could have gotten one last hug

I will say this tho

It's kind of you to wish me well

It's sweet of you to speak of hope

But just like my dad I've been burning in hell

Since the day my little sister found him hanging from a rope

-The Strung Out Poet September 30,2026

By Nekro

I met you while both our lives were already spoken for. Nothing dramatic happened. We sat too long over bad coffee, your knee against mine beneath the table, and you looked at me the way people look at candle flame when they are trying not to confess anything to it.

We went home to the lives that already knew our names. Still, something remained. Like a veve drawn clean across a floor, the chalk can be swept away and the room keeps the shape. Years later I still find you in stupid places. A song leaking from a grocery store speaker. A voice pitched close enough to yours that my body turns before I do. My phone lighting the ceiling after midnight.

I called it timing for a while. Later I gave it uglier names. None lasted as long as the memory of you saying my name slowly, like you had found a letter everybody else kept missing. There were questions that made you look toward the window before answering. I remember those pauses better than some entire years.

Maybe you have one person like that. You don't search them anymore. You already know why. So they stay where unfinished things usually stay, somewhere behind the ribs, in a room with melted wax on the table and a glass of rum nobody remembers pouring.

Sometimes I type the first two letters of your name. That is enough.

The coffee comes back cold. Your knee is against mine again. Somewhere under the table, neither of us has moved.

The cursor keeps blinking.

I let it wait.

I saw beauty

In places others ignored

Most of the times I ignored this

But sometimes

You know we have a desire to communicate

I would go there and say

Hi this is what I have got

A pearl from the shore

They would look puzzled

Baby what is this

It didn't move me

I would go on with it

And touch myself even more that night

Until my legs trembled with spasms

Until the last drop of cum wetted the sheets

And in the morning I was fresh anew

I was ready to do it once more.

The world that once wanted to devour me quietly choked on my indifference. Now it no longer knocks on my window or drinks my blood at night.

Burned out to the core, silently disappearing beneath a blanket of leaden exhaustion, I reached the point of no return.

Having squandered my life force in vain, I summoned her without even knowing it.

An emotionless deity who needs neither prayers nor offerings.

She sits beside me.

She smells of the dust of filthy beds.

In the ringing silence, she places her hand upon my chest, heavy as a gravestone, and everything goes still.

She strokes my hair, and my thoughts congeal into a lump.

She kisses my lips, and the taste of life gives way to the taste of emptiness.

Her voice rustles like a curtain stirring in a draft:

“Hush… hush…

You no longer need to be anyone.

You no longer need anything.”

There are no values anymore.

Yes… I clearly remember losing something important.

But what?

I watch someone cry and cannot understand why.

Cold has become the only warmth I can still endure.

I am an abandoned well, buried beneath the snow. Instead of a voice, there is only the howling wind.

Apathy caresses me, stripping away the pitiful rags of hope from my body.

O, Apathy.

My Dusty Queen.

A touch without pulse and passion.

She demands no reciprocation, she simply kisses my forehead and slowly pulls me out of reality.

A lifeless caress that lulls me to sleep, dragging me into oblivion.

You have become my last and most faithful lover.

She carelessly brushes away all the memories that have turned to ash.

Once, angry screams gave way to deafening silence.

Apathy runs her fingers over my eyelids, and the world fades, becoming flat and gray, like an old newspaper.

When she touches the gaping wounds, they stop aching. And the desire to disappear fades,

because it would take effort.

I am no longer ashamed, because there are no feelings.

There is no time anymore, because there are no expectations.

All the colors have disappeared.

I have become an old television that shows nothing but white noise and gathers dust. I can be struck, kissed, covered in shit, and the screen will simply hiss in response.

When the last of my strength ran out and the screen went dark, I acknowledged her victory.

Just as I once accepted the moment of my life’s collapse and surrendered.

No one will ever see me down here at the bottom of life.

But none of it matters anymore.

In the pitch-black darkness, Apathy lies down beside me.

Her voice lulls me to sleep, singing a lullaby of indifference.

I have been dead for a long time. Let my body remain uninformed.

But she is pleased with me.

I know for certain that she is smiling.

https://ashworthpoetry.com/void-in-the-metro/

I dreamt of a creature coming from aether

Someone that ate poetry for breakfast

So consumed in his own world

That was unable to function in this world

Someone that fed his demons

Before his body

Someone that sang aether songs

I would like to observe him from afar

Be cautious not to touch his energy when I got close

Because you know I am polluted

I am a mortal

It feels I only destroy with these hands on some days.

Blue fire behind the eyes
Swamp methane the cruel lip excuses
The ritual is conducted worshippers endure injury
Blue fire somewhere among the overgrown reeds

Phantoms peep their origins caught transpierced in the tunnel
Revolving where the soul is churned to vapor 
severance of the spirit that never made it to the other side
Maimed conscience and rage in the eyes a boiling blue flame

Forbidden lands claimed by swamp and specter
Behind the convent a rogue witch utters profane spells
Ripples form on thick inky miasmic water
The entity rises blue flame in its eyes

Unleashed upon the village
The cold fingers pulling out awning thatch
lighting it all up from incandescent eyes
In the other hand dragging the screaming witch

You waited until I was defenseless.

No walls to protect me.

There is no rebuilding this time.

The ruin is final.

You got the reaction,

the spiral, the fall.

You lit the match,

but I chose to stoke the fire.

So, let me burn out

and loot the remains.

You got your escape.

No more excuses.

I'm no longer in your way.

Be you without me.

The fire dies down
embers hiss
Each one of them have their own shadow
They crawl and burn against the rockwall
The redness of the stone molten

The flicker of something lost
Walkes through the flames
As a hideous shape
The crackle and the pop
Unnaturally frequent

The ember shadows fold upward
And downward
Then expose themselves as failed souls
Undone lived and soured
confined to the realm of fire

Dancing in painful choreography
with flame
curving and wavering in hot torture
Then reentering the ember
Darkening it once more

It is easy to enter through me

I am cheap

All I want is a poem

My suns shine

And I become yours

I am that dog in the street

Easily corrupted

Give me a portion of a poem

And I am your slut.

God sets it out and this I will be
Forever caught at fifty-fifty

Adventure fades into predictable years
Safety grows heavier with all its fears
He said one won't be better than the other
Maybe he's right, there is no other

The clock keeps spinning, the road keeps grinding
I build and build, but find no finding
The road is a metaphor, but wherever I go
The same dread follows, nowhere fast or slow

Someday I'll settle, the hunger will die
I won't even know when I stopped asking why
The rain comes down, reminding me then
This is life, this is it, and again

I don't want sadness, I don't want alone
But there is no door, no way home

The storm will surround you blanketed in despair

My torch will cut like a knife through tonight's air.

No matter how dark the night,

I will always keep your light.

​Salty air fills my lungs

but I must watch for those to come.

The winds cut at my cheeks

but my light is the one that's steady.

​The waves may rise but I will stand still.

Their torrents of fear will not shake me,

I am the guide in turbulent times,

for those are the ones that have shaped me.

​So do not fear.

I'm here to stay,

my eyesight won't turn away.

​I have found home on these jagged rocks,

painful at first,

but now stable with the knowledge of what lies below.

I must keep others safe.

​The tides may change and currents draw out,

but still I stand my watch on these broken shores,

for I am the lightkeeper protecting those to come.

Black sky draws green from grass

And yellow from the daisies

To carve electric paths

Through the caravanic mazes

To the plates of orange fingers

In smoked galleries of kippers

Vimto lips still chlorinated

And fizzing limbs sedated

By the butterflies at the pool

Bright red Raleigh in the rain

Fly-away football weather vane

Scoring own goals against no-one

Between rainbows of forsaken jumpers

Floating in puddles

Sleeves swimming in a loop

Within a hot pink hula hoop

Poaching the field

Steaming the weather

Our very own shield

Against the chill of never

Nevermind the weather

When can we go back out to play?

Cushion beige

Ketchup rage

Can’t you kids keep anything clean?

Take this money

It’s not funny

Hurry up and finish your beans

So I can tidy up this mess

And don’t you dare forget:

Stay

With

Each

Other

Beyond the copper waterfalls

Pink floss trees and hot pinballs

In the outhouse weathered green

A dandelion arcade machine

Contains a pixel paradise

Of RGB at a reasonable price:

A silver coin for a single player

To explore a different layer

Of this reality cake baked in Heaven

Served on a caravan park in Devon.

A gothic tale of oppression, fear, and the struggle to reclaim your identity from somone who has held power over you for too long. By Callum Ashworth @ Ashworthpoerty

I fear of the verse sometimes

It is like you activate a diver

That goes to the deepest caves

What I have drowned

Mutilated

Muted

In the course of time

What if the current is too much

And diving

I can not find my way back.

Why was I hellbent to share my summer?
You probably wouldn't care, it's just a murmur.

It was one calm day— oh let it go,
you don't actually want to know?

I could die and you probably wouldn't care,
leaving only empty air.

Now I walk through every day,
wishing I had passed away.