Stop !
" smack "
Here comes another slap,
Suddenly the barking of dogs stop ,
I look up,
The mirror holding a my unknown pop.

The room is looked,
Yes , i am alone ,
Hands still trembling, stuck in invisible strom.
I hate the girl standing in front of me ,
Still lost , drizzling and comparing both the " we " .

The wall behind still dancing with my old part ,
Smiling , thriving , Carefree , shining,  
With innocent and open heart .
She is light and the only remain ,
Dancing,
she paused and looked up,
Back in the mirror ,
Same eyes , same face ,
But all left is unspoken pain.


the devil drifted in ,
' you both can't be the same ',
Another " smack " .
But This time my heart burned ,
I hate this , every part of it,
I shut my eyes,
Breath shuffled.

On the verge of accompanying the last peice of darkness ,
A shadow stop me ,
Smiling , thriving still the same beautiful mess.
She came close,
eyes met,
For first time she spoke but a torn set.

" we are indeed not the same ,
The war is different but not the blame.
We can nver be alike,
We are rides of same bike,
These scares are no less precious than my smile,
You are the most important part of this pile.
Your struggle is real ,
And worthy as well ,
I hold the heaven, coz you took the hell .

You don't need to be anymore prefect,
No need to stand beside another's sect.
All you need to do is hold on,
stay and led the strom. "

This time the darkness cried in pain ,
with a flicker , i was back ,
The sound of a forgotten laughter echoing in room,
Everything is gone or so i thought ,
The one in mirror still Clutching the gloom.

But the eyes were different,  
The smile was still missing ,
But life wasn't,  
The scares were there,
But no longer burned.

I finally opened the door,
The strom inside still roars.
I walked out,
But now embracing the gloom,
The sound of a forgotten laughter still echoing in room.

Divyanshi solanki

Grow, grow, grow!
They all said.
When was i ever little?
My memories felt facade.
A way to cope up.
I learned my mother's name by bleeding through it
and
my father's name through screaming it.
Everyone was once someone i tried to hid from.
I tried to run away yet i colapsed and sat on the very ground.
My years flew in denial.
So, next time when i haunt myself for the growth maybe i can repeat this again?
Yet i could not use this as an excuse or a treatment in bed.
This knots up nerves in my brain
How could i go without them?

Ash and bones,
lightning and fire —
I lie in a battlefield,
covered with corpses.

No swords.
No guns.
Just my hands
and my war cry.

Battling myself,
battling the world.

The corpses begin to rise.
Ash and bones —
they stare at me,
and I stare back.

In the battlefield of my mind,
I face the bodies
of every version of me
that had to die.

for the longest time
i thought i needed to
return to the child
i was.

i spent half my life
unlearning trauma,
only to lose sight
on the woman
i wanted to become.

Peace
On the operating table.
I wasn’t very faithful,
But ever since Death’s call—
I fear. for my life.
   God save us all.

Adieu, adieu, adieu.
A tremor hits the old room,
Antiques and glasses crash,
Dust folds and my heart.
   It's all gone.

Before the profit of the prophet,
He tried to fit into a prophecy,
Living like furniture wrapped in plastic,
Always waiting, never too honest.

As a kid, barefoot on the stone,
Toes split rocks he called his own.
Didn’t matter, he never kept score,
Tears skipped like pebbles, lost on the shore.

Teenage nights taught him to choke,
Lungs full of secrets, lungs full of smoke.
Coughs hidden deep in a pedestrian bush,
Dreams of riches, but so broke on a hush.

Exhaust from his mouth, he claimed the street,
Pretending that silence was something complete.
But silence was clothing, handed down rough,
Trauma sewn tightly, never enough.

Now he walks past mannequins, frozen in glass,
Faces like lessons too heavy to pass.
Breathing was something he learned to fake—
Lungs filled with pressure he couldn’t escape.

So he asks in the dark, was he living at all?
Or just holding the smoke longer than them all.