When you don't reflect, on cause and effect, you're leaping right to the middle
With half of the clue, apparent to you, you will never unwrap the riddle
But when you know how
Milk comes from a cow
You'll be over the moon, finish work before noon, cause you'll know cat comes before fiddle
I love you.
And because I do, I want to say I’m sorry,
Not for the sins I may have committed, but for who I am.
Unknowingly, I’ve slowly suffocated you—
Smothered you with attention, and not for your benefit but mine.
And though my heart may not stop to think about my actions, my brain does,
Sending warning after warning, when I may step too far.
And there’s only one answer why neither my brain, nor my heart can stop.
It’s because—
I love you.
A stone dropped in a lake
Is never just a stone
It’s a message sent outward
A consequence unfolding
A story written in widening rings
We act
The world answers
We hesitate
The world answers
Even silence has a sound
When it echoes long enough
A kindness given today
Might bloom in someone else’s tomorrow
A careless word
Might bruise a heart we never see
A choice avoided
Might open or close doors we didn’t know existed
The water remembers everything
The weight of our decisions
The shape of our intentions
The tremble of our fears
Every ripple
Gentle or jagged
Moves outward into lives
Into futures
Into moments we’ll never witness
We stand at the shoreline
Holding our stones
Not knowing whatever we release
Travels farther than we can imagine
In this truth
Lies both the danger and beauty
Of being human
Watching.
Staring.
Filming.
But,
Not -
Seeing.
Stopping.
Preventing.
The art of being a bystander -
Is not art, but bloodshed,
It is an act of inhumanity,
To watch Black bodies fall,
The modernised version of lynchings,
Where everyone is complicit -
And no one is innocent
The world’s cruelty knows no bounds,
Where the spectacle of Black death -
Brings people together as one,
From different communities and cultures,
To share the moment - where a Black life is gone
When it comes to the death of a Black person,
The world becomes desensitised to the horrors,
That are done to us -
To them it’s a way to gain followers -
A way to boost their social media platforms
Even videos of animal neglect gets more sympathy,
Their empathy extends only to animals,
But when a Black person is tortured -
For no reason,
The world claims it was our fault
The bystander effect was just an excuse to hide from -
Being held accountable,
Of being complicit - an accessory to murder
14 May 2026
I swear
it happened—
just not
in this universe.
Yesterday,
the cereal mascot
winked
with the other eye.
Proof,
obviously,
that timelines
shuffle
like cheap cards.
People say
I misremember.
Cute.
As if
my brain
would ever
get things wrong.
No—
Reality
is the one
that keeps
glitching.
I mean,
why trust memory
when you can trust
a cosmic typo.
I’m starting to believe
something strange is happening.
Not reality shifting.
Not timelines colliding.
No it is so much Worse.
People are discovering
their memory
might be held together
with chewing gum
and confidence.
Someone swears
the bear was Berenstein.
Another person would testify
under oath
that a movie quote
said something else.
Suddenly we have got
amateur dimension detectives
solving crimes
against human recollection.
Because admitting
“I remembered wrong”
was apparently
too unrealistic.
Yeh, right, mate.
ORIGINALITY OF EFFECT
classical
cosmetic
simplicity
engaged
isolated
in QUESTIONS OF LIGHT
distinctly
faded
mis-understood
conventional
beginnings
so POSITIVELY ADMIRED
narrated
compassionate
personification
admired
allegorically
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A stranger buys coffee for the man
whose hands tremble counting pennies~
the warmth lingers past the last sip,
carrying him to the bus stop,
where he lifts a suitcase
for the woman balancing an infant.
She smiles all the way home,
slices extra sandwiches
for the neighbor’s kids
whose mother works doubles.
The neighbor, grateful,
mends the fence
for the old widow next door,
who now tends her garden
with less ache in her knees.
Months later,
the same stranger
finds his tire changed
in the rain
by hands he doesn’t recognize—
but the rhythm of kindness
is familiar.
Accompanying memoir vignettes can be found at: poetrysoup.com/short_stories/an_angel_in_blue_scrubs_13589
or
poetrysoup.com/short_stories/the_poor_little_matchstick_girl_13580
Flower flourishes, then follows the fruit,
Dark clouds gather, only then comes the rain,
Seed’s sown at first, and then arises sprout,
Cause and effect, ah what a sure-set chain!
________________________________
Sanskrit translations | 13.01.2026 | cause/effect, change, fruit, rain, seed/sprout, quatrain
Note: Sanskrit has thousands of Subhashhitams, words well said set in a quatrain and metered. Transliteration of one talking about cause and effect follows.
Udeti poorvam kusumam, tatah phalam |
Ghana-udayam praak, payah tat antaram |
Nimitta-naimittikayoh kramah ayam || Subhaashhitam ||
You wax
I wane
You yin
I yang
interrelation’s
correlation
leads to great gain
Again?
waxing
waning
yinning
yanging
dizzying
fizzying
doppelganging
nouning verbs
verbing nouns
how happy
we are
when the fair
comes to town!
To hell and back
and again
So much vitriol and betrayal
from perilous men
Vilified, ambushed, and
left for dead,
But little did they know you
wouldn't stay down but get up instead
RISE!
From lowly ashes to
burnished armor
Up from the wreckage___
stronger, wiser, the victor
Battle-worn now, up from the raze
Not defeated; again, you rise and amaze
What is it really all about?
this season at the end of the year
it feels so false and lacking
one word that's so evident is insincere
The reason for the season
has been missed out on the whole
as most folk feed themselves
more interested in getting their goal
An attitude of gratitude is amiss
asking more, what am I going to get?
a real change of heart is required
seeking to give makes a good effect
If more of us thought of others
before considering just little old me
we could make this world a lot better
bringing smiley faces for all to see
Then we could all have joy abounding
during this jolly old Christmas time
making it effectively marvellous
so that ink would turn into rhyme!
You came as a effect.
You will leave as a effect.
So don't let causes affect your effectiveness.
As I look into the mirror
I see a face that is not mine
As if I got lost in the jagged lines
Every fracture that breaks
Ends up revealing
My real face
The more and more
I look
The more it shows
I shouldn't have
Hid behind doors that were closed.
Let the light shine
And the dark will not recede
As much as become the light itself.
When the world is so divided
Tense and anxious and cloaked in fear
It’s essential to simply remember
There will always be a dawn.
Peace is not impossible
It is in fact simple
When we take a breath
And just exhale
Letting whatever we hold within, out
And letting a little more light in.
(9/22/25)
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