I used to look up to success.
Glossy and distant,
like yachts pulling into sunlit harbors.
While my brothers and I posed,
thinking cool was something you wore.
A picture snapped becomes a prophecy
one we’re sold before we understand
we're being trained to consume.

We watched the boats drift in
like kings returning from invisible wars.
And my brother,
bold, naïve, beautiful,
pointed and said,
“I’ll have one of those.”
When asked how he’d pay,
he simply explained:
“I’ll get it from that wall, just like you do.”

God, the way children believe -
no fear in their hunger,
no shame in their dreams.

Maybe I’m just older now,
my lenses fogged from wear.
But all I see is people
wrapped in things
not selves, not stories,
but trinkets, masks, trophies.
Like they forgot that real wealth
was once built on time,
on tending soil,
on tears held back
while saying goodbye.

Maybe I’m not better.
Just tired of pretending.

Fifteen years I spent hiding,
living so cautiously
I might as well
not have lived at all.

I thought if I became invisible enough,
it wouldn’t hurt when no one looked.
But now I see it:

No one's looking.
Not really.
They’re caught in the hum -
faces lit by screens,
minds dragged along
by headlines, algorithms,
urgencies that mean nothing
when the world goes quiet.

And I don’t want to be them.
I never was.

So what was I hiding from?
Not them.

Maybe just from the part of me
that believed I had to earn belonging,
to twist myself into shapes
too small to hold a soul.

I always tell myself I'm a people-pleaser,
a labrador in a crowd,
always wagging, always watching.
But maybe I just wanted connection.
Maybe I was trying to make sure
everyone on the bus had a seat.

And maybe
that’s not so bad.

I no longer look up to success.
I look for faces in the street
at how someone treats the waiter,
the ******* crying on the curb,
the man with cardboard for shoes.

We are all human.
All breakable.
All still learning
how to love
without masks.

And I want to shout it,
before greed drowns our voices,
before we forget
how to hold one another
without asking what they own.

(Three voices, one truth)

I

You laugh like silver bells,
(Or is it a siren's call?)
You hold the door with grace,
(Or push them down the hall?)
They call you cruel, a storm of spite—
But I see sunlight.
You remember little things,
ask about my day,
make me feel like I matter.
(Do they not matter? Do they not exist?)

They

We whisper, we warn—
(You never listen.)
We've seen the mask slip,
(You never glisten.)
A shadow moves beneath your praise,
But you still chase.
We’ve watched you excuse, rewrite,
pretend you didn’t see.
What will it take?
(Does it have to happen to you?)

You

I am the sum of all they see,
(Yet less than half of what I seem.)
I am the echo, sharp and sweet,
(A kindness dressed in quiet teeth.)
Do I love, or do I take?
It’s not my choice—
(It’s yours to make.)
And you have made it.
Again and again.
So why ask what I am,
when you've already answered?

Conflict

They carve your name into curses
You wear their spite like silk
I stand at the altar of your shadow,
offering silence,
wondering if I am blessing a saint
or kneeling before a sinner.

You may not see the final destination—
but every step, every fall, is part
of something forming. The direction
you're heading will always be patient.
Even when you feel sick from believing
you're stagnant, you are still shifting.
Still becoming.

Don’t worry! The silence has its own
voice. And the waiting has meaning,
even when it feels so cruel. In time—
it will all make sense.

The past you came from will become
a mirror. And your future self will look
into it and see how far you’ve really come.

Bite into an idea— rows of teeth, tension tight.
Crowded smiles feel so exposing— but this one,
it gnaws deeper. The tension between teething
regrets and tethered faith feels so frayed, as if
the cord was always a little too short to begin
with.

I’m not riding the wave— just swimming a little
longer in my dreams; watching surfers sail off
while I sink into thought. But I surf the internet,
researching the cultivation of infinitude—
whatever that means. Diving into unfathomable
depths, only a few steps in and I’m already losing
my breath.

Have I sprouted yet? Most days, my sadness
drowns in my anger. Then a spark of joy appears—
brief, fleeting— but its glow only makes me
so sad again. And that sadness simmers back into
rage, and the loop begins once more.

A cycle.
A seesaw.

A silent crusade to love myself again.
But the journey never really ends. Even while
searching for one. we push forward—again,
and again— until we find a better end.

Everything is so terrifying for the introvert going outside—
the overthinker rehearses all of their prestored sentences,
Sitting on impeccable lines with no trace of uncertainty,
but ever so certain that it’s what the ear wants to hear.
The hopeless romantic knows the picture of a good love
story, but can’t seem to paint that picture for themselves—
Because imagination never quite imitates real emotion.
                                                        ­         And it’s irritating.

But haven’t I been them all? A single character playing
too many roles— the pencil in my story, trying to sketch
out the scenery of a better life. The pen, trying to write
out a good script that fits in the ink folds of my cerebellum.
My skin wears the wrinkles of time, bruises like an overcoat—
a weathered face, but it’s body has no spring in its step.

I’ve been depressed. But when you’re made to grow up too
fast, to keep pace with the world, what else do you expect?

Still, don’t expect me to be anything less than my level best.
Elevated fears go up, while my hope quietly goes down.
Yet on the upside? I stopped pretending to flip my frown
upside down. Some days I’m up. Most days I’m so down.
But I’m not always down— just holding onto the little hope
I find in creation; beauty painted out from my frustrations.
Like the weather, my mood keeps shifting. And whether
you’re caught in a long winter after a short summer,
Don’t worry— it’s all just a passing season.

What if I told you, in hush not heard, but felt,
That the ache you name as longing
is the echo of a promise kept?
Not in some far-off fortune,
but in a chamber of the Now
where time folds in upon itself
like linen soft with memory.

You want it deeply, don't you?
That golden glint behind your ribs,
the ache that doesn’t bruise but burns,
not a wound, but a whisper.
It is not born of lack.
It is the future’s fragrant breath
blooming backward into your soul.

These aren’t dreams, my love,
they are breadcrumbs dropped
by a wiser You who’s already danced
through that doorway,
wearing the life you crave
like sunlight wears the morning.

Intuition isn’t guessing,
it’s remembering,
as the river remembers the sea.
Desire is not begging,
it is recognition,
a soul pointing to its own reflection
just beyond the veil.

So walk like it’s yours.
Breathe it. Speak it.
Dress your days in its colour.
Let the vision not be a someday shrine
but a mirror, a map, a marrow.

Because what you want is not ahead,
it is within,
waiting only
to be believed in.

I was alive — when I look back.
I can preserve it, but I can’t get it back.
I want to shine, but I’m not a pearl.
I want to cry, but I’m not a girl.

This society says: “Be happy, be composed,”
But never lets us feel free and exposed.
I wore a mask I wasn’t allowed to take off.
I’m a boy in a world that calls me free —
But I’ve forgotten what free even means to me.