#existential poems on Hello Poetry

Zelda 3d

edges

how'd I end up at the edge
you said you'd never let me fall
then quickly changed your mind
you said you'd push me off

here's your ******* chance
why don't you go ahead
and do it?

these edges—
another flashback,
another ****-up,
a little messed up.
a bad person: me—
forcing my apologies,
a true comedian,
always performing.
but who's watching?

always peering over that edge
edges that wait
for you to push me off.
I don’t know if I’ve survived ****,
if edges still bleed
all over the side of my high-rise,
rising.

one step
off this edge
and you get your wish.

****

Written: September 18-19,2025
Published: September 19,2025

#darkhumor #depression #anxiety #existential #survival

Zelda 3d

Happy Hour

that’s like saying
sixty-degree water isn’t hot
just because it isn’t boiling,
and it isn’t cold either.

my body feels heavy
after
fifty-ton anchors
pulling my frozen limbs under.
and i don’t like the feeling.
and it’s so ******* cold
to breathe.

i had a thought today:
the world would go on
if i were gone.
no one would notice.
it was comforting—
no one would grieve.
no one.
but me.
it’s no fun, you know;
i would know.

nonsense,
breathed in too many chemicals,
droplets of poison,
in my mind.
people who know you
will be affected,
or at least, perhaps,
some of them,
whether you want to admit it or not.

well, i think
there’s a difference
between people knowing you
and loving you,
or perhaps knowing you
is a kind of love,
but it never is.

i thought
therapy could help me get over
my fear of death,
so I could—
well, you know...

death serves a sweet martini,
and I could use a drink,
’cause i can't see
past the past.

Oh, man,
it's
Happy Hour

Written: September 16-19, 2025
Published: September 19, 2025

#darkhumor #existential #depression #grief #anxiety #introspection #death #catharsis #humor

Shoaib Shawon 3d

The Circle

I have returned all that I borrowed—
the dreams,the heat, the light.
I face a narrow,stark tomorrow,
and welcome the coming night.

I drew a line around my name,
a border with no gate.
Inside,the rules are not the same:
there is no love,no hate.

I wonder—
if you reached out your hand to me,
would it find anything?
Or pass through where I used to be,
a ghost on winter's wing?

#emptiness #isolation #existential #withdrawal #nihilism #boundaries #emotionaldetachment #selfannihilation #ghostmetaphor #resignation

Odd Odyssey Poet 3d

Wings That Never Lift

a silent laugh—
an inside joke no one else can catch,
trying to take flight over the height of a dream.
but what is a dream if it only stings the eyes?
an eye sore, instead of wings to soar.

...I am a prisoner of flesh and skeleton,
fueled by passion, smuggling scars beneath
my skin; blood turned ammunition,
bones as empty shells clattering the floor.

...I am animal, and I am engine—
factory default, released into a world
obsessed with modifications.
we bolt wings like spoilers onto cars,
spoiled for choice, but never to lift—
only to weigh us down.
heavy disguises, dressed up as flight.

and still, we dream of air.
still, we hunger to rise.
such a cruel irony:
built for motion, yet forever
grounded.

#poetry #wordplay #metaphors #existential #dreams #engines #wings #irony #society #identity

Odd Odyssey Poet 4d

Beliefs Buried in the Rough

Chances seem high that I sink so low tomorrow— where
do I return the belongings of my skin, stitched too tight
with sin? And is there a good intention I can borrow?

To call love a bullseye, but it's just something darting past
me; for a lap dog on the leash of longing can’t run free—it
only circles the grass. As I fuel my odds at a gas station lot;
feathers searching for a birdie; practicing my golf swing,
hoping for a hole in one— or just putting one in a hole.

"Find a stable life," they say, but the horse track is empty,
where hooves never sound, and only echoes of betting slips.
Online, some search for a type, the screen listening to the
type of fingers. But knowing is never seeing, and belief
needs more than a glow of pixels.

"Good grief"— so cried the one who buried their beliefs,
but they still dug the dirt back smooth, as if planting a
seed for tomorrow. Till we're gone, we'll always have
tomorrow.

#poetry #wordplay #metaphors #existential #belief #doubt #loveandloss #innerstruggles #searchingformeaning #lifelessons

Odd Odyssey Poet 7d

Fragments of a Hand-Me-Down Faith

My words morph out of place— would you
still entertain the thought of me in the end?

Every star rules its own space,
but the circumstance of a cosmos knots me up,
its circumference bending beyond my grasp.

A smile cracks the mirror—
I cut myself and I bleed from the shards.
Alone in my room, my sighs are heavy
as a tomb buried under the world.

It’s cold, too cold, and I’ve waited for
the heroic ******, that movie moment
where the hero rises—but I’ve climbed my max.

My throat feels split by an axe.
It’s all out of my hands; I tried to leave
it in God’s hands, but faith feels like
hand-me-downs— worn thin, never quite mine.
I light another cigarette, to drag time along with me.

I am not a sad song, just a tune people sing
along to, a chorus written in tears.
Tear me apart, piece me back like armies
lined up only to be shot down.

And when I fall again, I look up,
choking on the silence, and ask,
"Is this really the life I was promised by God?"
But then again, I did this all to myself!

#free #verse #existential #introspection #selfdestruction #mental #health #faith #doubt #isolation

Rudra Sep 13

A Serene Tragedy

why is there a void in me when i am filled completely
why is there an emptiness when i can't take anything anymore
what am i lacking when there is nothing to aim for
why is there a missing piece when i don't see any jigsaw
what is holding me back when i have nothing to let go
why do i keep running when i know nothing to chase after
what is it that scares me when i am a sunken ship
what is it that i am longing for when i came short of everything i longed for
what do i care about when there is nothing to look after
where do i find serenity when everything is a disaster
why is this silence so loud that it deafens me to know what i want

#poetry #void #anxiety #emptiness #poetsofinstagram #deepthoughts #mentalhealth #writingcommunity #existential #healing

Gaurav Gurung Sep 11

A Night before Stalingrad

A Night before Stalingrad
It was a cold night as far as I could remember,
The trenches were never empty
Smoky on a mound of Earth
Smelt of carcasses and dwelling death
Dawn had forbidden us
Much like how our governments had abandoned us a long time ago
Time left its grim stain on us
Many faces came, many faded-
Some died with valor
Some with false glory
I cursed fate for leaving me alive
I did not want any glory
But now I had a purpose to serve
And desertion would make me
A traitor- hypocritical for how
a second of thought could foreshadow
years of strife.

The punk had foresaken his mischief
The tailor measured corpses
The poet had put down his pen
The graduate his degree
I remember my life as a fisherman
before all the bustle and *******
patriotism took its root.
The mayor promised us a warm bed,
food for our families but were they of any good?
Now that most of the backs to lay on that comfort were buried under soil that claimed no identity.

A new month- new recruits
Their eyes always at first gleamed with dreams,
Oh! To slit the enemy, raise the flag above their dead body.
Only if it were that easy!
Their eyes always drowned once they witnessed the atrocities.
New soldiers kept on piling
Much the better for the "big man" to spread their irony.

Some ol' merry jester once had given us our smiles back
only for him the next day to be shot right between the eyes,
Since that day- our division had seen no hint of joy
But every now and then we raised our glasses and made a toast to his soul.

The brave men beside me sobbed and let their tears flow like streams of an unprecedented waterfall.
We hugged and embraced each other to feel what might've been our last night of company.
I felt no remorse- no sadness, I had not much to look up to
I knew my battallion was to be wiped the next morning.
I let out a deep sigh and took out my wallet,
glancing into the still photo of my massacred family.
I gently wept and prayed to Almighty
To take me into his arms-
To take me completely
To my family
To my family.

It was a cold night and time moved slowly
It was a cold night
It was a night before Stalingrad.

#war #existential #philosophical

Odd Odyssey Poet Aug 31

Breath as Feather

My breath, light as feather, words like dust—find it best
not to speak too much, lest I seem soft as a feather duster.
Dreams of a perfect body, shadowed by many premonitions,
permissions granted only by the mountains where I took life
by the heel—miswriting heal, and climbing that endless hill
toward closure.

I saw a fish in a teardrop, a sad smile crossing its face; and it
weighed the world on its scales. The river’s currents glistened
with depression— so I pushed upstream, crying a mountain’s
worth of water.

I fought not to wash myself away, lying beneath it all, while
an angel kissed my twisted hair; locked my thoughts in place.
Perfectly ready to die, dancing to a song of reoccurring suicide,
a melody only I could hear. Must entail the full act of dying,
feel the strings beneath your fingers— chords played in secret,
as if David himself taught me the strum. To be an instrument
to a horn, to hone your skills, to feel like a big man someday.

Think of this the next time someone says, “Yeah, I’m okay.”
So much hidden, beneath that quiet syllable, an entire ocean
of grief swallowed in one breath.

#surrealpoetry #wordplay #mentalhealth #emotionaldepth #existential #lifeanddeath #dreamimagery #metaphorical #freeverse #introspective