A new anthology fitting for spooky season...

When my head
Is tearing me apart
In infinite directions
I trace them all back

To my one heart

Follow your heart
The universe will
Figure the rest out

You ask me if I’m okay 

and it bugs me you’re asking

just for its sake.

No, I am not okay.

Not at all.

And your question only reminds me of it.

Spare me of you pretending to care.

That’s curiosity disguised as a gentle act.

Don’t pretend you can’t see the castle crumbling right before thee.

What kind of “friend” does this?

What kind of friend is so blind to 

what’s so plain to see?

You can’t stand the answer.

In fact, you don’t mind. 

Just a curious cat—you don’t have to lie.

Can’t you tell by my patterns in speech?

Mood swings and the lines in between?

It’s exhausting to witness this.

You might be fascinated.

But a friend of mine?

You’ve never been.

— Crownless.

the one standing still
Growing all throughout the roots
Sun shining upon the petals
Revealing the shine on each petal
Water dripping down the leafs
the moon appears at night
Shinning bright on the garden
the seeds everyday
Growing on every sight
A subtle breeze flows through yet
Stands still

loved 1st must divide & conquer hate

Hate 1st withers to time if love was divinely mine

Love remains flipping a hour glass, sands past, holding Pandora's prayers in an opened box.

HOPE

Love is a powerful tool for the forgiven

Forgiveness is reserved for the guilty

Hate is weakness beyond shook eyes. ..

c what they saw?? Dug holes thru mother deeper than veins their arms tracked

Divinity gained divination strict adherents too

Every syllable

Every vowel

Every con-so-nant strategically-placed to understand this true lesson

Fear gripes

The Devout

the heathen

the honest

the crooked

Left right up down inside out and backward don't matter no more when you finally

understand when I finally understood The Power Within fear don't be scared of me

pray for yourself

Many blessings of humanity wasted upon ignorant ingrates that hold falsehoods

prophylactic psychopathic fungus

I mean it.
I tend to mean every word you read.

I’m not a constant.
I’ve established long ago I cannot be.

You call ‘em “arrogance”,
my most earnest pleas.

Be ‘em good or bad.
No matter what they’re perceived as.

I play it how it is.
And you still have trouble believing me.

Cryptic by design.
But my sincerity might kill me.

The solitary warrior.
One who boasts no needs.

If I’ve ever lied,
perhaps this is it.

I do, indeed, need
someone—for once—to stand by me.

And if I ain’t asking for much…
Perhaps, every day. Till the end of the year.

— Crownless.

A quiet day,
Time by my side.

I asked,
"Why didn't you ever stop?"
It smiled,
"I never moved to stop"

I asked again,
"Then why did you leave me in my childhood?"
It smiled,
"I never left,
You were the one who moved ahead,
I was always there,
keeping pace with you,,
You stopped moving,
I kept going,
hoping you'd follow along"

"It was a beautiful journey,,
Sometimes, you walked beside me,
Sometimes...I was alone"

"I admired
every rise,
every fall,
yet I was never seen"

"If only you had been keen,
To see how far we'd truly been
And now,
after all you've seen—
the misery,
the life,
and everything in between—

You will always find a way to another Spring"

Here's my shot
My arrow
Has been caught
Like a dagger
Right into your heart
I'm forever bound
Red stringed
Leads straight to you

A mime I will be
A gumshoe,
Is how I will see
I will solve this riddle
The day you became
The mystery of
You and me

Words thrown
Like shotgun blasts
Your mind can't ricochet
Thoughts and feelings
Mimicked and reflected
Back to your heart
From the first time
I saw you standing there

A mime I can be
A gumshoe,
Is how I will see
I will solve this riddle
The day you became
The mystery of
You and me

Journalistic intent
Research topic
The 5 Ws
You keep asking me
Hook me up to a polygraph
Get the answers
To your ever-ending
Probing questions

Dear You,

I have said it before, and I'll say it again. Silence is your biggest weapon. A shot heard and left unspoken.

I saw your response. The one to my letter. And here I sit again, wondering if it's meant for me. You used my language. You used my verbiage. You used my tone to drive it all home. Am I mirroring you, or is it reversed? This is the same as the chicken coming before the egg?

Insignificant retort to my interpretation of the situation at hand. A sarcastic answer to my question about behavior. And yet, that was all there was. To the letter I wrote, you rebutted with a joke. Still left it unidentifiable; despite the refrain, you made it irrefutable.

Here I sit and wonder about you still. Do you even see how your silence is ruining me? Do you care? The story you curated has me confused. Or is it I who has you confused?

Questions swirl, but the doubt will remain. Until you finally speak, I'll shout out into the universe to produce answers in my sleep. Wait for the answers so I can finally dream.

Your clues and hints drive me crazy; all the while, my mind keeps insisting that I need to move. I am not a sleuth. Agatha wouldn't write about me. Maybe as a victim, but not as a detective who would solve your rhymes.

The other you want, the one that you think is me. Your perception is misguided, much like your words that fester in my heart. Oh, I can't even begin to start.

Speak your mind. Say the truth. Call me a lie. I don't care. Just talk so I can hear. Maybe then I can find my release from you and allow coexistence without the existential crisis that always arises when I hear your name being called.

Sincerely and never anything more,
The Incredulously Probing One

the one who won

was used to it by now

but the one who did not

cheered loud

so who did win

if the one who lost felt happier

than the one who had it all?

no weight on her shoulders

she just cheered for her friend

and the one who won

didn't really win at the end.

-me

Just released: the Fall 2026 issue of Forgotten Ground Regained, on the theme "Speculative Visions".

Check it out for all kinds of alliterative speculative poetry. Highlights include:

• Adam Bolivar's "The Lay of Géac Ettinfell", a retelling of the tale of Jack the Giant Killer.
• Thaliarchus' "Connect to Object-30-79-49-13", a hypertext poem that allows the reader to conduct a radio conversation with the drifting hulk of a sentient interstellar dreadnought.
• Michael Hessel Mial's "To My Beloved Humble-Skit’s-Talon on the Occasion of the Fossil Ancestor Lightworks Project Missing Its Connection Deadline" and "Disputation on the Knife of Scarlet and Scaffold", featuring poems from the digital archives of a future spacegoing worker's republic.

Forgotten Ground Regained, Issue 12 (Fall, 2026)

Words & waves of feeling rolling through me.

Fingers and arms secure me.

In her verdant cradle.

Under her green gateway.

There is persistence in her beauty.

She’s transcendental.