They said, “Don’t run,” so I skipped instead,
With jellybeans bouncing over my head.
They said, “Don’t draw on the walls or floor,”
So, I painted a dragon that opened a door.

They said, “Don’t climb on the monkey bars,”
So, I built a ladder to visit the stars.
They said, “Don’t bounce on the bed,”
So, I moon-jumped with a helmet of thread.

They wrote their rules in black and red,
And taped them to my toaster bread.
But rules, you see, are made of rubber
They stretch and squeak and sometimes blubber.

So, if a rule feels much too tight,
Just twist it left or stretch it right.
And if it snaps and hurts your hand,
Slingshot it back to No-Rule Land.

Where rules are made of bubblegum,
And break themselves just for the fun.

Love Is Fireworks
A riot of color that screams across the sky,
visible from heaven but never held.
It ****** your eye, burns your sight,
etches the face into your retina like a divine warning:
"You will never see them like this again".
It's never blindness, just an overdose

Then,
Marriage turns blind
Blind to the fire you still carry.
It sees the chores, not the devotion.
It praises the schedule, not the soul.
It forgets the spark that seared your eye
and calls the ash commitment.
Marriage doesn’t ask what you feel, it assumes.
It doesn’t look, it remembers.
And memory is a poor prosthetic for vision.

Loved but still unseen
And that is the blindness
no firework could ever warn you about.

Mirror in the washroom, mirror in the hall,
who is the saddest, most tragic of all?
Me, me, me— our chant, our plea, our scroll.
We cry for heartbreak, curse what we recall,
mourn mood swings and childhood’s sprawl.
We share our feelings, raw and blatant,
talk as if we own sorrow’s patent.
An indulgent binge of trauma dumping
hailed as “growth,” with echoes thumping.

“Let down your hair,” the mirror said
"So, I may climb into your head."
We let the mirror live inside,
Fed it fears, we were meant to hide.
We center our every breath on “I,”
crown our pain and let it sanctify.
We kneel to our image like an altar
then robe our grief in saints for slaughter.

“The slipper fits,” the mirror lied
“So, dance until you feel alive.”
We twirl in dreams we can't escape
beneath a veil we cannot scrape.
The mirror smirks with every spin—
“Keep dancing. You’ve already let me in.”

"Just close your eyes,” the mirror sighed,
“The world will wait—just stay inside.”
And so, we did, in cushioned sleep,
clinging to the dreams we were fed,
And the world burned beyond our bed.

The mirror waits with breathless grace.
It doesn’t show. It holds our face.

It's not red, like they said.
It's white, green, pink, blue
And all other fascinating hues.
Not the grays I am used to.

I was told there is no air here,
Yet every breath is crisp and sheer
No masks, no tubes, no weight to bear.
Most importantly, nothing to fear.

I didn't need a suit or a flight,
Just a smile and a grip held tight.

On Mars,

Food overflows, in plates, pots and dustbins
Buildings rise, neither burned nor crumbling.
No kids with wounds from bullet strikes.
All body parts intact, not lost to war pikes.
The sky glitters even without missiles,
The dead are buried, not left in piles.
Huge cranes lift steel to kiss the sky,
Unlike ours, which lifted cries up high.
Here parents and friends grow old.
No blood-stained tents left to fold.


They said Mars holds no life.
What's this then? Afterlife?
I had heard a lot about Mars
Today I learnt Mars has no Wars.

I chase offers like oxygen,
clip discounts with surgical hope,
trade dignity for bulk rice.
My wallet coughs coins like loose teeth
each swipe a prayer to the gods of clearance.

They taught us to dissect frogs,
but not the feeling of being dissected.
We memorized the bones of empires,
but no one named the fracture in our own spines.

We wake up with hearts in our throats,
trap ourselves in flickering cages,
Pout like mannequins  in group shots.
We google "how to disappear"
between lectures on resilience.
We draft essays on survival ,
while planning exits.
We smile at teachers who praise
our punctuality while we
count pills under the desk.


The counselor called us in one by one,
handed us pamphlets
with smiling cartoon brains.
Just ticked boxes
and sent us back to class
with a sticker that said “brave.”
which curled by noon.

When the windows whispered
and the knives called us by name,
they called it depression.
It wasn't.
It was syllabus.
We were just doing the homework.

Red clot threads obsidian veins,
summoned by ruptured chambers.
Walls convulse to a maze of memory.
It pulses at the wrist,
exiled from the heart.

In the quiet nook of a loving home,
Is my small world-
fenced by iron bars,
and a limited sky.
Protected from storms
and predator’s eye.
Fresh clean water,
steady sunflower seed supply.
Almost a picture-perfect life.
Yet, I often sigh.

I yearn for lush trees,
and open endless skies.
Where the sun shines bright
And the moon climbs high.
I long to join the chorus of dawn,
spread my wings and fly.
I want to build a nest
with mud, leaves and twigs dry
Teach my younglings
to soar by and by.

One day the door unlatched,
my stunted feathers gave a try.
I flapped and fluttered,
then bid my cell goodbye.
My tiny little throat
Gave out a joyous cry.

Now I had mountains, valleys,
And jungles to ply.
In this new beginning,
food was scarce,
The streams were dry.
No waterproof nest,
where I could lie.
Stars blinked down
with a silent sigh.
And I had to forgo,
my melodious lullaby.
For the constant fear
of the hunter’s pry.

New starts are challenges,
I won’t deny.
They test your spirit.
But also fortify.
They cast doubts,
Nevertheless, clarify.
So, crush the whispers of fear,
and learn to identify.
For new horizons bloom,
where limits die.

I didn’t fall for you.
I weathered into you.
I loved you like erosion:
slow, brutal, inevitable.

I didn’t chase you.
I tectoned toward you
I loved you like sediment loves gravity.

I didn’t touch you.
I lichened to your absence
I loved you like a fault line loves pressure.

But you loved me like weather loves stone:
briefly, and only to reshape me.
loved me like a glacier:
slow to move, quick to forget the valley.

Our love story will last till
mountains forget they were once oceans.

They shaped the mold before I arrived,
A perfect cast where all compiled.
I was meant to be poured, settle and fit,
But I hardened too soon and fractured it.
I stretched too far and pulled to wide,
Shattered their mold and stood defied.
They wait, watch and trace my lines
tracking my stance, weighing my fall.
counting the cracks that don't exist at all.

Their sympathy searches for pores in me,
slipping through, expecting decay.
Their fake pity settles like dust on me,
waiting for time to wash me away.

Society can keep chiseling me,
But you know what?
I am a weathered rock.

Promises are dinosaur's eggs,
destined to hatch something
you can’t control.

Hatched eggs grow legs and show up
at your doorstep ,
asking why you left them

A velvet-heavy, honey-spiced cake
sat on a table spread vast.
soft enough for fingers to disappear into,
dense enough to still
even the most restless tongues.
Its candles flickered like stars.

No one asked who baked it.
No one wondered how long the oven stayed warm.
They just took— with knives that glinted like treaties,
with fingers that didn’t wait for plates.

Frosting smeared like territory lines,
plums dug out and hoarded,
their hands sticky with inheritance.

Someone wanted the cherry—
another, the coast of caramel.

Of course, they sang Happy Humanity to us,
clinking forks like medals,
smiling with mouths still full,
declaring the feast a triumph
without once glancing at the crumbs beneath the table.

The table itself is now a battlefield
of crusts and claims.
And the last slice sits on the chipped porcelain.

Dead dreams deserve a burial,
But where do I bury them?
My peeving heart-It is way too heavy,
My disappointed eyes-they are weary,
Cherished memories - I really haven’t any,
Art isn’t my cup of tea.
Nor can I write poetry
Neither is my juggled mind ready.

Dead dreams deserve a funeral.
But how do I mourn them?
Bleed my heart or tie a knot,
Drink my tears or bawl eyes out,
Crush memories or leave them to rot,
pent up emotions or express my thought,
wander my mind or get it to dot.

Dead dreams are hauntingly ethereal,
But where do they dwell?
They linger in heartbeats,
in thoughts left to swell
Not lost, not vanished,
but drifting in air—In echoes of poetry,
in art laid bare.

My heart is a pelican beak.  
Opens wide but never sings.
Conceals what the tongue cannot survive.
Drips salt from truths left unchewed.
A pouch tucked with fishbones,
straining to sift the indigestible

I lived in a cage.
I loved it.
The bars were golden.
They were polished each day
by hands that said they loved me.
I never asked who locked the door.

I lived in a pond.
I loved it.
It was shallow,
but it mirrored what I wanted to believe.
I never asked for more.
The lily roots were enough.

I lived in a cocoon.
I loved it.
Silence wrapped me like a prophecy.
I believed wings were a myth,
and becoming was for someone else.
I folded in on purpose.

I lived in a bubble.
I loved it.
It shimmered with the truths I preferred.
No one could reach me.
No one asked me to leave.
It kept me hollow, but whole.

Now I am out,
The world is too wide,
I had made myself too small
to fit those shapes.

They call this freedom.
I carry it like grief.

He said three golden words— “You complete me.”
So, she broke herself in shards he could carry.
He mocked her degrees, her minds hard climb
So, she lit her past and called it sublime.
He did gently though, like falling snow
Each cut was kindness, each no a soft blow.

He wouldn't speak until she profusely apologized,
sorry for raising her voice, sorry for asking twice.
He preached: “True bonds need nothing new,”
So, she offered her all and received just dew.
He said, “Rule the home and my heart like a queen.”
So, she served in his palace, bowed to his routine.

He called her sensitive, but it was never emotion,
What exhausted her was the incessant erosion
Of trimming her identity, to suit his situation
Of muting her colors to match his narration.
He cloaked his criticism in the language of care,
And smothered doubt, like prayer in perfumed air.

He used "We are one" to erase his faults and mistakes
When she faltered, he spelled blame with surgical stakes.
"You’re overthinking,” he said with a sadistic grin.
Kept editing her memory, to frame her within.
Each truth she lived, he gently denied—
Until only his version survived inside.
People around her said- "u had a choice".
But she didn't ever get a chance to voice.

He didn't complete her but consumed her whole.
Just enough to leave her name carved in his soul.

She held the sky in her hand
to unveil the first morning
blue and trembling
like love before its name.

He tried to catch a glimpse of her,
to unveil a closeness near
soft and golden
like warmth before it learns to appear.

Orchards of fruits obscured the gaze
leaves hung like listening skin
So, desire plucked them
like want before it learns to begin.

Peaches began to shimmer and fall,
she held them in her arms
and he held her
like longing before it learns its harm.

They took the bite together
sweet and spilling.
Almost burning
like a kiss before the soul goes still.

This is how the first love story ran
And the world didn’t end, it began.

"Don’t mind their judgment or wilt for their say—
Once mortals behold you, they'll all drift away.
You won’t need these petals or roots to remain,
You’ll be sung in sonnets, not whispered in vain.”

Lotus said all these words with such great love
A love too polished, too practiced to shove.
It wrapped around Rose like the promise of a vow.

"Where is this throne you all speak of in bloom?
Is it real—or merely a crown veiled in doom?”
Rose asked Lotus, with her petals drawn tense
like a trembling stem in the wind, unsure of defense.

The throne,” Lotus said, “is no pedestal crowned.
It beats in the thumping hearts that gather around.
Not shaped by the hand, nor born of the clay.
But risen each time a mortal looks your way.”
Azure, the Tiller, heard all but stood still,
Like old loam that waits at the foot of a hill.

“What is a throne?” Tulip didn’t quite say
"Is it filled with fragrance that never goes away?
Is it stitched in the petals that never fall down?
Or tucked in gazes that hollow a crown?"

Daffodil said-"If we linger in lore, we’ll root in despair
Let’s find the path out, while we’re still aware.”
"Let's consult Lotus on this " Marigold told.
"Before we become myth at the threshold.

He stapled his shadow to the stars,
And stitched his dreams and scars
To the sky.

He buried his voice in the clouds
then taught the mourning shrouds
how to cry.

They all circled Lotus, voices steeped in fret,
Which no bloom or blade had spoken yet.
“She’s not of the ring,” they said without sway,
“And what grows apart should not be asked to stay.”

Lotus did not smirk, nor cast a scroll,
He let their fears complete the role.
Then offered nothing but a phrase like tar:
"Your unity will take you all far.”

They all returned back to shaded plots
Grief coiled in them like tangled knots.
Their scent no longer stirred the mood,
Something sacred splintered in the wood.
Distance crept between the roots they shared,
And made them foes, their grace impaired.

Azure remained mute nor did he lift what fell,
even though he knew that wound too well.

Rose found Muir near the Scentfold's bend
Where winds keep secrets, they cannot lend.
Muir breeze retreated soft and slow
And tugged her thoughts in undertow.

“You long to leave, do you know the price?”
Asked Muir, his voice like cold-cut ice.
“I just want a glance,” Rose whispered low,
"The kind that names can't bear to know."

“Only one petal may pass the wind,
The rest stays bound to what you’ve been.”
Muir howled a long, unraveling cry,
as if the wind itself mourned the why.

I sit on a throne of unfinished things,
wearing a crown of missed chances,
a robe of echoes and brittle stances,
stitched with the pull of quiet strings.

My mini palace is kept on my palm,
built from silent, paused goodbyes.
I spread my kingdom with quiet gaze,
ruled it with intent none could revise.

I am self-slaved by chosen remand,
My soldier thumb obeys each command
My courtier eyes chart where I land
Time kneels before my wordless stand.

I claimed the void they wouldn't dare
and named myself the nillionaire.

Caelith pulsed in the starless seam,
No warmth, just orbit, cold with gleam.
“Equality is just a myth,” it sighed,
“And safety, merely a dreamleaf dried.
A lull to cradle wilt and thrall,
For leaves too tender yet to let fall.”

Then Lily laughed, a sound half-sung,
Like petals bruised but newly sprung.
"If truth decays in myths you spin,
We’ll plant our wound and bloom within.
From mulch of lies and roots opposed,
We will bloom not rose, but Pokenose".

Caelith stirred, its voice a flame
Of dust and law without a name.
“Try your might, bloom what you will
This is reality, cold and still.
Hope is a pollen that drifts, then dies
Order endures when dream defies.”

"Let's all get back to our home Nefarys'
where dreams aren't trimmed" said Iris
Past spindlefern and veiled ravine
They tread through fire tinted green.

In the center where petal circles close
They knelt where breath became the prose
Tulip brushed a thorn aside,
“Beauty’s truest when it won’t abide".
"Let this be seen," said Peonies, grave,
"A bloom unbent is twice as brave."
They placed it firm in woven light.
where scent alone confers the rite.

No voice was raised, but all could tell
Azure had steeped the air with spell.

Pokenose shimmered, slow to bloom,
A want once buried in Nefarys' womb.
Not born of thirst, but love of pain
It fed and fed on beauty's stain.

They were climbing stairs—she and her brother,
bags rustling with homework and hunger.
A man on first floor leaned on the rail,
with stinky eyes and a grin too stale.
He said something foreign—they did not reply,
just quickened their steps, tried to pass by.

He quickened his steps. Her brother ran faster
Fumbled with keys then vanished altogether.
She stayed one stair behind, heart in a chase.
the stairwell became a trap, with no route to escape.
she let out a scream, but the building stood deaf.
Each wall a witness to this muted theft.

His sinister hands reached for her uniform skirt,
Lifted it and then her, pressed tight to his shirt.
She wriggled and fought till his grip came apart,
he dropped her but reached again to restart.

She lunged from the floor and caught his hand in her teeth.
bit down through the filth that festered beneath.
His howl split the air, and his hand dripped red.
he cursed, threw slurs, then stumbled and fled.

She gathered herself and got back home -to safety.
But all she got was dismissal, silences and scrutiny.

His wound must have healed by now- decades later,
But hers remains painful and fresh-probably forever.

He looked at Rose not past, but through
And said, “What waits will change you too.”
She plucked out a petal and handed him.
It pulsed between the stem and rim.

Rose turned back with nothing said,
Her footsteps soft, like vows long shed.

Hence the petal breached and then it reached
A world where love lay bruised and breached.

A petalbreach chime unsettled Nefarys with woe
For gossip is in the veins of things that grow.

"She breached the bloom with no regret,
Unraveled law which our roots had set."
cried Tulip with an unflinching vowtorn ache.
Tearing right through her bloomroot's wake.

"If roots still matter and vows still bind,
Then Rose must face what she left in rind.”
Daffodil declared with her petals taut.
As Nefarys wilted in quite distraught.

They said, “If one may breach, then so shall we,
“Not with withering secrets, but unity.”
They all plucked themselves without a cry,
And sang a vow that split the sky.
"You left us rind, and now shall see
What stirs from shattered symmetry.”
And thus, was shown with blinding clarity—
The bloom-born wrath of majority.

Before soil met seed or the sun claimed the skies,
There bloomed Nefarys, veiled from mortal eyes
Here, blossoms rose from memory’s breath,
Unbound by season, untouched by death.

Tulip leapt bold with a whip of wild cheer,
While Sunflower spun where the sky poured clear.
Daffodil hummed where the stillness was deep,
And Marigold dreamed in the moon’s drowsy sweep.

Rose sat composed where the soft winds would land,
Her red caught the dusk like a flame in the sand.
Lotus drifted in mirrors, serene yet apart,
Her petals all closed round a hungering heart.

Azure had tended them longer than time,
Brushed every stem, tuned each petal to chime.
“Beauty,” he murmured, “will no longer be same"—
Once mortals confine it to only one name.”

Lotus, half-shadow and moon-painted calm,
Heard Azure's lament like a break in a psalm.
“They’ll crown one as Beauty,” the tiller had sighed—
And something within him curled inward and dried.

And so, he unspooled his whispers with care,
Each one like a tendril uncurling in air.
Lotus, adrift in his mirror bound grace,
Spoke soft to the Rose of her luminous face.

“They sigh when you bloom, they stir when you pass
you were shaped for a throne made of glass.”
Lotus smiled, just enough, and let silence resume
A petal-soft whisper that thickened the gloom.
For envy walks sweetest when cloaked in jest,
And Rose, for the first time, felt thorns in her chest.

Rose blushed, not in bloom, but in tremble and thrill,
Half wanting the crown, half fearing the will.
Then Lotus, with voice like a ripple in shade,
Let rumors unfold in the glens he once stayed,
"She sways with a rhythm quite unknown,
And the petals around her feel overgrown".

To Tulip, he sighed, “She blooms but withdraws.”
To Daffodil, “Power moves soft when it gnaws.”
But Tulip just laughed, “She still smells like spring.
And Daffodil spoke, “She’s rooted past any sting".

Lotus then whispered to sunflower and marigold
"Rose's shine and warmth feels quite controlled".
And Marigold blinked, in a shimmer half-told,
“Her glow feels the same, but her laughter feels cold.”

A mother walks through bullets for bread
A child through shellfire for a sip of grain
Young girls bleed in corners quietly
Toddlers die in mothers' arm from thirst.

This is the plot, world is writing on,
Poets, presidents, painters even parrots
all scribbling words on rubbles and ruins.

An aid truck hums like ice cream van
drawing children to their deaths.
Graves are homes, morgues have IV drips
beeping machines mourn louder than mothers.

This is the setting, leaders are banking on.
Protestors, professors, publishers even pilgrims
all parading pain for policies and propaganda.

Camera's click as children chase compassion
Aid drops flutter like dying doves
every countable rib is a bestseller,
Prime time feeds on man-made famine.

This is the ******, audience is locked on
Photographers, producers, preachers even podcasters
all packaging pain for premieres and praise.

This is the modern-day Macbeth where power demands
we slit our conscience to wear crowns.
Guilt is a graveyard and every prophecy is screaming
from scorched soil to sear our souls.

They will not honor your fragrant breath
They’ll use it as ode, or veil, or death.
Not love, but lack—will wear your name,
Your petals will ache beneath borrowed fame.”
Lotus's voice now split Nefarys in bloom and bone
A bloomquake of breath from root to stone.
It hummed through husks and whisperseed dark,
Not all bent—but some curved toward the crack.”

They conjured a crown from the tilt of her head
And wore their suspicion like garlands of dread.
Rose's poise now echoed as plotting or pride
As if grace could not bloom without thorns to hide.
She hadn’t crowned herself, nor thorned by decree
But rumor, like ivy, climbed every tree.

Petalring came, and Nefarys stirred in bloom-fire,
Drifting in garlands, in hymns spun from lyre.
Colors rang louder than the lull they concealed,
And praise filled the air, but one name was sealed.

Rose drew near the rim where the chorus ran high,
And Tulip stepped forward, with a glint in her eye.
“You sit on your throne,” said Lily, stiff and clear,
“This isn’t your place, your roots end here.
Rose turned, not defeated, nor eager to flee—
But as one who had grown past the ring’s legacy.

Toward Scent fold’s vale they cleaved the green,
Where wind runs thick with things unseen.
“Is it justice you seek or just her place?”
Lotus said, his voice low, draped in grace.
The blossoms paused, their vows unsealed,
Each plucked petal quaking in truth revealed.
For in his oblique gaze, the mirror lay.
Become the wound or forge the way.

The wound was raw and the way unknown
And from that break, a voice was thrown
"Let's all go to Netherbloom and trace,
a flare to rise and claim our place".

Azure was still, but knew the storm would rise.
So, he nurtured the mosses and lichens wise.

Netherbloom was far and path was fire
still, they trudged through thorn and mire.
They reached the brink where wild roots twine,
A voice uncoiled from the Caelith's shine
“You crossed the flame; you bore the haunt
Now speak your vow, what is it you want?"

“We want equality,” they said, “in beauty.”
"Not bowed by rank but crowned in mutiny.”
said Lily with her grief filled voice.
“Let beauty be truth, not any mortal's choice.”
spoke waning Tulip, holding her poise.

You never knock, just crash through ceilings in thunder heels.
You ghost me with fog, flirt with the moon,
and leave pollen on my doorstep like cryptic love notes.

I have seen you dressed in monsoon silk,
barefoot in sandstorms,
wearing mountain ranges like shoulder pads
and rivers like mascara that never runs.

You are chaos in couture,
a vine that strangles and a breeze that forgives.
You kiss with oxygen,
but you bite with bees.

I tried to tame you once,
built fences, trimmed hedges,
named you “landscape.”
You laughed in wildfire.


I love you in drought and flood,
in cracked soil and overgrown jungles.
I love you when you bloom without permission,
when you rot with purpose.

So here I am
kneeling in your dirt,
offering my plastic sins,
asking for nothing
but one more sunrise
and the mercy of shade.

Brave bought a horse at noon,
it neighed like freedom,
strong and strange under sun.
Brave and the Beauty were to elope
into a better "maybe".

They had to cross a river
as lovers sometimes do.
Steed’s owner had warned,
‘Its mother feared rivers.
This one might too.’”

He looked at the horse. Then the river.
Then at his Beauty
Her dress catching wind like a future.

"If she flees tonight, will her daughter
dream of rivers too?
Is love a way out,
or something passed through?"

The river shimmered like doubt.
The horse pawed at the ground
He said-'return' and she fled.

He sat down and drank
the entire river in sips.
The steed flinched
trained on whips.

Some love stories are fire, some are storm,
and some just timid and stupid.

Ballons were once floating promises.
I chased them, believing they
would never pop.
Now they rise and I don't follow.
Childhood drifted upward and I
stayed watching
my joy shrink to sky.

Applause is weather
brief and changeable.
My work is climate: steady,
unmoved by gusts of praise or
chills of disapproval.
I know what cheers and
confounds the climate.
I write for seasons not storms.

A kiss between the brows
is not a flame nor a claim
nor a contest.

Its incense rising from
a temple left behind.
It's a wreath laid across
to honor the goodbyes.
It's the key which unlocks respect.

It builds bridges between souls,
like light crossing water without a ripple.
It forgives without words,
like snow melting over old wounds.
It anchors memory
like moss growing on the stone of time.

I am an ostrich nesting in mother's lap
head buried in shell-soft comfort,
bones tender as yolk,
hiding from the world that pecks too hard.

We had planned an escape
just like you plan field trips.
We had plastic bags filled with prayers
just like you have fruit stuffed baskets.

We don't say goodbyes like you do
we stare in eyes until cheeks get wet.
We don't hug like you do
we hold each other until there is breath.

We snugged into a car with seatbelts
just like you do on cushioned sofas.
We had mobile phones with camera
just like you to film living moments.

The car moved, counting steps
then it crawled counting shots.

We held hands to play Ring-a-ring o’ roses,
A pocket full of posies, A-tishoo! A-tishoo!
We all fell down, except me.
My fall lasted longer than my voice.

I called for help just like you all do.
I kept breathing like you all do.
I kept crying like you all do.

I died just like a prime number.
while you all were in slumber.

Beneath the piano's lid
lays a maestro murdered mid sonata.
while the ballroom spun in lace and lies.
The revelers fled, but their souls stayed.

The chandelier still shivers,
as if remembering the scream that shattered the final waltz.
The floorboards remember the rhythm of panic.
A trail of pearls leads to the piano,
like breadcrumbs for the dead

Mirrors fracture under the weight of secrets.
They spill secrets like cold blood.
The portraits have no eyes now.
Their gaze dissolved from knowing.
They saw the music beg for mercy.
They saw the conductor’s baton become a dagger.

The piano plays itself at midnight.
His breath trapped in the strings,
trying to finish the song that killed him.
The keys have no fingerprints.
as if guilt wore its manners.

And in the corner
the last guest remains.
A widow in bone-white gloves,
She waits for the song to end.

The armor never reached my soul.
So, I named my sword after her.
I poured my heart on wind-swept hilltops.
Spoke to the moon, mistaking it for her gaze.
And rode through war with love as my shield.

He lines the shot not just the cue,
His friend watches, wordless,
hands pressed to felt,
as if steadying the weight of lies.
***** scatter truths, regret in motion.
Pool, like love, isn’t won by aim
but by what’s left on the table when the lights go dim.

Embers of your lies
still hiss beneath my ribs.
Smoking through the ruins of trust.
No firefighter can convince them to die.

My glossary of love
Agape tattooed in wildfire,
Devotion smelted in cinder,
Joy seeded in ashfall.

They said love gives you butterflies in stomach
I had caffeinated elephants doing parkour.
They said you either fall or rise in love,
I slipped on a banana peel and faceplanted.
They said love sweeps you off your feet,
I got entangled in emotional quicksand.

They said love is blind.
Mine wore thick rimmed glasses.
They said love is a flame.
Mine was a raging wildfire.
They said love is forever.
Mine came with a countdown timer


They said love conquers all.
Mine surrendered after one awkward dinner.

My love story wasn't a fairy tale,
it was Aesop's fable.

Diagnosed as emotional famine.
Pulse ossifies, smiles fossilize,
Muscle calcifies beneath touch,
Affection bleeds through fissures.

Ambition was cinched to our wrists
Responsibility was tightened to our throats
Discipline was buckled at the waist.
Love was tucked in close to the chest.

Anger was draped across our shoulders
Control was zipped into our steps.
Insecurity was wrapped around the feet.
Status was hammered into soles.

Manhood is a tightrope
balancing swagger and surrender.
Locker room bravado and
mirror-shadowed splendor.
Masculinity is a breastplate
earned in boardrooms or squad cars.
burnished by restraint and dented by doubt.

We are defined by either
Diamond cufflinks or steel handcuffs
Never in the calluses of bare hands.

She sunbathes on a rooftop garden
I sweat beneath tin and prayer.
Her light is leisure; mine, labor.
I watch her glow,
in my scathing love,
a heat that refuses to beg.

Daddy's little princess found a dress
hanging in the closet of red distress.
She paired it with a crown of dazzling lie
a migraine wrapped in gold supply.

She tried it on, and the silk turned stone,
and whispered low, “Your grief is not grown."
The hem recoiled from her trembling skin,
as if to say, “You have not let sorrow in.”
The sleeves clutched tight like hands of fate,
and said-"You have yet to earn this weight.”

Her father smiled, “They fit you well,”
blindfolds forged in optical hell.
His love shaped pledges peeled too soon
like decals on glass in a monsoon.

She left behind the world he built
a kingdom dressed in love and guilt.
And in her wake, the forest sighed,
relieved that the fairy tale had died.

But somewhere still, beyond the din,
a girl weeps, lacking thickened skin.

Citizen and refugee,
two opposites that distract.
Coined centuries apart.
Man made inventions on inhumane foundations.

Citizen and refugee
two by products of borders
Minted by power's heart
Systems built on God's quilt.

Citizen and refugee
two eyes on the same face.
Trained to remain counterpart
eyesight without foresight.

Citizen and refugee
two crutches of humanity
Held by hunger's craft
Limping and climbing through collapse.

Citizen and refugees have become
synonyms in crisis,
blueprints in bureaucracy
mirrors in mirage,
limbs of lies.

They said, “Don’t run,” so I skipped instead,
With jellybeans bouncing over my head.
They said, “Don’t draw on the walls or floor,”
So, I painted a dragon that opened a door.

They said, “Don’t climb on the monkey bars,”
So, I built a ladder to visit the stars.
They said, “Don’t bounce on the bed,”
So, I moon-jumped with a helmet of thread.

They wrote their rules in black and red,
And taped them to my toaster bread.
But rules, you see, are made of rubber
They stretch and squeak and sometimes blubber.

So, if a rule feels much too tight,
Just twist it left or stretch it right.
And if it snaps and hurts your hand,
Slingshot it back to No-Rule Land.

Where rules are made of bubblegum,
And break themselves just for the fun.

Once in a town with no name on the map,
Lived two odd brothers and one wild chap.
Anonymous whispered through alley and fog,
Famous lit up like a trending blog.

They shared a small house with their cousin Perilous,
Who juggled sharp truths and was slightly nefarious.
One wore a hoodie, one wore a crown,
The third wore chaos like a hand-me-down.

Anonymous vanished when doors creaked ajar,
Famous rolled in a rented sports car.
Perilous came with a suitcase of schemes,
And a grin that could haunt your dreams.

One day they argued 'who wore it best?"
Was it silence, spotlight, or cunning unrest?
Famous said, “I’m adored by the masses!”
Anonymous scoffed, “They’re shallow as glasses.”
Perilous laughed, “You both miss the game
I thrive in the shadows and profit from blame.”

The town unraveled like threads from a sleeve,
Famous turned ghost, Anonymous took his leave.

Billboards went blank, the clocks lost their sound
Perilous had rewired the town.
He scrawled on the fountain in lipstick and ash:
“I left as a rumor. Returned as your flash


Now legends are told in that nameless town,
Of brothers who rose, and one who tore down.
So, if you meet someone with mystery eyes,
Check their pockets for riddles and lies.

The question had already knelt, trembling with hope.
Petals curled in her grip and muffled a "no".
Hope didn’t ask again.
It just bowed and left her with the bouquet
not bitterness.

The tortoise waited at the finish line,
Hare rushed with heart thudding.
The jungle exploded at the speed of love
Race was never the point.