From young, we play--
Tiny hands, big dreams

Then they hand us books,
And say, study hard.
Why?
So we can work in the future.

Why work? To enjoy.
Then work more
To enjoy a little more.

A loop,
Endless and spinning

So I say good riddance!
I denounce this life and laugh in its face.
It has no meaning.
Not unless you give it one.

The world can give you a hundred reasons.
But none of them are yours
Write your own answer.

Measure every word,
Every use of punctuation,
Every emoticon and emoji
Down to the smallest gram

Think twice. No--
Thirteen times,
Before opening your mouth.
And dont talk too much or you're self centred

Check every message, comment.
Nothing too harsh
Nothing insensitive
Nothing that might scare them away
Or tarnish their view of you

Write
Delete
And rewrite
Then quickly send before you chicken out

Too bright, tears fell unbidden
Like leaves do in the winter
When the wind, disappointed, sighs

Too loud. I wished for silence,
For companionship, or nothing at all.
Yet this is no fairy tale

You told me
“Let me see your beautiful smile.
For me, please?”

Thus I hid my face
So you didn't have to see me cry
And so I didn't have to listen

Step 1: Smile.
Step 2: Forget why.
Step 3: Keep your voice steady
when your soul is not.
Step 4: Pretend it’s fine.
(Everyone else is.)

Step 5: Fold your feelings
into paper birds.
Set them loose.
Watch them burn mid-air.
Clap softly.
Repeat.

There is no final step.
You just keep going
until you don’t know
what breaking feels like anymore.

Sometimes, I hear a song
through someone
else’s headphones,
 too quiet to name
 but loud enough to feel.

I never ask what it is.
Letting it stay anonymous
 feels more honest.
It’s not mine.
I was just near it.

A violin behind a closed door
  in an apartment I’ll never enter.
Footsteps on an old wooden floor above me
  like a rhythm nobody meant to write.
A man humming in the metro
  not to perform,
  but because he’s alone
    and forgot the world has ears.

There are moments I’ve been completely undone
  by a melody I never fully heard.

Half of it lost to the train.
Half of it blurred by walls.
But something in me
  was tuned
    just right
      to catch what escaped.

We think music is what’s played.
But maybe it’s also what passes through
      when we weren’t looking.
      When we didn’t try to hold it.
      Or name it.
      Or own it.

For a long time
I thought someone would come.
With light in their sleeve,
with words that have
that voice.
The one who heals.

I sat
on the threshold of my emptiness,
with a chair ready
and a question in my pocket.

No one came.
But time did.
And it sat with me.
Silently.
Like a monk
who forgot the prayer,
but still remembers
why he was silent.

One day,
I broke:
stop.
don’t wait.
say.

And the voice I heard
was not from outside.
It was
my own.

Not the voice of courage,
but like a child
you let
begin to speak.

And now,
when someone asks me
who is the god I waited for
I say:

the one who finally
sat in his place
and stopped
searching
for something better
than himself.

She stood  not in prayer, not near Heaven,
But before steel that leads to the grave.
Not a road  but a parting was given,
Where the living could whisper and wave.

She begged nothing. No breath and no pleading
Just her fingers in metal  red-wet.
As she once held him, wordless and bleeding,
So she held now  love’s final duet.

“Step aside!”  they barked like a warning,
As if love were just junk in their path.
And they tore her away in the morning
Like a soldier is torn in the wrath.

She collapsed. Not a sound. No confession.
No prayer. No stars in the sky.
Just the engine  a numb, dull procession
Rolling off toward death, not goodbye.

And he… did not turn. Did not shiver.
Not from fear  but from what he had lost.
No more window. No road. Not a sliver
Of the spring, or the silence it cost.

Just a number. A gun. And a jacket.
Death on call, like a dog in the field.
And her death  not from grief, but the racket
Of a scream that her body concealed.

They were taken. The ground will not wonder
Not who, not for what, not why.
Even heaven is locked under thunder.
Even shadows
refuse
to lie.

For a long time
I thought
this wasn’t me.
This face.
This walk.
This way
I look at the ground.

I thought:
I’m just acting.
Until I find
myself.

But some voice whispered:
“What if this
you’re pretending
is all you are?”

And then I stopped.
Looked at my hands.
And realized
the mask
got used to me.

I wore it so long
I began to speak
with its voice.
To feel
with its heart.

Now I don’t know
who’s beneath.
But I know
something still
wants to breathe.

And maybe
illusion
is the truest form
I ever had.

I did not choose this body.
Nor did it choose me.
We just met
at the entrance of time.

I thought
it would be easier.
Fewer fingers,
more air.
Maybe even wings.

But I got skin
that burns easily.
And eyes
that remember
even when they don’t want to.

I got a voice
that sounds like someone
I no longer remember.
And hands
that love to embrace
even when there’s no one.

Sometimes I think
this body is not mine.
Too much feeling.
Too many foreign traces.

But then
I feel pain.
And I know:
if it hurts
it’s mine.