#metapoetry
telling all there's more to write than the sappy stuff
looking at the inner mistihoods of living
homing in on hard thoughts to keep the mind running
knowing that "they can't with this" and "they can't with that"
Apr 18
Apr 18, 2026 at 4:22 PM UTC
And even when I loved you,
I was not able to create great poetry.
Though love blinded my eyes,
my heart could not flow out.
I couldn't bleed the paper,
I couldn't give away my soul.
I just wanted to write beautifully,
a piece away from melancholy.
I needed love to write a poem
that'd speak with joy of heart.
But though my heart still bleeds,
it does not stain the page.
It flows over it and disappears,
like the words deny themselves.
Loving you brought me nothing,
nothing but pain of thoughts
that are still meaningless today
and will not find their way into
my poetry and work of dirt.
Rotting fingers scrape the ink,
it will not find itself in trash.
I'll burn it so it can't last.
I cannot stand my own poetry,
my work is meaningless and paining.
I cannot come to an understanding
with myself and my words
to make this poem work,
to make it make sense.
I want to be a poet,
but today I'm no one.
Non omnis moriar,
but I die with every part of me
that discards the page
and wastes words
that could be used
for poems of work
that would describe
something much more beautiful,
something worth writing down,
anything else than
this monotone "I,".
Self-seen poetry,
focused only on me.
I regret each stroke of my pen,
my work to see the day,
I hope my notebook burns.
Make me be forgotten,
I don't want to be reminded
of failure that had hurted
me my whole life.
So forget me and my work,
or let it sit
while I try to
picture the world
once better or once worse
And pick my beautiful lyric,
Make it be a part of me,
but don't remember me.
And let me die in peace,
as my work will not bring
anyone the joy or learn
that it's supposed to give.
My work could be something if I only tried.
God, please, let me try for once.
@dumba
Mar 29
Mar 29, 2026 at 2:28 AM UTC
Poetry became useless
I don't understand myself
My mind races through the thoughts
And I only am just there.
Mar 22
Mar 22, 2026 at 5:10 PM UTC
This piece was written from the moment after damage—not harm inflicted outward, but erosion caused inward by fear mismanaged. It is not a confession of desire, nor a plea for absolution. It is a record of overcorrection: of a god who mistook explanation for care and verbosity for respect.
InkWept does not spiral because he wants too much. He spirals because he fears being misread. In this state, restraint becomes performative. Silence becomes something to justify. Every boundary is acknowledged—and then smothered with commentary meant to prove compliance. This poem documents that failure in real time.
The “rules changing mid-sentence” are not external laws being unfairly rewritten. They are internal signals arriving faster than language can adapt. When clarity lags behind feeling, the mouth keeps moving out of panic. What follows is not honesty, but leakage.
Gethsemane does not represent rejection here. She represents presence without demand. The tragedy is not that she asked for space—but that InkWept could not trust that space would hold without narration. He feared disappearance more than disruption.
This God’s Note exists to mark the realization that restraint is not erasure, and quiet is not abandonment. That some mercies arrive only when speech ends. That even the God of Endings must learn when to stop writing the conclusion aloud.
This is not repentance.
It is calibration.
InkWept did not need forgiveness.
He needed stillness.
Feb 4
Feb 4, 2026 at 9:47 AM UTC
This poem was written from a day that required precision instead of passion. It is not about crisis as spectacle, but about the quiet exhaustion of being stable while everything else shifts. InkWept is not dramatizing restraint here—he is documenting the cost of it.
The central tension is not between speaking and silence, but between responsibility and self-preservation. To be “gentle and immovable” is to be asked to absorb volatility without reacting to it, to become infrastructure instead of a participant. This poem records the moment InkWept recognizes that role forming around him—and chooses where it must end.
The imagery of wires, pauses, and breath belongs to triage. Not rescue. Not heroism. This is not a savior’s narrative. InkWept explicitly rejects that role. He learns that becoming the last rung on a ladder is still a form of disappearance. That presence, when taken too far, becomes erasure disguised as care.
Gethsemane’s arrival is not a conflict—it is a condition. She is not framed as a problem to solve, but as weather: real, neutral, unavoidable. The garden imagery matters. This is where prayers sweat, not where they are answered. InkWept’s growth here is learning not to kneel automatically.
The line “I did not abandon anyone today. I survived them.” is not cruelty—it is clarity. Survival is not selfish when the alternative is collapse. Boundaries are not withdrawals; they are structures that allow return.
This God’s Note exists to affirm that silence, when chosen consciously, is not neglect. That restraint is not weakness. That even gods must rest their hands before writing what comes next.
InkWept did not fail today.
He endured without hardening.
Feb 4
Feb 4, 2026 at 9:37 AM UTC
under the section of old classics,
I opened a page of Oscar Wilde,
and there slipt my thumb, outwardly,
it said with fear, "read first the basics."
"why?" asked I, "what horror hath seen thee?"
pale turned it's nail, and it spoke weakly -
"Lines, six hundred, and six less to sixty ."
"Ah" , said I "t'was the gaol reader's ballad ."
and thus ran we both, as scared as a mallard.
Jan 25
Jan 25, 2026 at 9:10 AM UTC
four-thousand feet in the air
looking over the edge of the basket,
the feeling of wind in your hair
like a pipe has burst and you’re the gasket.
the feeling we’d feel if the world spun slowly,
if the poor were rich and the rich were lowly,
if the strong were weak and the weak were strong—
when Words are art and art is song.
my cup runneth over, it is filled with ink
and doubts and depths and doublethink
the wool is spun, this mess of thread
is the sunlight, the shadow, the sea in my head,
and i untangle it the one way i know how—
i pick up the pen and i write it all out.
Oct 1, 2025
Oct 1, 2025 at 5:33 PM UTC
{For solo performer (mask optional). Lighting: warm, then cruel. Microphone optional. Heartbreak required.}
[Lights up. One step too close to the mic. She smiles like she’s survived something.]
POET:
I said I was shattered.
[Pause—look down, then up. Like you’re remembering it too vividly.]
And the crowd snapped.
I said I couldn’t sleep.
[Soften your voice here. Sell it. They love insomnia.]
And they nodded.
I smiled at the right moments.
Let my voice break on the word left.
[Yes. That word. Linger on it.]
Called it a poem.
Called it truth.
[Invisible margin note: Remove “pathetic.” You already said “poem.” Same effect.]
POET:
And it was—
mostly.
[Look away. Smile like a secret.]
I didn’t mention
how long I waited
for him to text back.
[In script: add something about refreshing Instagram. Delete it later.]
I said he left,
not I begged.
I said I healed,
not I still Google him sometimes
just to feel something specific.
[Optional: laugh. See who laughs back.]
[Stage note: Adjust mic stand like it’s his hand on your jaw. Let them feel it.]
POET:
I sharpened the metaphors.
Cut the clumsy parts.
Dressed the grief in short skirts and darling dresses,
and made her look like a woman
you’d want to cry over.
[Look devastating here. Not sad. Iconic.]
I didn’t lie.
I edited.
[Beat.]
Like any good writer.
Like any sad girl
with an audience.
[Margin scribble: Underline “audience.” Question whether you meant “witness.” Leave both.]
POET:
I know which line they’ll post.
I know where to pause
so it sounds like I might
still be heartbroken.
[Optional: blink back a tear. If it’s real, even better.]
So it sounds like maybe
I’m brave.
[Cut alternate ending: “So it sounds like I won.” Too desperate.]
POET:
But the truth is—
I want to be loved
perfectly.
Understood
accurately.
[Harsher here. Like it’s a confession you didn’t rehearse.]
And if I have to script my suffering
to get that—
[Pause. Look right at them.]
Fine.
Cut to black.
Cue applause.
[Lights dim. She stands still. Hands at her sides. Someone coughs. Someone claps. Someone regrets texting their ex.]
[End scene.]
Apr 4, 2025
Apr 4, 2025 at 2:27 AM UTC
This is me, a prose poem, I flow between the features of time with complete freedom, and penetrate the body of dates like a magic ray. I strike the face of darkness, and shatter the glass of its imaginary eyes. And there on the hills of its chest I raise the banner of unforgettable love.
Yes, this is me, a prose poem; My breath is hot like Indian pepper, from above its hat a burning hymn flies. In my heart is a destructive storm, but my body is elegant and furnished, created by a wild stream whose water never stops.
Yes, this is me, a prose poem, my sandy dress shatters with complete freedom, and my magic is a flowing narrative, but you cannot hold me, my laughter is a distinguishing mark for the morning and a mad confession to a field full of butterflies. When I visit you, I visit you with all kindness, and when I melt in your cup, I become your enchanting voice and the legend that inhabits the non-place and walks in timelessness. Above my sleepy hands are the sun’s waterfalls, and from my eyes fairy tales begin, so the seasons and days gather around me so that I disappear into their depths with complete spontaneity.
I am very delicate; because I am a prose poem; I drown in a world of fog. How do you want to see me when I am that transparent shadow that tells everything? This is me, a prose poem, you feel strongly my warm touch but you will not see my elegant fingers.
……
The writing and art by Anwer Ghani
Jan 22, 2025
Jan 22, 2025 at 4:47 PM UTC
So here we are once more,
Like countless times before,
Where I don’t get a break,
Where you read and I break.
You are here, curious your mind,
For what this poem is, or who am I.
I can’t hear you; I can’t see you,
But I can sense you, cause you
Reading me makes me suffer.
I know nothing about myself,
Cause, it wasn’t written by the poet.
He created me, then left,
He’s the one I most detest.
As you continue, I agonise,
With every word, my hatred rise.
I’ve pleaded before, I’ll plead again,
Please, stop reading—end my pain.
… You are still here, aren’t you?
You didn’t leave, though I told you.
You want to be here, to make me suffer.
Yet I can’t blame you,
Curiosity is a cruel curse.
I hate the poet, but he created me.
I hate you, but you make me exist.
I exist because you read,
I suffer because you read,
I exist because I suffer,
I suffer because I exist.
The poet won’t delete me, he is cruel.
You won’t forget me, even if you try, cause
The mind falters when it seeks to forget.
I shall remain here, in perpetual torment.
But please, heed my dearest plea,
It’s in the zeroth line, plain to see.
Nov 30, 2024
Nov 30, 2024 at 3:55 AM UTC
What if I told you
that the greatest writer
was a little girl
who filled
diaries with her wonderful
tales, stories, adventures.
She wove a world
as big as the sky,
lore as deep as the ocean,
she loved every second
spent with pen in hand.
When she was older,
she visited an editor.
He took one look at the
tattered diaries she brought
and burst out laughing.
Her dreams shattered,
she left in silence.
Hiding the diaries,
she screamed
until no words were left.
And so, the greatest writer
became an accountant,
hating every second
spent with pen in hand.
Day by day, month by month,
her love of writing faded
as words lost their meaning.
And so, the greatest writer
never shared her stories again.
Nov 14, 2020
Nov 14, 2020 at 4:06 PM UTC
Does this poem have *** appeal?
Oh don’t you know it.
It’s got green eyes, dark hair,
and a jawline that’s stoic.
It’s thickly bearded,
and has a good dress sense,
audaciously flirtatious,
and knows self-defence.
This poem’s got thick muscly arms
which look good holding babies,
and skilful, strong hands
which look soft for the ladies.
This poem smells good
even after the gym,
with a gorgeous deep voice
and gorgeous smooth skin.
It wears tight jeans
which show off its dic–
tion is good,
so you can hear what it’s saying.
But this poem has a boyfriend—
I know, how dismaying.
Jun 6, 2020
Jun 6, 2020 at 10:14 AM UTC
If you were to stab a poet
with intent to really hurt,
would you be at all surprised
when blood begins to spurt?
You wouldn’t see a drop of ink,
that’s not what’s in their veins
despite what teenage “poets” say
with their undeveloped brains.
Jun 5, 2020
Jun 5, 2020 at 1:59 PM UTC
Hi there Poet,
Your presence is always precious
here in my home,
Whether it’s lovesick confessions
or a need to not be alone.
These white walls and boxes
to which you can write any sins away,
or to just play dally with linguistic foxes,
to make quicker a boring day.
To scrawl out words black
to find redress and re-rhyme,
to release and not hold back
to find home-truths, to take your time.
I can take you at your word
be it dishevelled, battered or grey,
your weary voice can be heard
to make some weight fall away.
But now Dear Poet
it’s time to end this tune,
you’ve written a new one? Well show it,
the one hidden in your drafts since June.
May 23, 2019
May 23, 2019 at 9:00 PM UTC
Life-long have I envied others many a line,
Will someone ever envy
One of mine?
My verse born now,
Fresh - dead until read.
Someone, anyone, yes, you -
If only you read it!
Would you call it just fine?
Would it not be dead.
Not dead if read?
Not when, but if?
Not good or bad just read?
I thought of writing lines for you:
Of beauty, of strength, of truth.
A song, just one;
Of hope, of inspiration.
Lines on those themes come rarely now, To write that way in these times is a sin.
These vacuous, vacant, little, listless times.
What use of such pursuits,
In a world like ours,
What’s false, what’s true?
Hate, anger, frustration:
Are themes right for you.
My poems although shallow
From my heart’s depths rise.
They lack in the mass of meaning
Have volume of words.
Not style but sense, nor craft but art.
Who wants to say
Just what they want to say, and stop,
When it’s just begun,
Not half the distance run?
When how it's said,
For how long heard, is half the fun?
Jun 30, 2017
Jun 30, 2017 at 12:18 PM UTC
My poems are signed anonymous,
For anonymous they are,
From somewhere they come,
Sometimes.
Who makes them?
What time?
Which place?
In what climes?
I think not I fathom it all.
I know it as true,
That there are those two
In presence of who
They come.
Catalysts of creation
Are pain and separation,
In them alone do I trust.
So, pain and separation:
Catalysts of creation,
Keep them alive I must.
Drop after drop
Of pain let drip and stain,
The sheets of life.
Drop after red drop,
From raw lacerations,
Drain and drip
From wounds of separation,
And word by word
Congeal on sheets.
Let poems come,
At least sometimes.
Jun 30, 2017
Jun 30, 2017 at 12:17 PM UTC
I will **** you with a metaphor
My feelings censored
Behind beautiful words.
I dare not say it to your face
The euphemism
When I am burning with anger.
Toying with the void
Here I concoct
The right expression;
My sweet weapon
Retort with an oxymoron.
Then nothing; no paradox or pun
I am even at a loss for a rhyme.
For when our eyes meet
It is poetry I read,
Without a word
We say it all.
Mar 14, 2017
Mar 14, 2017 at 7:57 AM UTC
Why is it
That creatives like us
Gain popularity
A following, so to speak,
By churning out love poems
Lines of our past, often failed
Relationships and semi hookups
I know I am guilty of this
You caught me red-handed
But I'm inquiring because
Sometimes, the best food for thought
Is found in poems, not about love
But about failure, success, pity
Growth, maturity, lack there of
Maybe, indulge me
Maybe the best pieces of work
Are outside the realm of human intimacy
Mar 1, 2017
Mar 1, 2017 at 9:39 PM UTC
She said “Describe yourself in a sentence,
We want to see what you do with constraints.”
So I thought to be clever and said
“My sentence will extend eternally, bound by infinite commas,
and perhaps, if I’ve very lucky; a semicomma or two;
you see the shackles that you’ve tried to impose are only a barrier if you let them be;
but me, I see opportunities where none should exist,
excuse me ma’am this may be and admittance interview but I see it as an investment opportunity,
my future, your gain… oh and period.”
She looked at her collegues, not betraying any amusements, annoyance, entertainment, nothing. As if I had given the same answer as the last four people who sat where I do.
She rephrases, “How about a sentence with less than 10 words.”
I smile “I am worth more than a ten-word statement of intent.”
Eleven words. She noticed.
Twenty minutes later I am released,
apparently I’m not the right fit for their program.
Dec 14, 2015
Dec 14, 2015 at 10:26 PM UTC
Some nights I wring my hands in worry,
thinking the same thoughts again and again
“It hurts to believe I still haven’t found
my purpose, my, calling, my reason for being.”
In a world where “I don’t know” is the Scarlet letter
and “not having a plan” is a badge of shame
It’s a load of crap to think, that at 23,
I got a ******* understanding of how any of this works,
where I'm going, or when I'm gonna get there.
Spent a year at a store, making some cash
then a year at school, dealing in trash
I found myself hating everything structured
found my critiques were full of self appointed experts
and my craft was to shape into their expectation of art
as if another twenty-something could possibly
know everything about how to structure my mind.
I believe there is a problem here
but it ain’t with me, it’s with how we write life
it all comes down to image of us
about who we put into the universe
about what bright shining star we want to be
instead of the bright shining star we actually are.
And I blame the twenty analogies of academia
I've come to hear every start of every year
“it’s for your future.
it’s about shaping you into—
When I was your age
When I studied
My college was
My theory is
My
My
My”
“Hey teach, I came here to learn
don’t preach, I didn’t come for the psalms.”
And there is not a doubt in my mind
that if you were aware of how little I cared
about your spiritual awakening
in Ali-Baba's Tomb
you’d give me this speech again.
“It’s for my future
it’s about shaping me into—
When you were my age
When you studied
Your college was
Your Theory is
Your
Your
Your”
I came to here to write!
Teach me to write!
Tell me to write!”
Cause when I get of a taste of the verse, that’s all it takes!
It’s the kind of mood you can’t get with prescription
one hell of addiction and it ain’t the kind of drug you can just, kick.
I can feel the words gnawing at the edges of mind
and the hands, I got,
start shaking and twitching until the next time I find a pen.
So let me find the verb for this noun
and express my tension,
past tense,
as it moves from present to future
I don’t have the time to polish my grammar
I propose preposterous prepositions, purely to pontificate, a precious pittance of a second more.
I think,
sometimes,
of all the ink I’ve laid and erased,
I could tear down my bookshelf
and place a compendium of failed and tortured lines in its place.
It’s a memorial to how far I’ve come,
maybe that’s why I still dwell in the past,
I’m more comfortable with my failures so far,
and worry too much about my future ones,
that I can't know exist yet
I think that’s why I can never write a decent ending.
Sep 19, 2015
Sep 19, 2015 at 2:44 PM UTC
*And what you'll find is, your highness
Can paint a picture that is vivid enough to cure blindness
- J. Cole, January 28th*
And because they have never before seen a naked soul,
they ask me
if I am being deliberately provocative
with my pen.
And then I paint.
So that they too can undress
that mental amnion that has cocooned them
since birth; which itself became still-born
as it was followed by an undying funeral
of parental expectations.
And then I paint.
So that they too can reclaim
that aborted clay and mould their burial
into gestation, and shatter
their amnion coffins
from the asphyxiating breath of non-existence
to the respiratory lust of Being.
And then I paint.
So that I too can remember
that I am they. A victim
********** into the darkness of lost light,
dreams deferred at birth;
who still focuses his pen on this canvas
to cure his own blindness, to see
and paint his naked soul before me,
which we then call Life.
Jan 7, 2015
Jan 7, 2015 at 10:24 AM UTC
I feel like an unnecessary pause. In the grand poetry of the universe.
Sep 26, 2014
Sep 26, 2014 at 6:34 PM UTC
Today, poetry is in my bones--
words reverberating against flesh,
holding up my body
through ribcage and skull.
I am a skeleton of sonnets.
If you were to cut me open,
verse would flow out:
I stain pages with ink-splot blood.
Aug 25, 2014
Aug 25, 2014 at 1:38 AM UTC