my writing

random poetry

mental health

feminism

queerness

family

beauty of life

Not All Men, But Always A Man

You grew up with him.

He was your brother.

Maybe older. Maybe younger.

You held his hand when he cried.

Shared your food, your toys.

You played pretend and built castles and fought imaginary monsters together.

You protected him — though no one said you should.

You just did. Because that’s what siblings do.

You wiped his nose. Covered for him. Took the blame.

Laughed when he was funny. Let him win when he was small and it mattered more to him than to you.

You grew up thinking: he's one of the good ones.

Because you saw his heart.

You knew he loved you.

He never raised a hand. Never mocked you for crying.

He let you braid his hair once, remember?

You thought he got it.

So when you learned the weight of being a girl —

not in books, not in lectures,

but in parking lots, in whispers, in hands too close,

in bosses who stare at your lips,

in nights you plan around safety,

in jokes that slice deep while everyone else laughs —

You turned to him.

Not to make him feel bad.

Not to accuse.

Just to tell him.

To make him see.

Because if anyone could understand, if anyone could care, it would be him.

You told him about the way your body is always under surveillance.

You told him about the teacher who stood too close.

About the boy who kept touching after you said no.

About the fear, the simmering shame, the tightness in your chest that never quite leaves.

And he frowned. For a second.

He looked serious.

And then — he laughed.

“God, you’re so dramatic.”

“You sound like one of those toxic feminists.”

“Not everything is about gender, you know.”

And you stop breathing.

Because suddenly it is not your brother in front of you.

It is a man.

With a man’s words. A man’s smirk. A man’s dismissal.

He’s looking at you like you’re the problem.

Like your rage, your pain, your vulnerability is something inconvenient.

Embarrassing.

And you wonder: Was he always like this?

But it’s your brother.

Your brother — your sweet, stupid, laughing brother — he’s not hitting you.

He’s not harassing anyone.

He’s not a monster.

But he doesn’t believe you.

Not really.

He hears your fire and calls it too much.

He hears your hurt and calls it a phase.

He thinks your fight is against him.

And maybe you snap.

Maybe you yell.

“Do you know what it’s like to walk home with keys between your fingers?”

“Do you know what it’s like to pretend you’re on a call just so someone doesn’t follow you?”

“Do you know what it’s like to have a boss praise you for a report and then tell you your skirt is distracting?”

And he rolls his eyes.

And in that moment — you hate him.

For not listening.

For laughing.

For being exactly what you feared.

And worse — you hate yourself for feeling that hate.

Because you know he’s better.

Don’t you?

He’s your brother.

He grew up with you.

He saw your heartbreak, your scraped knees, your first trauma.

And yet — when it matters — when it truly matters—

He laughs.

And you realize something you didn’t want to know:

Even the men you love…

Can still break your heart.

Not with fists.

But with words that scrape.

With disbelief that hollows you out.

With silence when you need their voice the most.

You sit with it.

That rage. That sadness. That shame.

That lonely ache of betrayal.

You feel it settle into your ribs.

You feel your breath catch.

Because it’s not the monsters you fear.

It’s the men you trust.

And maybe tomorrow he’ll apologize.

Maybe he’ll think about it.

Maybe he’ll call you and say, “I’m sorry, I didn’t get it before.”

But tonight?

Tonight you remember what it means to be a woman.

And to know, in your blood, your bones, your bruised heart:

Not all men.

But always.

Always.

A man.

— T.W.

The Distance Between Us

There is a kind of love that doesn’t speak its name aloud.

It lingers in the space between fingertips that never quite touch,

in the long glances that flicker and die before they’re caught,

in all the almosts and the if-onlys people carry like quiet prayers.

It starts slow — so slow you almost don’t feel it at first.

Just a tilt of the head,

a laugh that stays too long in your memory,

a kindness that unsettles more than it soothes.

You think it’s passing.

You tell yourself it’ll go away.

But love, real love — the human kind, messy and aching —

has a habit of growing in the cracks of your soul.

You don’t water it on purpose.

It feeds on longing.

It feeds on the way they say your name

like it’s just a word,

while to you it’s a melody.

And then comes the ache.

Yearning isn’t a gentle thing.

It doesn’t knock.

It floods.

It’s teeth and hunger and the press of your palm

against your own chest

trying to hold it all in.

Trying not to let it spill

because what if it’s not returned?

What if your reaching hand

is left hanging in air?

People say love is brave.

They never say how much of it is waiting.

How much of it is silence.

How much of it is standing on the shore

watching someone drift out,

and hoping they look back.

Sometimes they do.

Sometimes they don’t.

But then — then there are the rare, quiet miracles.

The moments when you do reach out

and someone reaches back.

Not all at once. Not in a blaze.

But a soft, trembling hand brushing yours,

like, I’m here. I see you.

And it blooms.

Not like fireworks,

but like dawn.

Slow and golden,

lighting up all the places you thought were abandoned.

And it hurts still.

Of course it hurts.

But this time, the pain is not loneliness.

It’s growth.

Because human love —

the fragile, fumbling kind —

isn’t about being whole before someone touches you.

It’s about the bravery of letting them in

while you’re still in pieces.

It’s about choosing to stand in the sun,

even if all you’ve known is rain.

It’s about teaching each other

how to bloom.

And sometimes it doesn’t work.

Sometimes your love is a seed that never gets soil.

But even then —

even then, you loved.

You opened your hands

and your heart

and said, Here. Look. It’s yours, if you want it.

That is a kind of beauty no one can take from you.

And when it works — when it really works —

when someone holds that fragile offering and says,

Me too. I’ve been waiting,

you will know it was worth every ache.

Every unspoken word.

Every night you thought it would never be you.

Because this love,

the one that blooms after pain,

the one that’s fought for and fragile and real —

this love is poetry made flesh.

A soft, strong thing.

A hand held in the dark.

A light that stays.

The most beautiful thing about humans is our art.

It’s the books we write. The songs we sing. The poems we pour our souls into.

The pictures we take to keep a memory.

The paintings we create, each stroke a piece of ourselves.

And the most beautiful thing of all?

It’s that we share it.

Maybe not with everyone, but even if we only make art for ourselves, we’re still putting it out there, for us to see. To feel.

When we walk through a museum, wander a flea market, scroll through Tumblr or Pinterest, buy a new book, or just put our earbuds in — we’re appreciating that art.

We take it in and make it ours.

I love being human because I love the art.