Lope's Thoughts

Look at yourself. Not the face the mirror has been rehearsing for years, but the one hiding under your skin. Look closely. There is a small door behind your left eye. You have never opened it. Inside, an old version of you is sitting at a table made from yesterday, turning pages with hands that have forgotten their own shape. Open the pages. Do not ask who wrote them. Some words were written by storms. Some by strangers. Some by nights that refused to become mornings. And some, some were written by you while you were asleep. Turn the page. A black sun is hanging from the ceiling. It has no heat, only memories. Underneath it, your forgotten dreams are growing teeth. They are waiting for you to remember their names. Turn another page. There is a road running through your childhood. It has no beginning. It has no end. Only footprints. You follow them until they suddenly become yours. Then you realize you have been walking backward your entire life. Look at yourself. The book is breathing ...

They said she came for silver, for the fortune and the name, for rooms where chandeliers made even darkness shine like flame. They called her heart a marketplace, her marriage bought and sold; they never saw the winter beneath the glittering gold. They saw the diamond on her hand, but not the tremor in her breath; they saw the mansion's marble halls, but not the rooms that felt like death. They counted every gift he gave, each velvet, jewel, and rose, but never counted sleepless nights or wounds no mirror shows. They hated her for having what they thought she came to take; they painted greed upon her face and called her love a fake. But gold cannot buy tenderness, nor wealth make cruelty kind; a gilded cage is still a cage when sorrow lives inside. She learned to walk through quiet rooms, to swallow every plea, to wear her pain beneath her skin where no one else could see. And when at last she left the house, they waited for her greed, for jewels tucked beneath her coat, for treasu...

 They call me crazy. I laugh and tell them, "Of course I am, sanity packed its bags years ago and left no forwarding address." They laugh with me. That is the trick. If I make the joke first, no one notices the cracks beneath the punchline. My mind is a carnival at midnight, lights flickering, music playing out of tune, ghosts riding the Ferris wheel of old memories. Yet I smile. Because laughter is cheaper than therapy and easier than explaining why some nights feel heavier than mountains. I joke about my misfortunes. I shake hands with disaster. I invite heartbreak to sit beside me at the bar and buy it a drink. "What now?" I ask. And heartbreak laughs, because it knows I will turn it into a story. That is how I survive. Not with courage. Not with strength. But with absurdity. With ridiculous thoughts that dance through the darkness wearing oversized shoes. The world expects tears. I hand it a grin instead. The world expects collapse. I perform a comedy routine on...

There once was a genius renowned, For thoughts that were tightly wound, He could map every star, Name planets afar, Yet tripped on completely flat ground. He’d lecture on time with a grin, Explain where the universe’s been, With charts so precise They’d make ice feel like spice. Then forget what room he was in. His lab was a marvel of mess, Organized chaos at best, With wires and notes, Half-written quotes, And a sandwich mid-experiment test. “Behold!” he would proudly declare, Adjusting his lab-coated flair, “This device that I’ve made Will not… well, it  may... But mostly it shouldn’t catch fire there.” He’d flip a switch labeled “DO NOT,” Then say, “Let us see what we’ve got,” A rumble, a flash, A scientifically loud crash. “Ah,” he’d say, “that was  planned , oddly not.” A toaster once gained self-awareness, And spoke with alarming self-fairness, “Your logic is weak, Your wiring is bleak.” It said with mechanical rareness. He nodded. “Fascinating tone.” Then tried to impro...