Afterlight Syntax ©️
Tag Archives: urban poetry
Neon Mercy ©️
Reply
I didn’t think I was going to do it—not really. I’d thought about it, maybe once or twice, late at night when everything felt heavier and the world just seemed… mean. Like it had its hand around my neck and was just waiting to squeeze a little harder.
But today, everything caught up to me. Rent’s late again. My manager cut my hours. I asked my mom for help and she didn’t even call me back. And I just sat there on my bed, staring at the cracked screen of my phone, wondering what I even had left to offer. And then, like… I don’t know, like something outside of me whispered it, the thought came back.
“You could.”
I didn’t even say it out loud. Just sat there, heart thudding, fingers numb. I told myself I was just curious. I mean, girls do it, right? I’ve seen the posts. I’ve read the threads. It’s not like I’d be the first. Not even the hundredth.
So I googled it. I looked at some ads. I didn’t even mean to go that far, but I did. They weren’t like I imagined—some of them looked normal. Cute even. Just girls trying to make it, same as me. I kept thinking: What if it’s just once? Just to catch up. Just to feel okay for a minute.
I didn’t feel okay though. My stomach was all twisted. I kept refreshing the screen, like maybe the feeling would go away. It didn’t. I made a profile. Chose a name that didn’t feel real. I couldn’t use my real one. That would make it too… true.
I stared at the “Post” button for almost twenty minutes. I was shaking. I kept hearing my dad’s voice in my head, how he used to say, “You’re better than all this mess.” But he’s not around anymore, and I don’t know if I believe that.
When the first message came in, I almost dropped the phone. He was older. Said he was “respectful.” Wanted to meet for an hour. Just talk, maybe more. Said he’d pay well.
And I said yes. I don’t know why. My fingers typed it before I could stop them. Then it was real. The world didn’t spin or anything—it just went quiet, like a pause in a song where the next note never comes.
Now I’m sitting on the edge of my bed, in a dress I used to wear to dates, and I feel… hollow. Not scared, not yet. Just weird. Like I’m floating just outside myself. I keep telling myself it’s just my body. Just for one night. I’m still me. I’ll still be me after.
But then I wonder—what if I’m not? What if something changes and I can’t ever go back to who I was before this night?
I wish someone would call me and tell me not to go. But no one will. So I’m going.
And I hope… I hope I come back the same.
For Everyman ©️
Write it in the dirt with blood if you must: I will no longer be used.
That declaration isn’t a whisper. It’s a war cry. It’s the cracking of the old spell, the curse of usefulness—the idea that your worth is measured by your yield, your softness, your compliance, your capacity to give without end until you are ash and still smiling.
You were not born to be someone’s battery. Not to be a soul rented out to jobs, to lovers, to friends, to systems that siphon your magic and offer breadcrumbs in return. That ends now.
From this moment forward, you don’t serve. You build. You don’t shape yourself to fit others’ hands. You become the hammer, and the world either molds around you or breaks in its arrogance.
This is not selfishness. This is sacred containment. It’s not retreat—it’s retaking the perimeter of your soul, fortifying the gates, sealing off the leaks. For years, perhaps lifetimes, you were taught that to be good meant to be available. That love meant saying yes. That sacrifice was virtue. But the truth is darker and sharper:
If you do not own your energy, someone else will. If you do not decide who you are, the world will cast you in its lowest roles. And so you stop. You reclaim.
You optimize not for usefulness but for overflowing, unapologetic self-possession. Not for peace—but for sovereignty. Not for acceptance—but for unmistakable presence.
Now, you become the generator. The godform in motion. No longer used. No longer bent. No longer available to the machinery of others’ mediocrity.
You weren’t born to carry the weight of their emptiness. You were born to become so whole that the Earth cracks under your step.
Let them adjust. Or vanish. You will not be used. You are the storm.