How come every time
I try to leave it all behind,
Try to forget the pain,
The damage I've been through,
It always finds its way back to me?

It never lets me go.
Like I’m trapped in a cage,
With no way out,
No space to breathe —
But somehow, I’m still alive.

Every time I think I’ve moved on,
That I’ve finally healed,
It creeps back in,
Like a shadow I can’t run from.

It tightens around me,
Like invisible hands on my throat.
Not enough to end me,
Just enough to make me breathless.

And I wonder —
Will it ever let me go?

Since I was young,
I’ve lived in the in-between
a mind always wandering,
slipping beneath the surface
of ordinary moments.

I remember being very little,
winter pressing against the windows,
a decoration tapping the glass,
the snow falling soft as breath.
I would sit for hours,
just watching.
That quiet
was a world unto itself.

I could watch the sun set
and feel the whole world soften,
or trace the wind
through the leaves
like it was telling me
something only I could hear.

Time bent around those thoughts
hours, days,
evaporating like breath
on a cold window.

Even then,
I was searching,
though I didn’t know for what.

Now, the thoughts
have turned inward.
Still wandering,
but deeper now
am I growing?
Is this meaningful?
Is what I’m doing right?

And still,
it’s easy to get lost in them,
to lose time,
to drift.

These thoughts
soft as a breeze,
sometimes paralyzing,
always persistent
are my compass and my undoing.
They keep me aligned,
even when I question
every step.

They’ve become the soil
from which I know myself,
layered with doubt,
but rooted in reflection.

They’ve shown me
how I’m stitched to the world:
to the wind,
to the fading light,
to the hush
that follows deep seeing.

And when I return,
I carry more questions
not answers,
but invitations:
Am I slowing down?
Am I really seeing?

It’s not escape.
It’s return.
To wonder,
to stillness,
to the place where thinking
becomes a kind of prayer.

I used to look up to success.
Glossy and distant,
like yachts pulling into sunlit harbors.
While my brothers and I posed,
thinking cool was something you wore.
A picture snapped becomes a prophecy
one we’re sold before we understand
we're being trained to consume.

We watched the boats drift in
like kings returning from invisible wars.
And my brother,
bold, naïve, beautiful,
pointed and said,
“I’ll have one of those.”
When asked how he’d pay,
he simply explained:
“I’ll get it from that wall, just like you do.”

God, the way children believe -
no fear in their hunger,
no shame in their dreams.

Maybe I’m just older now,
my lenses fogged from wear.
But all I see is people
wrapped in things
not selves, not stories,
but trinkets, masks, trophies.
Like they forgot that real wealth
was once built on time,
on tending soil,
on tears held back
while saying goodbye.

Maybe I’m not better.
Just tired of pretending.

Fifteen years I spent hiding,
living so cautiously
I might as well
not have lived at all.

I thought if I became invisible enough,
it wouldn’t hurt when no one looked.
But now I see it:

No one's looking.
Not really.
They’re caught in the hum -
faces lit by screens,
minds dragged along
by headlines, algorithms,
urgencies that mean nothing
when the world goes quiet.

And I don’t want to be them.
I never was.

So what was I hiding from?
Not them.

Maybe just from the part of me
that believed I had to earn belonging,
to twist myself into shapes
too small to hold a soul.

I always tell myself I'm a people-pleaser,
a labrador in a crowd,
always wagging, always watching.
But maybe I just wanted connection.
Maybe I was trying to make sure
everyone on the bus had a seat.

And maybe
that’s not so bad.

I no longer look up to success.
I look for faces in the street
at how someone treats the waiter,
the ******* crying on the curb,
the man with cardboard for shoes.

We are all human.
All breakable.
All still learning
how to love
without masks.

And I want to shout it,
before greed drowns our voices,
before we forget
how to hold one another
without asking what they own.

Why are you here
I wish you could disappear
see a life full of pain you choose to fill it with fear
She saw the light in the dark she stopped and stared for a year
Riding a car without a wheel and you expect me to steer
I hope you close the door
Feelings are way too sacred
was born without a heart you made me one filled with hatred
killed before I could smile in my mothers eyes
was reincarnated into a baby full of lies

Why are you here is there even a reason
Gave me a book made by a racist to believe in
gave me words just to use for deceiving
Millions of kids who grow up to be negligent leaders
Blame you for my mother being addicted to beer
Then be blamed by the man who's father caused these tears
It's just senseless violence,
nobody going anywhere but heaven
you the reason I've dreaming bout death since the age of seven
infact they're nightmares I stare blankly at the wall
And trauma builds when you're hearing them fight with no one to call
Fell down a well now im a ghost who seek revenge
spend my peace spreading violence to another genertion

I miss the late night calls until we hear the morning birds sing
I miss the late night walks to your house when there's no one else awake
I miss the comfortable silence between us or laughing with you until it hurts

Now I look at my phone and months go by since the last call we shared
Now I walk and pass by your house, both of us awake, but living separate lives
Now the silence between us is tense, only small talk of "how have you been"

I miss you even when I'm with you, because when I'm with you I feel like I don't know you

I tried hard
not to hear forced
gasps and stop-start
slaps of feet on floorboards
upstairs.

I just sat
stirring Shreddies
beneath the milk
like submarines.

        ‘The hits keep coming’,
the man on the radio said,
as if he knew.
And a neighbour took me to school again.

I don’t know why the ambulance came,
details forever submerged in waters
deep and murky.
At least he was gone for a while.