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Thoughts abound in the whirlmill that is my mind

Fear, regrets, despair, anguish dominate

Devoid of joy and happiness, love nothing but a nightmare

Lost to the past i find myself bound



Forsaking love, never loving, fearing love

Hiding from, wanting to feel, absent love lingers and hurts

Longing to mirror my soul's reflection in my lover's eye

Bereft my heart in never ending fear



Always yearning, finding love never enough

Returning , giving my soul back, paralyzed me

Fearing a simple kiss more than death itself

Love meant it all, drowning from it, only getting closer



Delusions and false remembrances canvased my pain

Rejecting love thought me free

Landscapes of lies paint dreams never dreamt

Quest for intimacy and eternal love befallen reality

Unrelenting denial brought me to love

My heart opened to my soulmate

But she was not there
Fahad shah May 16
Last night I dreamt of my grandfather
Who died six months ago.
Passed away, people speak in my ear.
Yes, passed away. He passed away.
He passed away on one fine Saturday.

Two days ago, I wrote a poem.
A friend said, “Write one for him too.”
A eulogy?
My grandfather died six months ago.

He left a cane behind,
a torch
And diaries scrawled with debts:
Jamaal, 300.
Kamaal, 500.
Even our milkman who helped dig a grave.

Abu ji, dear Abu ji—We called.
Abu Ji died six months ago.
Passed away, they say. He passed away.
His friends say he passed away.
His sons say he passed away.
His wife—she says it too.
He passed away, they all say.

Last year, he gave me a shirt to wear
and a belt of fine yellow leather.
“This, I bought in the 60’s when I was young.
This, I bought when I was married.”
He talked of two dozen friends often,
a menudo, mi abuelo, Sus amigos.
I learned in Spanish.
A menudo: often,
Mi abuelo: My grandfather.
Sus amigos: His friends.
He spoke of his friends,
“My friends.”
Men, tall men in long boots and khaki uniforms,
who called him “Inspector,”, “Our dear inspector”
mis amigos y sus zapatos, I learned again.

Before he died, he asked
In a voice, strong, shrewd, and tired,
“Who won the election?”
“No one, for now.
Here, Congress had a rally today.
Yes, he… came to speak too.”
“A brave man,” he said.
“Yet…”

My grandfather died six months ago,
Suddenly. Of a heart attack.
I suppose.
I calmed his face by rubbing his chin,
He stared at me in a silent disbelief.
I took him to a hospital, my brother too,
“Check his pulse.”
“Is he breathing?”
“let’s turn back. There is no point.”

In the hospital, I was the brave one.
Even so, braver was my brother,
Quieter, shaken–he didn’t cry.
Nor did he in the ambulance,
Or at home.

Wrapped in a red blanket,
“Wait, did you tie his mouth?”
“Here. Take this bandage,
Tuck it beneath his chin.
What a fine beard.
What a fine man.
Are you the adult here?
Call your father”

“Father, come home. Abu Ji died.”
“Passed away,”. “He passed away.”
“Yes. He passed away.”
Brother, however younger, pats my shoulder,
“Do not cry. What shall we say?
What shall we ever say?”
“To whom?
“to mummy?”
We call our grandmother mummy.
“Yes, what shall we tell mummy?”
Abu Ji died. he died six months ago.
Passed away, she’d say. Passed away.

He died at noon. While eating.
He had only started.
A morsel of rice, dry in his white palm,
Mother screamed in disbelief,
I ran down, so did my brother
who had just come home.

“Why didn’t you come yesterday?
When I asked you to come yesterday,”
Abu Ji had said.
Then gave him all his keys
in an untimely hour.
“Quite lucky,” they said. “He gave you his keys before he died.”
Passed away, he says. He passed away.

Mother said, “Abu Ji called your name before he died.”
Passed away, she says. He passed away.
“He called your name before he passed away.”
I am shy about writing my name,
Too reserved to write my name.
If my name was Kamal, Abu Ji said,
“Kamal, come to me, I will die.”
If I was named Jamal, Abu Ji said,
“Jamal, come to me, I will die.”
Mother swears she heard it.
While Grandma was lost somewhere else.
“I heard him, he called your name.”
I do not believe it,
Not even six months later.


We came back in an ambulance
Received by 300 strange men
With 300 different hats
Men I only nodded to.
Men, who would visit my grandfather often.
“Pity, he was great.”
“Indeed. He was.”
“Oh, how every soul shall taste death”

Grandmother cried in disbelief,
“He did not die. Nor pass away.”
“Yes, you are right.”
“Yes, you are right.”

My grandfather died.
Six months ago.
I no longer cried; only felt sad.
Talk to people, I hear them say.
My great, great aunt and her great, great uncle
To their dismay
I thought of an old friend
who never calls.

My grandfather died,
Two months later, I met a friend
Where were you all this time?
She says, “I am sorry. Was he sick?”
I say, “It is all right. He was just old”
It is not all right.
“Do you miss him?” she asked again.
“I do not want to talk about it,” in disdain.
Not with her. Ever again.


My grandfather died,
Some say he called my name,
While others say he was a great man.
He left me an old ashtray,
his two diaries and a cane.
I do not want a key.
Or a shirt.
Or a belt from a forgotten age.

Last week, an old politician breathed his last,
This week, a city fell to a wildfire’s wrath.
Who is left to talk to anymore?
Last night I dreamt of him, saying that
wise old man is gone!
“Abu Ji, that city itself is ash and smoke too.”
What a pity.
My grandfather died.
Passed away; I remind myself.
Six months ago, he passed away.
Abu Ji, Dear Abu Ji.
To all grandfathers who make your lives better.
To all the best friends who always make you laugh.
Dylan A May 11
I keep pretending that you don’t want me,

Because that would be a reason to stay.

So if I find a reason to leave, I’ll be gone

By golden hour, without a message or note,

Without even any goodbyes.
Asher Graves Apr 28
And at last he prayed,
Prayed since all hope had perished,
All virtues faded and all sentiments gone.
Down the river he now floats, cursed with angst and pain.
He mourns his loss but his grief won't go away, for this is the consequence —
The consequence of action he so inadvertently did without a second of thought.
Oh, the lives he ruined, the chaos he brought.
Denial is the river, and denial is what he sought.

In denial he drowned,
And in denial he remained.

-Asher Graves
Saw an Instagram prompt asking young poets to write something based on an image — so I did. Here's what came out of it. Wrote it just five minutes ago, so there might be mistakes, but hey — it's about the rawness, not the polish, right? Let me know if it resonates.
Jon Apr 24
its lights are on
glowing dimly
like an abandoned parking lot

the concrete
dappled with
cigarettes
pebbles
people
stones
cigarettes

the sign still says they're open
we all know they're closed
they just don't want to tell us yet
Mariah Apr 15
Can't you see me?
Can't you see?
How its supposed to be
You had to teach me

A burdensome chore
You chose to ignore
So you left me alone
Wondering why I did so on my own

Now I know nothing
I'm always running
Under the pressure
I'm crumbling

The unformed person
Hiding behind the curtain
Ashamed of being the burden

Now you can't see-
but when you think of me
I'm gone and you're still  
Hating me  

How I'm ought to be
It isn't clear to me
And I'm sure you'd happily agree
I am lost at sea

You were so headstrong
About knowing all along
I was unworthy and ugly, loud and wrong
Now I suffer
Nowhere to belong


You can no longer tell me to go
This is my home
Piece by piece, blood and bone
I built it on my own  

You know of my unbearable pain
Trying to live life your way
And you know I couldn't stay
When you were the one sending me away

I don't want to grow old
With my life feeling cold
All thrown away
Feeling myself decay

Its not my responsibility
Your incivility
Never a child to you,
But a void of hostility

Your high horse far away from me
And I know,
that even though
I can't see you looking down
It is a certainty

Creative were your reasons
To deny the diseases
That plagued our house of stalled seasons
So look away, so you don't need to believe in
The winter that we lived in

Deny, deny, deny
The distance between you and I
Came from you, and your willingness to
Misidentify
"This child is not mine,
It Chooses to defy,
There is Rot inside."
And I can never be satisfied
With your answers when I ask why

"You, you, you-
You chose to do-
Everything bad that happened to you."

How could I
When I was the child in knots
And you were the tie

If I am a Bad Egg-
and I am Rotten -
Then you were the Broken,
Beaten Down fridge that I was in
For my mother.
I never wished it of you, but I will die someday, just like you want me to.
And maybe then, you could finally be proud.
Or at least, you could finally stop haunting me.
Alucentemit Mar 18
If you live for their acceptance, you'll die by their rejection
I embody the poison in the elixir of my fruit
Enthralled with thoughts, habits, expressions of thine self

Adoration for passion infects me with your selection
Your concoction soaked the tree of my root
If you live for their acceptance, you'll die by their rejection

Sought by the bread of affliction
I'm concrete in my own pursuit
Enthralled with thoughts, habits, expressions of thine self

Infatuation fueled my permission
A fire of conviction, enticed by a bite of a core once rebuked
If you live for their acceptance, you'll die by their rejection

Idle in submission
Innocence lies on the bed of my tongue to taste its fruit
Enthralled with thoughts, habits, expressions of thine self

Caught beneath the lukewarm embrace of sweet lies within inner disputes
Agony dresses my soul as it peels off its linen in its pursuit
If you live for their acceptance, you'll die by their rejection
Enthralled with thoughts, habits, expressions of thine self
Yllu Minaré Mar 14
We saw each other more often
frequent as the primes in 1 to 10
Mending each other’s boredom
widening our degrees of freedom

Ranted on things under the sun
Noted our signs, roots, and sum
We took turns airing problems
Shared proofs for peer checking

Did sanity check on our numbers
Whether in life, music, or games
Exchanged secrets and dreams
Reciprocated emojis and DMs

In the end, we skipped one thing
An asymptote we avoid touching
Assumed “us” was undefined
Then met our limits and resigned
Jon Feb 4
take
a cigarette
and smother it
in earth, let it witness
the ground.
cover
it up so it
is never
found.
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