How wretchedly stubborn you are,
Clinging to that tree
Like a man condemned,
Grasping at the last flicker of life,
Even as the darkness tightens its noose.

You knew, didn't you?
That this was never meant to last—
And yet, you hold on,
Like a soldier in the shadow of the gallows,
Waiting, not for salvation,
But for the slow mercy of death.

Is it time that terrifies you?
No.
Time does not heal.
It devours.
It gnaws at flesh and soul alike,
A ravenous beast that leaves behind
Only bones, memories, and regret.

And yet, despite knowing this,
Why do you still cling?
Is it hope?
Or is it that cruel instinct to endure,
Even when there is nothing left to endure for?

I wonder…
Perhaps it is not the fear of death that binds you,
But the terror of a meaningless end.
So you cling—
Because to fall is not merely to die,
But to be forgotten.

(How strange, that I should see all this—
In the silent struggle of a flower,
While the world moved on around me.)

What is love, if not a form of suffering disguised as ecstasy?
A poison sweet enough to sip willingly,
even as it corrodes the soul from within.
Love does not uplift—it devours.
It tears through a man’s defenses,
leaves him trembling, bare,
stripped of the armor he so carefully forged to guard his heart.

To love is to become a slave.
Do not be fooled by the poets who speak of its beauty—
they know nothing of its cruelty.
For love does not ask; it demands.
It seizes the soul, drags it to the brink of madness,
and whispers, “Jump.”

And yet, we obey.
Why? Because to live without love
is to wander a barren wasteland,
where the silence is more suffocating than the pain.
A man who has never loved
has never truly lived,
but a man who has loved and lost—
ah, he knows the weight of eternity.

But the true torment of love lies not in its presence,
but in its absence.
For even after love has withered and died,
it does not release its grip.
No, it lingers—like a ghost haunting the ruins of the soul,
whispering promises that were never kept,
taunting you with memories
that burn like embers in the dark.

And so, we love.
Not because it saves us,
but because, without it,
the emptiness becomes unbearable.

Yes, you were right. You saw through me,
unraveled me like an old threadbare coat,
left me standing, exposed, stripped of my clever disguises.
And yet, I lied.

Why? Perhaps out of habit,
perhaps out of some wretched instinct to survive.
Or perhaps because the truth—raw, naked, merciless—
is more unbearable than the lie itself.

You wanted honesty,
as if truth could bring us closer,
as if it were not a blade waiting to cut us both open.
But I know better.
The world does not want truth.
It wants the illusion of it,
wrapped in softness, dulled at the edges.

So I lied.
Not because I did not trust you,
but because I could not trust myself
to be seen as I truly am.

Had I met you in ruin, in madness, in despair—
perhaps then, we would have understood each other.
Had I found you when I was no longer trying to be good,
when I had nothing left to lose,
perhaps then, I could have loved you without fear.

But fate is cruel. It gives too soon or too late,
never when the soul is ready.
I met you when I still believed in hope,
when I still cared for the weight of consequence.
And so, I hesitated. I reasoned. I turned away.

Had I met you in the wreckage of myself,
I would not have thought of tomorrow.
I would not have measured my words,
held back my touch, silenced my longing.
I would have taken you—wholly, recklessly, without restraint.

But I met you at the right time,
when I still feared the cost of love.
And so, I lost you.

I watch them—talking, laughing, living—
as if the world were meant to be touched,
as if joy were something real, something graspable.
And I wonder, is it me who stands apart,
or have I simply woken to a truth they cannot see?

I try.
I speak, I smile, I step forward—
but the words taste foreign in my mouth,
the laughter sounds borrowed,
and every step feels like walking on ice
that will never hold my weight.

How strange it is, to yearn for closeness,
yet recoil from every outstretched hand.
To stand in a crowded room
and feel more alone than in the dead of night.

Perhaps there is a wall between me and them—
invisible, impenetrable.
Or perhaps the wall is me,
and there is no way out.

Ah, but do you see it? That shimmering illusion on the horizon—
the one that whispers your name with such tenderness,
the one whose eyes reflect a love you have longed for.
You walk toward it, drawn by its warmth,
but the closer you get, the farther it drifts away.

Yet it smiles at you, doesn’t it?
It gives you what you crave—a reflection of your desire,
a love that mirrors your deepest need.
But what is a reflection, if not a lie?
What is a mirage, if not a cruel joke played on the desperate?

You see it, don’t you?
That figure on the horizon,
just beyond reach,
whose eyes hold a promise that was never spoken.

But what is a promise from a mirage?
It does not speak; it only reflects.
It gives you back your own longing,
wrapped in the illusion of tenderness,
as if love could be born from desire alone.

And so, you chase it.
You stretch out your hands,
willing it to be real,
even as the sun scorches the illusion to dust.
But still, it lingers—in your mind,
in your dreams, in that quiet space
where hope and madness whisper to one another.

Ah, but here is the cruelest truth—
the mirage does not vanish.
No, it stays.
It haunts you, not as a memory,
but as a question that gnaws at your soul:
Was it ever real?
Or did I only love the shadow of my own yearning?

And yet—you loved it.
A love that was never returned,
and perhaps never existed.
But tell me, which is worse—
to be loved by a lie,
or to walk this world unloved by truth?

Tell me, did we meet before the world was born?
Did your soul brush against mine
when time was but a whisper in the dark?
For I know you—not as a stranger,
but as a wound I have carried forever.

You are not my joy, nor my peace.
You are the weight in my chest,
the shadow that lengthens as dusk falls,
the ache that reminds me I am alive.

A soulmate—what is it but a mirror?
A cruel reflection of all I have lost,
all I will lose again.
Yet, I would chase you through lifetimes,
through ruin, through fire, through madness,
if only to know that I was right—
that you were real,
that we were meant to suffer together.

Who am I? Which of me is real? The man I was, the man I am, or the man I will be?
Perhaps none. Perhaps all.
Or perhaps I am only a shadow, stretched thin between them,
never truly existing at all.

The past—ah, the past! How foolish he was!
He thought he understood life, believed in things—love, hope, meaning.
He was naïve, reckless in his convictions, blind in his desires.
He did not yet know what it means to kneel before regret,
to feel the slow, merciless tightening of time around his throat.
I hate him for his arrogance, and yet—I pity him.
For he never knew the weight that awaited him in the years to come.

And my future self—what a stranger.
Does he pity me, or does he curse me?
He waits somewhere ahead, silent, watching,
knowing already what I will choose,
what I will lose, whom I will betray.
I cannot see him, but he is there,
a judge I can never escape.

And then, there is me—the wretched creature caught between them.
I am neither innocent like my past nor wise like my future.
I am only the sum of mistakes not yet forgiven,
of choices not yet made,
of a life that unfolds with or without my consent.

Tell me, if they met—past, present, and future—
would they recognize each other at all?
Or would they simply turn away,
each ashamed of what the other has become?

I imagine it sometimes—the letter you never wrote,
the words you almost said, the truth that trembled on your lips
but died before it could escape.

Would it have been an apology? A confession?
Or merely a quiet acknowledgment
of everything left unsaid between us?

Perhaps you sat in the dim glow of a dying candle,
pen in hand, staring at the paper
as if the weight of your thoughts
was too much for ink to bear.

Perhaps you wrote the first few lines,
hesitated, crossed them out,
and in that hesitation,
decided that silence was easier.

Or perhaps you never meant to write at all.
Perhaps you knew, as I did,
that some words are better left unspoken,
some wounds better left untouched.

And so, the letter remains unwritten,
just as we remain unfinished—
a story with no ending,
a question that will never be answered.

There is a kind of suffering too deep for words,
a weight that settles in the bones,
dragging the soul into an abyss where even despair has lost its voice.
You wake, you breathe, you move—
but it is not living. It is merely the absence of death.

Nothing matters.
Not love, not laughter, not the sun rising over the rooftops.
You watch the world as if from behind a glass,
separated, untouched,
a ghost among the living.

You search for meaning,
as a man drowning in the ocean searches for land.
But there is none—only an endless stretch of water,
only the slow pull of the tide.

And so you sink, without struggle, without protest.
Because what is there left to hold onto,
when even the suffering has become dull?

A woman—what is she, if not a mystery written in fire?
She speaks, and her words wound and heal alike.
She loves, and in her love, one either lives or perishes.
She is neither angel nor devil, yet possesses the cruelty of both.

Men dream of understanding her,
as a blind man dreams of light—
but what folly! What arrogance!
For even as she stands before him,
laughing, crying, whispering secrets into the night,
she remains unknowable, a labyrinth without an exit.

She does not belong to him, nor to the world.
She belongs only to the chaos of her own heart.
And God help the man who loves her,
for he will never escape her shadow.

We were meant to be together—
was that not the cruelest lie of all?
Fate tied our hands with silken threads,
only to sever them with rusted steel.

You and I, two halves of a shattered whole,
grasping for each other through the fog of time,
only to find our fingers slipping,
our voices drowned in the silence of the inevitable.

Love did not save us.
It devoured, it burned, it bled.
And yet, even as we walk separate paths,
even as the years carve distance between us,
I know—deep in the marrow of my bones—
that I will never be whole again.

We met like dying embers,
flickering in the wind’s quiet sigh,
your eyes—twin eclipses,
hiding a sun that never rose for me.

You spoke of eternity
as if time would spare us,
but I watched your shadow stretch,
always walking ahead, never beside.

Your touch was a whisper,
a promise you never meant to keep,
and I, a fool with trembling hands,
held onto the ghost of your warmth.

Love was a cigarette between your lips,
burning, fading, forgotten in the ashtray—
yet here I am, inhaling the smoke,
pretending it still carries your scent.

They laugh together and cry too
But through it all their love shines true
They find their peace in each other's eyes
A love so strong that never Dies
Their hearts beat as one in perfect time
A Soulmate love that's truly one of a kind

I sit with the pen, but the words won’t flow,
Like a river once raging, now silent and slow.
Pages stare back, empty and bare,
Mocking the echoes that used to be there.

Once, my thoughts would dance on the page,
Wild and untamed, escaping their cage.
Now they stutter, stumble, and fade,
Lost in the fog my own head has made.

Is it the weight of time, heavy and cruel?
Or the fear that my words no longer hold fuel?
Perhaps they still linger, hidden deep within, not gone,
Waiting for courage to bring them back strong.

So I write, though broken, though weak,
Not for perfection, just for the streak.
For even a whisper, a faded old rhyme,
Is proof that my soul still knows how to climb.
The words return, yet they feel untrue,
Like borrowed echoes, like someone I knew

Even though I climb, I try hard each day,
Chasing the echoes that drift far away.
As I reach a point where I once stood tall,
I still don’t feel the same—I feel nothing at all.

Is it boredom, or am I a failure now?
A shadow of words, an unkept vow?
Yet, ink still lingers, waiting to spill,
So I write again, against my own will.

I have worn a hundred faces,
Yet none have ever been my own.
Laughter slips from my lips like borrowed words,
Like a hollow ghost of grief and shame.

I walk among them, unseen, unheard,
A ghost with skin, a breathing blur.
They call my name, but it is not mine,
Just a sound, just a curse, just a whisper in time.
They speak of love, they speak of light,
Yet all I know is endless night.

Love was a language I never learned,
Only silence ever spoke to me.
I reached for warmth, I reached for light,
But even the sun recoiled from me.

And if I vanish—
If I slip between the cracks of existence,
Will the world even pause?
Will the sky lose its color?
Will anyone know that I was ever here at all?

I am no longer human.
Perhaps, I never was.