I’ve lost count—
was it the fourth winter or the seventh spring
when the silence curled too tightly around my ribs,
and I mistook it for peace?
When the night stopped being a comfort
and started swallowing me whole?

I’ve lost count—
of how many times I’ve stood at the edge of the thought,
toe curling over the ledge,
heartbeat whispering, ”this time, maybe.”
Of how often I’ve written letters I never mailed,
just to prove to myself I was still worth a goodbye.

There were nights I rehearsed my exit
like a prayer no one would answer—
softly, solemnly,
just in case the universe was listening.

I’ve forgotten the shape of my first goodbye,
but I remember the echo—
how it rang in my bones long after the moment passed,
how it became a second heartbeat,
steady and hollow.

How many bottles did I uncap,
not to swallow,
but to measure the weight of the idea in my palm?
How many bridges did I cross,
wondering if the wind would take mercy
and push me before I had to decide?

I’ve counted calendar days like scars,
tallied time in tear-salted pillowcases,
marked milestones not by celebration,
but by survival.

There’s a number for everything—
beats per minute, breaths per hour,
how long it takes for a wound to scab,
how many milligrams it takes to numb a scream—
but there is no metric
for how many times a soul tries to disappear.

People ask why I’m so tired.
I smile,
because how do you explain
what it means to dig yourself out of your own grave
again and again
with bare, trembling hands?

But still—
I wake up.
Not always because I want to.
Sometimes just because I didn’t succeed.

And yet—
I’m still here.
Tired, yes.
Heavy with ghosts I haven’t named.
But here.

And that has to count for something.

I left the door ajar,
just barely —
a silent plea beneath the noise
of “I’m fine” and
“I’m just tired.”

I wrapped my pain in quiet places,
hid the marks where no one looks —
beneath waistbands,
behind layers,
hoping someone might see past it
without me having to say it.

But every time someone got close,
I turned colder, sharper—
a defense disguised as indifference,
a fortress I hated living in
but couldn’t stop building higher.

They tried, I know they did—
friends with warm hands,
family with concerned eyes—
but I shrugged them off,
convinced I was doing them a favor
by being alone in the storm.

Now the room is quiet again,
the fabric sticks to skin,
and I still can’t say
what’s bleeding inside me.

The world just kept on spinning,
while I stayed stuck,
fading in the spaces between
genuine smiles and forced ones.
And in the end,
everyone seemed to give up
and leave me—
not out of malice,
but because they couldn’t reach
what I was too afraid to show.

But I feel it now,
the echo behind silence,
the weight of a choice unspoken—

this action will have consequences.

I’m not sure why I feel bad,
but I do.
A shy human,
I fear that my silence will speak louder
than my heart ever could.

I’m not ignoring those who liked,
loved, commented, reposted—
I see you, I do,
but my shyness keeps me
from finding the right words.

I should thank them,
but I’m stuck,
swallowed by my own reluctance.

I’ve been here before,
hesitant to share what’s not perfect,
scared it won’t fit the mold,
so I keep it hidden,
a secret between me and the page.

It’s easier to just press ‘like’,
to let my words stay trapped behind the screen,
than to find the right ones
that feel big enough to match their kindness.

I could message them, privately,
but that feels worse,
more intimate in its awkwardness,
and I’d only wish I could say it better
where they all could see.

So here I am,
apologizing in silence,
for all the gratitude
that never quite makes it out.

—a poem for the broken quiet of Hello Poetry

This was meant to be a haven—
ink-stained sanctuary
where silence could bloom into verse,
where hurt could heal
in soft stanzas and shared breath.

But now—
every scroll feels like stepping
through shattered glass.
The comment threads,
once stitched with kindness,
now rip apart at the seams.

Accusations buzz like hornets,
each reply a stinger
piercing deeper into fear.
Names thrown like knives,
defense and damnation
fighting for dominance
in spaces meant for peace.

I see poems
not of love, not of loss,
but of monsters
lurking behind usernames,
of children caught
in digital snares,
of moderators gone silent,
as if safety were a forgotten draft
left unpublished in the void.

I haven’t spoken—
not yet.
But I feel the shadows
pressing against my page,
wondering if one day
they’ll find me,
slip through my poems
with sugary words
and hollow hearts.

What if I mistake poison for praise?
What if I smile at a trap
thinking it’s just another reader
kind enough to care?

I haven’t been touched by it—
yet.
But that doesn’t mean
the fire isn’t creeping closer.

I write in hope,
but I carry worry like watermark—
invisible until held to light.

So I ask,
not just for myself,
but for every young poet
finding their first courage here:

Where are the watchers?
Where is the warning bell?
Who guards the gates
when predators write poetry, too?

I want to believe
this space can be better.
That we are louder than the silence
that lets evil grow.
That we are not just witnesses—
but protectors,
word-warriors
with sharpened pens.

Because poetry should not be
a hunting ground.

And no poem
should end in a wound.

sometimes,  
    i       un-know  
        the shape  
         of self—  
               dissolve before  
                       remembering.

   i sit  
     in the ache  
     of heat,

and nothing
else.

       minutes  
                   dissolve  
   into  
          maybe hours  
or never.

drip,
  drip,
    drip,
      drip.

          (i­ can’t tell  
     if it’s dripping  
           or if i’m unraveling  
                 in rhythm.)

             thoughts            blur,  
      slide,­  
              melt—  
                        into tile grout.

i breathe —
maybe i don’t.
maybe the air is too soft to hold.

    maybe i’ve been  
                      gone  
                          thi­s whole time:

     what was i  
              thinking?
  (was i thinking?)

            just heat,         and water,  
and the pressure of something  
                    heavier  
                       ­ than skin—  
    but not quite grief,

                      not quite anything.

    and still i sit.

       and still,  
                       the faucet sings,  
             and still,  
                    no one knows  
      how quiet  
                       i’ve become.

I hate this hunger, gnawing loud,
a whisper turned into a crowd.
I write for peace, for truth, for light—
yet crave the echo in the night.

A thousand eyes, a million hearts,
I want the world to know my art.
Though kindness rains and love is near,
still something selfish stirs in fear.

Why isn’t enough just enough?
Why does praise feel like fragile fluff?
Why do I ache for louder cheers,
when gentle voices ring so clear?

I count the stars, but chase the sun—
forgetting how the moon has won
my poems over with her grace,
while I still seek a grander place.

I loathe this thirst I cannot quench,
this greedy pull, this inner wrench.
Yet deep inside, I see the root—
a child who just wants to feel absolute.

But let me learn to love this pace,
to write for stillness, not the race.
To hold each word, each soul, each view,
and know—enough is something true.

75. Just a thought. A whisper. A what-if.
74. I test the weight of silence, hold it in my hands.
73. Everyone talks. No one listens.
72. I count cracks in the ceiling, pretend they are escape routes.
71. My name sounds foreign when they say it.

70. I make a list of things I’ll miss. It’s short.
69. I start another list—things I won’t. It’s endless.
68. Someone asks if I’m okay. I forget how to answer.
67. I laugh too hard. It feels like breaking.
66. I cry in the shower. The water drowns the sound.

65. Sleep is a stranger.
64. I lose my appetite. Even hunger forgets me.
63. The mirror doesn’t recognize me anymore.
62. The days blur, smear together like wet ink.
61. I hear my own voice and wonder if it’s mine.

60. I rip old photos apart, scatter them like dead leaves.
59. My heartbeat is a drum in an empty hall.
58. I start talking to shadows. They answer back.
57. I see movement in the corners of my eyes.
56. The walls breathe when I’m not looking.

55. My skin feels too tight.
54. My thoughts are too loud.
53. I try to scream but forget how.
52. I write a note, then another, then another.
51. I set them on fire. The flames flicker like old memories.

50. Halfway there. A relief. A curse.
49. My hands shake. I clench them into silence.
48. I step outside. The world moves without me.
47. The stars blink. I wonder if they’re watching.
46. I lose another hour to the void.

45. My name no longer belongs to me.
44. My body feels borrowed.
43. I stop answering messages.
42. They stop sending them.
41. I bite my tongue to taste something real.

40. I forget what my voice sounds like.
39. Music doesn’t move me anymore.
38. The wind howls. I howl back.
37. I lose track of days.
36. The countdown is all that’s left.

35. I lock the door.
34. I lose the key.
33. I stop checking the time.
32. Time stops checking on me.
31. The air is thick. I choke on nothing.

30. They say people can tell. No one does.
29. My chest feels empty, like I misplaced something vital.
28. I press my ear to the ground, listen for a heartbeat.
27. Nothing.
26. Nothing.

25. The sky is too bright. It hurts my eyes.
24. The moon is too full. It mocks me.
23. I turn off my phone.
22. No one notices.
21. I am a ghost before I am even gone.

20. I stop pretending.
19. I stop hoping.
18. I stop waiting for someone to save me.
17. I stop wanting to be saved.
16. I stop.

15. The countdown is a prayer.
14. The countdown is a promise.
13. The countdown is all I have.
12. The weight of it is crushing.
11. I welcome it.

10. I can’t remember why I started.
9. I can’t remember who I was before.
8. The world is underwater. I am drowning.
7. I let the tide take me.
6. I let go.

5. The choice is already made.
4. I exhale.
3. I close my eyes.
2. The world fades.
1.

They call it a gift,
this body of mine,
but every month it gnaws at itself,
chews the lining of my womb,
spits out blood like a sacrifice
to a world that does not care.

I step outside,
eyes crawl up my skin like ants,
like maggots,
like fingers that never asked for permission.
A whistle slits the air—
a razor against my spine—
I swallow the bile, keep walking.

Mother said, don’t wear that
Father said, boys will be boys
I say nothing—
only dig my nails into my palms,
so deep the crescent moons bloom red.

I dream of shedding this skin,
peeling it back like an overripe fruit,
scraping out the parts that feel *****,
that feel weak,
that feel like they do not belong to me.
I want to be new,
to be sharp,
to be something they cannot touch.

But even in dreams,
they chase me.
Even in dreams,
I run.

She has lived, she has wandered,
loved and lost, dreamed and fallen.
She is not untouched by time,
nor unshaken by the past.
But if she stands beside you now,
if she looks at you with eyes that see
not just who you are,
but who you are becoming,
what else matters?

She is not perfect—
neither are you.
Together, you may stumble,
may fumble through the dark,
may misunderstand and misstep.
But if she makes you laugh,
if she stirs your thoughts,
if she is unafraid to be real,
to be flawed, to be human—
hold onto her.

She may not think of you
every moment of the day,
but she will give you the one thing
that costs her most to lose—
her heart.
So handle it gently.
Don’t try to change her,
don’t measure her love against expectation,
don’t ask for more than she can give.

Instead—
smile when she brings you joy,
tell her when she makes you ache,
and when she is gone,
miss her.

They told me I was loved.
Said it like a fact, like a given, like air.
And I nodded, let the words settle on my skin
but never sink in.

Because love—love is hands reaching,
but understanding?
Understanding is knowing why mine pull away.

I sat in rooms full of people who swore they cared,
but no one asked why my laughter always came half a second too late,
why silence fit me like a second skin.

They called me beautiful, said I was smart,
but never saw the way I flinched at echoes of my own thoughts.
They held me when I cried, but no one ever asked
what the tears were trying to say.

I used to think I was ungrateful—
to have love but still feel lost.
But now I know:
Love can be loud, can be warm, can be everywhere—
and still not speak your language.

So if you’ve ever felt this way,
like you exist in translation,
like love is the ocean but you are still thirsty—
I need you to hear this:

You are not wrong for wanting more.
You deserve to be understood.

They told us tears were trouble,
a crack in the mask,
a plea for attention,
a sign we weren’t strong enough—
so we swallowed storms whole,
let the thunder shake inside our chests,
never daring to let it pour.

They taught girls that crying was dramatic,
a script rewritten to seem small,
a fault in the fabric of being “too much.”
They told boys it made them weak,
that strength was silence,
that pain should be caged behind quiet eyes.

But tears are not weakness.
They are rivers that carry the weight,
a language of the soul
when words fail to hold what aches.
They do not make you less,
only more—
more human, more real, more free.

So cry if you need to.
Let it fall like rain on thirsty ground,
and know—
I will never see you any differently.

Frost laces the earth —
a quiet diamond veil,
whispers of smoke rise,
spilling through the breath of trees.

Snow, soft as forgotten dreams,
drifts over stones, over roots,
its silence pressing close,
like a hand on the chest of night.

The wind, thin and sharp,
skims the hollow of the hills,
pulling shadows into its folds,
sewing the moon into the bones of the sky.

Bare branches stretch,
clawing toward a distant sun,
their fingers white and brittle,
writing cold prayers in the dark air.

Below, a river sleeps —
its pulse muted,
veiled under ice,
the valley cradles it in a long, slow sigh.

In the pause between seasons,
we linger —
half-light and half-shadow,
breathing the fragile quiet of winter,
waiting for what is to come.

There was a time when your laugh was my home,
When friendship was a soft place, a safe zone.
But the world that should’ve cradled you with care
Let you slip through, unnoticed, unaware.

You wore the weight of their words like chains,
And I, too young, couldn’t stop the rain.
I watched you fade, each day a little more,
But no one else seemed to see you soar.

I saw the cracks in your smile,
The way you shrank with each cruel trial.
The halls grew quieter the day you fell,
A whisper lost in a never-ending hell.

They said it was an accident, a tragedy.
But I knew better. I knew your plea.
I knew the way the darkness crept
Into your heart, the one you kept.

The echo of your voice still haunts me,
A call I never had the chance to see.
I didn’t eat, I didn’t sleep,
I drowned in the grief I couldn’t keep.

Your absence crushed me,
I felt the weight of it like a stone.
The world turned its back,
But I was left here…

Alone.

I didn’t know where to go.
I didn’t know how to breathe.
I didn’t know how to scream.
I wanted to vanish,
I wanted to leave.
But your ghost kept me here,
Torn between the silence,
By the shattered fear.
I’m falling apart—
Falling…
apart..
.

The echoes hum of paths not taken,
soft as sighs the wind has spun,
whispers trace the dreams forsaken,
things undone, the race unrun.

A fleeting glance, a step unsteady,
a hand not held, a word unsaid,
a love that lingered, never ready,
a spark that burned but quickly fled.

The door half-open, never entered,
the letter lost upon the tide,
a name once spoken, now surrendered,
to silence deep and time denied.

Regret, a shadow, lingers lowly,
mourning what we failed to claim,
yet life moves on, though sad and slowly,
softly sighing just the same.

You hold my words like treasures,
tucking them away in the folds of your heart,
saving each photo, each whisper,
as if they are pieces of me you never want to lose.

You say my name like it’s something soft,
something safe, something yours.
I hear it in the way you miss me,
in the way you tell me I’m beautiful,
as if the word was meant only for me.

Every little message, every sleepy thought,
you catch them, hold them, answer them—
never letting them fade into silence.
You listen, you see me, all of me,
not just what the world sees, but what I am.

You don’t just want my touch,
you want my mind, my dreams, my poetry.
You let me be the poet, and you, my muse—
but I think you are the real poem,
the kind that lingers long after the words are read.

And if love is a dream, then let me never wake,
because with you, every moment feels real.

What if I set the pen down
and let the ink dry in its well,
leave verses half-formed,
like abandoned prayers
that no one will answer?

What if I stop trying,
let the weight of silence
settle in my throat,
unspoken words fossilizing
into something brittle,
something useless?

What if I forget how to dream,
let my hands go slack,
my thoughts unspool
into empty corridors
where even echoes
refuse to stay?

What if I stop writing,
stop speaking,
stop being—
until I fade like a name
erased from the margins,
a story untold,
a breath no one remembers?

What if I give up?
And what if no one notices?

Oh, restless ache that stirs my soul,
a whisper woven in the wind,
you call with voices soft and low,
yet echo deep, yet burn within.

You stretch beyond my mortal hold,
a silver thread, a trembling light,
a distant hand I cannot grasp,
yet reach for still in endless flight.

To yearn is but to walk the edge,
to chase the dawn, to beg the night,
to thirst for what the stars conceal,
to wander lost yet burn so bright.

You shimmer in the lover’s sigh,
in letters sent but left unread,
in lips that part with words unsaid,
in dreams that wake and turn to dust.

To yearn is but to know the ache
of time that bends but does not break,
of shadows cast by what could be,
of steps retraced through memory.

Oh, yearning, cruel and bittersweet,
you press your weight against my chest,
a longing not for what has been,
but for the dream I never met.

I hold you close, though you are pain,
for you are proof that I still live—
a heart unscarred by hollow days,
a soul that dares, that dares to give.

Love is the quiet certainty of morning,
the warmth of sunlight slipping through the blinds,
touching my skin like a whispered promise:
I am here, and I will always return.

It is the steady rhythm of a heart not my own,
the echo of laughter I can still hear in the silence,
the way your voice turns my name
into something softer, something sacred.

Love is not just the grand confessions,
not just the roses and candlelit nights—
it is the hand that reaches for mine
without thinking, without hesitation,
as if our fingers were always meant to intertwine.

It is the way you tilt your head when you’re listening,
the way you tuck a strand of my hair behind my ear,
the way you turn ordinary moments into poetry
without ever writing a single word.

Love is the gravity that keeps me steady,
the pull of the moon on restless tides,
the way your presence feels like home
even when I am far from everything familiar.

It is the space between heartbeats,
the hush before a kiss,
the silence that somehow speaks louder than words—
a promise that does not need to be spoken:
I am yours, and I always will be.