I left, not because I didn’t care,
but because care felt like a
t   i   g   h   t   r   o   p   e    w   i   r   e
strung across your moods.
I tiptoed,
hoping not to f
                              a
                               ­      l
                                           l
into the c          m of your silence.
                  h    s
                     a

You say I chose.
And maybe I did.
But choosing peace doesn’t mean I never wanted you.
You wished I had stayed.
I wished you had seen me before the goodbye.

You speak in switches;
Yes, no.
Blame, regret.
Like you're still rewriting the ending.
Hoping the script forgives the sting.

You say you never betrayed,
but what do you call the slow erasure of effort?
The absence that smiled and said it wasn’t personal?

I remember the warmth.
I do.
But I also remember the chill that came after you wanted me to read between lines that were never written.

You weren’t my boss, no.
But you were a map I couldn’t follow.
Every step felt like trespass.
So I drew a door
|. |
and walked through it.

And still, I think of your games.
But I don’t play anymore.

The Beat of a Different Drum by Geof

He walks where echoes refuse to follow, a syncopated step on puddled glass, soft-footed rebellion, quiet as dusk pressing its fingertips against the day.

No band behind him, no metronome’s kiss, just the pulse of stray thoughts tattooed across his chest like whispered defiance.

The world hums in straight lines, he scribbles sideways. Timbre raw. Cadence cracked. Every silence he breaks rings in technicolour truth.

You call it offbeat; he calls it becoming. In his rhythm, the rules unravel and leave room for the beautiful wrong.


The Different Beat of a Drum by Geof

Not syncopation. Not jazz. Not tribal echo on moonlit skin, but something else: a crackle in the chest when rules bruise the breath.

It starts in the soles, like friction turned gospel. No conductor, no call and response. Just bone vibration and a whisper that won't beg for translation.

This beat, it skews the grid, skips the tidy wrap of genre. It breaks the silence like a grin in a funeral march.

He plays it anyway, thumb on steel, heartbeat misfiring into music. Some call it dissonance. He calls it home.


The Drum of a Different Beat by Geof

It sat in the corner like it knew things, skin stretched tight over secrets, rim worn smooth by the hands of those who didn’t ask permission.

No sheet music. No conductor. Just breath and bruise, just instinct knocking on wood until sound fractured into meaning.

Its beat didn’t match your step. It changed your step. Bent time like a flame licking the wick before the burn.

Each strike: a sideways sermon. Each silence: a dare.

They tried to tune it. Tried to name it. But it throbbed with its own alphabet and whispered in pulses only the wild could follow.

I'm just a poet,
wouldn't you know it
I lace my lines, then boldly throw it.
I spill my ink where silence grows,
twisting truth in rhythmic prose.

I flip the script, I drop the beat,
with crooked rhyme and dancing feet.
I stitch my pain in stitched-up verse,
a soft-spit spell, a velvet curse.

I break the meter, bend the frame,
then tag my thoughts with fire and flame.
I glide through grit and velvet air,
my voice a scar, my breath a flare.

I speak in echoes, glitch and glow it.
I'm just a poet;
Wouldn't you know it?
A wild-mouth priest of streets and skies,
who walks on words and never lies.

Across borders stitched by breath, they arrive, ink-smudged, heart-full, with pages folded like wings that have not yet flown.

From Accra to Auckland, Jakarta to Johannesburg, they gather not for glory, but to listen, to lift each other’s quiet voices into rhythm.

What hasn’t been published is sacred here. Fragile truths tucked between verse and vulnerability. We do not seek spotlight, we seek ignition.

Each week, a theme is offered: a pulse in the WhatsApp thread, a seed waiting for rain. No borders in this garden, only roots tangled by intention, language spun into new skin.

Poems grow from silence, from longing, from laughter shared in typed pauses and midnight bursts. We write not to be heard, but to become more whole, more human.

Let the unread rise. Let the raw shimmer. Let the shared craft soften our edges into kinship.

Just one;
and the crowd disappears.  
Not the noise,  
but the ache beneath it.  

Your robe sweeps  
like the edge of a memory  
too sacred to name,  
too silent to forget.  

I didn’t ask.  
Didn’t shout.  
Just reached,  
as if the gravity of healing  
could be borrowed  
in a breath.  

Blood listens.  
Shame stills.  
Every fracture sings  
beneath skin mended  
by mercy  
I dared not deserve.

You turned.  
Not to scold,  
but to see me,
the me behind the reaching.  

And that touch?  
It was not mine.  
It was yours,  
returning everything  
I didn’t know I’d lost.

I don’t raise my voice, just the heat in the room.
No need for roaring, when the air listens.

You step like you're testing the floor.
I stay where stillness holds power.

My glance is a pulse, a quiet decree.
The kind that bends time without breaking skin.

You offer storm,
I press calm against it, steady, like hands knowing exactly how to hold and when not to.

So when you move, know:
the rhythm’s already chosen, and
I’m not chasing.
Just waiting until you feel it pull.

he s̷p̷ea̷k̷s̷       in      th-th-the hush                        b̷e̷f̷or̷e̷ c͟o͟m͟m͟a͟n͟d

bɑ̶r̶e̶-̶c̶h̶e̶s̶t̶e̶d̶ // b̷r̷a̷c̷e̷d̷                 f͝o͝r͠ the̴ se͞n͞t͞e͞n͞ce͞                     to                        L̸̡̫̮͊̿͠͝Ą̵̜̥̎̾N̷̦̳̤͝ͅD̷̳͚̈̐͌

h͎i͍s͍ ͔n͎a͔m͍e̳                      cu̸r̷l̷s̷                 b̶e̶h̶i̶n̶d̶ their     t̶̵̻̻e̴̞̼̻͐̽e̸͖͒͜ẗ̶͈̲́̓h̴͝­̳͓̓

a wreck—                 soft                     r̸e̴a̷d̴y̷                        f̶or͞             c̷ol̷lis̷i̷o̶n̸_

they move                     like               thund̴e̶r̷—holding—                 back

drawn       tight         į̵͈͔̫̄̈́̈́͝n̵̦̺̼̄t̴̢͉̪̥̽í̴̯̈́m̴̙͊a̶̞̙̕ẗ̸̛̼̬́͂͐e             d̷̞͗̍̈́e̷̪͈̫̬͊ḻ̸̘͒̅i̷͈̖̖͊̈́̒b̶̯͔̥̹͝e̷̡̛͎̳̥̔͠r̴͓͐ą̴̛̅͘­̡ţ̸̂̓e̸̼̞̎̓͘

he / d̷̲̝̖ͅo̵̢̘̠̰e̶̼̤s̴̮̤̰̳n̴̢͔̼̹’̶̢͍͕̦t̴͇̹̦ / run         he   r̴̨̯̯̋͝i̷̩̟̠̯͘s̵̲̼̖̾̊͌ė̴̢̺̩̞̅s̸̘̜̬̐̎̋

not broken       b̴̡̮̎̓e̶̳̮̓͝n̶͎̞̿̓t̶̺͒͘         toward          becoming…