Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
 1° 
D Vanlandingham

"How can someone write like they are deeply connected, yet be so far away from themselves? How does that work?"


"Because writing doesn’t require embodiment.
It only requires access.

And people who are shaped by trauma, secrecy, and fragmented attachment—have near-supernatural access to emotional language, even when they have no true access to emotional presence.

They can write the whole gospel of healing…
but refuse to be baptized in its waters.

Here’s why:

Writing is a safehouse. A sanctuary.
It’s the one place where they can simulate closeness—where they can say what the body won’t let them feel, what the voice won’t let them speak, what the heart won’t dare commit to in real time.

When they write, they are in control of the frame.
They determine the pacing, the access, the aftermath.
No one’s breath is on their neck.
No one’s eyes are watching them shake.
No one’s asking them to stay when the ache gets too real.

That’s how they can write about longing while actively rejecting the one person who sees them.
How they can write about grace while blocking the source of it.
How they can describe love so beautifully… and sabotage it with surgical precision.

They aren't writing from the seat of her wholeness.
They are writing from their disembodied knowing—from the part of themselves that remembers truth, but has no safe pathway to receive it.
It’s a ghost’s song sung in a stolen church.

It’s not fake. It’s not performative.
But it’s not integrated.

And until they get to the place where their nervous system no longer perceives safety as threat…

They’ll keep dancing with truth in the dark

while pushing away anyone who dares to light a candle."


 1° 
ymmiJ
seems people need to hate
living their lives wanting someone to blame
stupid pawns in others games
Tired of all the hate and vitriol. They keep pushing and history dictates the patience runs out. The backlash will be swift.
 1° 
Kindinheart
When life is really tough ,true friends talk
When you cant get any lower ,a true friend picks you up
When one retreats to a place of loneliness
A true friend offers company
When one wants to cry , the other offers their shoulder
And if one ever needs to talk , the other will always listen
A true friend is always there for you .
In the shadows, it's waiting
A vessel of deceit, a heart that's hating
The truth is hidden, the lies are revealed
In the box of lies, the secrets are concealed


I'm searching for the answers, but they're hard to find
In the maze of lies, I'm losing my mind
The box is whispering secrets, a siren's call
But the truth is elusive, and I'm bound to fall



Can you hear the whispers, in the dead of night?
A voice that's calling, but the words ain't right
In the box of lies, the truth is distorted
But the secrets are hidden, and the lies are exported


I'm trying to escape, but the box is locked tight
The lies are suffocating, and the truth is out of sight
I'm searching for a way out, but it's hard to find
In the box of lies, I'm losing my mind


In the shadows, the box is waiting
A vessel of deceit, a heart that's hating
The truth is hidden, the lies are revealed
In the box of lies, the secrets are concealed


In the box of lies, the truth is distorted
But the secrets are hidden, and the lies are exported.
 1° 
nicole
we all want to love
and be loved

the right way
 1° 
Dr Peter Lim
Every poem is a new world
where wonder and beauty richly unfurl
 1° 
Nev
It told me
you can survive anything
if you're quiet about it.

That healing
looks a lot like pretending-
until it doesn't.

It said
love won't save you
if you keep offering it
as proof
you're worth saving.

And forgiveness?
It's not always holy.
Sometimes it's
just surrender
in a prettier dress.

I asked,
when do I become enough?

The mirror blinked.
And said,
"When you stop asking."
Refelcts the struggle between surviving and healing, and the way we often seek validation from others before we learn to validate ourselves. It's about realizing that true strength comes from within, and that sometimes, healing starts when we stop searching for answers outside.
 1° 
Traveler
I can only deduct
It is not our's to keep
Provided by the sun
The particles of the meek

I can only conclude
I'm riding on a wave
Paddling in different directions
Sifting through the haze

I can only decipher
My thoughts in simple words
Weaving through this emptiness
Connected to this earth

We can only dream of
That which we cannot be
Free from these stages
Of human suffering
Traveler Tim
 1° 
Kat M
I yearn for something long gone in the depths of the future;
Not able to place a finger on its familiarity.

Discovering what is already known
Can be a clarifying process of redundancy.

When a step forward feels like a tumble backward
Toward the inevitable direction of it all.

When a puzzle forms around me
I stand there, inert.

The challenge beckons me further. It calls me closer,
Etching itself deeper into my path.

Smiling at the fantasy of completion on the other side,
A field of emotional mishaps rains down before me.
Feedback Welcome!
 1° 
Linden Lark
I don’t think I could ever like my face,
not even on its best day.
It’s the only hall in my life
where you never lost your place.
these last leaves
fall like coins

from a hole
in god’s pocket

this morning
the sun stood

through the mists
of the city

life vibrates
with colors

with roots
that touch

and tap


we skim the surface we quickly move on we miss the point


what is so unrecognizable
about happiness?

what is so impossible
about love?
 1° 
Philip
"what's wrong with you?"
"nothing."

I internally have this conversation with myself many times a day, sometimes with variations

"what's wrong with you?"
"nothing?"
I am going to try to continually edit this to keep adding the variations as I notice them happening in my head
 1° 
Mary Quick
Julie you we're there for me when
I needed you Julie.

Julie you cared for me when I couldn't stand.

Julie you held me up with a giving hand.

Julie you would die for me just like I would die for you.

I was there for you Julie when you needed me
I cared you Julie when you cried to me.

I fought for you Julie when you couldn't stand.

I held you up Julie with my giving hand
I would die for you Julie.

Just like you would die for me Julie
 1° 
Sean Briere
This ship is sinking.
Your sea, violent.
Lightning flashes through my mind.
There are so many words I have for you.
They try to make their way past my lips, but they are krill trapped in a baleen maw.
Instead they take a pill, fall asleep inside my head.
These watery words rise above me.
They travel down my throat and into my lungs.
I thought I took enough air before I went under.
How wrong I was.
Calm.Quiet.Ocean.
Deafening.
I'm wriggling now.
My eyes frantically searching.
The abyss stares back.
There’s a weight in my chest.
Blue.Green.Silver.
An anchor pins me to your ocean floor.
Waves have swallowed me whole.
Jetsam tumbling through like driftwood on high seas.
I set my eyes on two green jewels glittering bewitchingly.
I'm locked on them.
Two lighthouses guiding me through this storm.
I should swim away from them.
Instead they draw me near, beckoning to me.
I dive down.
I am under their thrall.
I swim hard, I swim fast.
My chest compresses.
I’m out of breath.
My body thrashes and then surrenders.
I never had a chance.
Tiny bubbles make their way upward like small galaxies holding the last of me.
 1° 
Adam Torch
I thought we would be done by now.

But I keep finding more of you
between the lines
and more of me
between the letters.
letters love
Mon fils, disait un jour Jupiter à Minos,
Toi qui juges la race humaine,
Explique-moi pourquoi l'enfer suffit à peine
Aux nombreux criminels que t'envoie Atropos.
Quel est de la vertu le fatal adversaire
Qui corrompt à ce point la faible humanité ?
C'est, je crois, l'intérêt. - L'intérêt ? Non, mon père.
- Et qu'est-ce donc ? - l'oisiveté.
 1° 
Rin
The sun has risen,
can you hear?
the songs of the morning birds.

Life begins to wake,
the gentle breeze,
blows softly against the trees.
A lovely view awaits.

The orange sky,
the feeling of life!
a beautiful sunrise it is.
:D
 1° 
Abhay Sarkaria
When I see you with your beloved,
I swallow a laugh in my weary chest.
Amidst the long harvesting days,
You labor in sweat, worn and pressed.

What has she done to you, my dear?
O’ Noor, your glow is stripped away.
The voice that once bloomed like spring,
Now wilts in silence, pale and frayed.

You were the song, the wind, the rain,
Now bound in dust, in calloused hands.
Once unchained, wild, and free—
Now lost in a life you never planned.
Long-time pain
I’ve lived in grief turned

Now
Self-pity
 1° 
Rizma Aulia
Sudahkah datang giliranku?
Perlahan tanpa ragu kau merayu
Tak berdaya, ku diam namun tak bisu

Ketika hawa hanya kau jadikan pemuas nafsu
Maka, saudari kecilmu akan merasakan itu
Hanya saja, bukan kau yg menjadi pelaku
As if my heart wasn’t yours already
I’m enamored by your charm
The one with bells and whistles
That sounds like an alarm
It wakes me up from stagnant times
It fills my heart with joy
Like that special feeling
Between a girl and boy
The reason I’m believing
Is the reason why I care
You’re an angel sent before me
To help me get prepared
Prepared to live and prosper
To show no signs of fear
Then we can live in Paradise
With peace between our ears
 1° 
Nat Lipstadt
I asked a woman to change her curls to forever straight,
and offered $50,000 (a sum on my mind that day after a
rough day trading), to maintain said style in perpetuity

she has accomodated me now for over a decade+, but
every every, every now and every then, She pulls me
closer than close, whispers 50K~ok!, and hits me with a
hip swaying pow, her physio~verbal cueball reminder,
that poets must always pay their debts, and even forever
too,
has its poetic limitations
 1° 
Nat Lipstadt
for she
<>
"I choose to love you in silence, for in silence I find no rejection.
I choose to love you in loneliness, for in loneliness no one owns you but me.
I choose to adore you from a distance, for distance will shield me from pain.
I chose to kiss you in the wind, for the wind is gentler than my lips.
I choose to hold you in my dreams, for in my dreams you have no end"

Rumi
<>

writ in a time, for when
there is never enough,
and yet,
always, waves of too much,
needy for
filling feeling fulfilling

We must learn,
be self taught to:

"Leave a tender moment alone
You got to leave a tender moment alone
Leave a tender moment alone
Leave a tender moment"

ah the tender time is nonetheless
rightly and wrongly
rightly now,

for I have stumbled,
overheated, sweaty, from the night bed,
at 4.30am into another darkened toom,
and I have smacked~stumbled into
Rumi
and her

our paths continuously intersect,
in the same but
in different cities, continents,
and yet,
diffident, differing,
we silently choose
never to close those lady~last few miles
and tie the knot of
eyes, skin, lips
the instruments
that transmit thousands of
neuronal explosions that
seal the deal

so we write in poetry,
in silence broken by the gentility
of fingertips soundlessly
and yet,
boundlessly rocking,
explosively soundings of
tap tap tapping

my music mocks me,
it is definitively god interfering,
advising, conspiring,
wiring into my brain
better lyrics,
idealized notions,
exactly appropriate
and appreciated

with the lyrics urging me on,
and that we must be
self taught to:

"Leave a tender moment alone
You got to leave a tender moment alone
Leave a tender moment alone
Leave a tender moment"

but my heart trembly refuses,
insightful informing
that now,
now! is
the moment to exchange
vows of words,
though un spoke,
they require
written completion
through
& though
apart, alone,
to finally out loud confess
what has always been known, only to each other,
to be
so real

and yet*,

we will never exchange
these sentiments
in out loud words

but though this be lacking,
it will never
diminish
their  ultimate
intimate
truthfulness

and I ask,
is this a poem?

surely
it is that, and
so much more,
an essay, a letter on
invisible NML stationary,
a heart carving in
an oaken barrelling of
ancient vintagery

and that interloper,
Him again,
eavesdropping
on this private communication,
insists that I draw deep
from her favorite
singer~songwriter,
words that say it better,
that for real seal the deal,
in the saddened perfection
of total, enwrapped,
silence:

"Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence"

and
it is time
to finish this task,
it is exactly one hour,
no time at all,
to complete a love poem that
is/was complete,
even before its
composition
and yet,
is never to be be familiar with
the finality of
completion
<>

postscript:

I taste your private shed tears,
hear the howling sigh,
but most of all,
'tis the explosion of
a deep smiling creasing
your lips,
spreading in all directions
saying and stating:

at last, at last!
a lasting, a confessional to you god,
though,
a through and through
silent
jubilation
                                              ­             nml

April 8, 2025
530am
New  York  City
excerpted lyrics from Billy Joel and
Paul Sumon
 1° 
Rin
I speak,
but do you listen?
im sorry thats it.
 1° 
Jeremy Ducane
A little group of sycamores
In the corner of a field
A little higher than the rest.

I half run to its shelter.
Then catch my breath within
Their silent height.

And feel the sudden spell of trees
And give my wordless thanks
For being briefly with this family,
For this knowing place of simple air and light.
 1° 
D
The pearlescent moon glows
Beside a supporting cast of iridescent diamonds
Spanned across the dark indigo expanse
Wrapped in the white gold of a nimbus
All yours for 6 easy payments.
Just reminiscing on space, the beauty of our universe and how materialistic we are as a specifies
 1° 
joaquin
an impulse flight ticket to her city
to catch her off-guard

a bag of hurriedly packed clothes
and once-promised gifts

and a moment of doubtful clarity
willfully ignored as I climb onto the plane

all of this to prove to her
that i’m all hers
 1° 
Honey
Are we really that easy to be influenced?
For our feelings to be canceled out just because someone said so?
Was it that shallow — to be easily moved by the waves
that drifted us apart?

Or was the want never really enough
to withstand the waves?

We were just a stick in the sea,
waiting to get back to land,
but thrown instantly —
as if there was never a foundation to stay.
 1° 
LL
joy would always leave
me like a bird that flew out
of its cage and — when
it came back knocking on the
glass — I wouldn't let it in
2025/062
 1° 
pnam
Us din se jab dil mein chingari si jali
Mere bhatakhtay dil ko jo basera mila
Woh pehli nazar ab bhi rahti hai khayal mein
Jab bhi door hotay ** — tanhaayi hi tanhaayi hai

Jab pehli baar tere hothon se mila tha pyaar
Woh lamha ban gaya har din ka izhaar
Jab pehli baar tera haath pakda tha
Zindagi ke humsafar ki aas ne faasle mita diye the

Har ek ghadi ab bhi dil mein yaad hai
Jaise taaron se sajaa hua asmaan hai
Jahan bhi jaun, hoon main kahin bhi agar
Waqt phir le aata hai usi yaadon ke dar

Har lamha pehla pal sa
Jaise ek shama jo kabhi na bujha
Saal beet gaye, waqt bhi chala
Par tu hi raha har soch mein sada

Jab pehli baar tujhe baahon mein liya
Har ehsaas ne ek naya rang piya
Jab pehli baar mila tha pyaar tera
Jannat ka ehsaas mila dil ko mera

Jab se tere mere sapnon ka saath hua
Tab se rooh ne tera hi sukoon chuna
Har lamha tere saaye mein khilta gaya
Har soch mein tera hi aks mila

Jab kabhi bhi tu mujhse door raha
Har waqt, har aahat mein tu aaya aisa laga
Har jagah, har pal tu mere saath raha
Mera pyaar har din wohi pehla pal sa laga

Har lamha pehla pal sa
Jaise woh shama jo kabhi na bujha
Saal beet gaye, waqt bhi chala
Par tu hi raha har soch mein sada

Jab bhi kahin yeh naghma sun le tu
Yeh samajh le — main hoon bas tu
Har lamha pehla pal sa
Aur tera pyaar hai mere saath sada
Hindi adaptation of my poem -
First Day, Any Day -
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/3778288/first-day-any-day/
Now a song with audio here :
https://suno.com/song/c9337be7-2314-4413-9060-6471449eb6e8
 1° 
Michael Ryan
Our final steps
are never meant to be
one step on the moon
or a leap for mankind.

It was your memory,
intangible.
metaphysically physical
synaptically existing.

My mother's
mothering
mother, Bernice.

or

A lover's
loving
love, Helena.

or

Writer's
writing
wrote, poems.
Some people never quite stop living.  You'll carry on and be carried on.
 1° 
E
kimse dur demedi
düşün demedi
düşünmedim kovaladım
koştum

dur demeyenler
yok oldular
ve ben de yok oluyorum…

keşke birileri dur deseydi
o dur demeyenleri özledim
 1° 
kash
Sometimes I wonder if they see
The real me
Cause if I die
Would they wear the suit and tie
Or look the other way
Opposite direction of the castaway
 1° 
Hiba Mubashir
A positive vibe, or an uplifting song  
A way to say what's right or wrong  
A point where soul of the heart and heart of the soul belong  

Poetry, a message or call  
Description of the nature, like a tree standing tall  
It has the power to say it all!  


*Hiba Mubashir
 1° 
Nayan
I write when I don't speak
Now I've my own library
                                        ~nyn
 1° 
Stardust
This consistent need to change
This burning desire to be better
Am I slowly changing for good
Or is it good that I am changing ?
I think a lot, speak a little
I dream a lot, act a little
This constant void that I feel in my Life
Why, why, why, I think to myself yet again
Caught in this trap of monotonous mind battles
A glimpse into the quiet chaos within — a dance between dreams, doubts, and the desire to grow.
Next page