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Gabriel 10m
What was once lost
cannot be explained in long poems.
No amount of stanzas
can hold the silence it left behind.

It can only be heard
in the breeze that presses gently against you
on an evening walk—
that soft resistance,
echoing a voice
that used to be
your favorite sound.

Or
you’ll see it
in places you once held sacred.
A room.
A bench.
The shadow of laughter against a wall.

It will reach for your hand
like nothing ever went wrong.
And her arms—
they’ll still wrap around you
in memory
as if they planned to stay forever.
Vitæ Jul 29
The way flowers
twist themselves
to face the sun;
I do the same
at the moon,
at you.

At the darkest hour,
my despair has grown
around this fortress:
an indivisible field
of sunflowers.

What does it take to live
in this patch of grace?
To become the dewdrop
freed from quenched lips;
to become the day
that waters an endless
garden of galaxies,

that sprout generously
and rot willfully
inside every cell;

to live in a body
called a nebula
and a graveyard,
knowing in the end
I will inevitably
become soil,

to belong to you
and to the world,
and learn
how to breathe again.

But this fortress
I built around my heart
is the reason
I can’t feel the sun.
Notes on a life not quite lived
Things you said in your sleep
Showed how well I turned out
My past, my future: your hell
War was lost, but who's the winner?
Sometimes I wish I hadn't been her
Under a sky painted with dreams
You waited still for me

Here you are, once again
Betrayed by one you thought a friend
Like embers burn but never mend?
Like echoes call but meet no end?
You mourned the deception that never was
The lies, the trust, my sinless flush
"Two can play this game" they say
Can they?

But I let you run away
Storm out, it's empty greys now
Just look at your face
Never thought I'd save you then betray you
Lucrative choices made
Caught in the games we both played
Still see you there, still see your stare
Full of what I call despair

Venom trickles down your throat
Bought that love was what you spoke
I was a secret: you, an oath
We both swore we'd be there
What you believe is what you see
The truth was drowned in secrecy
I locked my heart and hid the key
I fed your hope for it to bury me

I let you run away
Storm out, it's empty greys now
Just look at your face
Never thought I'd save you then betray you
Lucrative choices made
But your ending came in vain
Still see you there, still see your stare
Full of what I call...
Written as a song with a melody.
Based on a little story I made in my head ;)
ash Jul 26
beauty is in the eye of the beholder
but what if the one to envision it is blind?
i could approach you with a clean slate
i always do—writing things on a white screen—
except the older the ink, the harder for it to be removed.
visions of you in my head—just not anyone could write over.
and if they try—if i hear things again and again—every time,
it's written over and over and over
until i do not have any clean slate for you, any longer.


actions so cheap, the best of ink fails to meet my expectations.
perhaps there are too many,
but what do i do
when you tend to perform in disguise
every time you see someone come around?

i slip in the lows of being unhinged almost,
the gates of emotional purgatory open to welcome me aboard.
it's tiring—i'm drained.
speaking it in metaphor, trying to paint over.
it brings me to wonder:
just how long do i play pretend?

been wrung dry of trust,
perspective from the third person
who stands in the rubble of ghosted flirtations,
half-friendships built on the foundation of lies.
expected nothing,
but the hope still flows—
straight to my river of misery,
now reeking shades of disappointment.
got lesser and lesser,
and now it's barely there.

this is my final letter,
a sigh of resignation—
hopefully the scientific dissection of this feeling that i entertain:
of the almosts,
weird hope-hangovers,
and all the games
that weren't even mine to begin with.

to name it is difficult—
perhaps it's the hope fatigue,
the burn of being ghosted,
or a nostalgia born from detached attachment.
i mourn for things that weren't real.
hungover from fake bonds,
relying on remnants of connections
that echoed in fallouts.

i asked ai—what do i name this feeling?
in my own words, it replied:
choose your favourite color and give it to this burnout.

grey—
in the middle of extremes,
where hope lay on one end,
ache at the other.
the rope stretched thin.
my being glitches—
a breath, every failed text,
trying to match up the vibe.
i feel like i've fallen in between the lines.
i see it, hiding in plain sight,
watching people perform me wrong.
lowest of expectations, ridden lower and low.

fake affection tastes like sour frosting
on a cake that's been left uncovered in the fridge
for way too long.
the outside’s rough, dry—
nevertheless, i take a bite.

there's eerie silence
as i sit at the edge of the windowsill.
numbness lingers.
i pull at the strings.
raw evenings,
i tend to wonder—
write notes, only to surrender.

kindness—they tally manipulation.
flirting, i take as a weapon.
come headfirst—i'm no longer wary.
having given up,
you just add to my list
of why i shouldn't let people carry
me,
or the weight of what i've become.

i don't despise it.
rather, it's a maturity
i ought to carry to a life—
unless i find someone to share this feeling with.

do you feel,
having already expected close to none,
but being handed even lesser—
gift-wrapped in guilt almost—
just please accept it?
expect it the least,
find it dealt in a heist.

even apathy tends to feel violated
when you drag it back to the beginning.
there ought to be a specific hell
for those who tend to exist
and make promises
like they aren't bartering their own.
calling me honest—
with a mouth that lies.
an ache with no name,
a feeling with no gain.

i been known,
been breathing in the sighs—feelings forlorn.
lover girl by laufey plays on my phone,
disappointment of having lost myself
to beliefs that held me strong.

believe,
trust,
exist,
let go.

four friends turned strangers
sitting on the edges of an x.
the centre, i settle upon,
asking what do i name this feeling
that's been born?

how hard is it
to not wear a mask
and change it every time you bask
in a different one’s setting?
a rare emotional creature,
i tend to sit in the foreign setting.

i do not recognize myself.
holding onto things that weren't even present—
this reads like a séance.
funerals held for feelings that needed strengthening,
got tampered with instead,
burnt down to the very bit.

excuse me as i scream in silence.
look at you, with eyes speaking imagery.
build a connection,
hold the other edge of the phone connected to this wire—
one that wouldn't carry any signals.
but i hope you'll still hear
the music that plays this side—
all the unspoken
that i let bleed through my hide.

masks are unrequired.

i've got an inkling—
you do not understand.
and i do not put it in words.
this, like a myth—uncanny and impossible to uncover.

unless i've got a name to put to this emotion,
i shall drain myself of all words, irrespective—
if it's meant with relating,
or with mirth.

you can only add to my reasons
of why it isn't ever worth.

i like grey
Draumgaldr Jul 23
A withered soul at the shore of dreams,
It pondered the waves as they gleamed—
Arrays of light, oh, what heaven beams,
Caused by clouds so white they seem
Formed from pearls or angel’s wings.

It prayed for this day to be its last,
For no day shall be worthy as this day will.
A weary spirit lingers where light and shadow meet, yearning for release beneath celestial whispers.
Draumgaldr Jul 23
Look at the useless life you’ve led,
Sleep the dying sleep—like the dead.
Restless nights on a thorn-infested bed,
What did you give the world, and what did you get?

What fate was sought, and what fate was set?
Harken the lies—how far it treads.
For this is hell, and from hell you’ve crept,
A shadow’s dance where sorrow’s kept.
A reckoning whispered in shadows—where past and future bleed into an endless night. A silent torment where the soul’s debts are counted in pain and regret.
Draumgaldr Jul 23
I walked this town with madness,
Where streets once full of gladness—
And I cried into the heavenly sky
That no sadness shall ever blow by
Upon this town of madness.

For all the churches and their bells
May ring warning about this hell,
But no bell can reach the drinking well
That drove this town to madness.

I turned around seeking that sound
That haunted every morrow—
That ripply wave that intertwines
And beckons us to sorrow.

I stood amidst this desolate town
That wore the well as its crown,
And every building knelt broken down
To hail the King of Madness.
Where warnings fail, the well still flows.
And the town, like its people, learns to kneel.
Zywa Jul 23
When you see no way

out, you still have the entrance --


to the past you know.
Novel "In het oog" ("In the Eye", 2024, Marijke Schermer), chapter 'In het oog, in het hart' ('In the eye, in the heart')

Collection "Inwardings"
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