I buried your number
In a pool of empty digets
I forgot your name
After you mentioned it at the bar
But for the life of me
When I woke up the next morning
Your face stuck to the back of my eyelids
like lead set in tar
And for dear humanity
While I drank my black coffee
I couldn't remember anything about who the hell you were

She is strong
She pulled herself through strong winds,
Roots gripping the earth, refusing to break.
She survived with little care,
Drinking from the silence,
Holding on when no hands reached out.

She never complained about the thirst,
Welcoming the sun, even when it burned.
She learned to bloom in shadows,
Happy with the little attention she received.

She stayed, even when neglected,
Spreading fresh air to breathe,
A silent companion when no one else was around.
A quiet strength, unseen yet unwavering.

She stopped withering away.
She adapted.
She grew.
She became more than survival—
She became life itself.

I took for granted everything,
colors of every hue.
I didn’t know those colors
filled my world because of you.
 
So, like the fool I am
I let you go, too blind to see
that on my own I am just alone
and things turned out to be
 
where colors slowly slipped away,
the yellows, greens and blues.
And now the only color left…
is the memory of you.

I loved every part of you—
Your smile, your gaze,
Even your anger.

When you cried,
And your tear-stained eyes met mine,
I saw myself, buried deep inside them.

Losing

Y
O
U

Terrified

M
E

So, in the end,
I became my own

"ENEMY"

They will tell you there is a right way.
They will hand you a torch and call it the sun.
They will roll their words in raw linen and whisper:
"This is what poetry is meant to be."

And you will nod.
Because they have made it so that not nodding feels like blasphemy.

But listen—
the ink does not check your credentials.
The meter does not ask if your suffering is organic.
A line does not collapse because it was crafted instead of bled.

They will tell you a poem must be naked, barefoot, aching—
as if there is no beauty in a well-cut suit.
They will decry the temple and build a pulpit in its ruins,
preaching freedom in a voice that allows no dissent.

Good poets are cult leaders,
and the first rule of the cult
is that they are not one.

So write the sonnet, carve the sestina,
sculpt the page in iambic steel.
Or break it, shatter it, scatter its bones—
but let no one call your wreckage untrue.

And if they do,
smile.
Because poetry does not kneel to priests.