Garden of Hollow Serpents

There comes a time of year

When the grand bargain begins,

Not on the streets filled with vitality,

But in the shadows of the necropolis.

That time when the Four O'Clock flower breaks,

Shattered glass strewn across morality,

Violins echoing through chrysanthemums—

An entire ballad of the false prophets.

And in such a dreadful realm,

The White Dahlia enters with petals shrinking,

Trembling as the winds begin to embrace her.

Two pairs of eyes seize her gaze:

One's Deadly Nightshade,

the other's Devil's Hand.

One is there to devour her soul;

The other to protect and shield her:

Unfortunately, all entities wear masks.

What gleams is venom,

What offers refuge seems lethal.

The first waltz with the broken,

virtuous entity Unfolds in darkness,

Flowers shivering in the aura that surrounds him.

Warnings drip from his affection;

Her vitality seeps into his mask.

The long, agonizing sway ends in tears.

The second dance with the wicked one

Casts beams of pearly light across the floor,

Flickers of hope and sparks tangled in mysterious smiles.

Tiny, precise steps lure her core into an abyss.

She blooms once more

Only to be severed again with the final sigh of her stamina.

What happened to them, you might ask?

Devil's Hand betrays his loving core, vanishing into obscurity.

White Dahlia, dripping tears of blood, continues to bloom

Brighter, fiercer than ever.

Deadly Nightshade aches still,

Hunting those ruby tears with insatiable hunger:

One astray, one reaching the focal point, one hollow within its own elegance.

Cruel Cronos engraved me early,

not with gentleness,

but by hands of shadows

who mistook my springtime figure

for silence,

who thought my tears were seeds easily buried.

I was a sanctuary of lilies,

crushed before the bloom,

a jasmine bruised by shadows,

an innocent violet forced into stone.

Their voices were storms,

their laughter-chains of iron,

and I, too petite to fight,

learned the language of fear.

Yet within me, a sunflower spark

refusing to give up its soul,

rooted itself deeper,

drinking light even from darkness,

whispering: you are more than their hands,

you are more than their cruelty.

So I rose, piece by piece,

a wounded Rose of Venus,

crowned not by shame,

but by the fire of endurance.

Where they carved burning scars,

I carved flourishing constellations.

Where they plucked petals,

I grew wings of lavender and flame.

Now my voice is the garden restored:

not silent,

not broken,

but alive

a testament that innocence stolen

is not innocence lost,

that even from the deepest, darkest wound,

a sunflower can rise

and teach the world

what it means

to see, to feel,

and yet not become a shadow itself.

Sub clar de luna amară,

Am să-ți cânt despre o primăvară,

Primăvară prinsă într-o buclă atemporală,

Încețoșată buclă într-o clepsidră neclară.

Primul boboc blajin de liliac,

Tras fin ca printr-un microscopic ac,

Crescut la umbra unui nuc posac,

Vioi se grăbea deja să fie pe plac.

Îmbăiat în mireasmă, se dorea să pară,

Desprins forțat dintr-o lume bizară,

Să-și deschidă petalele se ruga seară de seară,

Visând la lumea mare ce îl înconjoară

Amorul pândea să iasă la atac;

Propria-i esență urma să îi vină de hac,

Neştiind că mai bine de un veac

Pasiunea ce o va purta nu va avea leac.

Cei dintâi muguri sfioși cedară

La un încordat ceas de seară,

Și-n astfel de clipe scântei se creară,

Căci în grădină emoțiile aveau să apară.

Pentru regat, iubirea părea a fi un fleac,

Dar nu și pentru noul june liliac.

Văzând cum grațioasele magnolii zac,

Fulgerător, cu un gând trecu la atac.

Și, dacă nu ar fi fost să piară

Această dragoste pură și rară,

Probabil s-ar mai fi dat sfară-n țară

Despre nemaivăzuta uniune cardinală

I am just a cub,

Alone in a garden of flowers.

And as much as I delight in being seen by others,

Ilong, with all my being, to finally know myself.

As the world pauses to take a breath,

I press forward with quiet courage.

Freedom unfurls its petals within me,

Opening in this very moment.

So I take the leap of faith, and jump.

At the beginning of that journey,

The garden feels as though it tears my flesh apart

A disturbingly pleasant sensation,

For I have walked among these realms before,

Before I even knew how to shape sound with my voice.

Without rushing,

Without making the water tremble,

The conscious mind gives way,

Leaving space for the adventure to blossom.

So it begins.

The traveler's portal opens its radiant chest,

And the cub passes through.

From that realm of truth, I drift back in time,

Peering through binoculars at ancient predators,

Studying their movements,

Tracing them like vines across memory.

Once, the creatures noticed my gaze

And though they attacked,

I escaped With only a scratch on my paw,

A scar like a thorn's kiss.

I return to the present garden,

But the traveler aches for more.

And so, it begins again.

The next realm blooms in Atlantis.

The cub now breathes beneath sapphire waters,

Transformed into a creature of the deep,

A flower of the ocean's secret garden.

I drift among coral columns and temple ruins,

Their stories flowing into me

Like nectar through a stem.

My touch gathers their forgotten whispers,

Petal by petal, memory by memory.

At last, the fuel of wonder fades,

And the traveler must return.

The garden door calls softly,

Its blossoms swaying in welcome.

I leap once more,

And with gratitude,

reality gathers me gently

Back into its fragrant arms.

He never touched you.

Yet you linger in him

like the scent of damask rose in forgotten temples,

or the shadow of lotus petals

pressed between the pages of a life unlived.

You weren't given,

nor claimed,

but you remain

as Persephone remains between two worlds,

half spring, half surrender.

He sees you

in the gold-threaded robes of Isis,

mother of the hidden,

protector of what cannot be possessed.

You, soft as jasmine at dusk,

yet dangerous as the bloom of belladonna,

a beauty he could never hold

without trembling.

His logic is iron.

His mind, a fortress.

Yet inside,

you bloom like Freyja's garden in Asgard

wild, untamed,

known only to the gods and the ghosts

of those who once dared to love.

He remembers you

in the absence of touch

how your voice would've sounded

saying his name.

Not as a woman made of earth,

but like Aphrodite rising from seafoam,

untouchable and immortal in her effect.

He walks through the world

wearing your memory

like a garland of hyacinths—

invisible,

but fragrant enough

to undo his certainty.

He calls your name in thought

only when Hermes isn't listening.

Because you were not a prayer

you were the echo of something already sacred.

You are not his.

You were never his.

But in the sacred ache

between Odin's wisdom and Hades' restraint,

he worships what he cannot claim.

And so you became

his unseen Nemesis

not to punish,

but to remind him

that even gods must kneel

before something they cannot keep.

You are the iris that opens at midnight,

the secret grove behind his ribs,

where he returns not for peace

but to remember what almost was.

You are his

without being.

Dear gentle reader,

Beneath the pale moonlight,

I have entered your dreams

and whispered softly

the legend of soul ties.

Slowly, you step beside me.

Hungry eyes gather in the distance.

The reality swallowing us whole

is nothing but a forgotten battlefield.

Your razor-sharp gaze is captured.

There, among dozens of rotting corpses,

stand two figures suspended in silence,

like the final pillars of a fallen temple.

The first— a broken priest.

Wounded, endlessly praying,

his trembling hands, his crooked fingers,

still searching for a fragment of mercy.

The second— a gentle demon.

Waves of warmth orbit around her.

Her sapphire eyes remain fixed upon the horizon,

calmly gazing into the endless dark.

You see them, don't you?

Remain still.

Obedience is the key.

Watch closely,

for what you are about to witness

will unsettle the deepest parts of your soul.

She senses the priest's sorrow

rising above the dead surrounding him.

His misery speaks louder than words.

"Take my hand," she whispers.

"Drink from my waters.

You have exhausted your strength

for far too long."

"My fair lady... my endless cup of hope...

How could a poor soul like mine

ever deserve to reach you?"

Like distant constellations,

their paths collide.

He drinks fiercely from the source of her light,

while she willingly holds him close,

believing compassion alone

can heal what time could not.

"How can this be?

Have I become blind

or simply mad?"

"Silence.

Ask yourself what you're truly seeing.

The truth stands before us.

It is only hidden

from those unwilling to look."

What feels like thousands of years pass.

The priest and the demon

begin studying one another.

One— cold as forged steel,

calculating,

entirely ruled by the mind.

The other— guided by razor-sharp intuition,

profound empathy,

and quiet emotional wisdom.

Again and again,

the priest manipulates, betrays, wounds,

engraving new scars into her soul.

Again and again,

the demon forgives.

Once. Twice.

Until—

something clicks.

The pattern reveals itself.

The spell dissolves.

She stands perfectly still,

frozen in time, calculating,

without anger, without reaction.

Holding every advantage,

she prepares her departure

in absolute silence.

She could have struck him down.

She could have carved wounds

deeper than those he had ever known.

But she finally understands.

This is no wounded soul.

This is a predator.

Her sapphire eyes become crystal clear.

And then—

she goes supernova.

The script shatters.

The roles reverse.

For the first time,

the priest chokes on fear.

He was clever.

Subtle as a serpent.

Yet painfully predictable.

She had always seen beyond the mask.

She understood him

better than he understood himself.

For the depth of her empathy

could only exist

because it mirrored

the depth of her own darkness.

And his downfall

would become far worse than hell.

"He searched for golden nectar,

yet stumbled upon an unknown creature."

The dead begin to vanish,

laughing into the wind.

The battlefield collapses

into an endless abyss,

opening its ancient mouth.

"Poor little priest...

At last,

you have shaken hands

with your karmic mirror."

N-am inspirație, ci aspirație,

Vreau să trăiesc,

Vreau să incep să iubesc,

Mor încet, și nu-i bine,

Nu știu dacă mai apuc ziua de mâine.

Aceași zi, aceleași fețe,

Nu prea pare să-mi mai pese.

Suntem goi pe dinăuntru,

Și respingem un adevăr sumbru.

Nu mai știm să iubim,

Amărăciunea ne-o întărim.

Viața ne trece prin fața ochilor, 

Acest adevăr noi incercam să-l ocolim.

Ține minte cât mai poți,

Regretele sunt pentru morți...

Îmi doresc să plec undeva departe de tot,

Nu vreau să rămân în viață cu sufletul mort,

Vreau să-mi demonstrez mie că și singur pot 

Să fiu fericit chiar dacă-n viață n-am niciun scop

Nu tânjesc după succes sau după lucruri materiale 

Toate astea sunt ca un trandafir rămas fără petale

N-au pic de frumusețe pentru mine, ști destul de bine...

Tot ce-mi doresc în viață e legat cumva de tine,

Tu ești tot ce-mi doresc, ești "totul" după care tânjesc

Tu ești tot ce visez, de asta delirez, de asta greșesc.

În fiecare zi, în fiecare clipă doar la tine mă gândesc,

Am s-o fac mereu, n-am să m-opresc nici dacă-nebunesc.

În prima strofă am mințit, tu ești al meu scop, 

Fără tine nu pot fi fericit, fără tine-s pe deplin mort

Oferă-mi din râul iubiri tale măcar un singur strop

Ș-am să-ți ofel din al meu un întreg potop.....

Oferă-mi din timpul tău măcar câteva clipe,

Măcar o dată să fac parte din ale tale vise 

Măcar o dată să mai aud că-mi zici că mă dorești 

Pentru o ultimă dată să simt că mă iubești.....

De veacuri stau pe turnul vechi
Și bat cu glas de plâns domol,
Sub mine curg aceleași vieți
Și se întorc în același gol.

M-au plămădit din foc și dor
Bărbați cu frunți de humă grea,
Și mi-au lăsat în pieptul gros
Povara lumii, inima mea.

Eu am chemat întâiul plâns
Când pruncii s-au ivit în sat,
Și-am spus cu glas de dimineață
Că omul nou s-a întrupat.

Am cununat cu sunet sfânt
Iubiri ce-au ars sub cer senin,
Dar am bătut și pentru-acei
Ce s-au jurat și n-au fost plini.

La morți cobor cu pas adânc
Și glasul mi se face greu,
Atunci nu mai sunt clopot vechi,
Sunt frate mut cu Dumnezeu.

Am plâns bătrâni, am plâns copii,
Și-am dus pe umeri neamul tot,
N-am judecat, n-am întrebat,
Doar am sunat, ca un proroc.

Când satul a rămas pustiu
Și credința s-a făcut subțire,
Eu am bătut chiar și atunci
Când nimeni nu mai știa de mine.

Și va veni o seară grea
Când nu m-or mai putea trage,
Atunci voi bate singur, jos,
În pieptul meu de bronz și jale.

Iar când va fi să tac de tot
Și turnul gol va sta-n uitare,
Să știe cerul ce-am fost jos:
O inimă ce-a bătut prea tare.

Primăvara, cu sufletul vibrând,

Fericirea o așteptăm visând,

Iar în toamnă, când speranțe mor,

Ne rămâne un nor,

Așteptăm cu toții în zadar

Fericiri ce nu mai vin,

Legănând doar un vis fugar

Noaptea pururi cer senin,

Ne avântăm cu un dor nebun spre paradis,

Dar în cor vedem că tot a fost un vis.

Așteptăm cu toții în zadar

Fericiri ce ne ocolesc

Și în suflet se cern amar

Gânduri ce ne amăgesc,

În zadar vom implora,

În zadar vom aștepta

Fericiri ce tot dorim,

Atât nu mai vin!

Așteptăm cu toții în zadar

Fericiri ce ne ocolesc

Și în suflet se cern amar

Gânduri ce ne amăgesc,

În zadar vom implora,

În zadar vom aștepta

Fericiri ce atât dorim

Atât nu mai vin!

Keväällä sielun värähteleessä,

Odotamme onnea unelmoimalla,

Ja syksyllä, kun toivot kuolevat,

Meillä on pilvi jäljellä,

Me kaikki odotamme turhaan

Onni, joka ei koskaan toistu,

Kehto vain ohikiitävä unelma

Yöllä taivas on aina kirkas,

Liidämme hullun kaipuun paratiisiin,

Mutta kuorossa näemme, että se oli silti unta.

Me kaikki odotamme turhaan

Onni, joka karkaa meidät

Ja sielussaan ne seulovat katkerasti

Ajatukset, jotka pettävät meitä,

Turhaan me anomme,

Odotamme turhaan

Onnea, jota aina haluamme,

En tule enää!

Me kaikki odotamme turhaan

Onni, joka karkaa meidät

Ja sielussaan ne seulovat katkerasti

Ajatukset, jotka pettävät meitä,

Turhaan me anomme,

Odotamme turhaan

Onnea haluamme niin paljon

En tule enää!

Mi-au inflorit ghiocei în suflet,

Cândva era de tot îngheţat

Azi nu mă mai recunosc asa bine.

Ce să vezi acele momente negre  din mine - Au plecat

Pe ulița copilăriei alergam prin colb

Cu o plutire lină și plină de visare,

La supărări, necazuri eram surd și orb

Și priveam doar spre-a viitorului chemare...

Copil eram și jocu-mi-era frate

Copii erau cu toții parc-atunci.

Unde sunteți voi, suflete curate?

V-ați risipit în negurile-adânci...