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Have you ever been drained
To the point you'd feel...
It's time to call a quit
And bid this lonesome world goodbye
But your soul won't leave things be
It keeps holding on to dear life
Like it's some sort of sacred myth
Etched in the bone of strife

When breathing feels like debt
And peace becomes a tease
Your body is a wrecked cassette
Playing pain on endless lease
The walls whisper your nam
But silence is what replies
You're tired of playing this game
Of truth buried beneath bright lies

You close your eyes, not to rest
But to wonder what death might mean
Would it feel like sleep undressed?
Or a dream too raw and clean?
But life grips you by the throat
Not letting go, not yet
And though you drift like a sinking boat
You're still anchored by regret
You tried to speak...
But the words won’t come out.
They curl in your chest like smoke,
choking the shout.
Air barely escapes your lungs,
as if silence has sewn
your ribs into a cage
and named it home.

You’re drowning.
But not in oceans; in open rooms.
The ceiling blinks like hospital moons.
Water floods where your voice gave out,
filling the hollow your hope once sprouted.

You always thought
you wanted to die.
But when your fingers slipped,
you clawed at life.
And that’s when truth
pulled up a chair…
Death only teaches
when it’s already there.

It stared you down,
with hollow eyes,
and you saw your soul
no disguise.
It didn’t scream...
It didn’t rage...
It ust watched,
as you turned the page.

You cut
but never too deep.
Enough to feel,
but not enough to sleep.
The sting was real,
but fleeting, brief
a substitute...
for silent grief.

The pain scared you,
but not as much
as the people outside,
the words, the touch
the weight of being
"okay" each day,
the lies you whispered
when they'd say...
"Are you fine?"
"Are you alright?"
And you’d just nod,
too tired to fight.

You took the pills
a calculated flood,
enough to flirt
but not to flood.
They should've carried you...
to quiet ends,
but only wheeled you
to white-lit bends.

Oh, not again
It's a hospital bed,
not a deathbed call.
Machines that beep,
white coats in the hall.
Oh, I guess....
the pills didn't work
and next you've got
the bitter taste...
of “not quite gone,”
and questions like,
"What went wrong?"

You’ve written more goodbyes poems...
than the years you’ve lived.
Each one stained...
with all you give.
Some you burned,
some you hid,
some just sat
where you never did.

Yet you write them still,
as if each word bleeds,
hoping one day
your ink recedes.
That the pen runs dry,
and with its breath
you vanish softly,
into death.

But here's the truth
you’ve come to pen
You’re here. You’re cracked.
But not the end.
And maybe pain
has taught you more
than silence ever did before.

So you write
not to say goodbye…
But to empty the scream
you’ve held inside.
To bleed on paper,
not your skin,
To let the healing
slowly begin.

And if someday
the ink runs out
You’ll hold the page,
not fear, not doubt.
Because every line
that you have written,
proves you're still here.
Still fighting.
Still bitten
by the ache
but still breathing.
Still broken
but still believing.
They ask me why I never sleep
Why shadows in my silence creep
But how do you explain the ache
When every breath you take might break

I carry nights without a name
A heavy hush; a quiet flame
My ribs hold storms I never speak
My soul is loud; my voice is weak

These tears aren’t tears; they’re floods of thought
Of battles fought and lessons taught
Of dreams I dressed in morning light
Now buried deep in endless night

They see the smile cos' I wear it well
A mask I've forged in private hell
But joy’s a suit I never fit
I grew up fast; need no one to babysit

I learned to write what I can’t say
To pen the pain and walk away
My heart’s a book no one has read
Each page a wound I’ve left unsaid

I’ve walked through years with hollow feet
And made my peace with incomplete
The world moves on; I stay behind
A ghost with memories on rewind

Why does it hurt to simply feel?
Why do my scars refuse to heal?
Why is my chest a thunder dome
A place of storms I call my home?

I cry at night; but not aloud
The dark has learned to hold me proud
While others sleep in soft repose
I bleed in verse that no one knows

This isn’t just a broken heart
It’s rusted dreams and ripped apart
It’s years of holding in the rain
And wondering if I’ll heal again
They said I should try falling in love
But look at my scars; see what it made me become
“Love,” they say, “makes the world go on and on”
Yet I bled poems in silence until dawn

Hmm...
What do they think I am?
A flicker? A flame? Some sacrificial lamb?
Oh; A whisper in their wicked plan?
Who they think I be… some lesser man?

See; I'm neither that; neither this
I'm the howl inside that deep abyss
And if that means I must resist
I'll let the world burn bit by bit

I'll burn the world for the one I love
Let empires crack from skies above
If peace won’t come, then war must fit
And I’ll kiss the ash while I carry it

So tell them love ain’t soft or sweet
It’s fire; it’s fists; it’s ****** feet
If love’s the game they make us play
Then let me love the hell away

I’m the storm they can’t outlast
The broken glass of a future passed
If love's a lie; then let it break
And in its ruins; I’ll make my stake

I’ll tear apart the heart’s disguise
And feed it back to their empty lies
For love they say; but never feel
I’ll make them taste the blood I steal

Every soul I gave my heart to... gone
Left me buried before the break of dawn
Now all that’s left in this hollow space...
are veins that echo, a pulse erased

Nonfunctional arteries, silence instead
Where love once lived now walks the dead
I’ve mourned alive; I've wept in stone
I carried pain like it’s flesh and bone

I stitched my soul with threads of pain
Nursed heartbreak like cold winter rain
Cradled sorrow like a child with no name
And wore my wounds like a warrior’s chain
9:59 was a heartbeat
A half breath in a thunderstorm of seconds
He was the whisper before the scream
The hush before the applause
A lover... that the world forgot
but see time... time never dared to ignore

Waiting calmly for 10 o’clock
To feel her click... to hear her knock
To whisper soft with gentle grin
“Come close, my love... let time begin”

But 10:00… oh; she never came
She chased the world; adored the fame
A golden hour; dressed in pride
Yet left his steady hands denied.

To her...
9:59 was the almost...
A blemish...
A name unworthy of inscription in her scrolls of becoming
She mistook proximity for poverty
Kindness for cling
Loyalty for lack

He stood still
At the edge of forever
Watching her shadow in the minute ahead
10 o’clock
Queen of symmetry
Darling of digits
Precise Pristine
Always on time.... but never for him

He stood there broken
While she danced with 10:05
Flirted with 10:15
Swooned for 10:50
all the futures...
never the foundation

He watched her click for the 10:01s
The 10:10s; 10:59s…
Everyone who came after
Everyone who came greater
And maybe... just maybe
that’s why he was never enough

9:59 was a minute shy
Of being seen beneath her sky
A tender tick; a quiet song
That waited faithfully too long

He opened doors she wandered through
Yet she loved ones who never knew
Of all the time he kept for her
Of all the ways he'd never err

She sought the sparkle of 10:01
And swayed to noon beneath the sun
Chasing hours with brighter hues
Forgetting who lit up her fuse

He was 9:59
Not 10
Not round..
Not whole..
Not perfect

But he was the door...
The key
The minute that opened the moment
That lit the light...
That gave her name...
a place to exist

Still..
She looked past him
Always
Forever chasing the hourglass gods
Plus the sharp lines and golden ticks

And he...
He stood there
every day
every clock
every loop
Hoping for her
But never walked through with

He was the almost-lover
The breath before the kiss
The "just one more minute"...
You never give

Yet he loved her
Madly... Quietly
With all the time he wasn’t allowed

But time don’t bend for broken hearts
Clocks don’t tick for unspoken parts
And love?
Sometimes it’s just…
a minute short
I want to vanish
not like a whisper
but like a wound that healed without leaving a scar

To slip between moments
so quietly
even time forgets it once knew my name

No eulogies
no echoes
no unfinished songs in someone’s heart

I want to vanish
Not just disappear...
But evaporate
Quietly
Completely
Without a trace
Without a name
Without even a memory to whisper
"I was here"

I want to forget myself so perfectly
That even I
Don’t remember I ever wanted to forget
No lingering pain
No fading laughter
No aching nostalgia curled in old corners of my chest

I crave the blankness
Not death....
but the freedom of never having been

No shadows of  "almost"
No scent of "before"
No mirrors reminding me I once was more
No yesterday
No could-have-beens
No photographs of people I used to be

I want the kind of stillness
That doesn’t ask questions
No "what happened?"
No "why haven't you got married?"
No "who hurt you?"
No "are you okay?"
Because in oblivion....
There are no answers
Only absence

I don’t want healing
I don’t want closure
I want nothing
Nothing to carry
Nothing to crave
No flames inside
Not even ashes

So I beg you please
Let me un-be
Let the stars forget I ever watched them
Let the winds forget how I once wept into them
Let every thought of me dissolve
Like breath on a cold windowpane
Here.... then gone
Gone.... then never

I want to Vanish
Not lost because... lost things can be found
But unmade
Unwritten
Unremembered

Let even me forget the shape of my sorrow
Let even me forget the texture of joy
Strip me of stories, of my scars
of "why”

Let me dissolve into silence
so complete
it doesn’t even echo

I'd even prefer to be
Not the silence in the room
But the space before the room ever was
Not a shadow fading
But the light that never cast it

I want to go where even souls dont go
Where not even God says
"Return"
Alani
Name of thunder sealed in silk
Where the sky wrote secrets in ancestral ink
Born not just of womb; but of word
A name that prays; that pierces; that’s heard

I wear my name like woven pride
From the paths of prophets my fathers stride
Ala ni... we own the gold of grace
Even the gods give way to my face

Alani; okunrin to n sun aaro meta
Man who dreams thrice before the dawn breaks better
my heart; a palace of praise
my lips; psalmed with poetic blaze

I am the whisper of warriors... the witness of winds
A woven will where wisdom begins
My name is a proverb; passed through fire
Still glowing bold like ancestral choir

Call me "not common"; I come from core
From palms that plant; from prayers that pour
I walk in wealth they cannot weigh
My name is a drumbeat that kings obey
Alani
I walk like myth; breathe like song
Even the moon hums my name all night long
my steps... sermons on sacred sand
my fingers... scrolls from spirit’s hand

I am power; pulse; poise and plan
From woven whispers of ancient man
Let the world know when they call me in,...
They summon a storm with a royal grin

To love Alani is to love a seasonless spring
To touch him is to wake everything
The stars wore envy the night I'm kissed
By fate; by grace; or  a lover’s mist

I am a spirit wrapped in skin
The holy hidden... deep within
A mystery only God decodes
Yet a comfort where love’s river flows

So let the world remember this
Alani is not a man alone; he’s bliss
He’s a poetry; a portal; a praise on feet
Where romance; reverence; and reign all meet
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