BY A BOY WHO CHOSE SOLITUDE

I never craved penthouses kissing the clouds,
nor mansions where silence feels cold.
I worked through storms,
not to rise above the world—
but to step away from its roar.

All I ever wanted
was a wooden hut in the hills—
where rivers laugh like children,
where the wind hums forgotten songs,
where rain feels like the sky washing off
what hurt the most.

The sun…
a father’s hand on my shoulder.
The moon…
a mother watching over dreams.

In cities, I wandered,
craving their lights,
but never their noise.
I loved them—
the quiet ones, the old ones,
where people moved like whispers.

But even there,
I couldn’t find the silence
that lets you hear yourself think.
So I built it—
in my mind first,
then in the earth beneath my feet.

Why?

Because I needed a place
where my voice echoes back to my ears,
so I know I still exist.
So I know I still feel.

I am tired of competition.
Of proving.
Of performing.
I want a life like a straight line—
not because it's boring,
but because it's honest.

And love?
I stopped chasing it.
Because no one holds hearts like I do.
And mine—
it’s not made for games.

It's fragile.
Like sunlight on still water.
It breaks quietly.

So I gave it back to the only hands
that never dropped it—
my own.

In solitude,
I found my teacher.
My shelter.
My self.

Now I know what I want.
Now I know who I am.
And when I sit, alone, under the rain,
I don’t feel empty—

I feel home.

Hey,
I read what you wrote.
And I want you to know—
Every word you sent out…
they weren’t just paragraphs.
They were proof that you were alive.
That even in your hardest moments, you still chose to feel.
And that’s something brave people do.

I know it might not have felt like it at the time.
Maybe you thought you were being too much,
too vulnerable,
too open.

But can I tell you something?
There’s nothing “too much” about being human.

You wrote when you loved.
You wrote when you were breaking.
You wrote when you had nothing else left but your own honesty.
And that’s not weakness.
That’s how you kept yourself from fading out completely.

So thank you.
For every message you sent into the void.
For every “I’m trying”
and even every “I give up.”
Because every single one was you choosing expression over silence.

And now?
Now you’re here.
Still breathing.
Still writing.
Still surviving in your own quiet, relentless way.

One day, you’ll look back and see—
those paragraphs weren’t cries for help.
They were stepping stones.
Each one taking you closer to the version of you who’s healed,
who’s glowing,
who made it.

And when you get there—
you’ll read those words again,
not with regret,
but with pride.

Because even when life didn’t hold you gently,
you still held onto yourself.

That’s not weakness.
That’s strength.
And it’s still with you.
Even now.

So don’t stop writing.
Even if it’s messy.
Even if no one replies.

Because sometimes… the most important person who needs to hear you
is you.

A gust of frozen air passes by.
Sand and silt submit to air.
The ground is barren and bare.
The sky is quite.

Frost creeps through stone.
Warped whistling is abound.
Distant wolves howl.

Atop a frozen lake I stand.
My clothing ***** to the wind.

The ice breaks.

5-6-25   2:29pm

underneath the glitter
the lights
behind the music that makes your ears ring
the screams
and so much rage

there's someone who longs for love
bathes in the quiet
reads her poetry
and sits in solitude


do you see it?
most likely not
she buries it deep
hides it behind a shield
masked as an armor
protected from society

I wonder—
do the trees feel empty in winter,
like abandoned cathedrals with hollowed arches,
their prayers carried off by wind?
Do they mourn the once-gold choir of leaves,
or do they wait—
hands lifted in quiet faith,
hope braided into their roots
like a forgotten hymn?

Does the moon know she is not always whole?
That we love her in pieces—
when she is a shard of silver,
a lost earring in the sky.
Does she ache, too,
a lantern adrift in a sea of indifference,
admired but never held?

There is beauty, I think,
in what is missing—
in the pause before bloom,
in the ache of becoming.
The tree, the moon—
they teach us how to stay
even when we are not full.

Maybe they know.
Maybe they don’t.
But still—they remain.
And maybe that is enough.

A few thoughts—like wild dogs—run,
Snarling, sprinting, none in unison.
One walks wrapped in quiet reckoning,
Another leaps from the shadows—unannounced.
Serious faces in the gathering of silent aches,
While jesters sneak in, stealing peace.

He walks—a slow tide at sundown,
Breeze in chest, no ripple in sight.
But beneath—magma hums lullaby,
Cradling fury like a sleeping child.
Cool eyes, volcanic veins,
A storm rehearsing in a candle’s calm.

Family—his driftwood and his anchor.
The balm and the blister.
They lull him with laughter,
Then jolt him with a sigh too long,
A silence too sharp.

And yet—
There is a place.
Not drawn on maps or etched in stone.
Where scattered thoughts find their rest.
Where the mind exhales what it held too long.
There—he folds into himself,
A silent hymn of peace.
Not even or odd.
Just still.
Just enough.
...

But the world claws back—
A phone buzz, a sigh across the hall,
The clink of plates, a missed stare,
Little things—
Each one a thread in the tapestry of turmoil.

He smiles. Sometimes wide. Sometimes just enough
To not break.
His voice—a riverbed in drought,
Holding the shape of past floods.

The night asks questions.
Why do shoulders carry what the soul can’t name?
Why does love sometimes bruise,
Even when it’s trying to heal?

Yet still—he finds it.
That sacred place.
Maybe it’s a song only he hears,
A far away place deep in nature, unknown
Or perhaps, it’s just the breath
Between two thoughts—
Where nothing aches, and nothing burns.

Here—
Even the chaos kneels.
The fire sleeps under wet earth.
And the day, whether odd or even,
Slows…
To a whisper.



Susanta Pattnayak

How do you explain this—
When you love to be alone, yet are haunted by loneliness?
The silence becomes louder than a screaming heart.
Whispers fill the mind while the soul feels unbearably heavy.

Even when surrounded by millions of people,
The mind still feels like a vacuum.
Life becomes a useless desire, and people always exasperate me.

The ghost of silence haunts me so horribly that I lose my real self.
I long to escape this reality—
To fall out of existence.
Yet I fail so hopelessly and miserably,
And finally, I let myself wither in the emptiness of this world.