Too Late
The stage
has all but cleared.
All the souls
have gone home
for that long farewell.

No more matinees to be had;
no encore will echo
through these halls.

(silence)

The curtains,
now drawn with grace,
hang heavy
with dust and hush.
Not a single chair remains,
unforsaken.

(waiting)

Slowly decaying
listening to the
quiet hush
of the theater.

(stillness)

Too late.
The script is completed,
the final bow taken.
Only Silent echoes remain.

Do I finally trust myself enough to be happy again?
Why have I allowed this inner critic to roam free?
How do I argue with the walls it built from solitude?
What made me choose guaranteed misery over the risk of being hurt?

Now I see its need to protect me.
Give it a seat at the table, listen, it's losing influence.
Numbness, the friend that always shows up.
Yes. Risk being seen, I'm done hiding.

Dear future self,
we’ve made it this far, haven’t we?
If I had written to you ten years ago,
it wouldn’t have sounded like this.
I would’ve tried to explain who I was,
outline the path that led to you,
the way a student writes an essay—
structured, unsure, incomplete.

But you know enough now
to read between the lines,
and browse through my mistakes,
that fell like heavy rain from the sky.
I hope that the ghosts of the past
have finally been set free,
and they don’t haunt you in the midnight air
the way they are haunting me.

Did you get some of the things
I’ve spent years aching for?
Answers to the never-ending whys—
why I keep repeating patterns,
why I stay when I should leave,
why I doubt what’s already mine?
Did you find confidence
that isn’t choked by fear?
And love—
not the kind you read in stories,
but the kind that lets you heal.

I don’t expect letters
gift-wrapped remedies for the ache,
but please—
don’t think less of me
for walking through the fire
when I could’ve turned away.

I’m looking forward to meeting you.
Not for answers—
but just to see who survived.
If you’re still standing,
then maybe so am I.

Shattered illusions.
Shattered hopes.
Shattered dreams.

A house with no structure
built from the remains of ruin.

A powerful soul
in a trembling body.

A house meant to fall.
A house that realized
it’s not a house at all -
just the memory of shelter
pretending to hold.

It asks,
"Then what am I?"

But no one answers.

And so,
what’s left
sinks into the soil,
quietly turning
back into earth.

One day, I met the Wendigo,
It told me things that I’d rather not have known.
My family asked me, “Where did it go?”
Who was I to tell?
It visited me later that night,
It gave me quite a fright,
It said, “Scream and I guarantee you won’t survive!”
So I closed my mouth and didn’t dare rebel.
It told me,
“People hunt what they don’t understand,
They can’t even decide who they want to be.
They act like they have this massive plan,
But in reality, they’re afraid of becoming a nobody like me!”
I asked meekly,
“What do you mean?”
It snarled its teeth,
And said to me,
“Some people believe that identity,
Is solely based on how they feel.
But it also has to do with society,
And the people they are around,
And how they are seen,
Not just what they believe.
They think that they can hide,
From the person they try to bury,
Under estranged beliefs,
So they consume whoever they see,
Who doesn’t believe their facade,
And they become like me.”
The Wendigo left,
Quiet as a mouse.
I set up on my bed,
And contemplated the truth I found.
I am me,
But when I talk down to myself,
Try to believe I’m worth less than everyone else,
That isn’t my identity,
That’s an askew belief.
Identity isn’t solely based on me…

someone once asked me
if i were to describe how my heart looked
in words and not through science.
it left me wondering for ages,
finding the right words—
i realized metaphors worked,
kinda like being tangled in lines,
woven outta feelings i can't describe.

my heart is perhaps a lonely, lonely setting
in a space—void of any lighting.
there's glitter on it though,
and whenever it gets a signal of the memory,
cursed even if it was,
it glows like a broken lamp
flickering to light on an empty road,
like an old cd player stuck on the same song—
or more like, stuck on the default,
going in a loop.

the member of the family
stuck in a guest room.
the little kid, trying to sleep—
waiting for a lullaby or a nighttime story.

a black hole, absorbing its own self,
it's been far too alone, on its own.
a long, long night, waiting for a sunrise—
something the world despised, but not anymore.

a dead eulogy with rhyming words.
a piece of broken ceramic, held up by mud.
pieces of fabric cinched together
with needles and stitches,
pinned across words that once shattered—
on a corkboard, decorated in a fancy manner.

a building that collapsed once
during a 5.5 magnitude earthquake—
rebuilt, but never been the same since.

the perfect interpretation is hard to find.
my heart is like a glass toy
in the hands of a child,
a burnt forest that symbolizes ashes and rebirth,
an old woman close to taking her last breath,
yet smiling to the world.

a home to those who didn't belong,
race of the misfits, who all won.

it's just an *****,
something i need to pump blood and to survive—
and yet it feels like an ironical mess of words,
philosophical in its own existence.

i love this heart of mine.

I am not my own strength – nor am I my own words
I am not the sum of silver, or rich as the world,
Nor even close to a sliver of gold.

I am not my future – or any better than my own past
I am all of my mistakes made in the present,
And all of the things, hoping to come to pass
Nowhere near a love that endures without question –
Nor the calm; being a life of many, many scars.

I am the quiet battles, that tears praise my triumphs,
The stillness in inner storms, battling emotional riots –
Marvel of flesh, fragile code; built of miracle science
Living in society’s endless bias, where the little
You hope to give, is the hope that will be trampled
Beneath the heels of Giants.

A faith that’s ALWAYS under intense heat
And so many pressures; pressed and refined,
I emerge as a Beautiful Diamond.