Justin Hatchett: Inner Circle.

26/08/2026

Real Love - Justin Hatchett

26/08/2026

Evidence To Be Proud of - Justin Hatchett

19/11/2025

suspended animation.

I am
less now.
Not in the dramatic, blood-on-the-tiles kind of way—
just quieter.
Like a house after a fire
that somehow still stands,
charred beams holding up the memory of a ceiling
that once held stars.

She was
the beginning.
The girl with thunder in her smile
and sunlight in her walk,
the kind of laugh that cracked the sky
and made the world remember color.
When she spoke,
even broken things stood still,
just to listen.
Even me.

She said things like
“one day,”
and I believed her.
Believed in her mouth full of maybes
like they were gospel.
She dreamed in blueprints,
and I—
I would’ve laid my bones down as foundation.
Just to see her build.

But now,
the air is heavier where she isn’t.
My chest forgets how to rise
in the rooms she never entered,
and still somehow haunted.
Even her absence
has weight.
I carry it in the soft collapse of mornings,
in the corners of my bed
where her ghost curls up
and pretends not to notice I'm crying.

She was the first.
The first real love.
Not a crush, not a phase—
a cataclysm.
The kind of love that remakes you,
and then leaves
with the blueprints.

Now,
I build nothing.
Not poems.
Not futures.
Not even excuses.

Just
stand here,
splintered.
Trying to forget.
Trying to forget.
Trying to forget.

Trying to remember
the sound of laughter
that once taught me
what tomorrow
was supposed to feel like.

I'm sorry.

04/09/2025

03/09/2025

I kinda hope we meet again.

I hope we meet again.
not in some clean cafe with polite smiles
but in a street that smells like smoke and spilled b**r,
where the night presses against our ribs
and reminds us we were always half-broken.

I hope I’m better to you
though I’ve been a fool,
though my hands still tremble with old mistakes.
And you—
I hope you don’t carry the same knives
you once buried in my back.

I hope time softens us
without pretending it can erase the scars.
I hope it teaches us
that some things bleed forever,
and some things
only look like death.

I hope us,
you and me,
are not just drunk ghosts
wandering past each other
in another lifetime,
but a brutal, stubborn heartbeat
that somehow survives
the wreckage we made.

And maybe, if we’re unlucky enough
to meet again,
it won’t be perfect—
it’ll be ugly and raw and honest,
and that,
maybe,
we'll be good to each other.

28/07/2025

21/07/2025

What I Imagine Love Might Feel Like

I imagine love feels like
standing barefoot in wet grass
at 3 a.m. —
the moon’s silver apology
spilling across your shoulders
as if the universe itself
is sorry you’ve waited this long.

It’s probably like the first inhale
after a panic attack.
Like remembering
you have lungs.
Like finally breathing —
but softer.
Calmer.
Like the air now tastes like trust.

I imagine it’s not fireworks,
but the silence after.
Not earthquakes,
but the steady ground beneath someone’s voice
when they say your name
like it’s worth something.
Like you’re worth something.

Love might feel
like someone laughing at your worst joke
and meaning it.
Like the kind of honesty
that doesn’t bruise.
Like hands —
not taking,
but holding.
And holding.

I imagine love feels like
learning a language
without anyone teaching you.
Suddenly understanding
the shape of "stay."
The grammar of "I’m here."
The quiet verb in "us."

It’s probably not perfect.
Not clean.
Not a polished stone,
but the river that smooths it over time.
I think love is effort.
It’s tripping over your own scars
and still choosing to walk forward.
It’s building a home
out of mismatched memories
and calling it sanctuary anyway.

I imagine love feels like
someone telling you,
without needing to say it,
that your heart
doesn’t have to audition anymore.

And maybe —
maybe I'm enough,
maybe you're enough,
and, together,
we are enough.

20/07/2025

Better Without You

I used to think forgetting you
would feel like betrayal.
Like cutting out a part of myself
just to stop the ache.

But it’s not like that.
It’s quieter.
Simpler.

One morning, I woke up
and your name wasn’t the first thing in my head.
I didn’t notice until later.
And when I did—
I smiled.

I’m better without you.
Not because you broke me.
Not because you were poison,
or cruel,
or wrong for me.

I’m better without you
because I had to be.

Because standing still
felt like loving you wrong.

You’re still here, though.
In the songs I don’t skip anymore.
In the smell of rain after too many dry months.
In the way I forgive people faster now.

You taught me that.
I’ll always give you that.

But I’m learning to breathe without calling it loneliness.
I’m learning to laugh
without it catching in my throat,
without needing to tell you why.

I’m better without you.
Not because I’ve forgotten.
But because I’ve let go.

And somehow,
you’re still in the letting go.
Somehow,
I carry you without dragging you behind me.

And that’s some form of love too,
I think.
The kind that stays
even after goodbye.

13/07/2025

suspended animation.

I am
less now.
Not in the dramatic, blood-on-the-tiles kind of way—
just quieter.
Like a house after a fire
that somehow still stands,
charred beams holding up the memory of a ceiling
that once held stars.

She was
the beginning.
The girl with thunder in her smile
and sunlight in her walk,
the kind of laugh that cracked the sky
and made the world remember color.
When she spoke,
even broken things stood still,
just to listen.
Even me.

She said things like
“one day,”
and I believed her.
Believed in her mouth full of maybes
like they were gospel.
She dreamed in blueprints,
and I—
I would’ve laid my bones down as foundation.
Just to see her build.

But now,
the air is heavier where she isn’t.
My chest forgets how to rise
in the rooms she never entered,
and still somehow haunted.
Even her absence
has weight.
I carry it in the soft collapse of mornings,
in the corners of my bed
where her ghost curls up
and pretends not to notice I'm crying.

She was the first.
The first real love.
Not a crush, not a phase—
a cataclysm.
The kind of love that remakes you,
and then leaves
with the blueprints.

Now,
I build nothing.
Not poems.
Not futures.
Not even excuses.

Just
stand here,
splintered.
Trying to forget.
Trying to forget.
Trying to forget.

Trying to remember
the sound of laughter
that once taught me
what tomorrow
was supposed to feel like.

I'm sorry Sam.

02/06/2025

Side Effects May Include - Chapter 2

Charlie woke up with a post-toast hangover and a stranger in his kitchen stealing his last spoon of peanut butter like it was reparations.

Eva wore nothing but his shirt and the smug satisfaction of someone who knew where he kept his anxiety meds and judged his taste in cereal.

“You own three kinds of granola and not a single bowl,” she said, leaning on the counter like a war crime in progress.

“I like variety,” he muttered, face half-buried in a throw pillow that smelled like sleep deprivation and old dreams.

“Variety isn’t three types of disappointment.”

Charlie groaned. “You’re very judgmental for someone who drank cough syrup out of a w**e glass last night.”

“That was ambiance.”

She tossed him a hoodie like it was a peace treaty. He caught it with the grace of a man who'd fought wars in his head and lost most of them.

By 10 a.m., they were wandering a bookstore that smelled like ambition and mildew. Eva judged books by their covers. Charlie judged her for it. Then bought her three.

“Did you just try to flirt with retail therapy?” she asked.

“I’m a psychologist. That is therapy.”

They had pancakes for lunch at a diner called Breakfast and Regret. The waitress called Charlie “honey” like it was a threat.

Eva doodled spirals on a napkin while he told her about a patient who believed aliens were stealing his dreams. He didn’t mention he sometimes envied the idea. At least aliens wanted something from him.

“Do you believe in aliens?” she asked, sipping her coffee like it might tell her secrets.

“I believe in people needing something to believe in.”

“Safe answer.”

“Occupational hazard.”

She didn’t press. Just smiled in that way that made Charlie feel like a confession waiting to happen.

Back at his office, Charlie found a pigeon sitting on the arm of his therapy couch. Just... sitting. Like it had an appointment.

“What the hell?” he whispered.

Eva followed behind, still chewing gum like she was judging reality and finding it lacking.

“Oh good,” she said. “You’ve got a feathery intern now.”

Charlie approached the bird carefully. It didn’t flinch. Just tilted its head like it was diagnosing him.

There was a note tied to its leg. An actual note. On parchment, no less.

He unrolled it.

“You’ve been found. Don’t run again. We need your mind intact this time.”

Eva read it over his shoulder. “That your fan mail?”

Charlie didn’t answer.

The pigeon cooed like it knew something he didn’t.

And somewhere in the back of his skull — where memory lived in shadows and side effects — something clicked.

Something old.

Something he'd buried under Freud, wh***ey, and just enough kindness to pass as functional.

Eva looked at him sideways. “Charlie?”

But he was already staring at the bird like it had unlocked a door he didn’t remember locking.

The couch creaked. The lamp buzzed.

And Charlie realized something terrifying:

He wasn’t the only prophet.

And this time, he might be the prophecy.