You drift back softly,  
like the memory of a song  
I once knew by heart
and just as I begin to sing again,  
you disappear into silence.

Each hello feels like sunlight  
breaking through storm clouds
warm enough to believe  
the storm is finally over,  
but fleeting enough to remind me  
I’m still caught in the rain.

It’s like something calls you away  
right when your laughter  
begins to sound familiar,  
just when your smile  
feels safe again.

I reach for you,  
hands trembling with hope,  
but my fingers close on shadows,  
empty air left colder  
by your absence.

You're always free to leave,  
yet each quiet withdrawal  
cuts deeper than words could  
a wound invisible, yet felt  
in every moment you’re not here.

But even if I don't understand  
the tides that pull you away,  
I accept this part of you,  
the hidden currents,  
the silence you need to breathe.

Because caring for you means  
loving even the spaces between us,  
holding gently  
the mysteries you keep  
just beyond my reach.

It feels like cold wind
hitting your face on a rainy day
not enough to hurt,
just enough to make you stop walking.

I miss my friend.
The one I could tell everything to,
the one I wanted to understand
down to the quietest parts of her.

I see something beautiful
a painting, a color,
a moment with no words
and I think, she would’ve loved this.

Sometimes something cool happens,
and I want to tell you right away.
It’s not life-changing—just something
I know you’d smile at,
something you’d make more fun
just by reacting to it.

And then I remember.
I don’t get to hear yours anymore, either.
No little stories,
no funny thoughts in the middle of your day.

I miss that the most
how your stories stayed with me,
long after the day had ended.

There’s a quiet ache inside me not the sharpness of sorrow,
but a weight gathering in the hollow places
the cost of carrying myself so long, so well
that even silence feels heavy in my hands.

I’ve evolved.
I’ve rebuilt the ground beneath my feet,
crafted a beautiful, disciplined life
honest in its architecture,
but still, every night closes in solitude.

This is not sadness that asks to be comforted,
not grief that breaks me open with sobs.
it's the emptiness that evolution could not erase.

I stand in my own world,
the only witness to the quiet, daily heroism
of showing up, of becoming
wondering why, after everything,
hollowness remains.

I feel it:
a subtle tension behind my ribs,
a hollow ache in my gut,
the slow, tired heaviness in my eyes
the sensation of standing at a distance,
even while present and awake.

Spiritually, I whisper:
I’m proud of my growth,
but I never meant to grow alone.
I’m not sad just tired
of being the only one who knows
how far I’ve come.

This is the invisible cost of self-growth
the soft strength of waiting
without bitterness,
the loneliness of having no one
to witness the transformation.

Still, I carry on..........

Strong is the man I’ve become
I’ve learned to love the reflection  
that once felt foreign, distorted, untrue.  
I’ve carved dreams from discipline,  
built strength from sleepless nights  
spent chasing life with relentless steps.

Yet beneath skin grown tough,  
scars remain quiet reminders  
of a child forever searching,  
eyes wide, heart hopeful,  
reaching toward invisible warmth.

Every goal I set, every height scaled,  
bears a subtle whisper
an echo of longing,  
a hidden prayer:  
"Let this be home.  
Let this be meaning."

Some days I barely hear it,  
lost in triumph, bathed in sunlight.  
Others, it trembles louder
woven intricately, softly  
into every victory I seek,  
every summit I climb.

Though strength carries me,  
though love fills me,  
still the child inside whispers,  
asking quietly, gently
"When will it be enough  
to finally feel whole?"

I’ve tried to paint you  
on canvases stretched by dreams,  
mixing colors borrowed from sunsets,  
oceans, and moonlit whispers.  

Yet each stroke feels incomplete,  
the hues too faint, too still,  
unable to breathe  
your magic into life.  

How can I capture  
a spirit lighter than air,  
a soul like hidden music,  
in a static frame?  

Your essence eludes  
brushes and palettes,  
like trying to bottle lightning,  
or hold starlight in my palm.  

Each painting falls short,  
though I chase perfection endlessly
because art can’t contain  
what makes you beautifully alive.  

Maybe perfection lies  
in the failing, the yearning,  
knowing no color or canvas  
could ever truly hold you.

Night drapes itself
heavy, dark, a silent cloak
rain murmurs secrets
as it kisses pavement.

Somewhere distant,
a quarter slips
from nervous fingers,
metal tumbling
a ringing, spinning hymn,
a solitary flip.

I know this sound,
this silver dance;
my thoughts often spin
just like this coin,
caught midair, uncertain,
waiting to land
on heads or tails
past or future,
hope or regret.

Last night,  
in sleep's strange sanctuary,  
I saw you running  
through shadows,  
your silhouette threaded  
with quiet fear
darkness chasing your heels,  
like the hidden truths  
we never spoke aloud.

Instinctively,  
my arms lifted you  
from the tangled paths,  
your breath quick  
against my neck,  
as the world behind us blurred,  
fading softly  
into echoes and mist.

Together, we climbed  
a mountain cloaked  
in velvet night
familiar, yet unknown  
the ascent steep and endless,  
each step carrying  
a silent language  
only our hearts understood.

I felt the gravity  
of every unspoken word,  
the questions hanging  
between us like stars  
in an uncertain sky.  
Yet still, we rose
above the voices,  
above the darkness,  
into quiet air  
that held only  
our shared truth.

When I woke,  
I wondered  
if mountains hold meaning  
beyond dreams
if there's something  
we still climb,  
separately, silently,  
longing to understand  
why our paths  
remain intertwined.

At night, when silence softly breathes,
I’ve quieted storms, calmed the waves,
Yet shadows stir beneath the ease
Whispers rise from hidden graves.

Daylight sees me chasing bliss,
Sunlit smiles hide the cost,
But moonlight speaks of all I miss
Echoes sacred, treasures lost.

When darkness blooms behind closed eyes,
The heart recounts each stolen scene;
Tender moments, fading ties
Ghosts of all that might have been.

Sleepless, bound by quiet chains,
Haunted gently, endless ache;
Memories pulse in muted veins,
Dreaming wide while wide awake.

Night unveils what daylight veils,
Sacred sorrows left to grow,
Silence sings of unseen trails
Paths I wander, but can’t let go.

Maybe it’s always there, just behind my thoughts
this fear that shadows every step I climb:
What if I finally reach everything I’m working toward
and I’m left standing on the peak,
the world below me,
but no one beside me to see it, to care, to know?

Sometimes I picture my dreams coming true
the sun-drenched days
by the sea I’ve imagined since I was young
and yet, the joy of arrival
feels thin, almost hollow,
if there’s no one to meet my eyes and understand
what it cost,
what it meant to become this version of myself.

All the things I chase success, growth,
the proof that I am more than what was handed to me
lose their shine in the silence.
When I let myself feel it,
I realize: it’s not the goals themselves I long for.
It’s to matter.
It’s to know that who I am stripped of achievements,
titles, armor is seen as valuable,
that my existence is enough.

I know why I ache for this
because in my childhood,
love was never unconditional.
Praise was measured,
worth was earned.
I learned to work, to strive, to outgrow my past,
but the emptiness lingers
when there’s no one to share the view,
no one to tell me:
You mean something. You are not alone.
You are loved for simply being.

Maybe, at the end, it isn’t about the summit at all.
Maybe it’s about finding someone
who will look at me and see the whole journey
the boy who learned to build himself from scratch,
the man who longs to share
not just the trophies,
but the quiet hope of being truly known.

In every room you brighten,  
every idea you chase,  
every moment you feel most alive
I’m with you.

Not as an echo,  
but as presence.  
Not behind you,  
but beside  
as someone who truly sees  
the way your mind glows  
when it meets the world with wonder.

I don’t walk your path to define it.  
I walk it to admire it.  
To remind you, quietly,  
that your thoughts are safe here,  
that your voice is heard,  
that you never need to become  
anything but exactly who you are  
to be cherished.

I understand you in the way  
that doesn't ask for permission
it simply knows.  
Knows the weight you carry  
beneath your laughter.  
Knows the brilliance in you  
that even you forget sometimes.

You never have to earn this.  
This is the kind of presence  
that stays because it wants to,  
because it believes in you  
not just when it’s easy,  
but always.

And wherever we are,  
whatever we grow into,  
I’ll still be here to admire,
rare soul you are.

I am a library lit with a thousand tongues,  
Fluent in puzzles, in people, in plans undone  
I trace constellations in minds not mine,  
A scholar of signs, of subtext and time.  

I’ve worn every mask, played every part,  
Spoken with grace while tearing apart.  
I’ve answered questions I never lived,  
And gifted truths I could not give.  

My hands know tools from every trade,  
Blueprints etched and craftsman-made.  
Yet when I turn those hands to me,  
They tremble—unskilled, uncertain, unfree.  

I map out others like open books,  
Read between their silent looks.  
But I’m a cipher, lost in ink
A page unread, too scared to think.  

I solve their riddles, calm their storms,  
Perform the role that wisdom performs.  
But mastery hides from my own gaze,  
Like smoke in mirrors or memory's haze.  

They call me clever, sharp, well-spun  
A jack of all trades... master of none.  
But worse: I’m a stranger in my own skin,  
A craftsman locked from the world within.  

I know the gears, the wires, the code,  
I’ve carried minds like heavy loads.  
Yet I trip inside where shadows swell,  
No map to chart my private hell.  

A wielder of skills, yet bound just the same.
Not by sword, nor rule, nor written decree,
But by the self that still evades me.

Oh merry-go-round of life,  
masked revelers dance unseen,  
in halls of velvet whispers rife,  
where power dons a darkened sheen.

Golden masks conceal the eyes  
that govern secrets none will know;  
in crystal halls, they hypnotize,  
pulling strings from down below.

Chandeliers drip with hidden truths,  
champagne flows through veins of glass,  
above the crowds, aloof, uncouth,  
masters laughing as puppets pass.

Spinning dreams of carousel gold,  
gilded horses blind and bound,  
fortunes spun, bought and sold,  
silken hands spin round and round.

Beneath masks carved in subtle grin,  
privilege sips its chosen wine;  
behind velvet ropes of sin,  
the poor outside peer through and pine.

In corridors of painted night,  
tales told by shadows’ breath
hidden rules by candlelight,  
the poor dance blindfolded to death.

Yet the music spins, surreal, lush,  
a fevered dream in masquerade  
where those who rule whisper “hush,”  
as justice sleeps and debts unpaid.

In the quiet of this room,
your gift breathes softly,
a music box spinning
Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy,
turning each note
into whispers of your laughter,
echoes of your fingertips
that touched this very tune.

How strange,
this tiny thing, delicate as porcelain,
holds worlds within
the gentle way you smiled
as you placed it in my palm,
like handing over
a key to forever,
wrapped in melody and grace.

It spins,
and the air fills with you,
like starlight caught in sound,
reminding me of thing
you painted gold
and nights wrapped
in whispers and warmth.

This box, small enough
to hold in my hand,
vast enough
to cradle galaxies of you,
has become
more than every Christmas
and every birthday
it holds the only gift
I’ve ever needed:
your presence,
lingering, infinite,
in every note,
in every breath.

Body dysmorphia whispers in the silence,
a critic in my own skin
never satisfied, never letting go,
as if every step toward health
is still a shadow behind some glass

I eat well, I lift, I rest
I do all the right things,
but the mind wants more,
demands more,
insists I’m only one pill,
one injection,
one transformation away
from “enough.”

Sometimes the urge is sudden:
a voice offering shortcuts
Oxandrolone for muscle,
Retatrutide, Ozempic for the razor’s edge,
promising: “just a little,
just until you get there,
then you can stop.”
But I know
that’s the trapdoor
where enough always means less,
where the hunger grows sharper
and the mind grows thinner.

I think of others
how many live like this,
never knowing peace
with their own reflection.
How many get shamed
for bodies they already suffer within?
Social media magnifies the noise,
judgment scrolling endlessly,
never asking what it costs
to wake up and feel
wrong.

I was taught respect
for others, for the journey,
for the infinite variations of a human soul.
Why is it so rare to see that now?
When did we learn to hate ourselves,
to turn away from who we are?
we once were,
born unashamed,
free of measurement?

so I remind myself:
these beliefs are borrowed,
learned,
not true.
I can rewrite the script,
learn to see the reflection
not as an enemy,
but as a story in progress,
a body I carry,
not a burden to escape.

When you speak,
the world aligns again
words threading softly,
reassuring my restless heart.
I savor those small moments,
your presence gentle
like morning light
across empty rooms.

Yet, your silence
it fills me with questions,
leaving me wandering corridors
of confusion,
wondering
if I’ve stepped wrong,
spoken poorly,
or missed some hidden truth.

Have I broken something fragile
in this unseen bond?
This uncertainty echoes
without end,
heavy and unspoken,
yet I carry it willingly,
holding tight
to the quiet hope
that my care alone
can be enough.

Even unanswered,
even without certainty,
my heart chooses
to remain
beyond reasons,
beyond answers,
beyond all understanding.

There’s a sailboat moored in my chest
anchored gently in quiet waters,
its hull shaped by storms weathered long ago,
wood now polished by waves
of solitude and strength.

Its sails breathe gratitude,
lifting gently with the dawn’s soft breath
a breeze scented with fresh coffee
and quiet laughter of birds.
It’s in these moments I understand
happiness isn’t a distant shore,
but the ocean beneath me now,
vast, patient, and alive.

Twilight brings gentle echoes
reminders of storms that guided me here,
waves born from childhood tides,
currents flowing from quiet lessons learned,
moments of struggle transformed into wisdom.

I used to fear drifting
beneath moonlit skies,
believing safety lay only
in charted lands unseen.
But now, drifting feels beautiful
trusting the currents of inner knowing,
guided by constellations of growth,
and quiet whispers of the past.

And when the night grows still,
when no wind fills these sails,
I sit gently in silence,
embracing peace like an old friend
to listen deeply to the ocean inside.

Now I sail gently,
through tranquil mornings and thoughtful evenings,
grateful for every breeze and calm wave,
navigating by life’s quiet miracles
morning coffee, painted canvases,
soft rain tapping gently on a car roof,
conversations nourishing my soul,
a sky wide open, full of stars.

This boat isn’t seeking
faraway lands for promised happiness;
instead, it savors joy
in every wave beneath it,
in each breath of salt-filled air,
every heartbeat a gentle reminder.

I’m sick today.  
Not just in my body
but in the part of me that used to believe  
I’d wake up okay.  

It hurts to move.  
Hurts to breathe.  
Hurts to pretend I’m not tired of fighting  
just to stand.  

And I wish
that I didn’t have to do this  
alone.  

That I didn’t have to wake up  
and remember  
how heavy it is  
to keep existing  
when nothing feels like mine anymore.  

My body is sore.  
But it’s my mind
that keeps collapsing.  
Not loud.  
Not with screams.  
Just in silence
the kind that nobody sees  
because I still smile sometimes.  
Because I still say “I’m fine.”  
Because I don’t want to be a burden.  

I miss the things  
that used to give me meaning.  
The little joys  
that used to carry me  
without asking anything in return.  
Now everything I do  
feels like it costs too much.  
Even breathing.  
Even hoping.

The butterfly was born
in the belly of a leaf,
where no one could see her
just a soft, blind hunger
curling through green silence.

She never saw her mother.
She never knew
if someone waited for her to arrive.

She only knew
how to eat the world
until it disappeared.

Then came the stillness
a cocoon spun from instinct and fear.
Inside,
her body came apart in the dark.
She dissolved into something
that was not her,
and waited.

When she emerged,
she shook with light.
A butterfly
delicate as breath on a mirror.
No one told her she was beautiful.
She just flew,
because the wind said go.

She didn’t know
it would only last
three days.

But oh
how she loved them.

She loved the morning dew
on dandelions too tired to bloom.
She loved the ache of sunlight
slipping through broken clouds.
She loved
landing on children
who thought she was magic
but never asked her name.

And on the third evening,
as the sky turned to ash,
she rested
on a wildflower
no one had watered.

Her wings were torn.
She couldn’t lift them.
She watched the stars come out,
one by one,
and wondered
if any of them were watching back.

When the wind came again,
she didn’t follow.
She only closed her eyes
and waited to be forgotten
gently.

She never loved the rain  
not like those stories tell it.  
It wasn’t some whimsical dance;  
it was cold,  
and she had enough weight on her shoulders  
without the sky adding more.

But inside her,  
something still flickered
not loudly,  
not for show  
a kind of warmth that only revealed itself  
when the world wasn’t looking.

She didn’t chase illusions.  
Her dreams had roots,  
not wings
and when she imagined,  
it was with intention,  
as if even wonder  
deserved to be held carefully.

She bore her burdens  
not like armor  
but like roots  
tangled, deep,  
invisible to most  
but shaping everything above the surface.

She was not light-hearted.  
She was deep-hearted.

And the world  
impatient with stillness  
often mistook her silence for absence,  
her softness for retreat.  
But I saw the truth:

she was waiting to be seen
the way stars are:
recognized
for the light they’ve always given.

I watched other children from windows,
Their parents pointing at butterflies,
Explaining why the sky turns purple at dusk,
Answering "why" with patience, not sighs.

My questions echoed in empty rooms,
Bounced off walls, returned to me unanswered.
I learned to swallow them down like stones,
Heavy in a belly already hungry for more than food.

At night, I'd whisper to dust motes dancing
In the single beam of hallway light that slipped beneath my door.
They became my first science lesson,
The universe's smallest planets orbiting in my personal dark.

I pressed my small palms against encyclopedias,
Pages stuck together from disuse,
And taught myself words too big for my mouth,
Because no one was there to simplify them.

When I found a dead sparrow in the yard,
There was no one to explain death or grief.
I buried it alone with questions as its gravestone,
And learned that curiosity is sometimes paired with pain.

The other children learned wonder sitting on shoulders,
Seeing farther from the height of love.
I learned it on my knees, gathering shards of broken things,
Trying to understand what held them together before.

My curiosity wasn't nurtured it was necessary,
A rope I braided myself to climb out of the silence.
Each question formed another knot to grip,
When small hands had nothing else to hold.

Within my chest, a garden pulses,  
roots tangled in quiet intensity;  
each heartbeat cultivating colors unseen,  
vibrant blossoms born from tender ache,  
and silken petals steeped in silent longing.

Every sensation cascades gently inward,  
streams of subtle fire carving valleys
softly etching canyons of profound empathy,  
where whispered moments pool,  
reflecting constellations beneath my skin.

I sense life's weight in feathered touches,  
grains of joy and sorrow balanced delicately,  
their subtle pressure leaving echoes  
as intricate as veins upon a leaf,  
or dewdrops trembling on a spider's web.

My emotions are twilight symphonies
notes both luminous and shadowed,  
harmonies constructed from delicate pain,  
rhythms measured by breaths held and released,  
each silence profound as a thousand melodies.

Through such sweet torment,  
my spirit crafts meaning from tenderness,  
forming quiet revolutions in perception;  
sorrow softens into insightful wisdom,  
fragility births unyielding strength.

Thus, I tend lovingly this internal wilderness,  
cherishing its delicate complexity;  
for in bleeding softly, courageously,  
I discover the poetry woven deeply within
my heart, gently wounded, eternally alive.

You hid her like a folded paper bird
tucked behind your ribs
a secret even your shadows
were too afraid to name.

But sometimes, when the world grew quiet,
she’d press her palm to the glass of your eyes:
a flash of laughter sharp as April rain,
a question whispered to the moon
(“Will you hurt me?”)
before you locked her back inside.

I learned to watch for her.
When you’d still, a heartbeat too long,
your voice a pendulum between yes and no,
I’d leave honeyed words on the windowsill
“It’s safe here. The night is just a blanket.
Come out, and we’ll name the stars something silly.”

You built her a fortress of “not yet” and “no one stays,”
but I swear I heard her humming once
barefoot, half-alive,
tracing circles on the cold linoleum
while you slept.

I wanted to give her the world:
a room without echoes,
a door that didn’t bruise her knuckles,
a morning where you’d both wake
and not know whose breath
was whose.

Now, I imagine her still there
the only hymn your heart ever sang true,
the uncaged thing that made you
more than just survival.
I hope she knows:
when I traced the scars on your armor,
I was searching for her fingerprints
the girl who turned your blood to wildfire,
who painted galaxies in the hollows
you called empty.
She wasn’t a fragment. She was the lens.
Through her, I saw you:
unflinching, unmasked,
alive.

I won’t claim space  
you haven't softly opened,  
but in the gentle breath  
between silence and sound,  
I remain

Not as a shadow lingering  
nor a ghost from yesterday,  
but as someone who always saw you,  
clearly, tenderly,  
even when your heart feared  
what it meant to be truly known.

I know your quiet battles,  
the way you fear losing control,  
how it aches to reveal yourself,  
to step from shadow into light,  
uncertain if anyone could truly hold  
the weight and wonder of your soul.

I've seen you craft careful armor,  
watched you dance on edges of yourself  
longing to be witnessed,  
yet afraid the world  
might look too deeply,  
or not closely enough.

But I saw.

I saw the trembling courage  
behind every hesitant smile,  
the hidden poetry you wrote  
with whispered breaths,  
the strength in softness  
you thought went unnoticed.

I witnessed your silent bravery
the quiet way you loved,  
the gentle way you tried,  
the powerful beauty  
in simply showing up,  
even when you felt unseen.

I do not grieve like they tell me to.  
There are no tidy goodbyes,  
no soft release.  

My grandparents live  
in the other house.  
The one untouched by time.  
Where I am still small,  
feet dangling off the couch,  
the scent of soup curling through rooms  
like the breath of something holy.  
They are smiling. Always smiling.  
The kind of smile that says,  
You are safe here.
And I believe it.  
Even now.

People say they are gone.  
But I can walk through that house  
with my eyes closed.  
I know each creak in the floorboards,  
each photo frame on the hallway wall,  
the way the light hits the kitchen tiles  
at 4 p.m. on Sundays.  

How can they be gone  
if I still feel their warmth  
when the sun folds over my back?  
If I still hear their voices  
in the quiet hum between heartbeats?

Death asks me to acknowledge it.  
To grant it a name, a seat at the table.  
But I won’t.  
Because to name it  
is to end them.  

And I can’t.  
I won’t.

They are still in that house
laughing softly in the next room,  
calling my name like it’s the only one that matters.  
And I am still running to them,  
arms outstretched,  
believing in forever  
the way only a child can.

Let the world keep spinning.  
Let the clocks forget them.  
But in me,  
they live without age,  
without ending.

There’s an old house
at the edge of my memory,
paint faded to whispers,
roof weathered
by quiet storms
no one else sees.

I still walk past
each evening,
pausing where roses
once bloomed,
petals lost gently
to seasons
we didn’t notice
were changing.

Windows darkened,
but reflections remain
ghosts of laughter,
voices that felt
like candles
in empty rooms,
glowing softly
with something
I still can’t name.

Inside, silence
gathers like dust
over tables set
for conversations
we never finished,
chairs waiting
patiently
for someone
to come home.

And though doors
have quietly closed,
I keep a single key
pressed against my chest
a quiet promise
never broken,
held softly
in the hollow
between missing
and letting go.

Maybe someday
you’ll pass this way,
notice curtains
move slightly
like breath,
and wonder
who lives
in the spaces
we left empty

only then realizing
it was you.

Before the stars rehearsed their roles,  
before gravity sang mass into form,  
I was not matter dreaming of mind  
I was the silence before silence,  
not erased,  
but unread.

No dark,  
for dark implies the possibility of sight.  
No void,  
for even void is a presence named.  
I was the note  
before music knew it could be sung,  
an unnamed vector in a world not yet measured.

Philosophy once claimed I was nothing.  
But what is "nothing," if not the most misunderstood concept?  
Not emptiness but unmanifest.  
Not absence—but essence, yet to become.

Plato said we are born forgetting,  
that the soul knows before it sees  
perhaps what we call "birth"  
is not beginning,  
but remembering through veils.

And Leibniz wondered:  
Why is there something rather than nothing?  
Why this symphony of laws,  
this harmony pre-engraved in the bones of being?  
Might we, too, be written  
into that cosmic score?

Kant taught that behind all perception  
lies the noumenon the real,  
forever beyond the grasp of sense.  
If death is the end of appearances,  
could it not be  
the beginning of truth?

And what of consciousness  
that unyielding riddle?  
Neurons fire, but the spark is not explained.  
Subjectivity the "I" remains  
unreduced, unmeasured,  
a ghost in the formula.  
Even science, in its highest honesty,  
admits: We do not know.

So let us not pretend  
that the end is written.  
Let us not confuse silence  
with absence.

If I was nothing,  
then I was the kind of nothing  
that births galaxies.  
The same kind of nothing  
that split into stars and eyes  
and minds that now ask why.

I do not fear the end  
for what ends  
may only end from here.  
And “here” is a narrow keyhole  
through which we glimpse  
an infinite door.

So let me be everything  
in the space between
not to defy the void,  
but to dance with its mystery.

For if I return to nothing,  
let it be  
the kind of nothing  
that gave rise to this.

We walk on streets paved with promise,  
Eyes fixed on billboards of better tomorrows
A car, a title, a corner office glow,  
As if joy were hiding behind glass windows.  

“If I just get this,” they whisper, breathless,  
Chasing dreams sold in scripts,  
But no one tells them the price of the purchase  
Is often their soul, spent in slow, silent slips.  

They gather gold and call it purpose,  
Fill their homes with things but not their hearts.  
They dine in excess, sleep in linen,  
Yet lie awake wondering where the warmth went.

Because happiness is not in the having,  
Nor in the claps of crowds or the weight of rings  
It lives quietly in the ordinary,  
In morning light, in laughter, in small, sacred things.  

To be present is an act of rebellion  
Against a mind wired for what’s missing.  
Gratitude, not comfort, is the real achievement.  
To see now as enough is the beginning of wisdom.  

We were told to want more, always more,  
But never taught to want what "is".  
The truth is this: a fulfilled life  
Is not built it's noticed, moment by moment.

So choose not the mirage, but the meadow.  
Choose breath, and silence, and peace.  
Let contentment be your revolution,  
And presence be the wealth you never cease.

Even on the best days,
there’s something missing.

I can laugh.
I can win.
I can build the kind of life
that looks like everything I wanted
but when the day ends
and the noise dies down,
I still feel it.

That hollow echo
where something sacred used to sit.

I don’t say it out loud.
Most people wouldn’t understand
how you can have everything
and still feel like
you lost the only thing that mattered.

It’s not a name.
Not a title.
It’s the quiet certainty
that something real
once lived here.
And nothing since
has fit the same way.

Some mornings,
there’s a dream
warm,
soft-edged,
familiar.
And for a few stolen seconds,
the world makes sense again.
There’s peace.
A laugh I’d trade everything to hear.
A presence that makes the air feel right.

I wake up smiling.

Then I remember.
This is not that world.

And no matter how far I go,
how much I carry,
there’s a room in me
that never closed its door.

Still furnished.
Still lit.
Still waiting
in the quiet.

Because no matter how much joy
the world offers me
it never brings
what I miss most.

We grew up fighting a quiet war,
no bruises visible,
just the aching silence
of truths erased
and stories twisted
until we doubted our own breath.

We learned love as a language
that always came with conditions,
spoken softly,
yet it echoed loudest in denial,
in gaslit nights
where our words
fell like smoke
into empty air.

Every win we ever earned
was weighed
and found wanting,
every step forward
met with eyes
that refused to see,
voices that refused to acknowledge,
until our victories
felt hollow,
until pride became
a stranger’s word.

We grew strong
not because of them
but in spite.
We learned to read shadows
because honesty wasn’t spoken
in our homes.
We learned to see clearly,
sharply,
because our truths
had to be hidden,
carried in clenched fists
and tight stomachs
and lungs that never
quite filled.

Our anger isn’t cruelty;
it’s clarity.
A boundary finally drawn
around hearts
that learned too early
to hold what should have been held
by hands
that refused to reach.

I grow,  
like rivers do
not knowing where the ocean ends,  
only that I must keep moving.

Each sunrise asks more of me  
to be wiser,  
braver,  
less like who I was.

But what if this never stops?  
What if peace  
is just a carrot on a string,  
dangling from the hand of time?

I run,  
even when I long to rest  
my own breath  
a ghost chasing me.

The road shifts beneath my feet  
stone turns to sand,  
and still I press forward,  
scared of stopping,  
scared of never arriving.

But what if the finish line
was never meant for me?
What if all this running,
all this becoming,
leads nowhere
but further from stillness?

What if I spend my whole life
searching for a place
where meaning and peace
finally hold each other
and never find it?

What if I grow
into a thousand versions of myself
but never into the one
who can just
be?

In the quiet corners of my mind, they whisper
Voices borrowed from others, not my own,
Ancient echoes of what I "should" become,
Seeds planted in childhood soil, stubbornly grown.

I reach for joy like sunlight through leaves,
Then pause, hearing judgment in phantom tones.
"Who are you to chase happiness?" they ask,
As if pleasure were reserved for everyone but me alone.

These borrowed fears drape heavily across my shoulders,
A cloak I've worn so long I've forgotten its weight.
The validation I craved as a child never came,
So I learned to question my own compass, hesitate.

Yet beneath these voices lies a quieter truth:
My heart's compass pointing toward what's real.
It whispers of gardens I long to tend,
Of authentic paths my spirit longs to feel.

Perhaps freedom isn't the absence of these voices,
But hearing them clearly as the ghosts they are
Not prophets or judges or keepers of truth,
But merely echoes from wounds that stretch too far.

So today I practice holding two truths gently:
The conditioning that shaped me, the joy that calls me home.
With each step toward what makes my soul sing,
I reclaim the right to a happiness entirely my own.

They see me standing now
strong as oak, bright-eyed,
curious with dreams spilling
from my fingertips,
my laughter like sunlight dancing
softly on morning rivers.

They name me confident,
smart, joyous
a painting of effortless grace.
But no one witnesses
the hidden brushstrokes,
the deep shadows beneath.

They weren’t there
when I walked halls of failure,
feeling small beneath towering fears,
when whispers of inadequacy
echoed louder
than any voice of praise.

They did not see me
wandering homeless within myself,
aching for a hearth,
a place warm enough
to shield me
from life’s cold neglect.

Books became my shelter,
pages whispered hope
when silence drowned my dreams;
learning was the only light
strong enough
to outshine despair.

They see joy blooming,
but they don’t see
that happiness grew
from seeds scattered
in barren lands
watered by tears
shed quietly at midnight.

They don’t know
that my wonder now
is gratitude
born from absence,
a love for tiny miracles
discovered in scarcity.

Behind every confident step
is an unseen struggle,
a quiet war waged
within the heart
the fierce battle
to learn love
for the self reflected
in mirrors cracked by doubt.

So look deeper
beneath my laughter
lies strength tempered by sorrow,
wisdom forged by pain.
My joy, radiant and simple,
is a hard-won grace,
a melody crafted gently
from silence.

I used to think greatness
was about being smart
razor-edged minds,
clever systems,
the fastest path to the top.

But I see it differently now.
The ones who rise
aren’t always the brightest
they’re the ones
who stayed
when it stopped being exciting.
Who worked when no one clapped.
Who chose belief
when progress felt invisible.

Mastery has no shortcuts.
You can’t cram depth,
or download meaning.
People waste years
searching for the fastest way in
as if greatness is a door
you can trick open.
But the truth is:
the long road is the only one that lasts.

But that’s not enough.

Because if what you’re doing
drains your spirit,
if you wake up each day
dreading the hours ahead
then that’s not life.
That’s just survival
with a timecard.

We’re told to endure,
to push through jobs we hate,
to wear misery like it’s noble.
But I don’t believe in building a life
on a foundation of quiet despair.

You don’t owe anyone
your peace.

This is your one life.
One.

Not a rehearsal.
Not a test.
Not some endless wait
for later.

You were not born
to be efficient.
You were born
to feel sunlight on your skin,
to taste things slowly,
to lose yourself in a moment
so fully
you forget to check the time.

Work hard yes.
Struggle when you must.
But only for something
that brings you closer
to who you really are.
To what matters.

Because life isn’t about
titles, deadlines, or clocks.
It’s about meaning.
It’s about experience.
It’s about the feeling of being here,
with your soul intact.

So pick wisely.
And if you’ve picked wrong,
change.
It’s not too late.

Just don’t trade your only life
for someone else’s version
of success.

As I age, the shape of meaning shifts  
no longer angles,  
no longer sharp.  
It flows now,  
like water escaping the hands  
that once tried to hold it  
too tightly.

I used to chase truth  
like a mathematician  
equations chalked across my chest,  
defenses drawn in logic lines,  
proofs stacked like walls  
between me and what I felt.

But life  
never stayed still long enough  
to be measured.

Fulfillment crept in  
through cracks I didn’t see
in the hush between thoughts,  
in the pull of a sunset  
that made no sense  
and needed none.

I searched for truth  
in clean absolutes,  
but found it instead  
in the soft murmur of uncertainty  
in the way my chest rises  
when something just feels right,  
even when I can’t explain why.

Still,  
the hardest part is knowing  
whether that voice I follow  
is really mine
or a whisper borrowed  
from someone I thought I had to be.  
Is it my soul speaking,  
or the echo of survival?  
Even feeling can wear a mask.

Yet I listen.  
More than I ever did.  
I sit with the sound,  
wait for it to settle,  
and trust that if it brings peace,  
it’s worth following.

Now I see  
truth isn’t a fixed star.  
It’s a flicker in each of us,  
a constellation drawn  
by different hands.  

I’ve stopped needing the answer  
to be universal.  
I’ve started letting the question  
be enough.

And in that surrender  
in that unspoken trust  
that meaning lives in the marrow,  
not the math  
I feel more alive  
than I ever did  
trying to be correct.

I’ve carried chaos
like a keychain
noisy as my home;
but lately,
I’ve found doors
opening
into spaces
I call mine.

Each step
is a quiet arrival
into freedom,
unlocking peace
like rooms
filled gently
with silence,
a stillness
I’ve dreamed of.

In the park,
nature unfolds
tiny worlds
beneath my fingertips
grass whispering green,
trees stretching slowly,
animals stitching
quiet stories
into earth’s tapestry.

I paint
the poetry
of sunlight on leaves,
tracing colors
only nature knows;
each brushstroke
a soft conversation
between my heart
and the quiet
of the world.

Here,
I feel earth turning.
a gentle rotation
underneath my feet
grounding me,
steadying my soul,
reminding me
I belong
exactly
where peace
meets freedom.

This is my sanctuary,
the place
where chaos
melts quietly
into creativity
where poems bloom
like wildflowers,
and my thoughts
finally feel
like home.

A child is born  
with wild eyes and open hands
no name but wonder,  
no path but presence.  
The world is a canvas  
until the brush is taken away.

Soon come the voices:  
“Sit still.”
“Be good.”
“Don’t cry.”
They mean love,  
but they teach shame.  
And the child learns  
to trade truth for approval,  
tears for silence,  
dreams for permission.

In schoolyards and dinner tables,  
the shaping continues
bend here, break there.  
Become what makes others  
comfortable.  
Make yourself small enough  
to fit inside their fears.

The voice of the world  
becomes familiar.  
And over time,  
it sounds like your own:  
“You’ll fail.”
“You’re not enough.”
“This is just the way things are.”

You grow older,  
but feel no closer to yourself.  
A stranger in your own body,  
dressed in expectations,  
numb from years of applause  
for roles you never auditioned for.

Until one day  
the silence becomes unbearable.  
The mask cracks.  
Something inside stirs
a grief you can’t name,  
a fire you never lit  
but always carried.

And in that ruin,  
you hear it:  
the voice that was buried  
beneath all the noise.  
It doesn’t shout.  
It whispers:  
“This isn’t who you are.”

That’s when the real growing begins
not the growing up,  
but the growing back.  
Back to the wonder,  
back to the wild,  
back to the self  
you were always meant to be.

Happiness lives
not just at journey’s end,
but in the whisper of steam
curling above a fresh-brewed cup,
warm ceramic pressed
to grateful hands.

It breathes in sunlight
scattered softly
across a windshield,
the gentle hum of wheels
carrying you nowhere special,
yet everywhere beautiful.

We chase horizons,
holding joy captive,
bound tightly to goals
forever waiting,
a tomorrow
that never arrives.

Yet here it waits
in the stillness
between each breath,
the quiet triumph
of every rep lifted,
every drop of effort spent
in the silent poetry of sweat.

Listen closely;
the wind whispers softly
in grass grown wild,
in solitude’s serene bench,
in the laughter of a friend,
in footsteps softly echoing
down familiar streets.

Do not hold your happiness hostage
to distant promises;
find it waiting quietly
in every simple moment,
asking only
to be noticed.

I move through days like ancient streams,  
Each moment caught in amber light
The sacred grace in mundane things,  
The beauty hiding plain from sight.

I pause where others only rush
To touch the fragile, intricate art  
Of ordinary miracles,  
Each one a softly beating heart.

They chase the glittering, hollow dreams,  
The ceaseless noise that fills the air,  
While in my hallowed solitude,  
I breathe a deeper, quieter prayer.

I walk apart, but never lone,  
My world a constellation vast;  
The quiet truths I hold like stars,  
My steady steps, unhurried, cast.

I rarely speak the language shared  
By those who dance the crowded floor,  
Yet freedom blooms within this choice  
To value stillness, seeking more.

Though hurried shadows flicker past,  
Their vision blurred by constant pace,  
I stand within my own true light  
It's more than fine to claim this space.

For somewhere else, kindred souls  
Are breathing slow in time with mine,  
Other hearts who dare to pause,  
Embracing life's unhurried design.

Together, distant yet aligned,  
In quiet truth we find our way
Not common, no, but wholly free,  
And that is sacred, come what may.

In sterile halls, cold silence screams,
hospital lights slice through dreams;
my casted arm, my leg confined,
pain more bearable than my mind.

Machines whisper rhythmic sighs
each beep a truth, each pause, a lie.
My eyes scan doors, swing left then right;
no footsteps rush to ease this night.

I search the empty chairs again,
hope extinguished, feelings thin.
How can silence feel this loud?
How can absence feel so proud?

Parents gone, their choice so clear
my heart whispers, "Wish you were here."
Did I fail, or am I unseen?
Worth defined by spaces between.

Nurses pass with hurried feet,
their fleeting smiles incomplete.
"Do you need something?" they softly say
"I need someone who wants to stay."

I sit alone with distant thoughts,
my mind tangled, stomach in knots.
If family means love, then why,
is love the thing I can't rely?

The stomach knows what the mind forgets
a hollow vessel curved to hold
all we've swallowed but cannot speak:
grief folded into itself like origami,
words collapsed to fit inside the body's vault.

We carry silence there, dense as stone.
The unspoken grows heavier
settles deeper beneath the ribs,
becomes the ghost that haunts our hunger.

And in the chest, breath hesitates,
draws itself thin and trembling,
afraid to disturb what's settled below.
Each inhalation measured and cautious,
each exhale holding back its full release

as if the body understands
that to breathe completely
might dislodge the carefully packed archive
of everything we couldn't bear to name.

My soul is the wind  
whispering softly through lavender fields,  
in Provence,  
where my essence lingers  
in gentle waves of purple peace,  
perfuming your thoughts  
with tender quietude.

My soul is the breeze  
that skims the Seine,  
in Paris,  
brushing lightly past Notre-Dame,  
carrying dreams from cobblestones  
to café corners  
an endless waltz of hopeful whispers.

My soul dances in Brittany,  
wild and free  
across cliffs carved by tides,  
caressing ancient stones,  
holding secrets  
of salt-sprayed memories,  
bold yet beautifully delicate.

My spirit soars  
over Normandy shores,  
tracing golden sands  
and solemn echoes,  
a timeless breath  
of reverent gratitude,  
gracing fields of poppies.

My heart flows  
through Bordeaux's vineyards,  
rippling gently  
through emerald vines  
heavy with summer’s sweetness,  
a quiet joy  
aging gracefully in the sun.

You can find me,  
in the Alps,  
a swift wind gliding  
past peaks cloaked in snow,  
crisp as clarity,  
untamed, alive  
with infinite possibility.

I am everywhere at once,  
a gentle gust in the Loire,  
a playful swirl through Lyon,  
the quiet calm of Corsica’s shores
every breath  
of France  
holds me tenderly.

So when you feel the breeze  
brush softly against your skin,  
know it’s my soul  
forever moving,  
always present,  
loving and alive,  
in the wind over France.

One day,  
one whispered lie
lodged like a splinter in the soul  
can twist the whole arc of a life.  

It begins in silence:  
a mother’s cold stare,  
a father’s absent hands,  
a lover’s careless word
the moment they spill their brokenness  
into the chest of someone still soft enough to believe.  

They do not heal.  
They do not even try.  
Instead, they stitch their wounds into others,  
threading needles of shame and smallness  
through skin still learning how to feel the sun.  

And so a child, a friend
hungry for love, starving for meaning
swallows the poison without knowing,  
wears it like a second skin,  
carries it like an invisible wound.  

The tragedy is not just the breaking  
it is the living with the break unseen.  
It is the way we bow to the weight,  
believing it is the shape of who we are.  

Some spend a lifetime  
beating their fists against the walls of their own mind,  
blaming themselves for a prison they did not build.  
Some drift like ghosts,  
never knowing why the light always feels too far away.  

This is the quiet evil:  
to tear into a soul,  
to leave it bleeding and silent,  
and call it weak for not healing itself.  

And yet
somewhere deep beneath the wreckage,  
a sliver of defiance stirs.  

A small, stubborn truth  
a breath against the weight of centuries
begins to whisper:  

You were never the broken thing.  
You were never the wound.  
You were only the light, buried alive
still burning, still yours to claim.

I walk in light now,  
stronger, steadier,  
yet sometimes
I miss the rain.  

There was a strange, aching beauty  
in the way sadness wrapped around me,  
a soft, invisible hand  
pressing me deeper into myself.  

When the world cracked open,  
so did I
and in that breaking,  
I touched something pure,  
something even joy could not unveil.  

Sadness made every moment vivid:  
the weight of breath,  
the tremor of hands,  
the way a single tear  
could baptize an entire memory.  

It was not despair I loved,  
but the doorway it left ajar
the invitation to strip away everything false,  
and find, at the center,  
a tenderness so raw it almost sang.  

Even now,  
as I build, as I rise,  
there are nights I long  
for the blessed unraveling,  
for the heavy, holy ache  
that once taught me  
how much meaning lives  
in the quiet places pain touches  
and makes beautiful.

I learned loneliness
before I learned to speak,
a child quietly building a home
from silence,
walls thick enough
to hide pain, fear,
everything I couldn’t afford
for the world to see.

I watched love through
my friend’s living room window,
parents who smiled without conditions,
voices softer than the edges
I’d grown accustomed to.
I’d wonder
were their hearts made differently,
or was mine?

In that emptiness,
I taught myself how to move
three steps ahead,
reading faces like books
I’d never fully trust
because trusting
meant losing,
and losing meant returning
to a quiet room
with no one waiting inside.

Yet, behind every shield
I raised,
every hurt I inflicted
just to prove I was still here,
was a child desperately
trading pieces of himself
for scraps of approval
tiny affirmations
that someone could care.

And today,
I still carry that child,
his silent void tucked within
my ribs,
aching in quiet hours,
whispering that no success,
no strength, no victory
will ever compare
to feeling loved
without having to earn it.

At night,
the truth of this absence
returns:
I would trade
everything
every breath, every triumph,
every dream
just to feel
what it’s like
to truly be someone’s child.

In rooms painted quiet with words unsaid,
a boy learns silence like scripture,
memorizing loneliness as if it were
a language only he could understand.

Walls held his secrets in cracks and whispers,
childhood decorated in fragile hope
and the delicate terror
of never being enough
to earn what should be free.

He grew inside mirrors
reflecting disapproval,
searching for kindness in eyes
that turned away
their love dangled like distant stars,
brilliant yet unreachable,
teaching him patience in pain.

Small fists clenched tightly
around invisible truths,
vulnerability punished
with stinging silence,
emotions folded neatly
and hidden beneath beds,
where shadows played pretend
and shame settled as dust.

Neglect etched lessons
deep beneath young skin,
a quiet rage became armor,
each scar a silent promise
to never reveal
what weakness felt like again.

Yet, beneath those defenses,
he dreamed of oceans wide enough
to drown these ghosts,
to break chains he never asked to wear,
determined to turn inherited darkness
into a light he could call his own.

Still, some nights
he hears echoes
from distant rooms,
reminding him gently,
the child within never left,
just learned to speak softer,
waiting patiently for someone
who’d finally listen.

One day I want to paint with you
brush to canvas, worlds aligned;
to follow colors as they bloom,
a vector deep into your mind.

Your art a quiet revelation,
depths unseen, yet clear to me;
every stroke a conversation,
glimpses of infinity.

Teach me how your colors speak
subtle hues your soul invents;
guide my hand when lines grow weak,
show me shades that silence meant.

In art we’ll bridge the space between,
where minds meet beyond the known,
capturing truths the heart has seen,
painting worlds that feel like home.

And when my palette mirrors yours,
I’ll understand your silent grace,
drawing closer, opening doors,
to paint reflections of your space.

Sometimes
when the world goes quiet
and I am left alone
with the soft hum inside my skull
I hear them.
Not one voice,
but a thousand.

A symphony of ghosts
wearing my tongue.
Telling me who to be.
What to fear.
What to want.
What to hate in myself.

They sound like me
but they are not me.

They are the weight of every look
I mistook for love.
Every silence
that taught me shame.
Every rule
spoken or implied
engraved in the marrow
before I ever had a choice.

They are the applause I bled for.
The warnings that made me small.
The comforts that came with a cost.

And I wonder
how do you find truth
in a mind you did not build?

What if the self
I’ve been trying to become
was never lost
only buried
beneath decades of conditioning
that spoke kindly
and caged beautifully?

They say to be aware
is to be free
but awareness is a wound.
It opens your eyes
to how little was ever yours.

We are born soft.
Open.
Wild.
And then,
bit by bit,
we are rewritten
in the handwriting of others
until we forget
we ever had a voice of our own.

So what is freedom?
Not escape.
Not rebellion.
It is the quiet revolution
of remembering
your original sound.

The soul’s first whisper
before language.
Before fear.
Before you were made
into someone else’s reflection.

At night,
when my mind won't stop
and every thought feels loud
I picture you next to me.

I see your face clearly
like you're actually here.
Your breathing steady,
your warmth beside me
and suddenly,
everything just stops.

It's quiet.
Calm.

I close my eyes,
feeling safe,
believing for a moment
you're really here,
lying next to me,
telling me it’s okay
to let go,
to sleep.

And somehow,
just imagining you
is enough.

It’s raining again
how familiar,
like a breath I’ve held for years
and forgot how to exhale.

I find myself wishing
the pain would rise
sharpen, sting,
cut deeper than it should.

There’s something honest in the ache,
something warm in the cold.
It hurts,
but it’s the only thing
that still feels true.

There’s a comfort in hurting,
as if the storm understands
what silence never could.
As if the ache knows
what was lost
better than words ever will.

So let it fall.
Let it soak the skin
and whisper old truths.
Because in the end,
it’s not the memory that lingers
it’s the way it still
makes me feel alive.