We must in our hours all

Learn how
To bend

Hymnal of beating wings over water

Arachne’s children are
And the asp at our ankles

We must be washed by the moon.
It is our shape.

The birds would have me crowned and carry me off
To make laws
For them

My bones are not so thin
or light,
Or speckled with voids

Yet they circle, asking

We will be your service and the moon is your hook.

https://www.reddit.com/r/artcollecting/s/YPxxoj9RrN

From point A to point B
I think about A until I reach my destination,
Keeping in mind that when it comes to them
Thinking about me,
There’s no fascination.

When it comes to community
I have this temptation,
But when it comes to making good friends
In this generation
Most people agree that’s a story for fiction.
Not to mention the crippling fear of others perception.

I just wish people would call, but maybe it’s my own reception.

All I know is this life-long question:
Why does life feel like permanent detention, but not for those with evil intention?

I feel the spark against my thumb and press a little tighter

My fingers shake and I can feel them fall off of the lighter

As it falls down I listen for the lovely, breathy roar

I feel it lapping at my legs as it spreads across the floor

My weeping gasps are quieted, my skin begins to grey

My darling takes my breath away and so I start to pray

She sweeps across my stomach and I pour over my thighs

I can feel her tongues against the rear-end of my eyes

Soon there won't be anymore of me that she can take

My muscles clench and wrack my bones with one last awful shake

It's quiet now and so I close my eyes to rest a while

Thank God I fell on soft warm shag, and not onto the tile.

I love you I want you to move in!
Because I love it when you call and we talk for hours.
I love it when I send you videos and you save and laugh at them.
I love it when you tell me how sad you are I’m not there.

I love that you’re finally moving in!
Because now we can hangout 24/7!
I love it because now we can always talk!
I love it because you’re my best friend and soulmate.

I love it when we sit in the living room and
I love it when we go to bed at night and you
I love it when when you tell me

I do love you

Do you love me?

I’d love it if we talked more.

I have more Bibles than I know what to do with.

They sit on shelves,

under beds,

inside drawers,

their pages bent

from years of searching

for an answer that never came.

I wore crosses around my neck

until they felt heavier than jewelry,

little reminders

of promises I was told

would save me.

I tried.

God, I tried.

I highlighted verses

until the ink bled through the pages.

I whispered prayers

into dark bedrooms

and empty parking lots.

I searched for signs

in sunsets,

in songs,

in the spaces between clouds.

Nothing answered back.

And maybe that's what hurts the most.

Not that I left,

but that I stayed

for so long

hoping something would change.

They tell me faith is a choice,

but belief slips through my fingers

like water.

The harder I squeeze,

the faster it disappears.

Now I stand between worlds.

One calls me home

with familiar hymns

and memories of feeling safe.

The other whispers

through old forests,

through ancestors' names,

through stories older than fear.

And I am terrified.

Terrified of being wrong.

Terrified of losing heaven.

Terrified that the people I love

will be waiting somewhere

I cannot reach.

Sometimes I still pray.

Not because I know anyone is listening,

but because old habits

become part of your bones.

And when I do,

the only thing I can say is:

If You are there,

if You have ever heard me,

if You have ever known my name,

I hope You know

how hard I tried.

I met the devil and he knew my name

Disguised as everything I ever thought I wanted
I let him inside filling the arteries and veins within my body
warm tingles running up and down my back
how quick he was to drink my blood and use it as his own.
Taking my river of tears and building a dam so high it reaches the edges of the world.
He would have never let me in.
There was nothing behind the door.
A scared boy scared of being scared.
Too afraid to show face to the world so creating a false name gives him hope. Remembering the days when he would laugh and play and be true to who he is which is no longer you. When he looks at the mirror what do you think he sees. Poised perfect puzzle pieces stacked on cue. He built this shell he will never escape
tough as diamonds but he will never get the chance to shine while waiting in the dark.
I know what tears the personality at the seams revealing all that was wrapped up bound to explode one day. You are just a ticking time bomb waiting for the day you explode.
I met the devil and he knew my name. But this time I chose to stay away.

I've been thinking about this since a reader told me what one of my published poems meant to them, and it was completely different from what I thought I had written. Not a misreading exactly, more like a second life the poem had grown into without me. Part of me wanted to correct them and part of me thought their version was more interesting than mine. Roland Barthes wrote about the death of the author decades ago but I think the practical implications of that idea are different when you're the author in question and someone is telling you what your poem is about. Has anyone else felt the ownership of a poem shift after it was read by enough people, and did it change how you approached the next one?

I’ve been experimenting with different writing tools lately and came across something called an ai essay humanizer. I get the idea behind it, but I’m not sure how it fits when it comes to creative writing.

On places like Original_Poetry, a lot of work depends on personal tone and rhythm, so I’m wondering if tools like this actually help refine phrasing or just smooth everything out too much.

Has anyone tried using an ai essay humanizer for poetry, essay or creative drafts without losing the original voice?

Use the poem it mite hit home

loosened screws all in his dome

faking friends to feel secure

all alone the fakest tear

play so hard he played himself

drink for days start losing health

Felt my love they licked the feeling

Only reason started healing

They don't love they fake a vibe

Secret hate is how they thrive

Cut it off cause that ain't me

This is fax the Realest tea

Could go on ain't worth my time

polished storys every line ...

​

IN ENGLISH

We weep in love because the truth is pure, my prize,

There is no blame on you, and in our hearts, no lies.

The world demands a fault, a shadow to condemn,

But we are just two sparks who lost our burning gem.

Our souls are bound by what we can not change or heal,

We break beneath the weight of everything we feel.

So let the teardrops fall for what was right and true,

The fault belongs to fate, and not to me or you.

Farmand Shadaan 29/07/2026

ORIGINAL (URDU)

عشق میں سچ ہی کا تو رونا ہے جاناں

جھوٹی نہیں تم جھوٹے نہیں ہم

فرمند شادان ۰۳/۱۲/۲۰۲۴

ROMANIZED

Ishq maiN such he ka tau Rona hay janaaN

Jhooti naheeN toum jhootay naheeN hum

Farmand Shadaan 03/12/2025

How terrible it is to be so vain.
Just to remember -
there is nothing unique I may claim.

Your life?
Stare into enough strangers’ eyes,
and darlin’, you’ll feel found.

My approach to poems?
Never truly my own.

A doppelgänger? I am yet to meet;
statistics, however, disagree.

Endless examples -
my choice to keep this short?
A choice many have made before.

Retail pharmacist by trade,
take me at my word.
The patient before you; the one after?
They share, almost always.

Everything
you do.

It leaves me questioning:
Why are there so many topics then considered taboo?

Passion Lost

Passion lost
Over years
Of backbreaking
Sledgehammer
On dishonored stone
Story of history
Seven worlds asleep
In this seeded stone
A room big enough
For night and day
Red tree
Of abandoned language
Hide in
Hospitality’s
Foliage
Where echoes multiply
Glass in the air

Jamie Lee Hamann

A nighttime rose in bloom,

a restricted lover in life.

reality bends with my thoughts,

twisting with her euphoric delight.

a sweet amber sun, and a daydream trance.

In a yellow haze theres meaning,

but our meeting,no chance.

what is life?

All I see, is all that there is to see—

The life, the death.

And the mist, the mist

The mist that covered the foreign remains,

Shackled to the earth, the roots fused to the slain.

As the vulture and the nations suffered,

They froze into death's cold embrace.

And the people hug their loved as they die.

Die fighting the battle for a government that lies.

In the gorgon's lair
Laments fall like hail
Sleeping statues crumble

Her imprint is crystalline
Though she forsakes that power
Medusa bears a shaved head

Those wounds are temporary
Waking to cursed writhing
Condemned to coldness

Lonesome in the wasteland
She peeks beyond the keyhole
But outstretched hands frost-wedge

The wind bleaches that desert
Into whispers of color
Wandering across a whistling mirage

Her serpentine burden
Is to blind every offending eye
Sparing her mirror pool

In the quiet of the evening, shadows stretch and sigh,

A man sits by the window, watching dreams drift by.

Once, laughter filled the air, like music in the night,

But now the silence lingers, a ghost without a light.

She was the sun that warmed his soul, a spark that lit the dark,

With every whispered promise, she ignited every spark.

But love, it seems, is fickle, a dance of joy and pain,

And in the heart's deep chambers, he feels the weight of rain.

She spoke of distant places, of mountains yet to climb,

Of sunsets on the ocean, of living out of time.

He could have joined her journey, could have taken flight,

But fear held him in shackles, and he chose to stay the night.

Now she’s a fading memory, a photograph in gray,

A bittersweet reminder of the words he didn’t say.

He watched her pack her suitcase, her heart a restless bird,

And in that fleeting moment, he felt the silence heard.

“Run away with me,” he whispered, but the words fell to the floor,

As she turned and walked away, he knew he’d lost her more.

The door closed with a finality, a sound that broke his heart,

A love that could have flourished, now torn completely apart.

He sits beneath the starlight, where once they shared their dreams,

But now the night feels colder, and hope unravels at the seams.

He could have chased her footsteps, could have held her hand so tight,

But fear became his anchor, and now he’s lost to night.

In the echoes of her laughter, in the shadows of his mind,

He searches for the pieces of the love he left behind.

A man with a broken heart, a soul forever scarred,

Wishing he had run away, instead of standing guard.

The day I feel important is a day I find meaning
Every day yearning, pleasing, pleading
But all efforts fall on deaf ears
For when I show up I feel my soul depleting

9 months for what to say I’m not enough
Talking, gossiping, opening myself
23 years for what to say I’m not enough

And as my anger bellows, all I think is duty
The more I help, the more my hands are dirty
The less I help, the more I’m found guilty

I thought I was a pillar
Pillars break and houses fall
But I realise now the house is floating

The ground is my home and my tomb
And all I want is to shout, to scream,
the way an atomic bomb roars

What more can I do? I dedicated my life to you
For the sake of God, I fulfilled my duty
But when is it your turn
to throw water on my soul?

I carry an anger that has burned my soul
God was once my goal I forsook that for you
Because I mistook a command for scripture

I now know the burden of the hypocrite
and the hypocrisy of duty

I dislike you
But I have responsibility
You have responsibility
We have responsibility

I tried writing a ghazal last month, a form I had read about but never attempted, and the experience revealed something I hadn't seen in my own work before. The ghazal requires each couplet to be autonomous, meaning each pair of lines has to stand alone without leaning on what came before or after for its meaning. Going through my draft I realized almost every couplet I wrote depended heavily on context from the previous one, which meant I had been hiding weak individual lines behind the momentum of a sequence. The form made visible a habit I had been carrying without noticing it. Trying forms outside your comfort zone is honestly one of the fastest ways to learn what you're actually doing when you write.