Check on the 1st Friday of each month for Gabriel’s newest poetic work in progress!

November 2025

my mind has been so caught up

in the manic and mayhem;

lately,

when I look at the clouds,

I feel like I’m staring through them—

can’t quite see the floating bodies,

just the endless behind them.

I don’t choose the words that spill out of me

in the way you might think.

I give my write half to a made up language.

and offer the other half to what’s left,

leave it to linger,

see what observation does.

there is trauma in relying on writing to

heal haunting wounds,

makes it a story we tell ourselves

rather than what happened.

I don’t remember what the happening felt like,

or how many happenings happened. 

suppose I know what’s happening now,

but this language takes now away,

so I’m left with a misspelled rite.

we make magic even when we mean not to.

this is the invoking and the invoked,

me—a verb who insists on being a proper noun,

always making adjectives act up.

there are more parts to me than speech,

though many can’t tell who is which.

how haunting this craft is;

unlike anything that claims likeness to it,

pretentiously unique, and perfectly ubiquitous,

a puzzle undone that claims it’s complete,

cramming prophecies into pockets

of pages bound for smolder.

smoke always returns home, but we don’t.

we are chimneys with a body built around us,

a hearth heart and crawl space in the gut.

my word is blood.

when I look at the clouds,

it feels like they’re staring through my mind,

smoke signals spiraling into the sky—

a sorry serenade.

I am not sorry.

I am a serenade.