a life reflected in my tear— feels like
a whole ocean held in glass, shattering
as it dries across my cheek, breath
breaking shallow, thoughts spilling faster
than my lungs can keep.

and just when I reach for life, it drags back—
almost like smoke on a cigarette: each
inhale a promise, each exhale a quiet theft.
so time bites like an apple, sweet at first
taste, but rotting me slowly down
to the core.

wait... I found the colour of prayer
in the grass, my knees pressed low
until the earth became an altar.
to bend is to grow, to kneel is to root—
but the more I chase what isn’t mine,
the more pieces of myself scatter like
loose change, spent out on illusions.

so I pack away the versions of me—
drawers filled with colours, some bruised
like dusk, some bright as flame;
stitched together, I am still made of light,
even if the lamp inside me flickers.

and by the lovely darkness—
my contradiction, my just cathedral—
know my soul will ignite in an instant,
even if the tunnel stretches endless.
because it is darkness itself that makes
light Undeniable.

I wear a love-proof vest, swallowing bullets with my face—
all my scars know their taste. My hopes are all on diet to fit
today’s problems; spray-painted days, worries tagged across
the night— each thought a vandalism I can’t scrub away.

Fruitful passions, I can’t stomach passionfruit in my punch.
Life loves to punch back harder— each sip a reminder that
sweetness still bruises. Young & depressed: insecurities
overdressed, confidence underdressed, thoughts pressed
into stress.

Life asks you for a ruler, to lay it down smoother, measuring
the depth of your love. But... it doesn’t apply so well to me,
when I bunked a few lessons as a day-schooler. Always trying
to fit in by being cooler, amongst a circle of friends, but really,
we were just squares— boxed in by our insecurities; angles
sharper than the bonds we bent. And I try to pray long—
but sometimes, I digress. Sorry… what were we saying?

So much emptiness, schemes plotted against me, reality
never stretching as far as dreams. Illuding the fact, illusions
often feel more real. Interluding between horizons: am I ahead,
or beneath the dark where even stars are too shy to come out?

Hope still comes as a guest. Still wishing for superpowers:
invisible to pain, invincible to scars, shapeshifting to belong.
Force fields to block their touch. Time manipulation— just to
keep up with the times. X-ray vision to see through their false
intentions. Superspeed to outrun the pain. Healing to undo my
shame.

But in the end, I have no cape, no mask, no trick of the pen—
I'm only human. And I’ll be human to the end, recalling the
feeling of being young & depressed.

Inherited you were
passed down from a different odyssey,  
remnants of his spirit still intact
like a torch passed down

the road ahead was obscure,
yet when the laces drew tight,  
resolve sealed itself.  
a map uncharted,  
with hope that each step upon the mat  
would unearth what lay buried within me

Into the fire I stepped.  
With each practice, iron struck iron,  
ore and **** scraped away,  
the furnace of dread and angst  
refining what lay beneath,  
driven by the promise,
Tempered by the fire, forging
until all that emerged, a precious metal, striven for.

A kaleidoscopic pursuit,  
with each turn, each step revealing  
patterns of strength and beauty within,  
colors I had never known.  
Each fracture urged me on
to twist, to endure,  
just to glimpse  
another shard of brilliance  
inside the breaking.

And when I hang you up,  
worn out  
but a testament,  
that strength is born  
where fabric tears.
The final mold of the man I became,  
a shaping vessel that held
not just ledger of victories and setbacks,  
but the story of one who endures.

a silent laugh—
an inside joke no one else can catch,
trying to take flight over the height of a dream.
but what is a dream if it only stings the eyes?
an eye sore, instead of wings to soar.

...I am a prisoner of flesh and skeleton,
fueled by passion, smuggling scars beneath
my skin; blood turned ammunition,
bones as empty shells clattering the floor.

...I am animal, and I am engine—
factory default, released into a world
obsessed with modifications.
we bolt wings like spoilers onto cars,
spoiled for choice, but never to lift—
only to weigh us down.
heavy disguises, dressed up as flight.

and still, we dream of air.
still, we hunger to rise.
such a cruel irony:
built for motion, yet forever
grounded.

Chances seem high that I sink so low tomorrow— where
do I return the belongings of my skin, stitched too tight
with sin? And is there a good intention I can borrow?

To call love a bullseye, but it's just something darting past
me; for a lap dog on the leash of longing can’t run free—it
only circles the grass. As I fuel my odds at a gas station lot;
feathers searching for a birdie; practicing my golf swing,
hoping for a hole in one— or just putting one in a hole.

"Find a stable life," they say, but the horse track is empty,
where hooves never sound, and only echoes of betting slips.
Online, some search for a type, the screen listening to the
type of fingers. But knowing is never seeing, and belief
needs more than a glow of pixels.

"Good grief"— so cried the one who buried their beliefs,
but they still dug the dirt back smooth, as if planting a
seed for tomorrow. Till we're gone, we'll always have
tomorrow.

Insulate to the sharp needle of insulin – as this pan
creases over daylight frying a canopy of trees, left
with skins that smell of mould; moulding us into forms
that don’t fit, following titles without ever playing the role.

Models parade as model citizens, while forests fall around
their footsteps; smiles reduced to emojis, connection flat
as a screen. Each impression feels like a coded message –
profiles lined with Bible verses in their bios, good at quoting
scripture, but so not good at keeping notes on The Message.

But we fashion ourselves into “the latest,” but our dreams
arrive too late, departing long before we catch them.

We are all stories inked together from the sharp tip of the
pen, injecting more time into our veins, yet living diabetic
to our morals – sugar-high on indulgence, starved of truth.