Robert J. W.
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robertjw4688.bsky.social
Robert J. W.
@robertjw4688.bsky.social
970 followers 490 following 1.4K posts
Poet, writer, artist, mental health warrior/advocate
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robertjw4688.bsky.social
Robert J. W. @robertjw4688.bsky.social · Aug 21
TODAY IS THE DAY! My new #poetry collection, The Line Breaks Between Lives, is out now! I've put so much effort into this one; it's beautiful, it's ugly, it's witty. It bares teeth and blooms flowers!

www.amazon.com/Line-Breaks-...
robertjw4688.bsky.social
As evidenced by the title, this is about my near life-long struggle with hypochondria.

#vss365 #dark #poetry
HYPOCHONDRIA Every symptom is a disease. Every disease is a doomsday. I've been torturing myself with the endless search of my every bodily idiosyncrasy and the results are always apocalyptic, muddled in slop. I'm aging from a mollusk to a cracked shell and it's all my fault; I've been ingesting toxins to fight toxins for decades. I just need to tell myself on repeat: "You will be okay! Even if you're sick, You will be okay!" while the dark becomes something more beige and I thrive whether I want to or not.
February 12, 2026 at 2:23 PM
robertjw4688.bsky.social
I recently started reading the Tao Te Ching so I suppose this is inspired by it. Trying to find inner peace!

#vss365 #touch #poetry #tao #zen #peace
LAZY DECOHERENCE I let myself drift in the movement of honey, finding the Tao within the lazy decoherence. My grateful fingers touch the paper and they leave with an understanding of the forest. I am more powerful than the Big Rip that may destroy the universe and I am more timid then the rabbit that hides to feed her young. My breath is filled with multitudes of nothing. I exhale afterbirth.
February 11, 2026 at 2:08 PM
robertjw4688.bsky.social
I will get out of this funk. Today is a new day to try!

#vss365 #ache #emoetry #delighted #poetry #mentalhealth #positivity #recovery #pma
THE ILLUSIVE TRY I'm gazing within my own abyss and I'm finding doves and novels along with the ache. The illusive try is flashing loud today. Maybe I will liberate myself from this after all. The purpose is in the callouses not the bed sores. My skull fills with the delight of a million crumbs of circus. I am the rope I climb!
February 10, 2026 at 1:52 PM
Reposted by Robert J. W.
sanjar.bsky.social
night gates left ajar
milky way in cold pixels
#pale insomniac

#vss365 #DailyHaikuPrompt #Milky_Way #haiku #senryu #blueskypoets
February 8, 2026 at 11:05 AM
Reposted by Robert J. W.
everettpoetry.bsky.social
From grateful.org
Word for the Day from Grateful.org
February 10, 2026 at 1:29 PM
robertjw4688.bsky.social
I'm gonna try to start practicing radical acceptance. Wish me luck! Also, today isn't my birthday. I just used it as a metaphor 😊

#vss365 #bones #emoetry #challenge #poetry #mentalhealth
FINDING A DIAMOND IN THE FOURTH HUMOR I pour green tea over my enervated skeleton, music steaming from every bone. Something good will happen today and I will claw at this excessive black bile until I find it. The challenge of acceptance is not in the pointing finger but in the arms' embrace. These inordinate bad days are just a singular whisper in a stadium filled with my every birthday party. I'm celebrating whether I age or not.
February 9, 2026 at 2:51 PM
Reposted by Robert J. W.
poetguygabe.bsky.social
these bones are weary
that carry humanity
we've walked a long time
we just keep wandering
but we won't find it out there

#vss365 #bones #tanka
February 9, 2026 at 2:03 PM
Reposted by Robert J. W.
oldsoulprose.bsky.social
I'll fill my grave
with a
pile of bones
blood of wars
won and lost
I came
I saw
I loved
#vss365
#bones
February 9, 2026 at 2:08 PM
robertjw4688.bsky.social
My mindset has been frigging awful recently (though it's been a frequent problem for me my whole life.) I'm trying to undo the damage my own brain has done and is doing to me. It will take time and a lot of effort. So I must be patient with me.

#vss365 #pale #emoetry #blissful #poetry #mentalhealth
SHAKING AND ABRASED A pale mindset will never write me an iridescent biography. There are bruises lining my essence and the hands brandishing the war hammer resemble my own, shaking and abrased. I'm putting down my weapon in an act of revolution against myself and I will let myself weep away these doubts, these demoralized reveries until the holes in my heart fill with blissful rain in which I will swim like a sea otter.
February 8, 2026 at 3:46 PM
Reposted by Robert J. W.
sifaswriting.bsky.social
#pale pastels
the colours of spring
of renewal, new life
when the earth awakes
from its long winter sleep
and from somber grey
bursts a rainbow of hues

#vss365 #poetry #writing #writingcommunity
February 8, 2026 at 2:46 PM
robertjw4688.bsky.social
A peaceful write. Hope y'all enjoy it!

#vss365 #blood #emoetry #afflicted #poetry #mentalhealth #recovery
ATARAXIS There is tranquility in the crawl to middle ground where I balance my breath and blood. The water in my lungs starts to flow outside of sentience. It is irrigation for flowers I have forgotten in my agonal afflictions. I release the universe from my grasp and let my empty hands play with the hummingbirds and the fireflies.
February 7, 2026 at 1:47 PM
robertjw4688.bsky.social
I think a major root of my current anxieties is my social media and phone addiction. I need to curb it and I think writing this was a good first step. I HAD to write this. Poem in alt text!

#emoetry #wistful #vss365 #wound #poetry
THE BRIGHTEST BRICK I have replaced the darkest void with the brightest brick and it is infinitely more dangerous. My dopamine dependency is a choke chain around my entire life and it leads me through Eden and Gehenna with no journey in between. I've got permanent bends, staggering through symptoms of cancers I'll never meet. I type manifestos with wistful fingers and pray that they'll make a difference, buried under a million other scorching takes. Blue light can be a debridement for my long festering wounds but it can also be a pathogen that infects my entire spirit until I have to sever the whole damn thing.
February 6, 2026 at 1:54 PM
robertjw4688.bsky.social
Continuing from yesterday's theme of anxiety, I've been beating myself up majorly recently for the mistakes I've been making while in panic/survival mode.

#vss365 #lambent #emoetry #uncomfortable #poetry #anxiety
SEESAWS AND BRIDGES No grace, no lambent over the detritus of my mistakes; My psyche has shaken itself through yet another reality and has dropped into a fractured mirror. I'm throwing myself off seesaws and bridges as a punishment for my panic and the lapses it brings. My worth is an uncomfortable burden that I have shackled to my every blink and breath. Meanwhile, my defects run free along the jagged edges of my incoherent heart. I am trying to corral them away from here while flinching from the sound of my whip.
February 5, 2026 at 2:46 PM
robertjw4688.bsky.social
Another lengthy one (poem is in alt text.) This one is about my struggles with anxiety, which I've been dealing with since the mid 90s.

#vss365 #ghosts #emoetry #terrified #poetry #anxiety
HOME MOVIE WITH NO PLOT Another night of vivid perditions making their home between my ribs. Am I scared of the ghosts that stalk me or am I terrified of the absurdity they shriek in the silence? I've been mugging myself of the present moment and giving it all to pestilence. He barely glances at my gift, an apathetic haze flushing his demeanor. So what have I changed and what good has been accomplished by the endless fast forward of this home movie with no plot? I've pulled a million triggers with an osmium finger; it's getting calloused and tired yet I'm still here, trembling while trying my hardest to achieve nirvana.
February 4, 2026 at 2:56 PM
robertjw4688.bsky.social
This is a pretty uplifting write about gratitude and trying to find the beautiful things in life, both of which I'm working on. I hope you are too!

#vsa365 #pain #emoetry #rejected #poetry #mentalhealth #gratitude
FINDING THE WONDER IN THE WASTE The curtain is pulled down over an anonymous dream. I rise from a wrinkled crib, bathing my somnolence in coffee and poetry. I am in pain but that can wait as I count my blessings on a thousand hands. Finding the wonder in the waste is as essential as the cascading water I sometimes take for granted. So I'm rejecting the allure of rusted chains for now but I'm leaving my mind soaked in citric acid just in case my jailer heart beats itself into exile.
February 3, 2026 at 4:00 PM
Reposted by Robert J. W.
ignorantfairy.bsky.social
flowers on his minds
he plucked fine thought pods
peeled and dried and wove

shimmering lines
indigo rhymes bloomed
wrested from sorrow's well

truth strands he braided
calligraphic pen shivered
from word stems soon faded
brittle stanzas that quivered

A poem, a rose
under Calliope's nose
February 3, 2026 at 2:05 PM
Reposted by Robert J. W.
katya444ever.bsky.social
2.3.26 the #pain I endure comes less from culture wars and dissipated love or the malaise I feel in my tummy than from the minutes the hours rife with possibility I squander in the doomscrolling semiconsciousness of this our modern age #vss365
a cartoon of a girl laying on a computer mouse with the word doomscrawling above her
ALT: a cartoon of a girl laying on a computer mouse with the word doomscrawling above her
media.tenor.com
February 3, 2026 at 2:06 PM
Reposted by Robert J. W.
anntigone.bsky.social
Strength in our numbers
That we may much better face
Whatever might come.

#haikufeels #face #senryu #haiku
February 3, 2026 at 2:17 PM
Reposted by Robert J. W.
drronholt.bsky.social
This is a welcoming account. 🏳️‍⚧️
January 31, 2026 at 9:03 PM
Reposted by Robert J. W.
blindedbeatpoet.bsky.social
how shadows wear me

garlanding the mantle
fashioning poppets and puppets
found stones and feathers
nuts, seeds and pieces of metal
affixing them with arms, legs and faces
from a box of broken doll parts
i had collected
feeling this world
rejected me enough
for me to reject me too #emoetry
a close up of a back lit broken doll face
February 3, 2026 at 2:33 PM
Reposted by Robert J. W.
fromoneline.bsky.social
FromOneLine - If I were a cat... anthology is now open for submissions.

Please keep your writings/artwork private and unpublished until after the anthology is officially published. Full guidelines, T&Cs can be found here : www.kobayaashi.co.uk/submissions

#FromOneLine #cats
Photo of cats Tilly and Ziggy, either the text submissions are open until feb 28th. All profits from this anthology go to help Ziggy and his fellow felines - I’ll put a text link in the reply bit with more info!
February 3, 2026 at 1:40 PM
Reposted by Robert J. W.
ignorantfairy.bsky.social
hope flitters on screen
gargantuan pianist
free fingers dancing

#senryu #poetry
February 3, 2026 at 12:52 PM
robertjw4688.bsky.social
I'm trying my best to cope with all I'm dealing with right now. I didn't do the best yesterday. So I'm gonna try to do better today while giving myself grace.

#vss365 #soul #emoetry #regale #poetry #mentalhealth
SIAMESE SUN There are days when the allergens of the soul multiply into malignancy. I rip it all away to preserve something I cannot identify. Here is where the sun splits in two; one half regales the unknown with light and warmth and the other half chews on it with fissured fangs. I'm not sure which I'm chasing but I know I need to ground myself instead.
February 2, 2026 at 2:50 PM
robertjw4688.bsky.social
I've been going through A LOT recently so here's another attempt at letting it out.

#vss365 #shadow #poetry
SELENITE SHADOW I'm putting my amygdala through drywall just to take its power for a brief breath. The weight has been amassing for months and every building, every feather adds another crack to my selenite shadow. It's hard to cope when your universe is carving itself into a single molecule just to navigate the noise and the stress. I have a million questions of worth. I direct all of them to a creek where my name is just a pebble, lying in wait for another flood.
February 1, 2026 at 6:01 PM
robertjw4688.bsky.social
A somewhat redemptive write for me, imo. Trying to self care and give myself grace.

#vss365 #soothe #emoetry #overemotional #poetry #mentalhealth
BURDEN OF MATCHES I sometimes wander into a burning home and not even a lyric can soothe the burns. I've been fighting my madness with stones and bricks when I should be sitting him down for a cup of tea and asking him if I can lift the burden of matches from his clenched fist. He and I get overemotional at times and that's okay for it is the numb man that squeezes the world dry for a single drop of life.
January 31, 2026 at 2:15 PM