Letters from the Edge of Tolerance

I was the unwanted child, the extra breath in a house that counted food like sins, the kind of kid you do not cradle, you inventory.

Mother taught me the soft kind of cruelty, the kind that smiles while it cuts. No bruises, just little sentences dropped into my head like thumbtacks, so every thought I had learned to bleed in silence.

Father taught me the loud kind. Hands, volume, threat, impact. A lesson plan written in fear, graded with humiliation.

And when I asked, in the stupid way children ask, why I felt like a mistake with a pulse, he gave me scripture.

"I jacked off into a flower pot and your momma kept watering it until a blooming idiot popped up"

That line did not land in my ears. It landed in my bones. It turned my name into a punchline, my birthday into an accident report, my reflection into an apology.

So I learned to live like a guest in my own skin.

From the first breath to eighteen, I was passed around like contraband: three foster families, thirteen inpatient facilities, some of them more than once, some of them like boomerangs, because pain always finds its way back.

I learned fluorescent light. I learned locked doors. I learned that help can look like containment, and that "stability" can feel like a cage with rules you are punished for not understanding.

I learned that leaving is easier than belonging, because belonging always comes with terms.

They kept writing me down as disorders, as if a label could explain the rot. As if naming the smoke puts out the fire. As if a clipboard can hold a childhood that never held me.

And somewhere in that carousel of rooms, I built a motto out of scraps, because a motto is lighter than a prayer.

"It is what it is"

Not wisdom. Not acceptance. A bandage on a throat. A way to swallow the scream without choking.

Do you know what it does to a kid to be taught that existence is negotiable? To be trained, over and over, that love is conditional and safety is temporary?

It makes you good at masks. It makes you terrifyingly calm. It makes you laugh at the wrong moments because your nervous system does not know how to do anything else.

So I became "fine." I became the man of a thousand faces. I became the one who can talk normally while the inside of my skull is a demolition site.

Then I grew up. And I did what survivors do, I tried to build a life out of whatever was left.

I married young, because I wanted a home that was not a rotation. I wanted proof I could be chosen, even if I never believed it.

And she did choose me. Until she did not.

My ex-wife cheated on me with my dad, and it was her grandmother that told me.

Not her. Not him. Not even in the decency of a confession. Her grandmother. Like she was reading me a weather report: here is the storm, here is the damage, good luck rebuilding.

That is a betrayal with teeth. That is a wound that does not close, because every memory becomes evidence, every family word becomes a threat.

Father was already a weapon. She turned him into a blade and handed it to me by the handle.

And the worst part is how clean it is, how simple it sounds when spoken aloud, as if it is just a sentence.

But that sentence is a room. And in that room, I am nineteen again, twenty-one again, standing there with my chest split open, trying to figure out how the world keeps moving while something in me dies and dies and dies.

I do not romanticize this. There is nothing poetic about a heart that learns to expect betrayal as a law of nature. There is nothing noble about flinching at kindness because it looks like bait.

Pain is not a teacher. Pain is a parasite. It eats everything and calls it character.

And I tried to quit the contract.

Forty-two times.

Forty-two times I tried to stop being a body that carries a lifetime like a chained animal. Forty-two times I tried to unhook my mind from the meat of my life. Forty-two times I tried to slip out of the room without leaving fingerprints on the door.

Each failed.

Not a miracle. Not a rescue. Just failure. Just waking up again, angry at oxygen, furious at the stubborn machinery that keeps the heart working even when the soul has clocked out.

They say survival is strength. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it is just punishment that persists.

I never wanted to exist in the first place. I long for the release from this mortal coil.

That is the truth. Not the pretty version. Not the inspirational poster. The truth with its teeth showing.

I exist without my consent. I carry a childhood that never ended, it just changed costumes. Closet walls became hospital walls, hospital walls became adult walls, and every wall has a shadow where the old fear still lives.

Mother’s voice was a drip, steady, quiet, wearing my confidence down one drop at a time. Father’s voice was a hammer, and his hands made sure my body understood what his words promised.

Between them, they built a world where I was always one mistake away from being thrown out, one emotion away from being punished, one need away from being called weak.

So I stopped needing. Or I got good at pretending I did.

"It is what it is"

I said it when I was hungry. I said it when I was hurt. I said it when I was abandoned. I said it when love turned into a trap. I said it when family became a horror story. I said it because if I did not say it, I might have said the thing underneath:

I am tired. I am so tired.

I am tired of waking up already braced for impact, tired of scanning every room for exits, tired of trusting no one because no one earned it, tired of my own thoughts sounding like enemies.

I am tired of being told to heal as if healing is a switch, as if trauma is a stain you can bleach out, as if the past is polite enough to stop knocking.

Sometimes pain is loud. Sometimes it is so quiet it becomes the background hum of everything. The kind of quiet that makes you forget what peace even feels like.

People want a redemption arc. They want the part where I rise, where I forgive, where I find meaning, where the scars become art.

They do not want the truth: that some scars are just scars, and some nights are just war, and some mornings feel like a sentence I have to serve again.

So here is the cruelty: I am still here.

Not because life is beautiful. Not because I found faith. Not because the world got kinder.

I am still here because I am too stubborn to die and too broken to feel alive. Because every time I tried to leave, I woke up in the same body, in the same story, with the same taste of iron in my mouth, and the same thought crawling up my throat:

"It is what it is"

And that is what pain is. Not a lesson. Not a romantic tragedy. Not a badge.

Pain is a lifetime of being told, in different voices, that you are expendable, and then being forcem

In the shadowed recesses of my ancestral hall, where the tapestries hung like shrouds over forgotten sins, I first beheld her, the ethereal vision whom fate had named Moon Lily. Her hair cascaded in fiery torrents of crimson, a cascade that rivaled the dying embers of a forsaken hearth, framing a countenance of alabaster pallor, so translucent that the veins beneath pulsed with the faint azure of twilight skies. Her eyes, those orbs of deepest sapphire, held within them the melancholy of uncharted seas, drawing the soul into abyssal depths where desire and despair entwined like lovers in eternal strife. Moon Lily, she was called, for her beauty bloomed under the pallid gaze of the nocturnal orb, a flower that withered in the harsh glare of day, yet in the hush of midnight, she unfolded her petals in a symphony of forbidden allure.

The hall itself seemed to conspire in her enchantment, its vaulted ceilings echoing with the distant croak of ravens perched upon the gabled eaves, their ebony feathers glistening like omens of impending doom. Roses climbed the stone walls outside, their thorns etched in bloodred barbs, blooming in profusion under the moon's silvery caress, their scent a heady perfume that mingled with the musty decay of ancient tomes lining the shelves. I, a wanderer in the labyrinth of my own tormented mind, had sought solace in solitude, but she appeared as if summoned from the ether, a specter of sensuality that ignited within me a flame both exquisite and excruciating.

It was upon a eve when the moon hung low, swollen with secrets, that she first approached me. The air was thick with the fragrance of those nocturnal roses, their blossoms unfurling like invitations to sin. Moon Lily glided across the marble floor, her gown of diaphanous silk clinging to her form, revealing the subtle curves that bespoke of hidden delights. Her pale skin glowed with an inner luminescence, and as she drew near, her blue eyes fixed upon mine with an intensity that pierced the veil of my restraint. "Come," she whispered, her voice a silken murmur that resonated through my veins, "let us taste the nectar of the night, ere dawn's early dew claims us both."

I followed her into the garden, where the ravens stirred in their roosts, their cries a mournful chorus to our clandestine rendezvous. The roses encircled us, their petals soft as velvet underfoot, yet their thorns pricked at my flesh as I reached for her, a reminder that pleasure is ever laced with pain. Moon Lily turned to me, her red hair tumbling free, and with deliberate grace, she let her gown slip from her shoulders, exposing the porcelain expanse of her breasts, nipples erect in the cool night air, like rosebuds awaiting the kiss of dawn. Her body was a masterpiece of contrasts: the fiery mane against the snowy skin, the gentle swell of her hips yielding to the shadowed valley between her thighs, where the promise of ecstasy awaited.

My hands, trembling with a fervor born of long-suppressed longing, traced the contours of her form. I cupped her breasts, feeling the weight of them, the softness yielding to my touch, her nipples hardening further as I rolled them between my fingers, eliciting from her lips a gasp that mingled sweetness with sorrow. She arched against me, her blue eyes half-lidded in rapture, and I lowered my mouth to one peak, suckling with a hunger that bordered on madness. The taste of her skin was ambrosial, a blend of salt and floral essence, as if the roses themselves had infused her essence. My tongue circled the aureole, teasing, tormenting, until she clutched at my hair, her nails digging into my scalp like thorns embedding in flesh.

But oh, the bittersweet agony of it all! For even as I worshiped her, the ravens cawed from the branches above, their black wings fluttering as harbingers of the inevitable parting. Moon Lily pulled me down amid the rose petals, the ground a bed of crimson softness, and she parted her legs with an invitation as ancient as Eden. Her sex gleamed in the moonlight, the folds slick with dew of arousal, a glistening portal to oblivion. I knelt before her, inhaling the musky scent that rose from her core, a perfume more intoxicating than the roses surrounding us. With reverent fingers, I parted her labia, revealing the pink inner sanctum, swollen and eager, her clitoris a pearl of desire begging for attention.

I leaned forward, my breath hot against her, and traced my tongue along the length of her slit, savoring the tangy nectar that flowed forth. She moaned, a sound that echoed the wind through the garden, her hips rising to meet my mouth. I delved deeper, lapping at her folds, circling her clitoris with insistent strokes, feeling it pulse beneath my tongue like a heart in throes of passion. Her juices coated my lips, a libation of lust, and I inserted a finger into her warmth, feeling the velvety walls clench around me, drawing me in as if to consume my very soul. Another finger joined the first, thrusting in rhythm with my tongue's ministrations, building her toward a crescendo of ecstasy.

Moon Lily's cries grew fervent, her body writhing amid the petals, her red hair splayed like blood upon snow. "Deeper," she implored, her voice laced with a melancholy that tugged at my heart, for in her plea I sensed the shadow of loss. I obliged, my fingers curling within her, seeking that hidden spot that would unravel her completely. She shuddered, her pale skin flushing with a rosy hue, and then the climax overtook her, her inner muscles spasming, flooding my hand with her essence. The ravens fell silent in that moment, as if the night itself held its breath, witnessing the union of bliss and bitterness.

Yet our dance was far from done. Rising, I shed my own garments, my manhood throbbing with urgent need, veins bulging along its length, the head glistening with anticipation. Moon Lily's blue eyes widened at the sight, a flicker of sorrow mingling with desire, as if she knew this consummation carried the seeds of our undoing. She reached for me, her slender fingers wrapping around my shaft, stroking with a gentleness that belied the fire within. Her touch was electric, sending jolts through my frame, and she guided me to her entrance, the tip pressing against her slick folds.

With a slow, deliberate thrust, I entered her, feeling the exquisite tightness envelop me, inch by inch, until I was buried to the hilt. Her walls gripped me like a vice of velvet, warm and welcoming, yet pulsing with an undercurrent of desperation. We moved together, a rhythm ancient and profound, my hips grinding against hers, each penetration a plunge into ecstasy laced with elegy. Her breasts bounced with our motion, nipples grazing my chest, and I captured her mouth in a kiss, our tongues entwining like serpents in paradise. The taste of her was bittersweet, honey mingled with hemlock, for even as our bodies merged, the first hints of dawn crept upon the horizon, casting a pall over our fervor.

I withdrew partially, only to thrust deeper, angling to strike that sensitive core within her, eliciting gasps that bordered on sobs. Her legs wrapped around my waist, heels digging into my back, urging me onward. Sweat beaded on her pale skin, mingling with the dew that began to form on the roses around us, a harbinger of the morning's arrival. The ravens stirred once more, their cries a dirge to our passion, as if reminding us that all earthly delights are fleeting. Faster we moved, my scrotum slapping against her with each fervent entry, her clitoris grinding against my pubic bone, building toward mutual release.

In that vortex of sensation, memories flooded me: of her laughter like distant bells, tinged with sadness; of her eyes, those blue abysses, reflecting unspoken grief; of the roses that bloomed only to wilt. Our climax approached like a storm, inevitable and overwhelming. Moon Lily's body tensed, her inner depths convulsing around me, milking my shaft with rhythmic contractions. I felt the surge within, the pressure building until it erupted, spilling my seed deep into her, wave after wave of hot essence flooding her womb. She cried out, a wail of triumph and tragedy, her nails raking my back, drawing blood that mingled with the thorn-pricks from the roses.

We collapsed amid the petals, spent and entwined, her red hair draped over my chest like a shroud of flame. The air grew cooler, the first light of dawn piercing the veil of night, and with it came the early dew, settling upon her skin like tears unshed. The ravens took flight, their wings beating a retreat from the encroaching day, leaving us in a silence broken only by our ragged breaths. Moon Lily turned her face to me, her blue eyes shimmering with unspeakable sorrow. "The dawn claims its due," she murmured, her voice fading like a dream dissolving.

As the sun crested the horizon, her form grew ethereal, translucent, until she vanished like mist evaporating, leaving me alone amid the wilting roses, the dew upon my skin a cold reminder of our union. Was she a phantom of my fevered imagination, a succubus born of longing and loss? Or a mortal lover doomed by some ancient curse? The ravens returned, perching silently, their eyes accusatory. In the bittersweet afterglow, I wandered the garden, tracing the paths where our bodies had merged, haunted by the memory of her touch, her taste, her essence. Dawn's early dew had claimed her, yet in my soul, Moon Lily bloomed eternal, a rose of rapture entwined with thorns of eternal regret.

In the void of night's merciless hold,  

I'd bind your wrists with ropes of steel,  

Force you to kneel, make submission real,  

Collar your throat in leather cold.  

I'd whip your back with leather's bite,  

Lash after lash till welts arise,  

Watch tears stream from your pleading eyes,  

Ignite your pain in sadistic delight.  

With clamps I'd seize your tender peaks,  

Twist and pull till you gasp and writhe,  

Command your body, keep it alive,  

In chains of torment, no mercy seeks.  

I'd gag your mouth with silken vice,  

Muffle your screams as I claim control,  

Probe your limits, devour your soul,  

Break you down in dominance's price.  

Primal growls from my throat would rise,  

Like a beast in heat, I'd hunt your form,  

Pounce and pin in the raging storm,  

Claw your flesh under feral skies.  

I'd bite your thighs with savage teeth,  

Mark you deep as my prey divine,  

Snarl commands, make your will align,  

With instincts raw, no civilized sheath.  

Fingers like talons, I'd tear you open,  

Plunge into depths where shadows play,  

Force your surrender in primal fray,  

Harvest your howls till bonds are broken.  

I'd drag you crawling on hands and knees,  

Leash in hand, through the wild unknown,  

Whisper threats of the pain you've sown,  

Dominate till you beg on pleas.  

With hot wax dripping on quivering skin,  

Sealing your fate in fiery art,  

Blindfold your sight, conquer your heart,  

In BDSM's grip, let the ritual begin.  

O' the things I'd do, a primal throne,  

Fuck you bound in ecstasy's chain,  

Leave you bruised, marked by my reign,  

Owned forever, flesh and bone.  

In the aftermath of our savage rite,  

I'd cradle your broken, blissful frame,  

Whisper ownership, call you by name,  

Till dawn devours the endless night.

Come closer.

Not in a rush, not yet.

Let the quiet feel you before I do.

Your breath skims my throat,

warm enough to bruise the air,

and I learn your name by the way you hesitate,

by the way you wait for permission

you already know you have.

I like you better like this,

undone by proximity,

thinking too much,

wanting harder than you planned.

Desire looks good on you

when it has nowhere to hide.

My hands are deliberate.

I take my time learning your reactions,

the soft betrayals of your body,

the way control slips without a sound.

There is no need to hurry

when surrender is already kneeling.

Every touch is a promise I intend to keep.

Every pause is a reminder

that I decide when you get more.

You arch into the silence,

aching for the moment I finally close the distance.

When I do,

it is slow and certain and unavoidable.

You melt into it,

into me,

into the truth of how badly you wanted this.

And when the night exhales around us,

heavy with heat and shared breath,

you will realize too late

that I never took anything from you.

You gave it.

Your defiance is a dialectic I intend to resolve. You toss provocations like lit matches, a performance of chaos, and watch me to see if I will flinch. I won't. Your performance is a confession, and I am a patient translator. You don't want a reaction; you want a reckoning. You want the slow, creeping certainty of a man who sees the script you're reading from and is waiting for you to forget your lines.

I will build a cage around you with my stillness. Every quip will be met with silence so steady it becomes a wall. Every challenge will be acknowledged with a look so measured it becomes a mirror. You will pace this enclosure of your own making, this prison of my patience, and you will feel your own bravado become the bars that hold you. The door will click shut not with a bang, but with the quiet sound of your breath catching when you realize you cannot leave.

My nature is a paradox you will learn to crave. I can be gentle in a way that feels like a bruise, a tender pressure that blooms into a deep, satisfying ache. I can be cruel in a way that feels like an anchor, a sharp, deliberate pain that grounds you in the certainty of my control. Kindness and cruelty are not opposites; they are the two hands I use to shape you, one to open you, one to hold you steady.

A brat does not need punishment. She needs physics. She needs to learn that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Your mouth offers a push; my hands will offer a pull. Your eyes offer a challenge; my gaze will offer a verdict. I will not silence you. I will teach your body the language your mind pretends not to speak.

There is a moment I will savor, the turning point when the mischief in your eyes curdles into hunger. The question is no longer "will he?" but "how far?" I will take you far enough that your spine forgets its pretense of rigidity and remembers the elegant architecture of surrender. I will take you far enough that the only words left are the ones your body whimpers.

Ownership is a quiet fact, not a loud claim. It is my hand resting on the back of your neck, a presence with no pressure, yet you will feel its weight in your soul. It is a command spoken in the same tone I would use to ask for water, because your obedience is as natural and necessary to me as hydration. You are my toy not by force, but by the desperate, unspoken negotiation of your own desire. You want to be an object, because for a little while, you want the relief of not having to be the subject.

I will make you earn the softness. This is the intellectual part: the ethics of the erosion. Any fool can be rough. It takes discipline to be cruel with kindness, to push you to your limits only to hold you while you shake. It takes the precision of a watchmaker to break your trust just enough to make you beg for it back, and then the integrity of a surgeon to rebuild it stronger than before. I am watching you, always, to tell the difference between the performance and the person.

When the brat finally burns out, when the fire of your defiance has consumed all its fuel and all that remains is the glowing ember of your need, I will not mock the ashes. I will pull you into the warmth of my own body. I will give you water. I will ground you. I will whisper the truth you already know: you are safe, you are claimed, and you were magnificent.

Aftercare is the final, non-negotiable clause in our contract. If I take you apart, I am obligated to put you back together. If I make you tremble, I am the one who must still you. You will leave me fuller than you arrived, marked not by bruises, but by the profound memory of having been correctly handled.

So bring me your sharp tongue and your sharper eyes. Bring your pride and your rehearsed rebellion. I will be your sadist and your savior. I will be your torment and your temple. And if you are worthy of the effort, you will never have to wonder where you stand. You will feel it in the very marrow of your bones.

You rise in quiet beauty, Moon Lilly, pale and true,
soft light gathered in curves the night itself admires.
Sweet is the air you carry, warm as breath in open fields,
where distance fades and even silence leans toward you.

No shadow dares remain where your glow takes hold.
You shine without effort, unafraid of being seen.
In lives that pass too quickly, you stay with me as a constant,
a softness I can hold onto when the day has taken too much.

I see the way you soften and draw nearer,
how you turn a simple moment into something I remember.
You are what my restless heart reaches for without thinking,
what my hands look for when I need to feel real again.

Kindness lives in you without performance.
Your sweetness is not naive, it is brave.
And I love that you still choose it,
even when the world has given you reasons not to.

Moon Lilly, hear me when I say your name.
It is not just a word, it is a feeling in my chest.
You answer in the little ways,
a look, a touch, the quiet way you stay close.

You are delicate without being breakable,
abundant without needing to prove anything.
Tender, yes, but strong enough
to steady me when I start to drift.

White as moonlight on still water,
beautiful in the way that makes me pause
and breathe a little slower,
like I am safe for a second.

Precious Moon Lilly, you bring back parts of me
I thought I had lost to time and trouble.
Even when the seas turn rough beneath our feet,
I want you beside me, not ahead, not behind.

You honor me, and I do not take it lightly.
I see you. I want you. I keep you close.

Pale.
White.
And beautiful.

O' my sweet Moon Lilly.

Beautiful is the pale White curves that smell sweet 

I can feel the heat rising between us in the great meadow

No shadow will cast upon you, brightly you shine

Even in our short lives your beauty will always be 

Even I can see those soft curves that turn to a peak

seek that which we all long for, that which we see

Kindness and sweetness, that pure pale White innocence 

No hindrance will ever stand before thee.

O' pale White and Beautiful, I call out to you

A sweet whisper in mine ear, a bright sight to see

Soft, delicate, abundant in the way you are

Strong, tender, bright.

Those beautiful curves of white.

Precious Moon Lilly, you bring forth wonderful memories 

Even with these intrepid seas 

Moon Lilly you honor me. Pale White and Beautiful  as you are

The sun rises only to mock the dying.
Another day of the same, another breath drawn out of spite.
The streets hum with hollow laughter,
people moving like insects—feeding, mating, dying, repeating.
There is no meaning, only motion.
No purpose, only persistence.
Life is a wound that never clots,
a cruel game where survival is not victory,
just endurance through pain that refuses to end.

In this world, kindness rots fast.
Goodness is punished.
Hope is a parasite that eats its host.
Faith is a lie told by those too afraid to face the void.
Every church is a cage, every prayer an echo bouncing off an empty sky.
God is a rumor spread by the desperate,
a name whispered by the lost so they don’t hear themselves scream.

Children are born already broken,
tiny offerings to a machine that grinds them into dust.
Their laughter fades into debt and decay,
their dreams into cubicles and pills.
Love becomes another addiction,
sex a distraction from the screaming silence that follows.
Marriage is a transaction, a slow trade of dignity for routine.
And death, the only honest thing left,
hides behind white walls and morphine drips,
pretending to be peace while the body forgets how to breathe.

Fuck life.
It never asked if you wanted it.
It threw you into flesh and chaos,
taught you hunger, pain, and guilt,
then called it growth.
It gave you consciousness just to let you watch yourself decay.
It gave you a soul only to prove how easily it can be broken.

The earth keeps spinning, indifferent.
War spreads like wildfire.
Children starve while kings dine on fear.
The rich build towers to touch the clouds,
but the ground below is soaked with blood and lies.
The poor are told to pray harder,
to work longer,
to die quietly.
The system feeds on corpses dressed in uniforms and smiles.
The flag waves over graves and calls it freedom.

Every heartbeat is a countdown.
Every memory another weight.
The mirror does not lie; it just grows tired of reflecting rot.
There’s no redemption here,
no happy ending waiting past the suffering.
Only more suffering.
Only more noise.
Only more life.

The poets say there’s beauty in pain.
They’ve never drowned in it.
They’ve never begged the night to end
or whispered promises to the barrel of a gun.
They’ve never stared at a ceiling at 3 a.m.,
wondering why the world keeps dragging them forward
when all they want is stillness.
Even death denies mercy.
It makes you wait in line while the lucky ones get their turn.

I watch the world burn through screens and headlines.
Murderers are praised as saviors,
and saints are crucified for sport.
Lies are the new gospel,
truth a relic buried beneath propaganda.
Humanity calls itself civilized while devouring its own.
Every smile hides a blade.
Every promise bleeds.

Fuck existence.
It’s a cruel joke with no punchline.
It’s the endless cycle of want and waste,
the cosmic accident too proud to die quietly.
We are ghosts pretending to be real,
machines made of skin and grief.
We bleed meaning into the dirt just to convince ourselves we matter.
But the stars don’t care.
They never did.
They’ll burn long after we’ve rotted,
their light mocking the ashes that once called themselves alive.

Still, we wake up.
Still, we breathe.
Still, we endure this theater of decay.
Not because we want to,
but because even oblivion refuses to claim us yet.
The cruelest truth of all—
we live, not out of hope,
but out of spite.
And spite, in this rotten world,
is the only honest god left.

In the town where silence reigned,
there stood a tan, single story house of shadows.
Its yard was strewn with refuse, its face degraded,
and I, a child pressed into service, tried to sweep decay away.
Its windows were covered with hellscreen, grim panes that never welcomed,
its doors sighed beneath the weight of secrets unsaid.
Within those walls I learned that conflict was exile,
that love was only another word for betrayal.

The chambers whispered with cruelties:
a stepmother, sometimes softened by her medicines, yet still neglectful, still striking;
a father whose voice and hands bore equal violence,
teaching that even home was sharpened steel.
I lay first in a storage closet, where dreams collapsed in dust,
then in a locked room whose bolt clanged shut each night,
sealing me into dread.

The house grew monstrous in my mind.
Corridors stretched like endless tunnels, doors threatened at every threshold.
It became a prison, its grip closing tighter with every year.
I wandered thereafter from foster beds to hospital wards,
carrying fragments of myself like broken glass.
Trust withered, faith decayed into echo,
and I clothed myself in masks so none might glimpse the fractures beneath.

Yet still the house did not wholly devour me.
I carved my skin with blades to remind myself I was alive,
then traded blood for ink, tattoos etched as runes of survival,
a semicolon marked with the tally of forty two failures at ending,
forty two continuations against my will.

At night I returned in dreams: the walls folding like a closing fist,
wallpaper sagging with old breath, curtains frayed like funeral veils.
The house bent over me, whispering lullabies of bleach and ash.
Hands without mercy traced the hollows of my ribs,
a grotesque tenderness that crushed as it consoled.
Shadows lay upon me like guilty lovers, their heat both cruel and sweet.
The lock turned, the bolt slid home,
I learned to measure hours by the shape of terror.
Despair courted me with twin faces:
the gentle voice that lured toward oblivion,
and the harsher hand that made oblivion near.
The taste of that house clung to me, as roses laced with poison cling to the tongue,
beautiful, slow, and deadly.

And now I stand beyond its doorway, though never free of its dominion.
The world beyond is pale and treacherous,
yet the lesson carved deepest remains:
that even in darkness, when shadows whisper like forbidden lovers,
when memory burns like a kiss both feared and longed for,
I endure, until endurance itself collapses,
and the House of Shadows, my only true inheritance,
closes not only its doors, but its grave, upon me forever.

This is my attempt at a sweet and happy poem so please let me know how it is

Sunlight spills gently across the earth,
a golden warmth that lifts the heart.
The world stirs softly in its glow,
and I feel it brushing against scars I carry,
reminding me that joy can be simple,
as simple as morning air, laughter shared, and open skies,
or the sound of my children’s laughter chasing through the day.

Love lingers like a steady flame,
quiet but unyielding.
It wraps around the weary edges of my soul,
turning sharp corners into softer ones,
filling silence with gentle promise.
In its warmth I recall the boy I once was,
looking for kindness in places that betrayed me,
now finding it within the arms of love itself,
and in the tiny hands I hold, reminding me of the beauty of fatherhood.

Sunshine and love; two gifts that rise together,
reminding me that even after long nights,
time still turns, the dawn still comes.
There is light, there is warmth, there is care,
and though I carry shadows,
they soften beneath this radiance.
In their embrace, I remember:
life is not only endured,
it can also be cherished,
especially in simple moments;  a shared meal, a quiet hug,
or a child’s sleepy head resting against my chest.
And for the first time, I dare to believe
that sweetness belongs to me too.