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4d · 62
If I had the Pen
God wants something from me.
I don’t know what.
But it isn’t this.
It isn’t peace.
It isn’t sleep.

He calls it a purpose
I call it a sentence.
And maybe that's blasphemy.
But I’m too tired to care about heaven.

Every day, I wake up
inside a body that never asked to exist.
And I carry a name
that feels like someone else’s mistake.

The world keeps turning,
not out of beauty,
but because no one knows how to stop it.
It wants me to smile,
to adapt,
to bow.
I won’t.

Not out of courage
but because I no longer know how to pretend.

If I had the pen,
God would be a child,
crying in the dark,
begging someone to answer.

And no one would come.
I save people
because no one ever came for me.

Because every time I reach for someone else,
I forget-briefly
that I’m still drowning.

It’s not nobility.
It’s not grace.
It’s the only way I know how to stay alive
without admitting I don’t want to be.

As long as I’m helping someone else
pull their pain out of their chest,
I don’t have to look
at the blade still in mine.

But the worst part is this:
One day, I won’t be able to save them.
And when that day comes,
I won’t know how to save myself either.

And I don’t think anyone else will,
or would.
written by the woman who can barely breathe without you

I don't know how to say this without falling apart.
But I need you to know something  I need you to understand:

I don’t know if I’ll ever be your mother.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be worthy of the kind of love you could give me.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be enough.

I feel it, all the time.
This emptiness. This crushing silence inside me that says: You’re not enough. You won’t ever be enough.
And every time I feel that, I think of you.
You, the child I dream of but can never reach.
I’m afraid I’ll never hold you.
I’m afraid that no matter how much I want you, no matter how many tears I shed for you, I’ll never be the kind of woman who can bring you into this world.

I want to scream and shout and beg the universe to let me have you.
But the universe doesn’t listen to desperate prayers.
It doesn’t care how many times my heart shatters when I think of how much I want you.
It doesn’t care that I would give everything -every single piece of myself , just to hold you.

I wasn’t born into soft love.
I wasn’t born into a place that made me feel safe enough to dream of motherhood.
I had to fight for every inch of my soul.
I had to scrape myself together from pieces no one else wanted.
I had to learn how to survive in a world that kept telling me I was too much or too little, too loud or too quiet.
And sometimes, I’m so **** tired of surviving.

I’m tired of living in a world where I feel like a stranger to myself.
I’m tired of trying to fit into roles I wasn’t meant to play.
I’m tired of being strong when all I want to do is collapse into someone’s arms and say, I am lost. Help me find my way home.

But here I am.
Trying.
Every single day.
Trying to make myself whole enough to love you.
Trying to be enough to give you the home I never had.
Trying to figure out how to stop feeling like I’m drowning in the fear of not being able to make it.
But it’s hard.
God, it’s so hard.

I’m afraid I’ll never be the woman who can give you everything you deserve.
I’m afraid that maybe my past is too broken to heal in time.
I’m afraid that you’ll never exist, and I’ll never get to prove to you that I would have loved you more than anything.

If you ever come, if life ever gives me that miracle, I’ll be ready.
I’ll be ready to give you all the love I’ve learned to build, piece by piece.
I’ll be ready to show you the things I never had the chance to learn -the things that hurt me, and the things that healed me.
But until then, I’ll just keep hoping.
And waiting.
And trying.
Even when it feels like I’m failing.
Even when it feels like the universe is laughing in my face.

I don’t know if I’ll make it to motherhood.
I don’t know if I’ll ever get the chance to hold you.
But I can’t stop wanting you.
I can’t stop needing you.
I can’t stop the ache that never goes away.

And if I never get the chance to meet you, to love you the way I’ve dreamed
just know I will carry you with me, always.
I will carry you in my heart, even if it’s just a ghost of you.
And I will never stop loving you.
No matter what.
Even if you’re never born, even if I never get to see your face, I will always love you.

Always.
Your future mother,
who is learning to hope in the dark
Apr 15 · 86
The Ghost of you
I drown myself in tasks,
pour coffee five times a day,
so even in those brief seconds,
my hands are not idle, my mind not still.

I raise the music to a scream,
to drown the voice that gnaws,
the voice that sounds like you.

I write and write and write,
so I do not reach for you,
so my fingers find ink instead of absence.

I do the things I do not wish to do,
fill the silence with motion,
but still
you slip into my sleep,
a ghost pressing its weight upon my chest.
The skin finally spoke to the skeleton:
“The truth never reached the heart,
it only bruised the surface
purple memories, too heavy to hold,
too fleeting to remember.”

“But did it reach you?”
the skeleton asked,
“Did it leave you the way it left me?”

The skin hesitated,
as if the healing could never erase
what it had become.

And the skeleton whispered,
“I carry the cracks.
What broke you
is still bleeding in me."
Mar 28 · 99
The Ghost of you
I drown myself in tasks,
pour coffee five times a day,
so even in those brief seconds,
my hands are not idle, my mind not still.

I raise the music to a scream,
to drown the voice that gnaws,
the voice that sounds like you.

I write and write and write,
so I do not reach for you,
so my fingers find ink instead of absence.

I do the things I do not wish to do,
fill the silence with motion,
but still
you slip into my sleep,
a ghost pressing its weight upon my chest.
Mar 25 · 117
End Of my Poetry
What is success worth,
If it leads me to solitude’s embrace?
What is the purpose of words,
If my muse fades with every breath,
A fleeting ghost I can never grasp?
Was I destined to bleed ink,
To spill my soul on blank pages,
Only to wonder if this agony is the reason I exist?
What does God ask of me,
To pour my essence into a world that doesn't see?
I no longer yearn for a muse
Who leaves me empty,
But for a fire to consume me,
A love that will burn my poetry to the ground,
Where sorrow finds no home,
And my ink is no longer a sacrifice.
Mar 25 · 62
A Different Life
I dream of waking to soft mornings,
In a home close to the mountains,
Where I can hold my babies,
And care for them with gentle hands,
Living a quiet life,
Far from the rush of the world.

I picture the days slow and simple,
Filling the space with love,
Nurturing them, being their world,
Finding peace in their laughter,
And the stillness of the mountains around me.

But somewhere along the way,
I feel like God has a different plan,
One that doesn’t let me stay still,
One that pushes me forward,
Telling me I’m meant for more.

Maybe it’s better, maybe it’s bigger,
But it doesn’t feel easy,
It feels like a kind of punishment,
Taking me away from what I wanted,
To something I never expected.

I know God’s plan is meant to be good,
But right now, it’s hard to see,
Because all I wanted was simplicity,
To stay home, to love, to rest.

But maybe there’s something else I need to give,
Something beyond the quiet I crave,
Something that will stretch me,
Even if it hurts.
It's killing me inside
Mar 25 · 145
The Lover's Voice
I am a mouthful of wind,
a bell ringing past the hour,
a flame that does not know how to hush itself.

I speak, and the walls lean back,
startled, disapproving.
They say I should shrink, fold my voice
into the palm of a quieter woman.

But love is a confession,
a cathedral of echoes,
a mouth stretched wide with its own urgency.

I do not know how to whisper it,
to ration it out like breadcrumbs.
I give it whole, body and bone,
a flood, a monsoon, a fevered hymn.

Do not make me bite my tongue raw
for loving too much,
too recklessly, too ruinously,
as if devotion were something to be buried.

You-tight-lipped, unshaken-
do not tell me my love is too large to hold.
If your hands are small,
if your heart is locked shut,
do not make me the trespasser.

I will not shrink myself down to fit you.
I will not carve my love into a quieter thing.
Let it be known: I spoke it aloud.
I will not regret the sound.
Mar 25 · 104
Love is not Blood
Love isn’t something you can give me in bills,
or count on fingers like something owed.
It’s not measured by bloodlines,
not because we share the same last name.

I don’t need money to know you care
I need your ear, your heart.
Love is the one who feels my ache without asking,
who knows my silence and still stays.

Blood may tie us,
but it doesn’t define love.
I choose the ones who hear my pain,
who see me without pretending to.
Mar 22 · 156
The Storm Inside me
The rain sounds like you
soft at first, then heavier,
like the words I never said.

Clouds gather, pressing against my chest,
thick with unsaid confessions.
I hold them in,
tight as the sky before the storm.

Maybe I’ll break like thunder,
spilling everything all at once.
Or maybe I’ll just keep raining,
slow, quiet, unnoticed
but drowning all the same.
Mar 22 · 121
Aftermath
I’m falling for you again,
even though you’re miles away,
and I have no idea who’s lying beside you
when the night wraps its arms around you.
But memory, sharp and clear,
still recalls the way your hand
used to rest on my stomach
so gentle, so sure,
like it belonged there.
I’m falling for you,
for something I don’t even know anymore.
I’m falling for a version of you
that’s never coming back.
A memory that keeps pulling me under,
even though I know
it’s a love that ended
before it really began.

I’m falling for the absence of you,
for the space between us
that stretches farther every day,
but still feels too close some nights.
I’m falling for what we had,
or maybe what we never had,
but could have had,
if only the timing was different,
if only we had been who we needed to be.

I’m falling for a memory
that’s beginning to blur,
a love I’m still holding onto,
even though I know it’s fading.
But I can’t let go
not yet, not when it still feels like you’re here.
And maybe, just maybe,
I’m falling for the idea
of what we could’ve been,
even if that idea is all that’s left.
Mar 22 · 254
Wanting to Bloom
Just because the flower never bloomed,
And the wind carried no trace of its scent,
Doesn’t mean it wasn’t beautiful.

Maybe the season was cruel,
Maybe the sun never reached it,
Maybe it was meant to stay unseen.

But in another time, another spring,
Maybe it will bloom
And we won’t ask if it was ever just a bud.
We’ll know it was always meant to be.
Mar 22 · 140
Fathom of Love
Who told you love had a price?
That you had to earn it, prove it, buy your way in?
Who convinced you that empty pockets
make you less worthy of being held?

Tell me
what kind of love have you known
that made you believe you’re only as valuable
as the money in your hands?

Where did you find these people?
Or did they find you when you were young,
when you didn’t know that love
isn’t something you barter for,
isn’t something you beg for,
isn’t something that leaves when the bills run out?

Let me show you.
Love is staying when there’s nothing to offer but yourself.
Love is waking up beside you, not asking what you can give.
Love is choosing you-not your success, not your status, not your salary
just you.

And if you ever doubt it,
I will walk until my feet blister,
I will stand in the rain, drenched but unwavering,
I will ride the waves, let the tide pull me under,
if it means reaching you
if it means proving that love has never,
and will never,
be something you have to afford.
Mar 19 · 200
Stranger
The autumn tree didn’t betray us,
the grass still grows greener.
Fireflies glisten in the same spot,
the one that was once ours.

But I’ve seen them digging,
carving the earth to build—
a tower, a monument, a future
where our past once stood.

They are changing this place,
shaping it into something new.
And though the fireflies still return,
though the autumn tree stands still-
haven’t we changed too?
Mar 18 · 195
To Love Beyond Law
I don’t believe in God,
but you made me pray to Aphrodite,
whisper to Venus,
call out to Rati in the dark.
Tell me-who else is left?

Your God forbids it, doesn’t He?
But I would rewrite His laws,
tear down His heavens,
if it meant I could have you.

What must I do?
Tell me-what offering is enough?
Is there a ritual beyond bowing at dawn,
a sacrifice beyond surrender?

Or is He simply deaf?
Does He turn away because He knows
He could never love you
the way I do?
They see me with hands on the wheel,
feet steady on the gas,
a woman who conquers,
who builds,
who signs papers with a name they say will mean something.
They speak of my future like prophecy,
a business to run, a world to own.
They dress me in ambition,
in power,
in a suit that doesn’t fit my skin.
The woman I was meant to be.
She stirs sugar into coffee,
presses her lips to a child’s warm forehead,
sits by a window and watches rain make poetry of the streets
Yet their voices are so loud,
so certain,
that I cannot even whisper what I want.
So I nod, I smile,
I let them build this version of me,
one brick at a time,
until I am buried beneath it.
And maybe one day,
I will forget the woman I could have been,
the mother, the homemaker,
the quiet kind of happy
and only remember the one
they never let me become.
Mar 7 · 359
The Shape of Me
I wanted to be a river,
carving my own way through stone,
but the world built dams,
redirected my course,
taught me that freedom has rules.
I wanted to be the artist,
to paint in colors only I could see,
but they handed me a template,
said, "Fill inside the lines."
Every day, I push against the shape
they force me into
and every day, I bend,
just a little
more,
until I wonder if I am still me
You say your heart is broken,
shattered like glass,
too fragile to trust again,
too tired to risk the fall.
But hearts were never meant to stay whole,
they were meant to break
and rise again,
stronger in their cracks.

You guard your heart like a fortress,
afraid to love,
afraid to feel,
but what if love is the only thing
that makes us real?
What if the ache is not a loss,
but the pulse of something new
something worth the risk,
something worth the burn?

If you stop falling,
you stop living,
stop knowing the rush
of a heart wide open.
What are you afraid of?
The hurt?
The grief?
It’s only temporary,
but the love
the love lasts forever.

Fall again,
fall again,
and again.
You tell yourself you’ve moved on,
but I see it in your eyes.
You walk into strangers’ rooms,
looking for something of hers,
and you come out empty,
losing pieces of yourself
with every step you take.

You lie to your skin,
tell it she’s gone,
but your body knows the truth
it remembers the way her name felt
in your mouth,
how her hands fit into yours.

You’re hiding,
running from something you don’t want to face.
Go back to her.
It’s not too late.
Stop pretending you’re okay.
The truth is, you’re still standing at the door
you promised you’d leave behind.

Go back.
Feb 8 · 332
Flor de Muerto
Flor de Muerto, I wanted to fade into the soil,
where I could touch the roots of Azucena,
before I bury myself six feet deep,
hoping to inhale the fragrance of her grace.

Even if I bury myself to the grave,
Azucena would bloom through my ribs.

I don’t want Flor de Muerto to take root in my heart,
I long to pray, to kneel
but the world has made me a god,
one I never asked to be.
Feb 3 · 166
Beneath my Skin
Let me grow my hair,
so you won’t trace the ***** of my collarbone
like it was shaped for your gaze.
Let me drown my arms in fabric,
so a stranger’s fingers won’t twitch with hunger,
so no one will say I was asking for it.

It’s just a hand,
just a hand-
but I didn’t know a piece of me
could call out in silence,
could summon wanting
I never invited in.

Let me disappear under long sleeves,
let me vanish in loose folds,
so you won’t see the curve of my waist
and blame me for your craving.
Let me hide every inch of skin,
as if my body were a lock
and your desire the only key.

I have done everything.
Now tell me-what more should I give?
Should I carve away the flesh,
peel myself down to bone,
so you will finally see
what keeps me awake at night?

Should I hold out my wrists,
let you read the stories
written in fine white lines?
Should I turn my face,
so you can study the hollows,
the weight beneath my eyes,
the proof of all the nights
I have battled myself?

I want you to see-
to see beyond the skin,
beyond the body,
beyond the hourglass frame
that cages me inside your fantasies.

I want you to know
that I am more.
I am the ache in my own chest,
the breath I hold between words,
the voice that breaks but still speaks.

Don’t just crave my skin.
See me.
Jan 29 · 114
Last Ember
Are you the tree in the graveyard,
or the fallen star I search for in the sky?
You said the sky was the limit
can you see me now, soaring beyond your reach?

I search for you in the faces of ghosts
I once feared to face.
Do you follow me,
as I follow the trace of your steps?

Do you see me in the sun,
its light burned into my eyes
eyes that are yours,
but carry a void you left?

Is it you in the fog,
holding me close when I can't breathe?
Am I drowning in it,
or is it your arms that won’t let go?

Do you hear my cry,
echoing in the thunder’s roar
a sound that's very similar to yours
now swallowed by the storm?
Jan 28 · 234
Envious God
If i get the chance again,
I'd ghost the whole world to admire your eyes.
I'd fight against Poseidon to stop the wave that separated us.
I'd climb Mount Olympus to reach your heart,
Like Hermes, I'd be swift and smart.
I'd call upon Apollo to light our way.
I'd soar like Icarus, reaching new heights,
With the love of Aphrodite.
I'd make all the Greek gods envy us
Jan 28 · 230
Love Bug
He said it was your fault
the way you smiled too often at strangers,
the way your dress clung to your skin,
the way you spoke your mind
like it wasn’t meant to be silenced.


He said you were too much,
too loud, too free,
too wild to be loved by someone like him.
So he let his hands wander elsewhere
and called it your mistake.


He blamed you for the nights he disappeared,
for the silence he left in his wake,
for the guilt that crept into his voice
when you asked where he’d been.
He told you it was your laugh
too careless, too inviting,
like you wanted to be replaced.



But it wasn’t you
who forgot what love was made of.
It wasn’t you
who kissed someone else
and washed the taste down with excuses.



He blamed you because it was easier
than admitting he was small.
He blamed you because your strength
was the mirror to his weakness.



It wasn’t the dress,
it wasn’t the smile,
it wasn’t your beauty that broke him.
It was him
his hollow heart, his cowardice,
his inability to hold something real.


And you still sit in the ruins,
asking yourself what you could’ve done.
But the answer was never yours to give.
He was broken before he touched you,
and nothing you did could’ve changed that.


So let him carry the weight of his lies,
let him drown in the shame he tried to hand you.
You are not the cracks in his ******>ry.
You are the foundation he never deserved.
Jan 28 · 159
Evanescene
I had a white house,
perched near the coffee shop,
where the bees moved so gently
that even time forgot them.
I’d sit by the window,
counting the hours until my children’s laughter
spilled into the walls,
their footsteps filling the hollows of my day.
But then the alarm rings-5 a.m. sharp-
pulling me back to the hum of a life
I do not belong to.

The city rises around me,
a sea of faces I no longer recognize.
I search for eyes
that see beyond the shape of me,
past the weight I carry in silence.

I come home to this house,
perfect in the way magazines promise life should be,
the kind people long for,
and yet it feels foreign,
like I am trespassing in my own dream.

Why is it that I still search for home
in the breath of someone who doesn’t exist
Jan 28 · 222
Forgive Yourself
Forgive yourself
like the ocean forgives itself
for the wreckage it leaves
after a storm.

It crashes, it swallows,
it pulls away
and then it rests,
silent and still.

The tornado does not regret
its violence against the birds,
it only moves
until the wind calms.

Sometimes we destroy what we love,
tear apart the world
with words and silence
but we also heal with the same hands.

You are the storm
and you are the calm
you are the force
that pulls and the one that lets go.

Forgive yourself
for the hurt you’ve caused
and for the parts of you
that have been broken.
Jan 27 · 178
Bleeding in Threads
I bled while you stood by my side,
ready to spill every drop until I faded away.
You walked away as my blood turned to gray,
and I stitched myself with fragile threads.
I crave the pain of bleeding with you here,
not held back by this delicate fabric.
These threads may keep me from falling apart,
but they trap me in a never-ending cycle
I just want to unravel it all
I want to bleed
Jan 27 · 336
Dopamine
15 seconds of reels,
A huge burst of dopamine,
Chasing the same fleeting high,
Riding the endless wave of ups and downs.

2:00 a.m. at the bar,
Shouting into the night,
Lost in conversations with strangers,
While feeling disconnected from those close to us.

We drift through shadowed rooms,
Resting in separate corners,
Searching for a place that feels like home,
Wandering from one room to the next,
Where's home?

Home is monotonous,
We don't chase the comfort of home,
We linger, waiting for something more.

We fill our days with distractions,
Filling voids with temporary thrills,
In a constant quest for meaning.

As the night stretches on,
We wonder if the chase is worth the cost,
Screaming for genuine connection,
Beyond the transient highs and lows.

In the end, we seek a home not just in walls,
But in the quiet understanding,
The kind of peace that isn't found in the buzz.

Home is boring
We don't chase home
We stay there
Jan 27 · 164
Moon
I know you think you’re only beautiful in the dark,
like the moon, meant to be adored from afar, in shadows.
And maybe the stars whisper this to you,
but stars are only brave when no one’s watching
they fade as soon as the world fills with light.
Why take advice from something that hides with the dawn?

Your light comes from the sun, not from borrowed reflections.
You’re meant to stand in full view, to claim your space in the day.
Only the sun is your equal.
So why listen to stars that doubt their own strength?
Why let them convince you
that your worth is only real in the quiet of night
Jan 27 · 327
Compile
In the compile of words
We have lost our favourite poems
It's hard to remember
Probably we have forgotten
You might find the same poem
After a decade
In the dust of old papers
I know you'll remove all the dust
To read your favourite poem one more time
If you read it carefully you haven't forgotten your poem
It got lost in the compile of new pages.
What if we get the chance to read again
Jan 27 · 61
Naked Soul
I crave the meaning of your scars,
the stories stitched beneath your skin.
Not just your favorite color,
but the shadows that keep you awake,
the blue that turns your veins grey.
Tell me of the winters you’ve weathered,
the storms that split you apart.
Show me the edges you’ve dulled with time,
the shards you couldn’t bear to throw away.
Let the world have the surface
I’ll go where your soul stands naked,
and asks nothing of mine
but to stay.
Do your dreams betray you?
Does your silence ache?
What keeps your heart beating
on nights you wish it wouldn’t?
Touch me with your words,
bruise me with your fears.
For if it isn’t soul to soul,
if it isn’t the marrow of who we are,
then it isn’t anything at all
Jan 27 · 226
Foreign
I was born in a city where the air suffocates
The building groans, its bones cracking under the burned of a thousand years of unspoken regret
This city smells like something poisoned,
petrol and sweat soaked into the earth,
the ghost of rain that never touches the ground.
It seeps into my skin,
As an alarm,
I never wanted to belong here.
The city speaks to me in a dialect of dust and noise
I speak its language too
but my words feel like a borrowed coat,
ill-fitting, awkward on my shoulders.
Even when I strive to make them mine,
they slip away,
elusive and alien.
The chai here burns my tongue,
sharp like an old wound that never healed
and I swallow it down,
Even as I smoke, the air smells of snow and distant mountains
I have never gazed upon
Jan 27 · 103
Tombstone
I looked at the tombstone, cold and bare,
And all it spoke was love’s despair-
To love, to be loved, to hold for a while,

Behind me, the sky was bare,
A canvas stretched by emptiness
Men and women, faceless,
Feeding hunger that never knew a soul.

The sun bowed down, the hours slipped away,
But the clock kept ticking, as if to say-
That the soul, unmeasured, keeps no time,
Lost in the race,

At the hospital’s quiet edge,
Where life wavered between the inhale and the eternal,
I asked the frail what they carried into the void.
Their lips trembled, but only love spilled forth:
“To be loved, to have loved.
Oct 2024 · 77
Untitled
Ariana Afrin Emu Oct 2024
To find,
"Friends to lover" or "lover to friends"
I have set the red traffic light for hours
I have ink up every line on my palm
To find the crossover which could connect us
I made the invisible line called almost lover.
Oct 2024 · 63
Transcendence
Ariana Afrin Emu Oct 2024
I was Athena once,
With wisdom enough to reshape your soul
But I let my thoughts consume you instead.

My voice,
fierce enough to summon thunder,
whispered as rain when it touched you
My words blended in the chaos of your sins.
I wore my silence like a crown of thorns,
not because I was weak,
but because I chose to bleed in the shadows,
While you walked away.

I could be Ares,
raining fire,
striking down those who dared wrong me.
Yet, for you,
I’ve been Persephone in the underworld,
half-alive, waiting for spring,
tasting death in every breath I held back.
I’ve watched my own hands tremble,
as I let you hurt me,
slowly, deliberately,
while I swallowed the poison you left.

I was known for raising my voice,
like Hera’s rage shaking Olympus,
but now, where are my words?
I can’t see them, can’t summon them.

I’m tired of bleeding myself dry,
tired of watching the wound reopen,
each day a slow death.
I know you’ve walked away,
but this time, I want you back.
Come, untie my stitches with your hands,
and let me die all at once,
by your side, where I belong.

Like Hector, waiting for the final blow,
I won’t run, I won’t hide.
I’m no more a warrior,
just a soul, begging for the end.
Let the fates cut the thread.
Oct 2024 · 59
Ghost Orchid
Ariana Afrin Emu Oct 2024
You’re not meant for the garden,
where hands pull what they want,
where blooms are here and gone,
just flashes before they fall.

You belong on the mountain,
half-hidden, wrapped in mist,
beyond reach of those
who’d never think to climb.

They might call you dandelion,
like something easy, everywhere—
they want you to bloom right here,
to grow wild, to bend for them.

But you, you are something rare—
rooted deep, untamed,
meant for hands that will climb for you,
that know just what you’re worth.

So hold your place on that hill,
where the ghost orchid blooms alone,
not in the crowded garden’s rows—
but somewhere that’s wholly your own.

— The End —