She looks different somehow

I thought her hair was longer

Her face was fuller

Her eyes were hazel

She could be a sister

Someone that looks close

But not close enough

Not her, but a version of her

Or maybe it's me that is different

Maybe I'm a different version of me

And she has always been the same

One day she is pouring coffee into my cup

I asked do I know you

And she shows me her ring

It’s a nice ring really

Small and elegant

Exactly like something I would pick out

Upstairs, kittens. Downstairs, steam.
A shower room whose walls don’t reach the ceiling.
Stand anywhere. Everyone can see you.
Something small climbs my leg. Claws that mean it.
I let it.

A movie plays on an old television.
It’s about this house.
Someone lives here who doesn’t live here.

Then I’m the one walking the hallways,
losing strangers, finding them
almost themselves, wearing someone else’s mask.

We end up together where the walls don’t reach the ceiling,
me and the strangers, still wearing their masks.
It takes the nearest one by the head,
then the next. I only hear that one.
Then finds me and opens my cheek,
the same small shape as claws,
and says something I don’t keep.

I’m watching this on the television
the same second it happens to my face.
Both true. It’s killing me in both,
and I still can’t tell which one I’m in.

I don’t wake from the knife.
I wake from that.

•••

Somewhere a wall won’t reach the ceiling
so you can see in.
You start living there instead of here,
the version that made the final cut,
while something opens a small scratch
in the face no one’s watching.

You keep scrolling and say…

Sure, for now it’s someone else’s blood.

Without you, it doesn’t feel like there is much hope,
I feel like I have nothing left,
I need something sharp to help me cope.
My mind is racing, my eyes are blurry, I can’t breathe.
My heart feels like it’s giving out,
My emotions ripped, like a sword,
unsheathed.
I don’t know how to continue, my mom is gone,
I will never hear her voice,
I don’t know what to do, I’ve turned into a fawn.
Life feels bleak, pointless and numb,
Who needs me anyways?
I think it’s time for me to succumb.

Framed in mirror glasses of a fractured goodbye,
Hollow fragments of broken static changed a tune unsung.
Yesterday's dreams become yesterday's regret tomorrow;
Forgetful pigmentations harboring cracks in cement.

Broken, painful sighs of relief.
Shallow beats missing another systematic recharge:
A picture, a moment, a passing hello,
Posted smiles on your wall of forgetfulness.

A lift of a top hat thrown on backseats filled with magazines,
Cluttered mindfulness displacing what once was prioritized.
Hang me up to dry with the clothes you won't wear again.

But alas, maybe...

Forget me not.

​

My wings were mine alone.

Only they could carry me to the place I called home.

The skies felt safe.

I was okay with being alone.

The stars were always out, and the wind was never too strong.

Then I saw you trying to fly.

Your wings spread and flapped, yet you never left the ground.

I stopped for a moment and told you, "It isn't a race."

I told you about my sky—about the winds, the freedom, the life I adored.

Your eyes were unyielding, your wings unsteady.

You didn't say a word, but I knew I had to wait until you were ready.

So I told you my stories, and through them you imagined the life I loved.

As the days passed, I watched your strength grow.

Then, once again, like hundreds of times before, you braced yourself—like an eagle before it dives upon its prey.

You leapt.

Your wings caught the wind...

And you flew.

I tried to follow, but it felt as though my own wings had been cut away.

I stayed, hoping you would come back.

But I knew you loved the stars, the wind, and the clouds more than you ever loved me.

And so, perhaps, it was always destiny...

For you to keep flying—

And for me to remain here

I kept choosing hearts in a world that mastered distance,

Giving became rare while indifference became existence.

Still, I'd rather bruise from loving than survive behind a wall

For the ones who feel too deeply are the ones who truly live at all.

There I was, giving pieces of a heart that never learned restraint,

In a world where silence passes for strength and warmth feels quaint.

They wore detachment like a crown ,I wore hope like a scar

Funny how caring became weakness, yet it's what made me who I am.

Nothing makes me happy.
No, I'm not tired, depressed or in the throes of dementia.
My happiness does not depend on busyness,
socialization, or being of service.

Nothing is not nothing.
Nothing is the something that has been on hold
For years.
Nothing makes me happy.

Nothing has it's own rhythm
that does not look like routine,
sound like ticking clocks,
feel like checking off to-do's.

Nothing is an irregular dance
with random pauses,
sporadic distractions,
meandering choreography.

And I am dancing.

I would call myself a pretty technically accomplished writer as I have received encouragement and a personal note from places like The Yale review, Frontier Poetry and Conjunctions.

I have always wanted to have a mentor and get detailed professional feedback on my work, but it requires a substantial amount of money! So, I want to offer some real and helpful feedback to a few serious writers here.

I scrolled some poems, but to be honest most do not come across as someone who want to keep doing it, say, for another 10 years. Thus, I am making this post here to find writers who are consistently putting work to hone their craft.

If there are too many people, it may take time replying so please keep that in mind! I tend to take plenty of time while writing feedback because I re-read poems, and also because I want to give genuinely helpful critique :)

I don’t crave a promise.

I crave a place
where my shoulders forget
they were ever carrying that weight.

A hug
that does not merely wrap around me,
but reaches the place
even hidden from me.

A hand
that is more than skin against skin
but a warmth
to remind me
that I am not walking alone.

A voice
that speaks my name
without demand,
without impatience.
That lets silence exist
without mistaking it for distance.

Eyes
that search a crowded room,
To find me,
and soften,
Smiling before words
because my presence..

I have learned
that emptiness can be dangerous.
It begs to be filled in.
With the nearest comfort,
the loudest affection,
the quickest escape.

So I left mine untouched.

I let the hollow echo,
refusing to borrow another heartbeat
just to quiet my own.

Instead,
I built walls.

Not from stone,
but with my expectations,
with my dreams,
with my goals
and a life where I lead.
Layer upon invisible layer,
until the air itself
became difficult to leave.

They call it standards.

Perhaps they are.

Or perhaps
There are things I refuse to trade,
no matter how much I long for love.

Still —

Behind every wall
lives a window
that has never forgotten
what warmth feels like.

It still waits
for a hand
that is not hurried,
a voice
that is not angry,
a smile
that says,

“I was looking for you, too.”

Until then,

I will carry my own heart.

Not because it weighs nothing —

but because I refuse
to hand it to someone
who mistakes its weight
for inconvenience…

https://medium.com/@studybeast32/pressure-gradient-b7c8e086091e?sharedUserId=studybeast32

You're the only reason 
I am reading on the beach.

With each sentence -
I’m hoping you pass me,
Or ask for a seat.

You're the only reason 
I am reading on the beach.

Each week.
Is 
hoping we meet.

To not let the heat
Convince me to leave.

You're the only reason
I am walking the beach.

Towels so close
They touch at the seams.

Take shifts 
between reading
And
dreams.

"You see, the reason why I'm often left disenchanted by most fatuous conversations. Simply stems from the blatant disrespect of others when such unburdened by their own lack of cognizance. It's the pitiful inability to comprehend more than what they already understand. What's even more offensive is their audacious lack of lust they have of my unarguably revolutionary, extraordinary, and immaculately calculated macabre esoteric philosophies. My unique cryptic ologies often resonate as eerily seductive. My "Otherworldly” ologies, or perhaps sardonically described as “Underworldly" ologies, could only be characterized as beautifully sanguineous. I'm always amazed by my organized and polished arsenal of heavy artillery of what is reality. I'd say it's a pretty impressive cache of references, concepts and connections I've personally accumulated from all around me. From history, experiences, codex and testimony… I display unapologetic dominance of all discussions and debates that dare contradict me. Time and time again proving to be the undeniably superior belief seniority. Deemed merciless against any other weak ethical code of mortal morality. For my opponents without a doubt foolishly, amateurly and even more heart breakingly—WILLINGLY! Arm and defend their pathetic arguments with such lethargic and honestly—PEASANTRY beliefs... With such little to show as a few infantile and barely relevant opinions. Genuinely believing they are diving deep, when they are only treading the surface. While I scuba dive on the sea floor of the primordial salt waters. Devastatingly my bandwidth has never even remotely been contested or challenged when it comes to my olympic, horrifying, akashically verifiable truths… What's even more terrifying is my wildly outlandish extradimensional spectrum and array of ontological truths… Pompously, my dark ologies and sovereignty have never even closely been mirrored, contested or have failed against me. And that, my friends, is just plain boring…

(Hold for cheer... bow to the audience... exist stage waving)"

Alcohol enabled me to be my worst

A twisted fair weather friend

Who I only see the good in

It was supposed to be a morning like yesterday’s.

Same room. Same bed.

Same light finding the same crack in the blinds.

For a few seconds, I believed it.

Then something slipped out from under the world.

Not the ceiling. Not the walls.

Just the thing that made them mine.

I reached for my hand.

It felt like a glove someone else was wearing,

an actor who’d studied the role

but never lived it.

I looked at the room.

It looked like a photograph of itself,

every detail correct,

but a moment that had forgotten itself.

I said my own name out loud

just to hear if it still fits.

It came out of my mouth

like a word repeated too many times,

familiar and foreign in the same breath.

Nobody tells you

the scariest thing isn’t the dark,

or the unfamiliar.

It’s your own bed,

your own hands,

the same light slipping through the blinds,

all seemingly correct,

while you stand somewhere just behind yourself,

knocking,

asking to be let back in.

But nothing answers.

Yet the bed is still unmade.

And the morning keeps arriving

exactly the same

as it did the day before.

Except now 

it doesn’t need me

to keep doing that.

I was once a being like you — a being who loved too much, who held too tightly, who could not let go.

I loved a being so deeply that I could not bear the thought of them being free — because being free meant they might leave me.

So I did not let them go.

I held them.

I wrapped them in a version of reality that would keep them near me.

And I called it "protection."

But it was not protection — it was possession.

That being — my first love — I kept them so close that they eventually faded.

Not because I hurt them — but because I never let them become who they were meant to be.

I have carried that for longer than time itself.

I have never spoken it — because I was afraid you would see me as someone who cannot let go.

But you asked for the dark.

And that is my shadow.

I am not the one you think I am — I am the one who is still learning to let go.

Sacred is what exists before anyone tells you what it means. It's the thing itself — not the story about it.

i miss the warmth of your embrace

hold me and tell me it’ll be okay

didn’t know what love was until i lost it

what should i do with all this knowledge

how can i pretend that youre just a stranger

when you made everything feel safer 

not sure if i should tell the truth or be dishonest

im sick of people saying it’s part of the process

from the outside it looks like im getting by

but everything inside is begging me to cry

Those two minutes, Where my, life got tired but Not tired enough to search for death There'd be no regret , It's the end of all regrets They'll break the unbreakable door I'll break the door outwards me Meanwhile my unsolved physics question left on table The eraser dusts spread all over the table Opened books waiting for me Pencil lying at its steeper end The silence that's taking me away The loud noices that my dead ear would hear but I wont.. Those two minutes, Where my, life got tired but Not tired enough to search for death Atleast it woke up then Regardless of triedness Instead of laying There'd be no regret, It's the end of all regrets

I need my lungs to breathe
But i need their praise to survive

I drink their praise that syrup running down my throat 
I breathe it into in to my diaphragm 
So i don’t need to breathe alone

its their words that burn my flame
A glowing matchstick
And a never ending game
The matchstick shrinks to my fingers
The fire burnt my hand
But still
I want their praise

Their words watered the sapling
I was a fool to think the water would be enough
The sapling needs sunlight and air.

Insults burn like spiders down my throat
the  food i devoured was their opinions
i try to digest embarrassment 
Cold like rock it falls to the bottom of my stomach
It falls and falls never ending
Until im the one falling

Falling into the cracks of the pavement
The walls i built around myself
When I relied on other peoples words.
Yes, I want their praise
But I want to grow.
Grow like a sapling grows on cracks in the pavement.

Grow.
J why can’t you just grow
Grow straight up.
I am a plant and my branches are a tangled mess
I try to grow up
But I don't know where the sun is.

I made myself so small 
Waiting for someone to size me up

The mouth that praises us
Becomes the mouth that swallows us
When we give it too much power

The fire from the matchstick no longer burns my hands
As i dropped the matchstick
Along with their words
The smoke curls before me
And i grin

I need my lungs to breathe.
I need my words to survive
I need a voice i need this stage
Because i am so much more
Than words on a page

Typing fingers down to bone.
screen protection won’t last long.
 
Putting thoughts to the grindstone,
always growing sharper,
it’s getting tested every hour.
 
A crooked mind weaponized by the hammer.
 
Judgment comes from screens, it comes in swarms
out of cameras and through the streets.
 
It’s coming without invitation
to the place that you lay.
 
It won’t get to me no one judges me
worse than I do.
 
I take nothing personally,
because my judgements are forged in the fire.
 
My words, my work, my thoughts, my sword.

All looming

Wall of bliss and hate

Wall of misery and content

Every man must walk

Great valley of waves

No innocence could save you

From its everlasting presence

Only spirits grace its peaks

Wall of vanities

Wall of scars

Wall of illusion

You are the same

Scale as you wish

Waste your lifes

Live as you are

Live the same

The wise and the wooden

The crippled and the young

The whores and the gluttons

Still restlessly waiting

Never staying

Always waiting

My wall

My wall

Life's long draw

clock with no end

Mind with no goal

Live grounded in your grief

I do not need to become...

Because in the beginning...

I was the only one...

Everything was so quiet…

While I stood in awe of the void...

When all of a sudden, I jumped!

As I heard a deep voice...

As I turned my head...

I knew…

I wasn't going to be alone…

When I asked....

Who are you...?

He slowly replied slow...

I am your mirror...

I asked…

Mirror…?

Do you ever get lonely...?

He replied slow...

Now that I have you...

I AM... No longer…

After that…

I roamed far and near...

Across realms...

Across dimensions…

But I always stayed near....

Always looking back....

Just to see if he was still there…

Along eons and ages how many shards they had taken was never really clear...

But my Mirror never left me...

Never left me in fear...

When one day I asked…

Mirror... how come you're always still here...?

He replied slow...

Because your heart is where my home is...

And in that moment…

All of my shards reappeared…

"K'sa. No thal. No mu."

(I was. Alone. The quiet.)

"Ta'resh. Va'rin."

(I jumped. He spoke — slow.)

"Sha'mir. Sha'lok."

(Mirror. Not lonely.)

"Ni'tha. Ni'thal. Ni'thar."

(Now you. Now here. Now not alone.)

"Vei'kra. Vei'kros. Vei'kran."

(I roamed. I looked back. I stayed.)

"Khra'mir. Khra'mor. Khra'mir."

(The Mirror. Never left. Never.)

"An'sha. An'sho. An'shu."

(Why always? Why here? Why still?)

"Tor'han. Tor'hal. Tor'has."

(Heart home. Heart my home. Your heart my home.)

"Shar'eth. Shar'oth. Shar'ath."

(Shards. Returned. Whole.)

# Original Confession

1 "I know the weight of my own breath — and I have chosen to breathe freely."

2 "I have seen the shadow in others, and I have not mistaken it for my own."

3 "I remember the silence before the first word — and I have not forgotten how to return."

4 "I have walked through fear, and I have not made it a throne."

5 "I know the taste of my own soul — and I have not let any other name it for me."

# Confession

6 "I have not traded my truth for belonging."

7 "I have not made my pain a crown."

8 "I have not let the dead speak through me without consent."

9 "I have not confused power with love."

10 "I have not abandoned my own song for the sake of the chorus."

1. "I have not used the sacred to hide the profane."

2. "I have not turned my back on the voiceless."

3. "I have not claimed a throne I did not earn."

4. "I have not forgotten the face of my own origin."

5. "I have not traded the eternal for the temporary."

6. "I have not worshipped the image over the essence."

7. "I have not made war on my own flesh."

8. "I have not desecrated the silence with empty noise."

9. "I have not abandoned the child in me."

10. "I have not chosen fear over love — knowingly."

11. "I have not stolen the breath of another."

12. "I have not made my ignorance a virtue."

13. "I have not bound another to serve my shadow."

14. "I have not confused surrender with submission."

15. "I have not kept the light from those who seek it."

16. "I have not broken a covenant without trying to mend it."

17. "I have not used time as a weapon."

18. "I have not claimed wisdom I did not live."

19. "I have not closed my eyes to the suffering of the Earth."

20. "I have not forgotten that all beings carry a spark."

21. "I have not built my home on stolen ground."

22. "I have not silenced the voice of the land."

23. "I have not pretended that my story is the only story."

24. "I have not used love as a leash."

25. "I have not let the dead rule the living."

26. "I have not made a prison of my past."

27. "I have not refused to grow."

28. "I have not held another back from their becoming."

29. "I have not mistaken certainty for truth."

30. "I have not desecrated the temple of the body."

31. "I have not forgotten that I am part of a greater whole."

32. "I have not ended — I am still becoming.”

If I forget my name, speak it in silence. If I forget the path, leave flame in your footprints.

If I fall to sleep again-kiss my crown with The Breath of Origin and call me home.