#spokenword poems on Hello Poetry

Odd Odyssey Poet 7m

I’m only liquid for fears, drowning quietly in them, a slow flood
behind my ribs, no warning signs, no lifeguards in sight. You will be
a sunflower, but only as far as you choose to reach out for the sun,
bending your whole body toward light, even if the light burns, even
if the roots ache from pulling.

Happiness comes—eager, but never permanent— it’s a guest that
tracks mud on your floor, leaves its jacket behind; just to remind
you it was here, but gone before you could ask it to stay. The good
things in life never seem to last a lifetime, and going out into this
world feels like reaching for a lifeline, but all I catch is air—
thin, trembling air.

Since birth you were beautiful, but survival forced you to wear the
ugliness of the world— stitched hand-me-down scars, fabric heavy
with someone else’s shame. Each day is a costume change that
doesn’t fit, but you wear it anyway, because naked truth doesn’t
pay rent.

We are all swelling with an opus of urban angst, the kind that hums
under flickering streetlights, the melodic slang of hoodlum teens
trading cigarettes for sentences, has become the hustle talk of men
trying to feed the same hunger that never grew up. Yearning to be
something. Yearning to be someone. Constellations made of shattered
glass windows, cracked stars on the concrete, chasing after the sun as
if the further we run, the closer it comes, but the horizon never owes
us an answer.

To love, to be loved— truth arrives dressed in lies at the start,
perfumed to disguise the rot. We impress, but we press too hard,
we call it romance but it’s theatre, and every stage ends in torn
curtains. This life is love, but love isn’t so full of life when it hangs
uneven, dangling off one side like a crooked frame.

Luck isn’t justice. Cause and effect rarely add up to cause what’s
fair.

And yet we paint our burning visions next to ****-splashed garbage
bins, turning dumpsters into backdrops, spray-painting scars into
murals that smell like waste, mistaking rage for art.

Scars deserve worth, not mockery. But too often, anger becomes our
brush, dipped in venom, flung at the wall, and the picture never
reaches far— a masterpiece meant for healing drowned out by
noise.

#urbanpoetry #spokenword #poetictruth #socialcommentary #rawwriting #modernpoetry #darkpoetry #existentialthoughts #wordplaypoetry #poeticflow

Odd Odyssey Poet 10h

Final Chord of a Thought

there's a certain trap to it
drumming dark thoughts –rat-a-tat-tat,
my mind caught in a snare again, and again
circling in hi-hats of doubt. in this tandem
of life; pedal-pedal-pedal —decisions spinning
like wheels, chains creak, my brakes squeal,
for the bravest choices are always stuck in repeat.

ding-ding —the alarm mocks the dawn,
clang-clang, trains pull apart, same departure,
but all different routes. your roots only grow
as deep as you choose, silence hums louder
than footsteps on the pavement.

whoosh — rustling leaves write new lives,
whispers stitched into the wind. but the harder
it blows, the less you see your tears —
shhh… hush… hush…they'll vanish in the static,
like cymbals fading after a final crash…and in
the quiet after, only the echo remains.

#poetry #surrealwriting #spokenword #wordplay #echoes #darkthoughts #soundimagery #lifecycles #dreamlike #emotionalpoetry

Odd Odyssey Poet 21h

sweet pea, sweet tea, sweet potato

sweet pea, sweet tea, sweet potato—
love’s blush red, soft as a tomato.
kisses like a recital,
tongues dancing together,
smiles too wide, they crease teeth,
and stuck there forever.

a boiling *** touch, a stove-top man,
hot-headed, cooling down as fast as he can.
unread texts on the nightstand,
after a one-night stand— holding onto
a cheap thrill, it's just a heavy hand
so sad!

a thirsty kiss trying to buy back time,
swallowing coins like medicine—
quarters down the throat,
all of those pennies in a rhyme.
hoping for change. but the clock
just swallows, and it doesn’t rewind.

crumb stains on fingers,
love shouldn’t taste like fast food.
fast and crude, but hunger plays
its tricks— and we eat what’s near,
even it's not true.

fringes in both eyes, a bite
of apple pie—the kind you’d
call the apple of your eye.
but sigh—still
no husband or a wife.

just two souls giving it their best try.

#poetry #wordplay #metaphor #loveandloss #fastfoodlove #nightstand #appleofmyeye #modernlove #shortpoem #spokenword

sumaiya jannat 1d

From Half-Pan to *****: The Unconsented Coronation”

They crowned me maiden-marked with no coronet,
No rite, no reckoning, no alphabet.
From chalk to chastity, the shift was swift
A girl unasked, yet forced to drift.

Uncles morphed to bro, aunties to sis,
As if age could be erased by this.
The same mouths that once fed me lore
Now ask, “When will your parents unlock the door?”

From half-pan hymns to full-pan chains,
From innocence to encoded stains.
From Ma’s lap to lone lamp-light,
From lullabies to legal fright.

They speak of the binding rite, not of mind,
Of bridal veils, not truths unlined.
They offer vows, not volition,
As if my body’s their admission.

Some changes chisel, some changes choke,
Some stitch your soul, some slit the cloak.
Some come like guests with garlanded grace,
Some barge in, branding your face.

But I
I ink my ache in harf and flame,
I ritualize what they rename.
I rhyme the rupture, sanctify shame,
I forge a scroll they cannot tame.

So let them call me maiden-marked, miss,
I’ll answer with a serpent hiss.
For I am not what they decree
I’m carticity, not casualty.

This poem confronts the cultural conditioning that marks girls with roles before they’re ready, before they’re asked. It critiques the performative shift from childhood to womanhood, where identity is overwritten by ritual, and autonomy is traded for expectation. It’s a declaration of self-authorship — a refusal to be renamed, repackaged, or reduced.

#feminism #identity #girlhood #poeticactivism #spokenword #modernpoetry #selfauthorship #ritual #rebellion #maidenmarked

sumaiya jannat 2d

Scroll of Sovereignty: A Ceremony Unchosen ?️ (A poetic rebuke to the matrimonial mythos)

The realm extols conjugation’s creed,
But I discern a veiled stampede
Of shackled vows in velvet guise,
Where sovereign souls are canonized.

👁️ The Covenant of Clasped Rings
A gilded snare with spectral strings.
To cede your flame, your soul-scroll’s lore,
To one who claims your inner core.

I’ve charted stars, inscribed my name,
Not to be stitched in someone’s frame.
Not to be paused, not to be tamed,
Not to be blamed when joy is maimed.

🎭 The Duet of Domestic Grace
A masquerade in tethered lace.
No one blooms in bridal cage,
They wither slow in silent rage.

And if it’s just for flesh and skin,
Is that the gate where truths begin?
If passion’s price is self-erasure,
Then let me guard my soul’s own treasure.

💔 Parental love a sanctified flame,
Unbranded, boundless, free of name.
But this duet of spouse and spouse?
A staged affection, haunted house.

So let me clutch my soul-scroll tight,
Let me script my own birthright.
No vows, no veil, no muted scream
Just me, my truth, my sovereign dream.

🌑 The Ceremony Unchosen I defy,
To trade my stars for borrowed sky.
Let others dance in tethered grace,
I’ll walk alone, but not erase.

This poem challenges the romantic and cultural idealization of marriage, exposing the silent erasures that often accompany conjugal rites. It honors parental love as unconditional and critiques the performative nature of domestic partnerships that demand self-sacrifice. A declaration of self-authorship, this piece refuses to trade celestial becoming for borrowed vows.

#marriage #identity #selfauthorship #poeticactivism #spokenword #modernpoetry #ceremony #freedom #autonomy #truth

sumaiya jannat 2d

Chronoethics of the Uncommitted” ⟡ —a ceremonial rebuke to premature entanglements

In the vestibule of youth, where dreams ferment,
They call infatuation “maturity”—how quaint.
But I, a cartographer of sanctified time,
Refuse to mortgage my becoming for a borrowed rhyme.

Let them chase trends like moths to neon flame,
I walk in cadence with my own name.
Commitment, not to another’s orbit,
But to the constellations I’ve yet to inherit.

This is the era of cerebral bloom,
Not of vows whispered in adolescent gloom.
Why tether wings to transient winds,
When the sky itself awaits what my spirit rescinds?

Premature pledges fracture the spine of purpose,
Stretching us millionfold from our sacred corpus.
Love, when summoned before its season,
Spoils the soil—defies reason.

So I remain uncommitted, not unfeeling,
My solitude is not silence, but healing.
I am the free bird, not caged by trend,
My sanctuary begins where false rituals end.

This poem challenges the romantic urgency often imposed on youth, reframing solitude as a sacred space for growth rather than a void to be filled. It honors the slow bloom of purpose, the sanctity of self-authorship, and the refusal to mortgage one's becoming for borrowed affection. A manifesto for those who walk in cadence with their own name.

#solitude #selfauthorship #youth #infatuation #poeticactivism #modernpoetry #spokenword #freedom #identity #growth

sumaiya jannat 2d

Wombwrought, Forsworn: A Dirge for the Unfilial”

They bore thee not in ease, but in crucible flame,
Nine moons of tempest, no laurels, no fame.
Mood-swung maelstroms, spine cleft by steel,
Yet she bore thy breath no barter, no deal.

Anesthetic hush, then blade’s cruel hymn,
Scissor-born silence, backache grim.
She sits not in solace, nor lies in grace,
Her vertebrae chant thy name in trace.

Father, the silent steward of coin and creed,
Barters his breath for thy school-need.
He eats last, dreams less, buys none but thee,
Yet thou trade his love for a boy’s decree.

We, the heirs of sacrificial lore,
Sell legacy for lust, and ask no more.
Hide truths in shadow, veil hearts in guile,
For a fleeting flame that lasts a while.

Doth he thy paramour, thy fevered muse
Know thy soul’s ache, thy silent bruise?
Will he rise at dawn to fetch thy cure,
Or vanish at dusk, love insecure?

Parents primordial poets of pain
Are cast to margins, cold disdain.
We rage at their rebuke, spit at their plea,
Yet kneel to a lover’s tyranny.

When mother weeps, we turn our face,
But for a boyfriend’s silence, we lose grace.
We beg, we bend, we break, we bleed
Yet for our parents, we sow no seed.

Shame be thy shroud, betrayal thy crown,
Where womb-born bonds are cast down.
No lover’s touch, no whispered vow,
Can match the love they gave till now.

So let this verse be thy dirge, thy flame,
For children who forget their name.
Return to the roots, the sacred tree
For none shall love as endlessly.

This poem is a dirge for forgotten roots — a lament for children who trade unconditional love for fleeting romance, who rage at parental care yet kneel to the whims of temporary affection. It honors the pain, sacrifice, and silent devotion of parents, especially mothers whose bodies bear the cost and fathers whose dreams are bartered for their children’s futures. A call to remember, to return, to revere.

#parenthood #sacrifice #love #betrayal #family #mother #father #spokenword #poeticactivism #modernpoetry

sumaiya jannat 2d

“Elegy of the Unheard Bell” —A lament for the silenced student soul

In corridors where silence screams,
Where chalk dust drowns our fragile dreams,
A sovereign sits with granite gaze,
Unmoved by pain, immune to praise.
I came with fire in throat and bone,
A whispered plea, a muted tone.
He scoffed, “Then why attend at all?”
His heart a vault, his mercy small.
He vowed to climb the vice’s stair,
But vanished in the stagnant air.
I waited in that echo tomb,
Auditorium turned to gloom.
Each absence fined with ruthless hand,
No grace, no pause, no reprimand.
He counts our wounds in ledger sums
The toll, the wrath, the crazy ***.
He sees not nights of sleepless ache,
Nor hears the soul begin to break.
He mocks the sick, the shy, the numb,
And brands us with his judgment drum.
A class should be a sacred flame,
Not crucible of guilt and shame.
Yet here we walk on blistered stone,
With hollow hearts and hope o’erthrown.
So let this verse be requiem’s cry,
For every tear we blinked to dry.
For every voice he left undone
We mourn the bell he would not rung.

This poem speaks to the emotional toll of authoritarian teaching — where absence is punished, vulnerability mocked, and students are reduced to numbers in a ledger. It’s a protest against pedagogical cruelty and a tribute to those who suffer in silence. A requiem for the unheard voices in classrooms that should have been sacred.

#education #teacher #studentvoice #academictrauma #spokenword #requiem #empathy #classroom #poeticactivism #modernpoetry

sumaiya jannat 2d

“Glassborn”

They were born of glass four shards in bloom,
A boy, two girls, then dusk’s last plume.
A house once held their laughter tight,
Till fate collided wrong with right.
Steel kissed steel, and silence screamed,
Two souls erased, two dreams unseamed.
The cradle cracked, the walls grew thin,
And strangers bought the blood within.
One sold to silk, one sold to shame,
One wore a badge, one lost his name.
They wandered near, yet knew not kin,
Their roots erased beneath their skin.
A mother’s love, a borrowed lie,
A party mask, a hollow eye.
She danced for men who broke her grace,
While daughters drowned in silent space.
One touched by hands that should not dare,
One blamed for truth too raw to bear.
One drove the wheel, one wore the crown,
Yet none could see the blood run down.
The eldest searched with fractured breath,
To stitch the seams of scattered death.
But destiny, that cruel disguise,
Kept every answer veiled in lies.
They should have grown in garden light,
But bloomed in shadow, out of sight.
One moment tore their world apart
A crash, a cry, a shattered heart.
So let us hold what time can break,
Each breath, each bond, for memory’s sake.
For life’s a thread, not iron-spun
And glassborn souls can still outrun
The silence.

This poem traces the aftermath of a family torn apart by tragedy — a crash that shattered not just bodies, but identities, futures, and the fragile threads of belonging. It explores how trauma disperses lives into roles, masks, and silence, while one soul searches to stitch the scattered pieces. A meditation on memory, loss, and the quiet rebellion of glassborn resilience.

#family #trauma #loss #grief #identity #kinship #memory #poeticactivism #spokenword #modernpoetry