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Nichole Johnson

@nicholejohnson.bsky.social

113 followers 78 following 271 posts

Writer, gamer, sassy pants

Posts Replies Media

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 20h

#Poetry #Poem #Ballad

Discarded on a Dusty Shelf

A ragdoll girl
With a clockwork heart
Is picking at seams
While she waits in the dark.

Each tick a rip,
And each tock a tear—
She unravels her flesh,
Then yanks at her hair.

What could be left
When her waiting is done?
Just two button eyes,
And a pile of fluff.

Will you miss the humming
She kept in her ribs?
No clockwork to guide you
To where she once lived.

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

#Poetry #LovePoem #Poem #Ballad

Sleeveless

Stupid girl
With her heart in her teeth.
Her voice tastes like pennies,
Yet sticky and sweet.

He kisses her bruises,
His tongue in her throat—
But ignores her swallowing
Sonnets she wrote.

She's choking on daydreams
She'd scrawled in the air,
While she grapples with memories
That weren’t really there.

She sinks back into silence,
Safe from her grief—
The cruel stupid girl
With her heart in her teeth.

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

#Poetry #LovePoem #Poem

With a Whimper

I’d hope to see it end with fire,
To absorb the flames,
Then taste desire.

Like there was a war
Between our ribs—
The quiet beats where fire lives.

Yet your lips drip pools of ice—
Served and swallowed
With hollow eyes.

Now in your gaze I see our death—
No bang is heard,
Just icy breath.

000

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Conch Shells Let me listen To the ocean behind your sternum— Ear held to your ribcage, Your fingers curling in my hair. I could drown there. #Poetry #LovePoem #Poem

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

ko-fi.com/post/Writing... #Poetry #LovePoem #Poem #WritingPromptWednesday

...I alone was a dream, a figment which had never really touched anything. I felt that I was not, never had been and never would be a living part of this overpoweringly solid and deeply meaningful world around me.

—John Knowles

Strings

Oh, steadfast Apollo,
Marble skin drinking the sun—
And I, existing in the shadows
Cast only in the places
You escape the light.

You stand solid—
Where eyes perceive your edges,
Each year tracing another line.
While I dance through the dust,
Particles drifting at your feet.

And you have tasted me,
That lingering salt upon your tongue—
But failed to hold my definition,
Swallowing me instead…
Yet finding no nourishment.

Still I dream
To one day be made a lyre—
Then hear you sing
Of how I had lived inside the sun
And already kissed your skin.

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Pros and Cons

You've begun measuring value
In second hands
Instead of calendar days—
But you still look forward
To trick or treat and Christmas carols.

Mirrors hold distorted Polaroids,
Capturing you in silver—
And you wonder if that is even your face,
Or if the creases are speaking in prayer.

Still—

You keep a new face in a jar,
Thinking you can paint a smile
Where salt has scrubbed away your make-up.

And maybe—
Just maybe,
That second you keep stretching for,
Isn’t collapsing into miles.
Maybe
It's candy wrappers and packing paper,
Lipstick and cotton sheets.

Maybe—
It’s one more full moon,
One more ferris wheel ride,
One more kiss under the mistletoe.

And you may begin to measure value
In reasons instead of regrets,
In calendar days instead of second hands—
Filling in columns
Like postcards to your future self.

Hopefully,
They will be there to read them.

000

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Musicality

Cadence is a rectangle
And meter is a square—
Though they share an angle,
They needn’t be a pair.

While meter is a heartbeat,
Cadence is a flow—
One is footsteps on a sidewalk,
The other can move both quick…

Then slow.

Slower—
Wandering down an open road.
Crickets whispering their own songs
From underbrush—
Writing their own poetry.

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

what good is always?

you left in inches.

words fled your body
like gas from a punctured tank.

each morning,
your chair moved closer
to the crack under the door.

yet this room
still holds your shadow.

it dances through thresholds,
and whispers my name.
it even wears your face,

smiling—
through an upside-down mouth.

watching
the cracks in doorways.

i think
it is addicted
to the storm in my eyes.

000

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

#Seasons #Poetry #LovePoem #Poem #Villanelle What will fall bring?

Looking For Spring Thaw
I think you loved me in October—
Before the winter made us harsh.
But now I fear fall days are over.

I felt our evenings growing colder
While my flame burned within your hearth—
I think you loved me in October.

And we let dying embers linger,
Casting fireflies in the dark.
But now I fear fall days are over.

Then the shadows deepened further,
As their coldness drew a mark—
I think you loved me in October?

I heard winter crack like thunder,
Still craving autumn's vanished warmth—
But now I fear fall days are over.

I still see in you a lover—
A shelter rocked against my storm…
I think you loved me in October,
But now I fear fall days are over.

Finding Us In Summer
I fear I lost you in December
As the frost lay silent on the ground.
Perhaps now in spring you will remember.

I tried to reignite your fading ember
But I realized that your spark had long burnt out—
I fear I lost you in December.

There was moonlight and fireflies in September—
Yet it's funny how loss doesn’t make a sound.
Perhaps now in spring you will remember.

Behind your distant voice I hear a tremor,
And the remnants of a fire now since drowned—
I fear I lost you in December.

The future still held momentum in November—
Glimpses of our fingers held and bound.
Perhaps now in spring you will remember.

Though you forget I swear I won’t surrender
This connection our blooming flames have found—
I fear I lost you in December
Perhaps now in spring you will remember.

Will We See The Fall Once More?

I heard the silent March grow bolder,
Turning absence into sound—
Or is September getting colder?

You bear an anvil on your shoulder.
While you were collapsing to the ground—
I heard the silent March grow bolder.

As the daylight stretches shorter,
Is there a warm hearth to be found—
Or is September getting colder?

The creases show us growing older,
In the strangers we are now—
I heard the silent March grow bolder.

And you are always hunting order—
Will its capture finally make you proud,
Or is September getting colder?

I've become just some placeholder,
Though it’s not been said aloud—
I heard the silent March grow bolder,
Or is September getting colder?

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

#Poetry #Poem #Ballad

The Boy With Lanterns For Eyes

Billiam lived inside the moon
And had one simple chore—
To guide the phases of its glow
By adjusting shutter doors.

He was just a little lad,
So one would think the chore too big—
But he was built of special things,
At least, his mother says he is.

Sometimes he'd make it smile,
Sometimes he'd have all the shutters shut.
But the phase that was his favorite
Was when he could open them all up.

With everything wide open,
He could finally greet
The big blue ball of strangers—
What a wonderfully fun treat!

He'd sip tea and he’d eat biscuits
When finished with his task,
Then he’d look down and listen
For their wishes as they passed.

Some wishes were so boring,
Like for kisses or for joy—
Those wishes sure meant nothing
To the lonely little boy.

But, oh how he wondered,
What they might think if they knew—
They were wishing on his lanterns
That he had watched them through.

Oh, mother! Is that sunlight?
Is it time now for bed?
Time for Billiam to close the shutters
That live inside his head.

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Layering Six inches of history, Cut and discarded, Waiting to be swept into the bin. Shoulders lighter. I tip the editor, And wonder — If I should follow history.

000

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

#Poetry #LovePoem #Poem #Villanelle

The Physics In Your Orbit

I dance away, yet you draw me right back.
Magnetic force, electrical sway—
Two bodies in motion, but on different tracks.

I'm trapped in an infinitely looping path,
And I move, and you spin, and I plot and I trace—
I dance away, yet you draw me right back.

Sprinkled with stardust, stitched into black,
Particles shimmer, but muted and gray—
Two bodies in motion, but on different tracks.

The space never closes, there’s always this gap.
But I still feel you whisper and answer my name—
I dance away, yet you draw me right back.

Held in suspension, chains give no slack—
What is this fulcrum which keeps us at bay?
Two bodies in motion, but on different tracks.

The loop’s an illusion, yet I’ll remain trapped—
Locked into an orbit between night and day.
I dance away, yet you draw me right back.
Two bodies in motion, but on different tracks.

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Nox Perpetua It cannot always be Icy indigo winds Threaded with moonflower. Maybe, We can taste the sun— Zesty lemon yellow And cayenne pepper. #Poetry #LovePoem #Poem

000

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

ko-fi.com/post/Writing... #Poetry #Poem #Ballad #WritingPromptWednesday

Absence is a house so vast that inside you will pass through its walls and hang pictures on the air.

—Pablo Neruda

The Architecture of Absence

I hear the hush
As it hisses and hums,
A ghostly whisper,
Like ears filled with fog.

The walls, now as thin
As the skin of a drum,
Hold sepia slivers
Of daydreams I bought.

Each doorway an echo,
Each window the crush
Of empty winds whining—
Should I let them in?

Here in this hollow
I no longer rush—
Just starve on the quiet
In walls with thin skin.

Just watching in stupor
As slivers let go—
Wrapped up in wounds
That fester and follow.

No sepia daydreams
When dreaming alone.
Just rooms made of paper,
And the silence below.

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Foundation

She doesn't live here anymore,
In this house she built
From papier-mâché and popsicle sticks.
She's underneath the floorboards,
Haunting the attic.
Her melody hums electric,
Buzzing through corridors
Like a queen without a hive.
She's glued mirrors along the ceiling,
But they've all begun to crack—
And there are weasels in her basement,
Chewing at the wiring.
My walls—
Our walls—
Her walls were etched with tin,
And the edges are now curled.
But where are the doors?
The doors?
The doors?
And why do the candles fade?
A labyrinth!
An oubliette!
A corner in the closet,
Stinking of mothballs,
Knees biting at my—
Our—
Her sternum.

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Bones and All Swallow. Me. Whole. Unhinge your jaw Like a serpent And let me slide Across your tongue. Crush me down To pulp and nutrients— So I can nourish That hollow ache Below your sternum. I will root there, Inside your ribcage, Until You are bursting With fruit. #Poetry #LovePoem

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

ko-fi.com/post/Writing... #Poetry #LovePoem #Poem #Ballad

She was always waiting, it seemed to be her forte.

—D.H. Lawrence

Maybe Tomorrow

She stopped her heart on Tuesday
Vitrification setting in—
As she preserved in ice each chamber,
Frozen deep beneath her skin.

Waiting became an art form,
And she'd mastered every shade.
She was gifted in not knowing,
Yet she sought it anyway.

In his hands he held the matchstick
To light her frozen heart,
She waited for ignition—
For the chambers to restart.

But desire isn't science,
There are no absolutes—
Just a woman good at stasis,
And a man who doesn’t move.

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

ko-fi.com/post/Writing...

Above the Sea of Fog

Here,
At the throat of the world,
Your eyes swallow the sky.

The mountains—
The mountains cradle your sternum,
And your fingers drink the clouds.

While you listen for birdsong,
Listen also for my name
To echo across canyons.

Do I live
Behind the ocean,
Beyond the gauzy gray?

If you were to dive,
Feet first and flowering
Into the river’s open mouth—

Would you find me
Between her teeth?

" Wanderer above the Sea of Fog" by Caspar David Friedrich.

Description: a man in a dark suit with a walking stick stands on the edge of a rocky cliff staring out at a vast landscape—a sea of fog, cut by edges of mountains and trees.

000

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

#Poetry #Poem #Ballad

The Borrowing

There is a space above my head
I hadn’t seen before—
I got there through my stairwell,
Where I found a hidden door.

The ceilings graze horizons
I didn’t think to reach,
But the walls are edged in shadows
Where an icy echo creeps.

Inside are all the people
Whose time I fear I stole,
Dressed for some occasion
I was never meant to know.

They are frozen in a moment,
But are they trying to get out?
The way I see them tremble,
Like electricity’s around.

I seek another doorway,
Until my skin is slick as clay—
I turn back towards those faces,
But they’re now turned away.

The woman by the fire
Is now lying on the floor,
A man whose name I swallowed
Is standing by the door.

And is the room now larger,
And do the shadows grow?
And do I hear a ticking
That matches how they pulse?

Have they always been here,
In this space above my head?
Trying to take back what I’ve stolen
In this life I tried to live?

But then I feel the tremble—
As I know I’m not the host.
This space is not my attic,
It’s just where I keep my ghosts.

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

#Poetry #LovePoem #Poem #Ballad

You Can't Tell Me Not To Miss You

I understand the physics
That exists between our minds.
The way our particles collided,
And how that connection binds.

There’s a certain type of tension
When molecules combine
Which survives extinction,
Growing denser over time.

Your atoms leave a ripple,
Sonic echoes in my skin—
Still rising up to meet you,
In pockets you're no longer in.

We can’t control the physics
Of things remaining in our wake.
Though I've become a shadow,
You are still the shape I take.

000

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

#Poetry #SadPoem #Poem #Ballad

Choking On Memory

It's a quiet suffocation
With your name caught in my throat.
I swallowed every letter,
Every question, every note.

So slow, I didn't notice
As my vision slipped away—
No more reds, or blues, or yellows,
Just a gauzy haze of gray.

My hands reach out to find me—
I claw against my skin
Trying to pull you from my flesh.
I want to breathe again.

000

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Pattern Recognition

I've learned to look for the leaving—
My nervous system measuring
The negative space.
Tension building
Like a guitar string in my spine,
As I wait
For you to play the swan song.

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

ko-fi.com/post/Writing... #Poetry #LovePoem #Poem #WritingPromptWednesday

Storms make trees take deeper roots.

—Dolly Parton

The First Rain

You arrived,
Like a breaking storm,
Inside my ribcage.

I crumpled,
Knees bent in worship.

My roots drank you down—

I had not known
They were parched.

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

#Poetry #LovePoem #Poem #Villanelle

Finding Us In Summer

I fear I lost you in December
As the frost lay silent on the ground.
Perhaps now in spring you will remember.

I tried to reignite your fading ember
But I realized that your spark had long burnt out—
I fear I lost you in December.

There was moonlight and fireflies in September—
Yet it's funny how loss doesn’t make a sound.
Perhaps now in spring you will remember.

Behind your distant voice I hear a tremor,
And the remnants of a fire now since drowned—
I fear I lost you in December.

The future still held momentum in November—
Glimpses of our fingers held and bound.
Perhaps now in spring you will remember.

Though you forget I swear I won’t surrender
This connection our blooming flames have found—
I fear I lost you in December
Perhaps now in spring you will remember.

000

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

#Poetry #poem #Villanelle

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

#Poetry #Poem #Humor

The Process

Scratch the letters,
One by one—
Hashes, crosses, strokes.
Split them up
And line them down—
In columns, into rows.

I spill the ink
Across the page—
Just stop to dip my pen.
I tear it out
And ball it up,
Then start the page again.

I pull at strings to weave the web
To catch a passing thought—
And yet it seems just fleeting dreams
Are all my web has caught.

No clarity, just charity—
My pocket's inside out.
I search my mind to try to find
What is this page about?

I spill the ink
Across the page—
Just stop to dip my pen.
I tear it out
And ball it up,
Then start the page again.

Take a beat,
Breathe a bit…
Does the air taste like lead?

Time to find a track
And ride the rail
Until I find the end.

I spill the ink across the page—just stop to dip my pen.
Just fighting the gremlin in my head—
I tear it out and ball it up, then start the page again.

Lessons: Who, what, where, why and when,
Yet I just repeat these words instead:
I spill the ink across the page—just stop to dip my pen.

Counting out the syllables, I jump from six to ten,
But I still fear what’s left unsaid—
I tear it out and ball it up, then start the page again.

You asked for this! I know you meant
For me to paint the roses red—
I spill the ink across the page—just stop to dip my pen.

I’ve ripped them out, the thoughts are spent,
Yet I still don’t trust this thread—
I tear it out and ball it up, then start the page again.

This narrative is on repeat, back to where it all began.
Do you enjoy where it has led?
I spill the ink across the page—just stop to dip my pen.
I tear it out and ball it up, then start the page again.

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

ko-fi.com/post/Writing... #Poetry #LovePoem #Poem #Sonnet

Amor und Psyche
Paul Thumann, 1900

The Promise

Oh lover, come now—fly on Eros’ wing
And bend your knee before your Psyche sworn;
Entangled arms, and hands, and lips can sing
Of passions upon Zephyr's shadow born.

Kiss me deep, until I am in your lungs—
So I am held where life is in your chest.
No longer you nor I, but simply one,
Colliding stars, now fallen, now at rest.

Should we awake no longer by this stream,
Take flight, until your wings find me again—
Then nestled in my breast, prolong our dream,
Where we now lie, chest to chest, skin to skin.

Sweet love, you have eternal Psyche made,
Beneath your wings our entwined soul won’t fade.

000

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

#Poem #Poetry #Ballad

Upon an Ocean Blue

Just a simple paper boat
Adrift and lost at sea,
Until I found a sailor
And he, in turn, found me.

He took care with all my creases,
Was gentle with my lines—
Yet when we met rough waters
His careful touch declined.

Paper isn’t meant to last
When facing down a storm,
So I became too torn to hold,
Too fragile to keep form.

I tried to keep us both afloat,
To protect him from the sea—
But the last of me was swept away,
Left drifting, just debris.

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

#Poem #Poetry #LovePoem

Penguins

I gave you a pebble—
Heavy, and dark,
With a billion edges.

It carried
All our potential—
I thought you would find us
Reflected back at you.

You held it
Between your feet—
Admiring yourself
In glassy facets.

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

ko-fi.com/post/Writing... #Poetry #Poem #WritingPromptWednesday

there is a place in the heart that
will never be filled
and

we will wait
and
wait

in that space.

—Charles Bukowski

Occupied | Emptiness

Hollow doorways | Crowded windows
Watching structures collapse | Hearing holes form
I swallow oceans | You vomit sandcastles
We wait | No one leaves

Give | Take
Perfect | Imperfection
My galaxies | Your capacity
Infinite copper | Bottomless well
Waiting… waiting… | Leav…

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

#Poetry #CreepyPoem #Poem #Ballad

I Think You Called Me Baby

My eyes are made of cotton,
My mouth is full of nails,
I have holes inside my eardrums,
And my skin is rough as scales.

You've made of me a rag doll
Then dressed me up in blue,
But all my seams are threadbare,
Held with fishing line and glue.

There are wires for my elbows,
There’s hinges for my knees—
You bend me into dances,
And shape me as you please.

Watch my face unravel
As you turn me inside-out—
Then collect my pieces,
Not a remnant left about.

Now make my bed from cedar,
Lined with silver, silk, and lace—
With a blanket made of soil,
A smile stitched across my face.

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

In Strange Lands

I shook hands with a poet
Lost along desert roads.
He was searching
For a bus stop to Barstow,
And I was a stranger
Lost in my own town.

His mind was filled
With the coefficient of bonding,
And I was still stumbling
Over how to structure
Loose strings of metaphors.

He seemed so small,
But I was a dwarf star
Being swallowed by his sun.
I basked in it,
Absorbing the thermal energy—
My molecules excited,
Surrendering inertia.

A chemist of conversation,
Driving me through a universe
Of computers and technology
While I drove us through city streets.

Until—
We slowed down,
Cooling off in a Tastee-Freez,
Talking stanzas over sundaes.

And he missed his bus to Barstow,
While I found my voice in Victorville.

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

#Poetry #Poem #Villanelle

Accustomed to the Leaving

Forgotten kisses that softly die
On skin grown cold from lack of sun—
And then, and then the loud goodbye.

At first sweet doves make passions fly
But broken wings are soon undone—
Forgotten kisses that softly die.

It wasn't truth, yet not a lie—
A wish, a fable gently spun;
And then, and then the loud goodbye.

I've learned this dance, our steps entwine,
Yet the only trophy that I've won—
Forgotten kisses that softly die.

My voice is swallowed, I can’t ask why—
Just watch in silence as they run,
And then, and then the loud goodbye.

No bruises show, yet I still cry—
The pattern repeats; all for none.
Forgotten kisses that softly die
And then, and then the loud goodbye.

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

ko-fi.com/post/Writing... #WritingPromptWednesday #Poetry #LovePoem #Poem #Ballad

All words
In the dictionaries, letters, and novels
Died.
I want to discover
A way to love you
Without words.

—Nizar Qabbani

The Melody in Memory

How can I describe your eyes
When words have been erased?
Two liquid pools of healing clay,
Can I swim inside your gaze?

Perhaps I’ll taste you in my mind,
The way salt kisses skin—
I would not need to know the words
To know where hunger’s been.

Warmth, the warmth of breath on neck,
The heat of hand on spine—
The soft, sweet drum of chest to chest
As your pulse speaks to mine.

If our tongues no longer hold our names,
And only hands remain,
I’d know you as I know myself,
My rhythm, my refrain.

000

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

#Poetry #Poem #Villanelle

Before the Current

They construct electric fences
As they stretch out for my hand—
And I grab hold to numb my senses.

While I dismantle my defenses
Trying to find a place to land,
They construct electric fences.

My head's confined to guesses
Since my heart can't understand—
And I grab hold to numb my senses.

But the pain's an anesthetic,
Just ignoring what is planned—
They construct electric fences.

It's the silence where the stress is—
Cracks swallowing where I stand
And I grab hold to numb my senses.

Was it always just pretenses?
Never bound to any band—
They construct electric fences,
And I grab hold to numb my senses.

000

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

#Poetry #LovePoem #Poem

Retrograde

I keep painting constellations
Over stars that don’t exist.
Framing you in Venus,
As you smile with Hamal.

I've charted every glimmer
With my fingers and my thumb,
Held against the charcoaled sky
To capture all its secrets.

I place your eyes below Andromeda,
And let Aries kiss my palm—
Tracing how the light now falls
Like fire across my mouth.

I give to you my shoulders
For your stars to rest upon,
My neck bent back to reach you
As our bodies now collide.

Then I'll capture all your edges
With my fingers and my thumb,
Held against your pulsing chest
Where all your glimmer lives.

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Drinking the Mojave

My chest is full
Of tumbleweeds.
Their razor fingers scratch
At a heart made of wood.

And blood is sand,
Sifted through reeds
Where dry riverbeds stretch,
Across deserted lands.

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

ko-fi.com/post/Writing... #WritingPromptWednesday #Poetry #Poem

All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it;
Did you think it was in the white or gray stone? or the lines of the arches and cornices?

—Walt Whitman

What Walt Built

He gathers his tools—

Hammer,
Loaded with rust,
Leather handle
Brittle and cracked.

Nails,
Thin, bright,
Catching sunlight
Along clean surfaces.

Heavy wood,
Planed into beams
Until the boards
Shine their knotty flesh.

Lining them up, timber and tin,
Placing each joist, setting the bones.
Loading the walls the words will live in,
Turning the corners, building the home.

Constructing the casement
In metal and glass,
Shutters to keep out the sun.

Shoring the basement
In cinder and brass
Inlays to keep the space fun.

Come through the doorway and see what he made—
A home built of words, each brick carefully laid.

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

#Poetry #LovePoem #Poem #Ballad

Still There

Don't look back,
The doubt’s a myth—
They are not gone,
Just walking with.

You hear the drum
Inside your chest—
The fall of feet,
Your shallow breath.

With each step
I say again—
You’re not alone,
You walk with them.

And yet the drum!
That constant beat—
Too quick! Too slow!
No metered feet!

The rise, the fall
On echoed walls?
Are they behind,
Or not at all?

The sun! The sun!
Upon my face!
My breath escapes,
We've cheated fate.

No more shadows
That chase my mind—
I taste the air
And turn behind.

Too soon that glance,
I hear the crack—
The doubts were right…
Don't look back.

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

#Poetry #Poem #Villanelle

The Inescapable Flight of Knowing

Your voice is sharp and full of bees—
A melody wrapped inside honeyed glow.
But the hive is blind; it cannot see.

I stood in the forest counting the trees,
Cupping my ears so I wouldn’t know
Your voice is sharp and full of bees—

And though it stung, I cried for release.
You offered up crumbs you cut from the comb,
But the hive is blind; it cannot see.

Drunk on amber, sticky and sweet,
Seduced by the buzz, rising so slow.
Your voice is sharp and full of bees—

My voice grows silent, no longer me.
A hollow hum, a mindless drone—
But the hive is blind; it cannot see.

Now I am trapped, nowhere to flee.
I’m safe at last! I’m not alone!
Your voice is sharp and full of bees—
But the hive is blind; it cannot see.

Reposted by Nichole Johnson

Liian Varus @liianvarus.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

FREE DOWNLOAD 'TIL JULY 25TH! Are you into satirical fantasy? Okay, great. The Lost Gremlin World of Froglim is about microscopic gremlins living inside a woman's rectum, who have to fight to survive against her immune system. Yeah, it's pretty shitty. a.co/d/0aqliaP0 #BookSky #Books #Kindle

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

#Poetry #Poem #Ballad

Thanks, It Has Pockets

There is a hollow I keep in my chest.
I fill it with moonlight, with oceans, with rain—
But still it lies empty… Waiting, and yet
Filled only with shadows I couldn’t contain.

No sunshine, no flowers, no pictures of me—
No lover who savors the taste of my skin.
No beacon to guide me home from the sea,
Just this bottomless hollow that keeps nothing in.

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

#Poetry #LovePoem #Poem #Ballad #WritingPromptWednesday ko-fi.com/post/Writing...

Let the rain kiss you.
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.
Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

—Langston Hughes

Drops of Silver Upon Our Eyes

Shall we gather where the willow weeps,
Fingers tickling the sky—
And curl beneath her shadowed limbs
To watch the storm clouds cry?

We'll listen to the hiss of tears
Upon her leafy skin,
And when her arms can hold no more,
Ours will let it in.

And when the sky has kissed our eyes
She'll sing us off to sleep,
Tucked into the earth below,
Where Mother Willow weeps.

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Regulation

Breathe in,
Slow—
Tasting your name
On the back of my tongue.

Trace you,
Like oxygen—
Filling my lungs,
Expanding against my ribcage.

Flood my bloodstream,
Flowing into my synapses—
Settling my nervous system.

Calm.

I can breathe out.

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

A Tidal Wave in a Teacup

The weight of waves
And the crushing depth of undertows—
They live in my eyes,
Carving at my shoreline.

Eroding seawalls,
Oceans spilling out
From a room too small
To contain them.

000

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

ko-fi.com/post/Writing... #Poetry #WritingPromptWednesday #Poem #Villanelle

“How did it get so late so soon?”

—Dr Seuss

When Did Yesterday Become Tomorrow?

Hands are marching, twelve to one,
The day dissolves into the night—
And the clock keeps ticking like a drum.

It seemed the day had just begun—
How did we lose track of time?
Hands are marching, twelve to one

As the seconds and minutes just run.
My eyes rebelling at the sight—
And the clock keeps ticking like a drum.

Is the face melting? Is tolling done?
The ringing, the ringing—a sharp, stinging bite.
Hands are marching, twelve to one

Counting the hours the way a heart thrums.
Searching for mornings that never arrive…
And the clock keeps ticking like a drum.

Will we awaken to face the sun?
Or is this now the constant fight—
Hands are marching, twelve to one,
And the clock keeps ticking like a drum.

000

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

#Poetry #LovePoem #Poem #Ballad

In Life’s Cradle

If I were a whip-poor-will
And you the forest floor,
Could I find a home in you,
And rest there, safe and warm?

If I were the forest floor
And you the falling rain,
Would you seep down to my roots
So I can grow again?

If I were the falling rain,
And you a whip-poor-will,
Would you add your song to mine
Until the night goes still?

000

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Mapping the Unseen

Can I be buried in the earth of your eyes?
Six feet of soil kissing my skin,
Face tilting towards yours—
Just you, between me and the infinite.

Give me your horizons,
Where imperfect edges meet.

How can we look at the sky
And see only stars?
The oily spaces between
Are where we paint constellations.

000

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

Art Imitates Life

Have you ever
Been going about your day
And hear

“Clean-up on aisle 6”?

You were just on aisle 6.
And those bags of rice
Were stacked quite high—
Like a precarious tower
Built on a foundation of pallets.

What a mess
Those scattered grains must make
As you imagine trying to catch them all.
Watching
Grains escape between bristles.

But—

You aren’t in a grocery store.

You are standing alone in your shower
Realizing
You are scattered grains of rice

Waiting

For someone to call out for clean-up.

Nichole Johnson @nicholejohnson.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

ko-fi.com/post/Writing... #Poetry #Poem #WritingPromptWednesday

She was free in her wildness. She was a wanderess, a drop of free water. She belonged to no man and to no city.

—Roman Payne

$freedom /\ just one tiny drop f a l l i n g seeking the ground cutting through soil and tracing a path towards what? towards streams towards flowing towards spillways and riverbanks towards ocean tides and undertows and trenches filled with quiet calm… floating— and waiting for the sun.$