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Beating a stigma
 with a stereotypical stick — as they tell me  
Do stick to your kind” if I ever hope to suite in.
But trying to suite in never really means you’ll fit in
it just means you’re dressed for the part, and not the room.

Because when the interior world doesn’t match
the exterior’s performance, the walls echo as a stranger.
    Being “mysterious” is still a bit of a mystery to me —
Especially when society’s own boundaries blur like
  breath on glass. So they’ll corner you with regulation
and call it freedom. But the regulars aren’t in order.

Again, boundaries do blur,
  like lines drawn with wet chalk.
Regulations - written by those who keep changing the page.
Still, society will corner you and call it “open space.”
The regulars aren’t in order. They call us too young to be this
    tired, by this idealistic age, that has us exhausted by reality.

Some mornings, I hate being told “Good morning.”
It sounds too bright for the kind of dark I’m carrying around.
My face? Is mundane by necessity. And I’ve surrendered to
the grey — because bright ideas can get you darkened these days.

Memories always haunt us —
   but we never get the gift of being ghosted by our pasts.
We are phantoms in the present, shadows behind the future,
hoping to step into the light without burning.

But let’s make light of the struggles we face, and not
just fight demons in the dark. The dark is their territory —
but the light is where we name things without shame.
Cos in the weekly sense — you wear your weakness
  like cologne, but cover it in the smile of a pretend-bright today.
The picture I had drawn, it's fading.

This darkness is getting denser.

I'm desperately fighting.

Reality has become a nightmare.

The dream has grown more vivid.

I'll disappear someday, just like my nights disappeared from my reality.

The things you had promised me have become a fallacy.

Still trying to draw you, but it's taking longer.

Does she still look the same?

How would I know that?
This poem explores the quiet collapse of memory, love, and clarity. Through fading images and growing darkness, it captures the emotional weight of loss, broken promises, and the desperate struggle to hold on to someone or something slipping away. It's a haunting reflection on how, sometimes, we lose sight—not just of others, but of ourselves.
Reflective tears— but none fall.
Glass-stained eyes, holding back
a flood that forgot how to break.
The walls pit inward— tightening
like regret, closing in like the hole
in my heart.

Hurt me again— my mind almost
begs for it; not for the pain—but
for the proof I still feel.
Cracked knuckles answer what
cracked thoughts can't say.
A fractured mental frame
held together by restraint.

I want to cry, but as I reach for the
memory of it, the tears don’t come—
Just the hollow ache of forgetting
how to let go in that way.
It be like that some days...
I’m in a drought for time— yet flooded with ideas.
as the sun rises with the dust, and by dusk, all hope
feels spent, or quietly scattered.

I know destiny calls— even without a map, signal
or a location marked. "Yeah, I don’t know what
I’m doing," I often confess, in quotation marks—
still walking toward the shape of who I’m meant
to become.

Pushing through bruises and bitter slights—real joy
flickers, but most smiles still feel perfectly rehearsed.
To stay above the arrows, but never ahead of myself—
sharp enough, still, to pierce through the soft fabric
of my many, many daily doubts. And I’m learning:
sometimes the cage has no door— but only the illusion
of one, built from fear.

There’s always a world just outside of it— waiting.
We’re all just finding ourselves day by day.
And life? It’s one day after another— until, finally,
you recognize the person you've been becoming
all along.
Aurora May 17
Here I am, struggling through the battle of life,
Fighting the monsters that live inside me.
I’m tired — I want to give up, I want to run.
But their ****** laughter still echoes in my head.
Every wound they gave still bleeds, the pain still fresh.
Something inside whispers, “Let go,” but now I see—
It was never me. It was their curse that clung to me.

Here I am, waging wars I was never meant to fight,
Bleeding from wounds I should never have carried.
The pain still knocks me down, again and again.
I escaped their grip the first time I spread my wings—
But why did I have to flee?
When my angels left, I had no one left to turn to.
My cries for help were drowned by the devil’s laughter.
I watched my angels bow to the dark — and hope abandoned me.

Here I am, looking back at the wreckage of my path,
Their voices still echo, loud in my mind.
All the pain, all the memories fuel this rage—
My heart, twisted, filled with hate.
My broken mind hates the one I love,
And loves the ones I wish I didn’t.
So I built a fortress around my heart,
Forged in hate, it shields me from life.

Now I’m alone—surrounded, but alone.
I want to break free.
But now I realize…
I have become my own captor.
And escape feels impossible.

But still, I’ll try.
I’ll keep going.
Because I can’t give up now.
Sanama Mar 13
In public,
I wear it well —
A mask of smiles,
Words sharp and light,
Jokes like armor,
Eyes that never seem to waver.

You see the me I've crafted —
But not the pain,
Not the struggles,
Not the tears,
Not the humiliations I've endured.

All of it — covered, hidden by:
Persona, protege me ab ulterius hominibus qui de me ridebant, semel ostendi infirmitatem meam, et ideo omnes non solum curaverunt, sed etiam me contumeliis affecerunt.

But with the mask,
All seems like fine, smooth glass —
Perfect, flawless,
Untouched.

Yet beneath that glass,
Cracks grow deeper,
Thin lines of truth,
Splitting under pressure.

Waiting for the moment
It all will break —
And when it breaks,
Will they see me?
Or just the shattered pieces?
Will they reach out,
Or step on the shards?
Will I be free,
Or filled with insults of my weakness?

And so, I wear the mask.
I hide it like an art — like a brush of paint, covering every crack and shadow. A mask painted in smiles and light words, hiding the pain and weakness beneath.
Lalit Kumar Feb 28
I watched from afar, my heart heavy with guilt,  
The boy, standing cold, as her tears gently built.  
She stood before him, fragile and small,  
And whispered, "I’m sorry," though it wasn’t her fall.  

Her eyes, still tender, though broken inside,  
Offered an apology she had no need to provide.  
She bowed her head, as if to confess,  
For the heartbreak he caused, in all of its mess.  

He stood unmoved, oblivious, blind,  
To the storm he had left, to the damage he’d signed.  
Yet there she was, with no fault to bear,  
Offering sorrow, as if life were fair.  

She spoke of mistakes, of things left unsaid,  
While the boy, in his silence, let the guilt spread.  
It wasn’t her fault—no, it never was,  
But there she stood, broken because—  

She thought the fault was hers to own,  
That somehow, she’d left him alone.  
But I saw the truth, though they didn’t—  
He was the one who should have been repentant.  

Her apology was like a fragile plea,  
For love he had shattered, carelessly.  
Yet, she still bowed, still bore the weight,  
While he, untouched, sealed her fate.  

I stood as a witness, aching inside,  
For a girl who deserved so much more than to hide.  
Her apology was a gift undeserved,  
From a heart broken, yet still preserved.
Lalit Kumar Feb 28
The match trembles between my fingers,
a silent war in a room too still.
Smoke or breath—what matters now?
The weight of nothingness, the weight of her.

She lingers like an unfinished line,
half a whisper, half a wound.
A memory blurred at the edges,
but sharp enough to cut through the dark.

Did she ever love me, or just the idea?
A boy with dreams too heavy to hold,
an engineer of castles in air,
a builder of futures that never came.

Outside, the night hums with indifference.
Inside, I weigh the lighter’s click
against the echo of her voice—
soft, pleading, unbearably distant.

I could fade with the smoke,
or chase the sun she once pointed to.
Between life and her,
I choose to breathe.
dead poet Jan 5
i see flaws everywhere:

the skewed clock on the plastered wall;
the faces flashing past the curtain call;
the faithless creed of heathens, and sleazeballs;
the smiles that hide the symptoms of withdrawal;

i see laws bent out of shape:

the policemen advantaging off exposed women;
the two-faced lawyers in courts, who summon -
the men questioned of their dignity, and religion;
the reporters come drooling, for a big fat commission.  

i seek help, in vain:

the therapists diagnose me for a cerebral disorder;
they fail to put their words in the right order -
to put me at ease in the right frame of mind, so -
i accept my flaws under a contract, signed.
imparo Sep 2024
And in the midst of
clinging to both
Undecided of
which hand to hold
You have ended up
losing them both
In trying to hold on to everything, one may end up with nothing

— The End —