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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 —