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Walking through the clouds of my own imagination
I tried so hard to be like you, your perfect creation
But life throws out the keys of truth with material devastation
Permanent destruction for a limited elation

And I’m tired now
I’m tired of being me, myself and you

A shattered identity, identical reality
Tiptoeing to tow the line of happiness neutrality
And every time it feels like I finally have found me
Over and over again a painful endless finale

And I tried now
I tried being me, myself, and you

Things seem so black and white until they mix to grey
So many things I wish that I could say
I loved the way you hated but like withered rope I fray
Loose ends never to be tied, life serves an empty tray
And these hollow words I pray
Will today be a happy day?
I have no reason why,
The selfish, in vain, take hold
Of a hope that cannot die,
It’s really getting old

But letting go doesn’t seem to be
In the cards, i can’t play it
On the tip of a thought,
An answer, i can’t say it

And the limits imposed
by the lack of understanding
Makes acceptance the course
And of course, I’m not accepting

Struggling in vain, there’s no other way
Can i at least believe they know i remember.
Nothing i could do
but to Watch, and to pray
Until returning our bodies to clay

I try too hard somehow, without ever even trying
Fruitless is the hand offering semblance to the dying
The greatest minds can't find the cure
What offer could i proffer here
That wouldn't requisite a dejected tear...

In vain, or in vanity
Selfishness or insanity?
No control over desire to
Defeat this infirmity

Should be left to the learned
It's hard to trust the tried.
I couldn’t agree more
On nights like tonight.
Our land of stars and stripes, now glows,
with screens that flicker in hallowed halls.
Entranced humans shuffle, with eyes fixed below,
on small gadgets that have us enthralled.

Should the Statue of Liberty, our symbolic girl,
be holding a smartphone up to the world?
While tweets fly like eagles and hashtags swirl,
foreign disinformation trends as fast as it’s purled.

In lunch halls, real conversations take rest,
as influence is sought—in hoity-toity, binary quest.
Friends are backdrops—originality in short supply
as likes and shares make our dopamine fly.

America’s zombies, though ******* drained,
shuffle endlessly on, with Wi-Fi stimulated brains.
Once the land of the free, we’re now the land of tech
with minds wrecked by truths unchecked.

As we rock and sway—the new robot way—
will our old, analog-republic simply fade away?
.
.
Songs for this:
Airhead by Thomas Dolby
.
Oh, and a Christmas playlist because—it’s December!:
https://daweb.us/xmas/Christmas_01.mp3
BLT Merriam Webster word of the day challenge 12/04/24:
hoity-toity = snooty or pretentious
During the chess game,
she made a good move.
I smiled a little,
typed:
"Nice"

Just felt right.
A simple thing.
No reply.
We played on.
It ended—a draw.

Then came her words.
First:
"indian"

I blinked.
Felt the air shift.
Then, second:
"monkey"

I just sat there.
Not hurt yet. Not angry.
Just… stunned.
Like: is this real?
I typed back:
"Why"

I added:
"You broke my heart"

I read it again.
Still stunned.
I didn’t know her.
Didn’t do anything.
We just played.

Then she dropped:
"virginity"

That word.
Out of nowhere.
Then:
"i no interesed"
"bye"

It didn’t sting.
It didn’t burn.
It just confused me.
Like the wind changed direction
and I wasn’t ready.

I wrote:
"Virginity?"
"What are you saying?"

No reply.
Just me,
sitting with a drawn game
and a question
I never saw coming.

Hope this poem reaches you.
To Juana Dayana
Of Colombia—
From HRS,
An Indian soul,
Caught in a drawn game’s pull.

- THE END -

© 2025 June, Hasanur Rahman Shaikh.
All rights reserved.
It was just a game—until it wasn’t. A simple move, a small smile. Then her words came—sudden, sharp, and strange. This poem is me, still trying to make sense of that moment.
We keep breaking the other
only to pick the broken pieces off the ground

Either we put the pieces together
or leave them down

We can’t go on forever
and not find a piece of us around
We keep bleeding too

https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSk9hLLnp/
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