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Crumbling laughter

Happiness is the answer, right?

By KuroHoshiPublished 15 days ago 1 min read
Top Story - January 2026
Crumbling laughter
Photo by Jason Hawke 🇨🇦 on Unsplash

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Can you feel your skin slowly grinding to dust?

You can see it in the sun on a hot day

Pouring beer down mouth and feeling the chill hit your teeth

Grabbing onto skin more, feeling your brain rumble, and hesitating.

Your breath forced out of you, and your ideas emptied

Then the strings on your fingertips twitch and play

Memories of a past you can't make out push through

Your heart is bouncing, the ground is shaking with you

You slap your knee and look around

It settles once you see there are no neighbors

Only empty houses

I breathe in, letting glass break

Smoke fills my lungs and eyes

Feeling what I left for good

Creating more rot and despair

as I get up from a decaying wooden throne

I opened my door and found nowhere to hide

Stumbling, shuffling, to my splintered guitar

The notes don't match my strings

But I play through my fingertips and feel them bleed, spreading into inside

My song that makes rats and snakes run

Crushing my voice as my tears splash onto my green toenails

Once it's dusk, my body curls

My mind is finally quiet

I quit hope

I held onto reality and felt oblivion

Free VerseMental Healthperformance poetrysurreal poetrysad poetry

About the Creator

KuroHoshi

A Poet, An Artist, and the person who tries to become a living star

I write the about the creatures from underneath my mind

Some are happy, others are truthful, but I'll let you decide what's their fate

Profile Pic made by milkymisul

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  1. Compelling and original writing

    Creative use of language & vocab

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    The story invoked strong personal emotions

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Comments (4)

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  • SAMURAI SAM AND WILD DRAGONS8 days ago

    Hugs to your heart!

  • Jazzy 9 days ago

    Whew, you brought so much social commentary to this in such a beautiful way.

  • Absolutely feeling skin turning into dust. And those last two lines? the nail on the coffin.

  • Mariann Carroll14 days ago

    Great lines of imagery in the poem. Excellent work!

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