I fell for him like twilight falls to night
But dawn demanded I let go too soon
He held my soul beneath the softest light
Now silence hums a hollow, distant tune

He left, and still the air feels sharp and thin
Like breathing shards of glass with every sigh
A day has passed, it tears me from within
The kind of ache that doesn’t let you cry

He was the bloom before my brutal frost
A warmth I cupped with hands too full of fear
I broke my heart to prove I’d bear the cost
What’s right still rips, and love won’t disappear

My throat is wrapped in wires, cold and tight
A fence of grief that shocks with every breath
My pillow swells with storms I lose each night
Each sob a small rehearsal for my death

I knew he’d be the wound I’d never close
The ghost I’d chase in every midnight prayer
He was the poem my silence only knows
The empty in the room when no one’s there

He said “It’s over”, and the stars turned pale
The sky collapsed in bruises none could feel
Purple kissed blue, and sorrow spilled to teal
A palette mixed in love we couldn’t scale

I bowed to grief, a creature made of glass
Who shattered in the light he left behind
I hid the truth, we’d never truly last
But begged the clock to keep us more entwined

I’ll search for you in others, soft and slow
In crooked smiles and eyes I wish were yours
But every face becomes a deeper blow
Another door that leads to empty floors

If one more hour meant breaking all again
I’d bleed through time to taste him in the pain
To burn in him, to drown in what has been
I’d choose the fall and never curse the rain

I would whisper it once more

And I would whisper it all once more
You were the one who slipped away
I’m losing sleep, forgetting how to eat
Like I don’t know how to move my feet

The songs I used to play to feel okay
Now echo with the shadow of your name
You turned my favorite melodies to gray
And healing hurts when music feels like blame

You are the best thing that happened to me
But love, it seems, was never meant to be
So I broke my heart because you were kind
I broke my heart because it’s what’s right

Now it will take me years to find your face
In fleeting glances, strangers passing by
I’ll search for you in every time and place
And ache when all I see is not your eyes

Yet even so, I’d do it all again
For one more moment through all the pain
If time with you meant heartbreak anew
I’d choose every scar
Just to stay with you

The kind of ache that crying seems like fun
The kind of ache that cry’s had tears of its own
A mental breakdown for every 10min that move along  
But we’ll bleed in silence into the night for the words that said:

“The kind of ache that doesn’t let you cry”
Cause purple blue skies are only found in your eyes
A purple blue sky is teal in our eyes

By: Zoulaikha

I opened my mouth to speak,
but the words came out smoke
a fire I’d fed with dreams too flammable to hold.
They said, write your future,
but handed me a pen that bled doubt.
And here I am,
not out of ink,
but drowning in all the things
I was too alive to say
and too tired to dream again.

And thats how your prose poetry bled into my cup of stone
Like fine wine aged but made you grow blue

You speak like a forest
that remembers the flame.
The kind of silence you carry
is not quiet
it’s the hush before a storm
that forgot how to rain.

They fed you dreams like sugar,
wrapped in sunlight and soft songs.
Told you the sky was yours
if only you’d grow wings.
But no one said
how heavy it is to fly
with roots still buried in cracked earth.

Now, the soil aches.
The trees hum of ghosts.
You walk through orchards
where no fruit hangs
only scorched branches
and the echo of “almost.”

But listen.

Even ash is a kind of promise.
Even the blackened bark
knows how to bloom again.

You are not lost
you are fermenting,
deep in the unseen.
A season of decay
before the spring.

Let the crows circle.
Let the stars go dim.
Even moons must rest
before they rise full again.

You are not done.
You are gathering.
What feels like an end
is only the soil
learning your name.

**
Name you free, teach you in glassed cage
Still Ashes Rise Again

By: Zoulaikha

Grief is poetic
when silence becomes the ink,
when you’re lost for words
and find them buried in your chest.

Sadness, clear as crystal,
mirrored in my eyes,
but you wore blindfolds of comfort.
You turned your gaze to lighter skies.

I’m an afterthought
when loneliness creeps in
a name you whisper
only when silence is too loud.

But I
I search for you in every face,
feel your shadow
in rooms you’ve never walked into.

You remember me
in quiet hours,
As I carry you into every crowd,
haunted by your absence
Through the noise.

My hands, once steady,
now tremble like candle flames
in the draft of your memory.
They couldn’t speak
in the heat of your imaginary touch.

I wear your absence
like thread through my ribs
delicate,
yet pulling every breath, a little thinner.

You left like morning mist,
vanishing before I could hold it.
I stayed, like a love note never read,
creasing in someone else’s drawer.


This is a poet’s day
dressed in metaphors,
dripping with invisible ink,
smiling like a well-penned lie.

And still a smile lingers,
painted on like a mask.
It’s all they see.
No one reads the footnotes
where I buried everything I meant.

By: Zoulaikha

2am beneath the sky where stars are shy,
A golden hue begins to die.
A love that once felt bright, now dim,
Caught between the sun and its whim.

I reach for you through shadow’s veil,
Uncertain, yet I cannot fail.
For in the dark, a light I see,
But do you fear the same as me

Your touch, a warmth I hold too tight,
Afraid that longing raise this coming night,
It’ll slip through hands like drifting sand,
And all I’ll grasp is empty land.

Each whispered word, each tender glance,
A fleeting, soft, forgotten dance.
The eclipse of love, the pain of time
I fear you’ll leave before you’re mine.

Yet in this light, our hearts entwine,
A love that’s lost, yet still divine.
In every shadow, I still find you,
As golden as the sun we knew.

But in my chest, a secret too
I hate you too, I hate you too.
For love is both the light and shade,
A golden eclipse, where hearts are made.

I crave the warmth of your embrace,
But dread the silence when you leave my space.
The eclipse lingers, never gone,
A dance of light where shadows dawn.

We kiss beneath the fading sun,
Yet in the dark, the war’s not won.
For love is both the flame and freeze,
The golden light, the midnight breeze.

In every shadow, I find my grief,
And in your arms, I find our relief.

By: Zoulaikha

Hour ticking, 16 seconds I finally spoke, as we ended.

And I, traitor to my own heart,
gave you a whisper, in the shape of ur name
when I meant to hand you a sonnet.

An answer I thought translates the weight it holds
You thought “run” in your head
But language folds in on itself?

You,
half-memory, half-mirage, never fully in my grasp,
but always in the air I inhale like second thoughts.
My messy brain strangling words that could’ve been said like

You are the pauses between breaths when I don’t realize I’m holding mine.

That you exist,
In fingerprints on coffee mugs, everything just bright
In shared silence, In awkward unfinished punchline
we both start smiling before they’re even told.

I could have shaken my head a little, maybe then it’ll be simple and exhaled,

that you live in the parentheses of my distracted thoughts
it’s the pull that keeps me awake, never the subject,
But instead,
I stood at the edge of the sentence
I watched the moment turn dark
Now I am left with metaphors scratching the inside of my chest
a thousand ways to say “you”

you are not a sentence.
You are the margin I write toward.
You are the reason
Blank pages feel like confessions

How do I say

His presence rearranges the furniture, in the quiet rooms of my mind.
Suddenly, space is softer, It’s like you’ve always lived inside.
There is something about the way he listens
As if he’s mapping constellations from the pauses in my speech.
he read silence like a second language.

He makes stillness feel so full,
Like a museum after hours.
Like a church with the lights off.
Reverent. Intimate. Unnamed.

how I replay to his “good morning” texts, like they’re voice notes from the universe.
How he makes ordinary moments feels like Easter eggs in a movie, only we understand.
How his presence calms that anxious part of me, with him it’s never too much.


I gave you only your own reflection.
But I meant:
you are the ink I can’t keep still.
You are the reason blank pages, terrify me.
Not because I have nothing to write
but because I finally do.

By: Zoulaikha

Joy was a word known to man
Until darkness covered their whole land.
As I walk past their faces that smile,
I saw lies in tearful eyes.

I was made to love and lead in a path.
I was made to be heartbroken.
I knew the reason but found I’d been sent to treason,
So I stopped at last.

Anteros sent me, but Eros sent the arrow.

I was made to love
The kind of love you give but never get.
Anteros called, I never answered.
Now I will wander alone and voice a speech.

Pin on a board love, lesson gained
Snake-bit pain like love under glass, labeled but never touched
Whatever it takes to pass the test and go to another.
Find them as I stare in the shadows.

Poised tears leak on sweeping finger cheeks.
I’m waiting for love letters that never come
But I was wrong…
There it came a smile on my face once again.

“I found the one, you taught me love…”
So it goes.
I was right,
Waiting for letters that may come,
But not for me for the teacher they learned from.

Love at first sight
Never the sight, but the one that watches the scene.
I made my peace
For being your prayer.

To watch over, to block the darkness
Now known to man.
Change in sorrowed eyes to worry-less pleas.
I was made to love.

By: Zoulaikha

If strawberries had memories, they’d only dream of cookie crumbs.
If strawberries could tell stories, they’d weep until forever’s undone

What is a poet to do?
When you tell her love poetry out of the blue,
Not a bedtime story, you were a wish come true.
Screaming the Lord’s name echoed on call,
Cheeks flushed, bound to ache
Now, it’s only memory.

Close misty eyes in the middle of the night,
Your lips are locked into mine.
The aftertaste of watermelon lingers just right.
I pull away, smiling, but tears fall downside.
“I miss you more than I can put into words.”
I blink through the blur, but you’re gone.

Your friend’s car, a time capsule of us,
Etching our ghosts into metal and dust.
We stopped on the roadside, your head on my lap,
The night held its breath, so did I.
"What’s it like to hold your hand? To lock our lips one last time?"
Get up. Tell me it’s time.

It killed me endlessly.

August 10th our world in bloom,
Held me tight, told me it’s all right,
Time stood still, you kissed me through the night.
February 13th love’s quiet death, now Heather’s day, his hand in hers instead.
You walked away, stole my breath.
I sit heartbroken, waiting for the year to end
As my tears finally dry, October storm hits.
The 20th it’s our crime, a date I should celebrate
But my heart won’t move, it only rewinds.

She walks my happy ever after,
While I live a once upon a nightmare.

By: Zoulaikha