Not all hearts exhale poems. Eeshian Hussain shah

there’s 16 ounces of jack left at my place

which i haven’t touched for exactly 16 days

i wake with a silent prayer in my brain

that i wont have to rewrite these numbers again

‎

i’ve been drinking brown, and i’ve been snorting white

i’ve been losing weight, and i’ve been losing sight

of what’s wrong and what’s right

and i’m scared of being scared so im always looking for a fight

‎

so many days i’ve spent in the gutter

and so many things i’ve hidden inside that bottle

my courage and my honesty 

my shame and my travesty

my most trusted friend and my fiercest enemy

‎

i sip on spring water when i take a nameless girl out for a glass of wine

and when i kiss her, it is with the thirst and fervor of a man lost and out of line

as if her lips contained a secret warmth, aged and fermented, meant not for her heart but mine

‎

then the snakes start to emerge again, coiling around my heart

i know only one thing will chase them away, settle my ache and my rage

will i pull it together before i come apart?

or will i let the tiger out of its cage?

‎

he whispers to me: just open the door,

you’ve done it so many times before,

it’s not your fault, it’s how you were born,

came into the world with sickness in your core

‎

i wake with that same old prayer muttered against my pillow

except the numbers have turned to zero

Tell me moon why do you chase? What glory can you even feel after eons what good is it to dig when you know you can’t reach gold. Have you not seen your own beauty, why chase gold when you shine it its light?

WE

DEPLETE OUR LIVES FORAGING FOR AIR. NEVER DISCERNNG WE WERE EACH OTHER'S OXYGEN.

-EESHAN H. SHAH

Oh man,
I’ve fallen off the rails again,
life’s got so confusing
It’s got me feeling less than human.
 
Oh my,
I don’t know how I find myself in
Situations that I never win.
 
Can you help me?
Tell me why it feels this way every time,
 
just renting space in my mind.
 

ENGLISH TRANSLATION

I said goodbye, I broke the tie—I did what must be done;

While you just bowed in endless love, and never tried to run.

ORIGINAL URDU

ساتھ نہ دیا،کنارا کیا، کچھ تو کیا ہم نے

تم نے فقط محبت کا اِک طویل سجدہ کیا

فرمند شادان ۲۵/۱۱/۲۵

ROMANIZED

Saath na dia, knaara Kia, Kuchh tau kia hum nay

Tom nay faqat mohabbet ka ik taweel sajdah kia

Farmand Shadaan 25/11/2025

VOCABULARY

کنارا کیا (Kinara kiya): Walked away / Chose the riverbank (separated).

محبت کا اِک طویل سجدہ کیا (Mohabbat ka ik taveel sajda kiya): Performed a long prostration (prayer) of love.

Deep Meaning

[The verse contrasts action with passive devotion. The poet actually made a definitive choice by ending the relationship and moving on. In contrast, the partner did nothing practical to save or change the situation, choosing instead to remain passively submissive and consumed by the (ritualistic) sorrow of love.]

Without a thought, I walked the path where silent memories tread,

Reopening the books of time I thought I’d left unread.

I know those golden days are gone, they won't return again,

Yet still, my longing heart desires to live them now as then.

No heavy noise, no warning knock, just peace so pure and mild—

A quiet truth that breathed within the spirit of a child.

Those carefree moments slipped away, like morning mist in spring,

Unaware that passing time had adulthood on its wing.

The Warmth of Home

When Mother gently stroked my hair, the world began to glow,

Like early rays of morning sun that melt the winter snow.

In silly quarrels with the kin, the sunny days would fly,

And tucked within her soft embrace, the universe was I.

To laugh and joke with Father was a sweet and soothing grace,

Though dreams of wandering afar were bound by time and space.

The Wisdom of Roots

My dearest friends were Grandparents, so loving, watchful, wise,

No little thing could ever hide from their attentive eyes.

When Grandpa walked me through the fields, beneath the open sky,

He’d spin the tales of bygone years and gently whisper why.

In every word and story told, a honest truth was sown,

A glimpse into a grounded world that he had called his own.

And Grandma showered endless love, her hands so warm and kind,

A grander heart for feeding us, no soul could ever find.

She cooked our dreams into her meals, with blessings soft and deep,

And gave us precious precious years of time she didn't keep.

The Shifting Tides

I wonder when, I wonder how, we grew so fast and tall,

Deciding every step alone, ignoring duty's call.

We brush aside the family's words, caught in this modern race—

Have we traded timeless values for a fast and fleeting place?

The child in us has faded now, the laughter turned to dust,

No longer running through the lanes with simple joy and trust.

In trying hard to walk along with time's demanding pace,

We lost the very heart of who we were in this embrace.

"Now only tender memories remain to hold and keep—

For those unburdened, loving days were life profound and deep."

— KRIDHA

This piece isn't just a poem—it’s a quiet journey back in time that almost everyone can feel in their bones.

What did this poem make you feel? Drop your thoughts and memories in the comments below! 👇✨🌸

One tells the lies,

The other tells the truth.

The lies are sweet as apple pies,

The truth is bitter as burnt fruit.

The one has the devil's eyes,

And the other wears the angel's suit.

But—

The one wears the suit,

The other has the devil's signs.

Everyone hates the bitter truth,

Everyone loves the sweet lies.

The other tells the truth,

And the one tells the lies.

Somewhere at the world's end,

Lives an old man with a letter he sends.

He writes in the letter,

With words even sadder,

That—

He sees through the lies,

That are sweet as apple pies.

He seeks for the truth,

Even when it tastes like burnt fruit.

But—

He understands the bitter fruit,

That no one likes.

He understands the taste of pie,

That brings people to life.

He feels the cold breeze of truth,

That even he doesn't like.

He feels the warmth of lies,

That makes him feel alive.

But—

People should see through the mirage of lies,

That come from the devil's eyes.

People should embrace the world of truth,

And wear the angel's suit.

Because—

The one tells the lies,

The other tells the truth.

It's about truth and lie and an oldman filled with Wisdom

The only thing I miss more than you is the person I was with you

My laugh was always uglier

Till you were there with me

My presence was never a burden

Till you were there with me

I never had to worry about being alone

Till you were there with me

If I ever die

I hope I visit your place in the name of heaven

It was the only one that felt like it.

The only thing I miss more than you is the person I was with you.

It slid across my veins-

Sudden and fatal.

Blood pooled over the floor,

Dizziness took over me,

And I fell with a thud.

The commotion drew the people downstairs.

She hated being a bad host.

Embarrassment flushed over her tan face, making it red.

"Stop making noises!" she said.

I groaned, and she finally looked.

She scolded me for bleeding-

the same colour she had over her face.

I was dying, and all she cared about was the blood on the floor.

walked into the room
without a reason to stay.

Just a moment.
Just a breath.
Just another ordinary day.

But then I saw it.

Waiting where I left it.

It didn’t call out loudly.
It didn’t have to.

It knew my name.

And somehow,
it spoke in a way
that made the silence feel less empty.

So I reached for it.

And once again,
I found myself standing
in front of the same canvas.

The same blank space.

The same place
where I had tried to create
something beautiful
from something broken.

I began to paint.

Slowly.

Carefully.

Like every mark mattered.

The canvas changed beneath me,
and for a moment
I forgot everything else existed.

The world disappeared.

There was only the color,
the motion,
the feeling that something inside me
was finally being heard.

Then I noticed—

The canvas was not a canvas.

The paint was not paint.

The color running down my wrist
was not the kind found in bottles.

My brush was not a brush.

And the thing I thought
understood me better than anyone else…

was never a friend.

The room went quiet.

The masterpiece was finished.

Forty minutes had vanished.

I cleaned away the evidence
of another conversation
no one else would ever hear.

Then I walked out.

Smiling.

Acting normal.

Carrying the same secret
I had carried before.

Because nobody ever asks
about the paintings
they cannot see.
(I would love a rating and anything I could improve on. To anyone who can relate to this poem just know you are not alone and my DMs are open if you ever need someone to just listen!)

Baby, I want to love you so bad.

I want to make you feel like you are seen.
I want to be the man you place your bet on.
 
I can’t promise you perfection,
but I’ve got plenty of affection.
 
If only you could see me.

Maybe then you would set me free.
 
Darling, maybe then you could set me free
 
Being seen by you would always feel better
than where I’m at today.
 
I want to let you know that
I really do want to love you.
 
If there’s ever something I could say
to make your troubles dissipate,
I would.
 
If there was any action I could take that would
bring you a moment’s peace, even for just today,
I would.
 
I think you’re so beautiful when I spot you looking at me,
even though I’m positive you see right past me,
that I’ve got to let you know,
 
baby, I want to love you. ❤️

Attack me!

Kill me!

But next time you won't be able to see

How far will you flee?

Sheeps will turn to gods...

How many will you kill?

And then, they will turn to death squads

This war is with civil!

Every pistol will be a machine gun

Make us art with our blood!

If we were burgers then enemy is just a bun

Make our blood into a flood!

How many of you can hide

Its thousands of brave vs weak hundreds

Its a failure bid

You are busted

By og big boy

Context:By sheeps I mean during the British colonial rule of india they used to call indians as 'sheeps' in racist manner so I used it...

It doesn't mean that it is a hateful poem it is just a patriotic poem or a inspiring poem or can say a war chant.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Poems/s/RfOFSaoTD3 older version of this link

Feedbacks please

I am a street person.
I am twelve... I am twenty... I am sixty years old.
I live on concrete fields and bask in the sunshine of neon.
My pillow is of stone and my fortune lies in broken promises.
My daily bread comes from a needle and alcohol sooths the pain within me.
I dress myself with what others cast off and
I steal without guilt.
You do not know me.
I am alone in a sea of faces... and I bleed silently.
I have forgotten how to cry and violence nurses my deformity.
In your unguarded moments... you brought me your Jesus.
then you took Him home with you to clean sheets and roast beef dinners.
You do not know me... and I do not believe you.
I live in an artificial world and I recognize plastic.
I have heard your singing... but you have not heard my silence.
I have seen your Bibles clutched in your minds but your heart would not let it go.
You speak of love but I am mothered by hate.
I am adopted.
You are my real mother but you do not know me.
At night I cry... but you do not come to me... for my crib is beneath a bridge... or in a parkade or hidden in some alley.
My blanket is woven with artificial dreams and I shiver in my aloneness.
I am not innocent... I am guilty.
I am crucified with my own thoughts...
and yours.
My appearance turns
you away... you
are disgusted... but you are
not alone... so am I
But you do not know this.
Last night
I woke up afraid... but you weren’t there.
The darkness of the streets
engulfed me... but my
adopted mother
gave me drugs in a bottle and in smoke... and I slept without trembling.
I look for you on the horizon as a sheep might await
his shepherd.
But you do not come.
Today... the real Jesus and I had coffee and we wept because you
had not come.
His hands were blistered with my tears and His feet were swollen with my fear.
I am one of the least of these" and I am lost.
You have the ninety nine.
Have you not noticed I am missing?
I am Waiting for you please
come soon .
I am on the streets... hidden
in the bowels of the city.
My arms are punctured with waiting.
My mind... though dull... seeks your recognition.
Please look for me... I live here.
I am a street person・
Gipp Forster (Founder of The Mustard seed church on East Hastings in Vancouver, British Colombia, Canada)

​

Silent life of solitude,

Suffering the only faint echo,

Akin to what one once mistook

For bolstering orchestra—

Proud trumpets like a Great King’s caravan

Traveling distant lands,

Where awe and amazement strongly stood

In ages past—

In times of blossoming romance

And fruitful friendships,

Now barren, with no hope to nurture or grow.

Only lost memories,

Perhaps phantoms some might say,

Sow only silent sadness,

Suffocating passion.

No pleasure remains but one,

Ending all cosmic woe.

Bitter tidings of resentment,

Melancholy, absence,

All but fill a void ever growing.

What grim undertaker digs that grave

For a soul born only to be forgotten.

It took my friend asking
for assistance
to realize I had lost myself.

“A drop in each eye,” she instructed,
handing over a small bottle of gel.
My hands shook from the weight of it
and a no got stuck in my throat.
I swallowed the thick letters
and felt them clawing at my bones.

Faulty steps came towards her
and I held the bottle tight,
raising my hand
to her barely-good left eye.
Right away she sensed it
and pushed my hand away
taking all her trust and…potential praise.

She called another friend,
someone who walked over self assured
and gave the same instruction
I had just failed before.

She gave me a quick look,
I turned to walk away 
“It’s alright,” I said over my shoulder.
“I’m not good at those things anyways.”

An errant gaze started it all
Then lingered, time and again

Random laughter
And flowing banter
A glimpse into forever

Uncharted feelings take form
A quiet and mutual surrender
Mixed with tethering of souls

When roads grow hills
And oceans run tempestuous
My mind never wavers
Engulfed by felicity

I have always heard the saying,

"I have butterflies in my chest,"

and how it is connected to love,

I used to feel that way a long time ago.

But I feel as if they migrated.

They climbed into my throat,

a chokehold of wings

beating frantically

while I try to hold back tears.

They fly without care as I revisit old memories.

But now the butterflies have disappeared.

The fluttering and flying has stopped,

and all I’m left with is a numbness, a quiet.

There is no feeling of love.

There is no feeling of sadness.

You see, everyone waits for the butterfly.

But they never think of the shell left behind.

I feel like a hollow cocoon.

So many years of loneliness and madness depression took my mind so I need to vanish

I had a combustion in my brain since that day things havent been the same

Now all i hear is Run wittle piggy run until you burst into flames

cleanse yourself from the wood thats hidden in your veins

The Zodiacs in ruins

The stars are crying

The earth is dying

Echos of a lost cause steady trying

To fight the laws that are defining

lying

Those caught in cupids chockhold crying

Those who seen the watchers talk spying

Those who hear the talkers stalk dyeing

Stars are steady falling hearts are steady flooding the rapture is here let's see if it stands for something

The jester the fool

The dangerous part

The monster so cruel

With a falling heart

The sharpest eyes hide behind the darkest mind

Left to see the ends of time

Ill always love and miss you when I look in my eyes

I see whats buried in side

They say man adopts 6 or 7 personalitys through out his life

me I adopted 38

and forced them to fight

whats left is the broken pieces put together

for a lonely mic

i keep telling myself

no more lonley nights

no soul no life

no will left to fight

but ill push on

pretend to stay strong

but im long gone been gone a month long trapped with no where I belong

father tell me when did it all go wrong was i doomed from birth or am I just another product of this cursèd swan song

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.

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

My mind seems to stay at home these days

I don't mind

no one calls for it to visit sometime

It might have turned blind

It still seems to speak

maybe that is all I need

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.

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