A Heart Of Ink

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A Heart Of Ink Hello dear reader, thanks for lending your time,
i offer these my words sincere with flowing rhyme. Together we will rise, and together we will change.

So if you will, and you feel the same,
share in the joy, the thrill, the flame.

09/22/2026

Why Make joy suffer?

When you see me smiling, with joy in my eyes,
Go on—shatter the feeling, let happiness die.
For it took me an age just to dare to begin,
To step from the shadows and wander again.
To walk through the world, to attempt to belong,
To laugh with a stranger, to feel I was strong.
Yet w**e found my face where my laughter had spilt,
And joy turned to sorrow, regret took its guilt.
Understanding was never a friend at my door,
It waits in the silence, then asks me for more.
So foolishly hopeful, I venture outside,
Believing perhaps I could leave pain behind.
For a moment, I think that the night has grown kind,
That perhaps I have found those I've long sought to find.
A table, some laughter, a place to belong—
A fleeting illusion that nothing is wrong.
Then suddenly—chaos, as if storms took the sky,
The warmth becomes ashes; the laughter must die.
What once felt like shelter is twisted and torn,
And I stand in the wreckage, bewildered, forlorn.
Was I foolish to think I could finally stay?
Was I stupid for reaching beyond yesterday?
Or does every hand that I reach for in trust
Eventually turn what was living to dust?
So here comes the darkness, familiar once more,
Dragging its chains through the cracks in the door.
The smile that you saw was not proof I was whole—
It was merely the mask of a tired, hoping soul.
And perhaps that is cruelest of all that I know:
To finally believe I have somewhere to go,
Only to watch it collapse when I dare to draw near—
And be left with the monster I fear in the mirror.

By Dustin West

08/01/2026

We talk about the humorous contrast between the simple four-step gu...

06/02/2026

The Echo of Old Wounds

By Dustin West

Some scars don't bleed—they echo still,
Through hollow halls no time can fill.
Sanguine memories dry with years,
Yet stain the soul through endless tears.
They say that time will mend the break,
And calm the anguish hearts must take.
Yet every season drifts the same,
A colder ash, a dimmer flame.
The wound no longer cries aloud,
It hides beneath a funeral shroud.
But in the silence of the night,
It stirs again beyond my sight.
For grief is not a thing that dies,
It only learns a new disguise.
A phantom hand, a whispered breath,
A love imprisoned still in death.
I've watched the years like ravens pass,
Their shadows dark upon the glass.
Each promised healing proved untrue,
For every road returned to you.
The world moved on with careless grace,
While sorrow kept your vacant place.
And though the seasons turned above,
They could not resurrect my love.
Now happiness appears a ghost,
A distant shore forever lost.
Its lantern fades beyond the foam,
While grief remains the heart's true home.
Some scars don't bleed—they echo on,
Long after all the light has gone.
For when a heart has truly died,
No hand of time can turn the tide.

05/31/2026

The Quiet Theft
By Dustin West

I drank until the hurt grew sweet,
A bitter balm I longed to meet.
Until the bottle knew my name,
And whispered comfort through my shame.
Until the poison felt like peace,
And all my inward wars did cease.
Until the silence hushed its cries,
And drew dark velvet o'er my eyes.
Until my soul went wandering far,
Beyond the reach of any star.
Until the echoes learned my name,
And every wound became the same.
Until the darkness held me close,
More tender than the hearts I chose.
Until the night began to bloom,
Like blackened roses in my room.
Until the mirror lost my face,
And left behind an empty place.
Until the years were spilled like w**e,
And every fault was rendered mine.
Until regret grew soft and deep,
A lullaby to carry sleep.
Until the cries and echoes died,
And every bond was left untied.
I reached for what remained at last,
And found the dust of all I'd passed.
For every drink that dulled the ache,
Left wounds no numbness yet could shake.
Until at last the bottle dried,
The hollow I could no longer hide.
Until I met my former shade,
Among the ruins I had made.
I searched the dark for what I'd lost,
And counted well the bitter cost.
For deep beneath that drowning tide,
The self I thought had fled still cried.
Until the liquid claimed my mind,
And left all reason far behind.
I searched the void for sweet retreat,
And heard my demons' footsteps meet.
They gathered where the shadows crept,
Among the tears I never wept.
And as the final drop ran dry,
I learned that they could never die.

A warning this is to all those in pain.
Don't forget to live, death just isnt the same.

05/25/2026

When senses refuse the grave

By Dustin West

I see your smile within the morn’s pale sun,
Hear your whisper drift through dying trees.
Still haunted by the things that I have done,
As sorrow’s veil falls down like autumn leaves.
I feel your phantom hand upon my cheek
When twilight drapes the heavens cold and gray,
Your lips upon my brow—so frail, so weak—
Like fading warmth that night has stolen away.
Then slumber steals the corners of my mind,
And all I was dissolves beneath the gloom.
The truths I swore eternal grow confined,
Like wilted roses scattered through a tomb.
Yet still my senses kneel before your shade,
As though the soul itself cannot let go.
Within the rain I hear the vows we made,
Each silver drop a voice from long ago.
The candle’s flame bends softly when you pass,
Its trembling light adores your vanished face.
I see your outline mirrored in the glass,
Then watch the darkness drink the fleeting trace.
The wind becomes your breathing in the hall,
A hush that steals beneath the weathered door.
At times I turn, convinced you softly call,
And stand there listening… wanting nothing more.
Your memory clings like perfume to the air,
A ghostly sweetness age cannot erase.
I feel you in the silence everywhere,
A sacred sorrow time cannot displace.
The ravens cry with voices shaped like yours,
The ocean groans your name beneath the tide.
Even the old and splintering wooden floors
Still seem to wake when phantom steps collide.
And when the moonlight floods my chamber bare,
It paints your shadow where you used to lie.
I reach with trembling hands and find no one there,
Yet still my heart believes the cruelest lie.
For every sense betrays me in your wake—
My eyes, my skin, my ears, my restless breath.
The world itself bends inward for your sake,
And keeps you living even now in death.
So I remain ensnared within your flame,
A man half-lost to memory and ache,
Still hearing heaven whispering your name
In every sound the sleepless midnight makes.

05/19/2026

Star light and rain drops
By Dustin west

Beneath the weeping vault of night, I stand in silent sin,
Where rain begins its endless rite and pulls the darkness in.
Each droplet falls like judgment carved in heaven’s patient hand,
And drags the stain of mortal weight back into shifting sand.
The sky is bruised with ancient grief, unspoken, vast, and deep,
A thousand buried wrongs awake from where they learned to sleep.
No voice is here but thunder’s breath that groans through hollow air,
As if the world confesses all it never chose to bear.
And I am less a man than ash still clinging to the flame,
Unmade by all I have become, yet called by no true name.
Above me burn the twilight stars like relics cold and white,
The echoes of forgotten souls dissolved into the night.
They watch in endless, distant calm, no anger left to give,
As if they once endured this weight and learned the way to live.
And in their gaze I feel the truth no language can contain—
That cleansing is not mercy born, but suffering made plain.
So let the storm descend in full, unbound and unrestrained,
And strip away the rot I wore, the silence, and the stain.
Let lightning carve the marrow clean, let wind erase my form,
Till nothing but a hollow truth remains deep within the storm.
For every drop that breaks the dark and falls through star-lit fire,
Unthreads the chains I wore in life, dissolving each desire.
No plea remains, no need for name, no burden left to keep,
Just rain that writes upon my soul what time refused to keep.
And still the night goes deeper than the reach of waking thought,
Where all the sins I thought were mine are slowly being un-taught.
The storm becomes a scripture writ in water, ash, and flame,
Erasing every lie I wore, unmaking every name.
I feel the weightless hollow form where guilt once held its reign,
A silence born not from escape, but forged entirely in pain.
The stars no longer feel like watchers, distant and removed,
But fragments of the same vast wound through which I once was proved.
And in that wound I see the shape of everything I was—
A passing shadow, briefly held, then lost without a cause.
Yet still I stand within the roar, within the breaking sky,
Where even sorrow learns to fade, and even pain must die.
So let it come, the final wash, the endless breaking sea,
Until the storm has stripped the world of everything but me—
No “me” that clings to shame or fear, no fractured self to claim,
Just something quieter than breath, unbound from guilt or name.
And in that vast, collapsing hush where all illusions cease,
The rain becomes the only law… and silence becomes peace.

05/18/2026

Why I write
By Dustin west

Writing these grim verses is my only release,
My ink and quill—the cure to my decay.
I feel the fever of madness decrease,
As haunted strokes drag darker thoughts away.
The parchment listens where no soul would dare,
It drinks the horrors festering in my head.
Each trembling line exhales a grim despair,
And bleeds the ghosts that would have left me dead.
For when midnight claws at the gates of my mind,
And shadows gather thick beneath the flame,
I flee to the candle where solace I find,
Whilst nameless phantoms whisper out my name.
Thus I write though my weary soul may break,
Like ravens circling ruins cold and gray.
For the ink consumes each sorrow left awake,
And keeps the howling darkness locked away.
And this is why my words are always dressed in grief,
For every syllable is carved from what I’ve known.
It is not absence of hope, but borrowed relief,
From fires that taught my heart to beat alone.
Each poem is a wound that learned to speak,
A trembling echo of what I cannot confine.
Not weakness in the voice that sounds so bleak,
But truth too heavy for a softer line.
So if my verses linger where sorrow remains,
It is only passion refusing to be still.
For beauty is often forged in its pains,
And even broken ink can bend to its will.

04/23/2026

Embers of Home

by Dustin West

It finds me in a trance as it whispers through the trees,
A phantom hand that brushes past and steals the breath from me.
Those voices once my hearth and home now drift beyond my sight,
Not buried deep in death’s embrace, but lost to living light.
I see the smiles they once had worn, like dawns now turned to grey,
They flicker through my hollow dreams, then slowly slip away.
Their warmth that once had sheltered me now lingers, cold and thin,
A dying glow that clings to ash where fire had once been.
Yet deep within that smoldered dark, a spark denies decay,
It swells against the hollow night and will not drift away.
And though they breathe beneath this sky, beyond my grasp, my view,
I’ll chase that light through dream and flame until it burns me through.
For if this world would keep us torn by fate I can’t undo,
Then I will build a brighter one… where I return to you.

04/09/2026

“I Mend, Then Fade”
By Dustin west
I was never meant to linger—nor the first, nor final flame,
A borrowed breath in passing hearts, forgotten ere a name.
A stepping stone through storm-torn souls, where broken spirits tread,
They rise restored by what I gave… then leave me with the dead.
I bind their wounds with borrowed warmth, I bleed what they conceal,
Yet once they stand, they turn away—unburdened, whole, and real.
And I remain where shadows cling, where silence gnaws the core,
A whispered truth within the dark—you are not chosen anymore.
Each echo drips from hollow walls, each step a slow decay,
A thousand almosts haunt my chest—then fade and drift away.
I’ve learned the language absence speaks, the dialect of loss,
Where love is but a fleeting ghost—and I its quiet cost.
They take the light I fought to keep, they wear it as their own,
Then cast me to the starving dusk… a relic overthrown.
No hand remains, no voice returns, no soul has kept me sworn,
For I was always meant to mend—and never to be mourned.
Oh cruel design of cursed intent, to give yet not receive,
To plant the seed, to tend the bloom… then watch the garden leave.
A vessel forged for others’ pain, a harbor none will claim,
A fleeting warmth in passing lives—forgotten all the same.
And still I ache—though reason screams no fate will break this role,
For hope itself’s a vulture thin that circles round my soul.
It whispers low in poisoned breath of something just once true—
A single soul who dares remain… who does not pass me through.
Yet every time I reach for it, it crumbles into air,
A dying echo, thin and faint… dissolving into despair.

04/08/2026

Fault was mine
By Dustin west

It was not she who turned away,
No shadow cast, no cold display,
No quiet fault that led astray—
It was my mind that broke the day.
It was my hand… it was my mind.
No fault was hers, no hidden blade,
No subtle wound, no trap she laid,
She stood in light that did not fade—
While I let darker things invade.
It was my hand… it was my mind.
A whisper stirred beneath my skin,
A restless pulse that drew me in,
It spoke of loss, of lurking sin—
Till love felt frail… and fear would win.
It was my hand… it was my mind.
I felt it rise, I fed it breath,
Turned gentle warmth to thoughts of death,
Each word I spoke betrayed the rest—
Till all I touched could find no rest.
It was my hand… it was my mind.
Too sharp my tongue, too fierce my plea,
Too much of all I let her see,
No soul should bear that storm from me—
No heart should hold such cruelty.
It was my hand… it was my mind.
She did not leave for lack of care,
Nor from some wound she placed there,
But from the weight I made her bear—
A fire no love was meant to share.
It was my hand… it was my mind.
And God… I saw it as it grew,
I felt the change, I knew, I knew—
Yet still the storm within me blew,
And drowned the only thing still true.
It was my hand… it was my mind.
Now silence sits where warmth once stayed,
A hollow echo, love betrayed,
I walk alone through what I made—
A ruin where her light once played.
It was my hand… it was my mind.
If ever light should find me still,
Soft as before, against my will,
I would not trust my heart to fill—
For fear my darkness lingers still.
It was my hand… it was my mind.
So let this truth in rhythm bind,
A tolling bell I cannot blind—
Not fate, nor her, nor some design…
It was my hand.
It was my mind.

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Jacksonville, IL
62510

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