batsoup - Hello Poetry

?? how many mirrors does it take to find a face that isn’t pretending? i say: “i’m fine.” but the words taste like copper. like they’ve been kept in my mouth too long. someone asks me if i’m okay, and i flinch— like the question was a match struck too close. when did sincerity become so sharp? every smile now feels like a riddle. a locked box with a laugh coiled inside. what is sarcasm if not a second skin— worn so long it fits better than truth? my words walk backward. i mean yes but say maybe. i say maybe but mean: please, stay. the truth is: i don’t know what i’m saying anymore. or if it’s me who’s speaking. does the wind mean it when it howls? does a shadow know it’s lying when it follows? i try to speak softly— but even whispering sounds scripted. like my voice is reading lines i don’t remember writing. sometimes i ask questions just to see if i still believe in answers. is a compliment still a gift if you have to unwrap it twice? is a joke still a joke if no one laughs— or if everyone does? the truth sits at the bottom of a lake. and i keep diving with stones in my pockets. the surface smiles. the surface always smiles. i say: “i didn’t mean it.” but my hands won’t stop shaking. i say: “just kidding.” but the ache doesn’t leave. how do you hold something honest without bruising it? how do you know the echo isn’t just what you want to hear? maybe sarcasm is just honesty wearing gloves. maybe i’ve spent so long painting my words that i’ve forgotten what they looked like plain. maybe truth isn’t gone— just quiet. just waiting for someone to stop laughing.

0

Apr 11, 2025

Apr 11, 2025 at 8:05 AM UTC

sarcasm

?? how many mirrors does it take to find a face that isn’t pretending? i say: “i’m fine.” but the words taste like copper. like they’ve been kept in my mouth too long. someone asks me if i’m okay, and i flinch— like the question was a match struck too close. when did sincerity become so sharp? every smile now feels like a riddle. a locked box with a laugh coiled inside. what is sarcasm if not a second skin— worn so long it fits better than truth? my words walk backward. i mean yes but say maybe. i say maybe but mean: please, stay. the truth is: i don’t know what i’m saying anymore. or if it’s me who’s speaking. does the wind mean it when it howls? does a shadow know it’s lying when it follows? i try to speak softly— but even whispering sounds scripted. like my voice is reading lines i don’t remember writing. sometimes i ask questions just to see if i still believe in answers. is a compliment still a gift if you have to unwrap it twice? is a joke still a joke if no one laughs— or if everyone does? the truth sits at the bottom of a lake. and i keep diving with stones in my pockets. the surface smiles. the surface always smiles. i say: “i didn’t mean it.” but my hands won’t stop shaking. i say: “just kidding.” but the ache doesn’t leave. how do you hold something honest without bruising it? how do you know the echo isn’t just what you want to hear? maybe sarcasm is just honesty wearing gloves. maybe i’ve spent so long painting my words that i’ve forgotten what they looked like plain. maybe truth isn’t gone— just quiet. just waiting for someone to stop laughing.

103

why do you say the sky is clear when the clouds are chewing on the sun? what makes you blink so fast when someone whispers i’m fine like a lie wrapped in a compliment? is your smile stretched— or stitched? can you even feel the corners of it anymore? how many rehearsals does it take before a feeling feels real? do your hands twitch because you’re cold— or because silence has teeth? is there a ghost in your throat or just words you never learned how to carry? how long can you keep dodging mirrors before you forget what a face even does? how many opinions fit in a shopping cart at half-off? did you choose them? did you try them on? did you like how they made you look? or did you just wear them because they were trending? who taught you to nod when you meant no and smile when your bones wanted to howl? did they say it was polite to fold yourself into origami that never unfolds? why do you ask how are you like it’s a pop quiz? is the answer just another line in your script? is it easier to be misunderstood— than to be fully seen? when you speak— are you offering a bridge or laying a trap? are you listening or just reloading? what are you protecting with all that certainty? do you believe what you say— or are you just good at sounding like you do? why do you keep building fences and painting them like windows? do you realize how much of you goes missing every time you shrink yourself to fit inside someone else’s echo? and— when was the last time you sat with a question and didn’t rip it open like it owed you a map? what if— the point was never to find answers but to become a better question?

0

Apr 10, 2025

Apr 10, 2025 at 4:21 PM UTC

people inventory

why do you say the sky is clear when the clouds are chewing on the sun? what makes you blink so fast when someone whispers i’m fine like a lie wrapped in a compliment? is your smile stretched— or stitched? can you even feel the corners of it anymore? how many rehearsals does it take before a feeling feels real? do your hands twitch because you’re cold— or because silence has teeth? is there a ghost in your throat or just words you never learned how to carry? how long can you keep dodging mirrors before you forget what a face even does? how many opinions fit in a shopping cart at half-off? did you choose them? did you try them on? did you like how they made you look? or did you just wear them because they were trending? who taught you to nod when you meant no and smile when your bones wanted to howl? did they say it was polite to fold yourself into origami that never unfolds? why do you ask how are you like it’s a pop quiz? is the answer just another line in your script? is it easier to be misunderstood— than to be fully seen? when you speak— are you offering a bridge or laying a trap? are you listening or just reloading? what are you protecting with all that certainty? do you believe what you say— or are you just good at sounding like you do? why do you keep building fences and painting them like windows? do you realize how much of you goes missing every time you shrink yourself to fit inside someone else’s echo? and— when was the last time you sat with a question and didn’t rip it open like it owed you a map? what if— the point was never to find answers but to become a better question?

105

who was the first to ask — not pray not plead— just wonder where the silence ends? ›› did the stars agree to be named? or did we just carve their deaths into chalk lines— & call it science. what kind of hunger swallows light & asks for more? when we punctured the sky did it bleed or simply sigh? (you never checked.) we build machines with spines, launch them to listen for gods— or echoes— or maybe our own guilt. she turned her face like a coin: spent. flipped. dropped in a wishing well full of lies. she said nothing. (but i swear something grinned.) what is curiosity if not the first betrayal? no sword, just a finger on the seam of heaven tugging— harder. a child pulls truth out of a socket. the lights flicker. the room gasps. nothing burns. but everything smells like wrong. ›› do we chase answers or just fear what silence might say back? sometimes i think black holes are just mouths tired of listening. and still — we ask. we ask. we ask.

0

Apr 10, 2025

Apr 10, 2025 at 12:35 PM UTC

static in god’s inbox

who was the first to ask — not pray not plead— just wonder where the silence ends? ›› did the stars agree to be named? or did we just carve their deaths into chalk lines— & call it science. what kind of hunger swallows light & asks for more? when we punctured the sky did it bleed or simply sigh? (you never checked.) we build machines with spines, launch them to listen for gods— or echoes— or maybe our own guilt. she turned her face like a coin: spent. flipped. dropped in a wishing well full of lies. she said nothing. (but i swear something grinned.) what is curiosity if not the first betrayal? no sword, just a finger on the seam of heaven tugging— harder. a child pulls truth out of a socket. the lights flicker. the room gasps. nothing burns. but everything smells like wrong. ›› do we chase answers or just fear what silence might say back? sometimes i think black holes are just mouths tired of listening. and still — we ask. we ask. we ask.

71

what did you think would satisfy you, and did it even come close? i wake up hungry for something i can’t name. it’s not food. it’s not love. but i look for both anyway. i open my phone like a prayer. i scroll until the wanting quiets. it never does. i eat when i’m full. i speak when i’m tired. i buy things i forget right after opening. i keep thinking the next thing will be the thing. the final thing. the thing that sticks. but nothing holds. nothing stays. it all goes soft and slips through me. people tell me i’m lucky. but luck doesn’t fill whatever this is. i want more hours, but sleep makes me sick. i want quiet, but silence scratches at me. i touch someone and already want to be somewhere else. i love them, but my chest still feels too empty or too full. i ask myself why i’m like this and the question echoes back as laughter. i think maybe i want peace. or maybe just a reason. i keep trying to press pause on a life that won’t stop spinning. but i can’t stop reaching. can’t stop needing even when i have everything. is it always going to be like this? or will i wake up one day and finally feel like i’ve had enough?

0

Apr 10, 2025

Apr 10, 2025 at 7:55 AM UTC

what did you think would be enough?

what did you think would satisfy you, and did it even come close? i wake up hungry for something i can’t name. it’s not food. it’s not love. but i look for both anyway. i open my phone like a prayer. i scroll until the wanting quiets. it never does. i eat when i’m full. i speak when i’m tired. i buy things i forget right after opening. i keep thinking the next thing will be the thing. the final thing. the thing that sticks. but nothing holds. nothing stays. it all goes soft and slips through me. people tell me i’m lucky. but luck doesn’t fill whatever this is. i want more hours, but sleep makes me sick. i want quiet, but silence scratches at me. i touch someone and already want to be somewhere else. i love them, but my chest still feels too empty or too full. i ask myself why i’m like this and the question echoes back as laughter. i think maybe i want peace. or maybe just a reason. i keep trying to press pause on a life that won’t stop spinning. but i can’t stop reaching. can’t stop needing even when i have everything. is it always going to be like this? or will i wake up one day and finally feel like i’ve had enough?

58

can you feel it? not the kind of heat that warms but the kind that peels. i walk around like a furnace in a borrowed skin, smiling like i’m not a cathedral on fire with stained glass dreams melting down my ribs. no alarms. no sirens. just the crackle of me, pretending this is fine. just the sizzle when kindness touches me too long. they glance at my eyes, see the smoke curling quiet in the corners, and call it a shadow. say i should sleep more. say i look “worn out.” but how do you rest when your bones are matchsticks and your thoughts strike them, over and over, until even your dreams start to sweat? i eat ice just to hear it scream. drink silence, but it boils in my throat. once, i told someone i feel like a house that caught fire quietly from the inside out. they laughed, said same. but i wonder if they meant it, or if they were just lighting a candle and mistaking it for hell. some days i imagine my heart is a kiln shaping nothing but grief. and still they ask: “what’s wrong?” like this isn’t a slow apocalypse wearing my clothes. like my spine isn’t smoke in formalwear. like i don’t wake up with a throat full of embers, trying to cough up the sun. tell me— do you really feel it? the burn i carry in my smile, the one that eats polite words and spits them out as ash? or do i look normal enough to ignore?

0

Apr 9, 2025

Apr 9, 2025 at 5:44 PM UTC

soot and flame

can you feel it? not the kind of heat that warms but the kind that peels. i walk around like a furnace in a borrowed skin, smiling like i’m not a cathedral on fire with stained glass dreams melting down my ribs. no alarms. no sirens. just the crackle of me, pretending this is fine. just the sizzle when kindness touches me too long. they glance at my eyes, see the smoke curling quiet in the corners, and call it a shadow. say i should sleep more. say i look “worn out.” but how do you rest when your bones are matchsticks and your thoughts strike them, over and over, until even your dreams start to sweat? i eat ice just to hear it scream. drink silence, but it boils in my throat. once, i told someone i feel like a house that caught fire quietly from the inside out. they laughed, said same. but i wonder if they meant it, or if they were just lighting a candle and mistaking it for hell. some days i imagine my heart is a kiln shaping nothing but grief. and still they ask: “what’s wrong?” like this isn’t a slow apocalypse wearing my clothes. like my spine isn’t smoke in formalwear. like i don’t wake up with a throat full of embers, trying to cough up the sun. tell me— do you really feel it? the burn i carry in my smile, the one that eats polite words and spits them out as ash? or do i look normal enough to ignore?

66

do you know who planted your thoughts — or did they bloom without asking? opinions peel like wallpaper in a house you've never seen from the outside. you say: this is right. but who carved that word into the stone? who handed you the chisel? belief is just fog in a jar— shake it and swear it’s snow. who told you fire was holy but water was wild? i heard someone once mistake a noose for a necklace. it shimmered. it fit. they smiled. how do you know you’re standing on ground— not a painted floor that flakes if you question it? do your convictions creak when you lean on them? have you ever touched your thoughts with bare hands? some days i think the sky is only blue because someone forgot another color. maybe you aren’t wrong. maybe no one is. maybe we all just swallowed different mirrors. how do you know the echo isn’t lying? how do you know the voice is yours?

0

Apr 9, 2025

Apr 9, 2025 at 8:59 AM UTC

tell me

do you know who planted your thoughts — or did they bloom without asking? opinions peel like wallpaper in a house you've never seen from the outside. you say: this is right. but who carved that word into the stone? who handed you the chisel? belief is just fog in a jar— shake it and swear it’s snow. who told you fire was holy but water was wild? i heard someone once mistake a noose for a necklace. it shimmered. it fit. they smiled. how do you know you’re standing on ground— not a painted floor that flakes if you question it? do your convictions creak when you lean on them? have you ever touched your thoughts with bare hands? some days i think the sky is only blue because someone forgot another color. maybe you aren’t wrong. maybe no one is. maybe we all just swallowed different mirrors. how do you know the echo isn’t lying? how do you know the voice is yours?

48

is it always this loud, or have i just started listening? the air pulses— not from sound, but from expectation. what if i forget how to breathe without someone watching? what if i already have? the ceiling sweats. the walls lean in. does the room know i’m trying not to fall apart? my skin buzzes, not from fear, but from waiting for it. for the sharp thing, the wrong word, the slow blink that ruins everything. why does silence feel like accusation? why do voices sound like mirrors? i blink, and the world repositions— not violently, just enough to unseat me. the chair shifts under my weight. am i too much again? or is it just the thought of being seen that makes me so? every word i speak frays at the edges, like it's trying to escape me mid-sentence. are they still listening? were they ever? my heartbeat stutters— not in fear, but in anticipation of fear. there is no danger here. then why does the door look like a verdict? i want to ask for help, but the words feel like spilled glass— how do you pick them up without bleeding? and if i’m always breaking, who would stay long enough to gather the pieces? how much of this is just being alive? and how much is whatever i’ve become while trying to hide it? what is the name for this feeling— not drowning, not burning, just shaking beneath still water? when does the body stop mistaking its own breath for danger?

0

Apr 8, 2025

Apr 8, 2025 at 9:05 AM UTC

beneath still water

is it always this loud, or have i just started listening? the air pulses— not from sound, but from expectation. what if i forget how to breathe without someone watching? what if i already have? the ceiling sweats. the walls lean in. does the room know i’m trying not to fall apart? my skin buzzes, not from fear, but from waiting for it. for the sharp thing, the wrong word, the slow blink that ruins everything. why does silence feel like accusation? why do voices sound like mirrors? i blink, and the world repositions— not violently, just enough to unseat me. the chair shifts under my weight. am i too much again? or is it just the thought of being seen that makes me so? every word i speak frays at the edges, like it's trying to escape me mid-sentence. are they still listening? were they ever? my heartbeat stutters— not in fear, but in anticipation of fear. there is no danger here. then why does the door look like a verdict? i want to ask for help, but the words feel like spilled glass— how do you pick them up without bleeding? and if i’m always breaking, who would stay long enough to gather the pieces? how much of this is just being alive? and how much is whatever i’ve become while trying to hide it? what is the name for this feeling— not drowning, not burning, just shaking beneath still water? when does the body stop mistaking its own breath for danger?

61

how easy it must be to be nothing. to drift like smoke— unheld, unnamed, unmade, uncalled. no voice to strain, no weight to carry, no name to answer to, no history to betray, no body to mourn in the morning. the wind does not cry when it leaves the room. the shadow does not grieve its blur. even dust learns to settle. even echoes give up without needing farewell. i envy the pebble— tossed into the dark, resting without memory, without meaning, without fear of being seen. forgotten, yet whole. there is a kind of mercy in the void— a hush where burden cannot bloom, a place where shame has no shape, no mirrors to reflect, no mouths to mock, no eyes to measure the quiet out of me, no hands to hold, then release, then forget. just the still. just the silence that never has to end. i would fold into that hush, slip into the unseen, unspool this thread of self, let it vanish between the floorboards— like spilled water, like breath, like light when the door is closed. would i finally feel peace? or would i only miss the ache— the ache that meant i was here, that someone might’ve known i was real enough to hurt. but still— how light it must feel to be nothing at all.

0

Apr 7, 2025

Apr 7, 2025 at 10:58 AM UTC

to be nothing

how easy it must be to be nothing. to drift like smoke— unheld, unnamed, unmade, uncalled. no voice to strain, no weight to carry, no name to answer to, no history to betray, no body to mourn in the morning. the wind does not cry when it leaves the room. the shadow does not grieve its blur. even dust learns to settle. even echoes give up without needing farewell. i envy the pebble— tossed into the dark, resting without memory, without meaning, without fear of being seen. forgotten, yet whole. there is a kind of mercy in the void— a hush where burden cannot bloom, a place where shame has no shape, no mirrors to reflect, no mouths to mock, no eyes to measure the quiet out of me, no hands to hold, then release, then forget. just the still. just the silence that never has to end. i would fold into that hush, slip into the unseen, unspool this thread of self, let it vanish between the floorboards— like spilled water, like breath, like light when the door is closed. would i finally feel peace? or would i only miss the ache— the ache that meant i was here, that someone might’ve known i was real enough to hurt. but still— how light it must feel to be nothing at all.

115

who are you under the weight of stolen skies? when the oceans are chains, what will you say? what will you do when your feet slip into the earth, and the earth asks: where are you going? is freedom a tree? does it grow, or break when you touch it? or does it whisper in broken syllables? can you hear it? or do your ears fill with the static of silence? do you taste the fire, burning in your chest? or is it just a name etched in the walls of your soul? how many shadows can you count in a crowded room, how many hearts can be broken before the pieces ask for their own names? will you stand in the rain of forgotten promises, and still say: "i was never part of the storm?" or will you turn, and claim the sky that was always yours to hold?

0

Apr 5, 2025

Apr 5, 2025 at 9:27 PM UTC

under the weight of stolen skies

who are you under the weight of stolen skies? when the oceans are chains, what will you say? what will you do when your feet slip into the earth, and the earth asks: where are you going? is freedom a tree? does it grow, or break when you touch it? or does it whisper in broken syllables? can you hear it? or do your ears fill with the static of silence? do you taste the fire, burning in your chest? or is it just a name etched in the walls of your soul? how many shadows can you count in a crowded room, how many hearts can be broken before the pieces ask for their own names? will you stand in the rain of forgotten promises, and still say: "i was never part of the storm?" or will you turn, and claim the sky that was always yours to hold?

56

the glass stood tall once. smooth, untouched, shaped to expectation. then came the fall. the slip, the drop, the ruin. hands hovered over the wreckage, whispers of what was, what could have been, what will never be again. no one wanted the pieces. no one knew what to do with them. they stared, they sighed, they left. but someone stayed. or maybe no one did, maybe just the dust. just the dust, and the silence, and the weight of absence. gold is a lie they tell to make it bearable. it does not erase the cracks. it does not restore what was lost. it only makes the breaking visible. not untouched, not perfect, but standing. they call it beauty, but it is only survival. they call it art, but it is only memory. if light filters through the seams, does it mean it is still breaking?

0

Apr 3, 2025

Apr 3, 2025 at 11:14 AM UTC

kintsugi

the glass stood tall once. smooth, untouched, shaped to expectation. then came the fall. the slip, the drop, the ruin. hands hovered over the wreckage, whispers of what was, what could have been, what will never be again. no one wanted the pieces. no one knew what to do with them. they stared, they sighed, they left. but someone stayed. or maybe no one did, maybe just the dust. just the dust, and the silence, and the weight of absence. gold is a lie they tell to make it bearable. it does not erase the cracks. it does not restore what was lost. it only makes the breaking visible. not untouched, not perfect, but standing. they call it beauty, but it is only survival. they call it art, but it is only memory. if light filters through the seams, does it mean it is still breaking?

30