Echoes of a peculiar sound fill my rib cage.
A sound escapes my mouth,
And my whole body goes alert,
Trying to determine
Whether there is danger.
It recognises the sound,
But not quite.
It searches through memory,
Turning over forgotten pages,
Trying to remember
What this feeling is.
I stiffen at this familiar,
Yet distant sensation.
I try to read my body language,
Hoping I'll understand.
But it is a foreign language.
Why does every fibre in me
Insist
I should recognise it?
Like it's a language
That once rolled off my tongue
Without needing translation.
But my eardrums puzzle it out.
All I hear
Is a peculiar sound
That feels borrowed.
The room fills
With its echoes.
The longer I listen,
The more I realise
Something is missing.
It sounds...
Hollow.
Like an actor
Who knows every line,
But has forgotten
How to mean them.
And then,
I recognise it.
Not because it became familiar—
But because I remembered
Who it belonged to.
It was my laughter.
So that's why
My body couldn't place it.
It had been so long
Since joy had spoken
In my own voice.
A child…in a foreign land.
Where we come from—it's all just sand.
Deserted the desert...
but still feeling tethered
to the place that feels
forever home.
Yet—that place
we can no longer roam.
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Left the home land with legislative laws.
As they contained loads of legality flaws.
The colour of my skin cutting at me like a saw.
No jobs, no work, it was my last straw.
Left the land I knew to go and find more.
Knowing that the Foreign Land would have something better in store.
When I moved—I thought my troubles would be soothed.
But found other trouble,
my persistent presence made the locals grumble.
Looked at as an immigrant,
but every day—
a defendant.
"They are stealing our jobs!"you say.
"They are stealing our wives!"you convey.
You never stopped to think—
That just maybe...
we're trying our best?
Yet...
we will always
be seen as less?
At home,
we've got families to feed,
we've got people who are in need.
But what you fail to understand—
We can't help them...
unless we are in the Foreign Land.
I don't feel angry much.
Betrayal stings, I end up feeling disappointed.
Disappointed in them and myself.
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: 1st place 2026
Wandering the world
in far-flung foreign lands
I found myself
in the capable hands
of total strangers
whose innate curiosity
was matched only
by overt generosity
poor tho' they were
yet never complaining
their politeness and hospitality
was life-sustaining
one can only hope
should they call my name
I am able to repay the favour
and gratefully provide the same
You’ve no time to distinguish me
Same goes for me about you
The echo comes, like waves at sea
We’re mental twins, we see the truth
But we are different to each other
Cause passport is the new religion
And you will never call me brother
And I won’t argue your position
Though I will never change my mind
About your prejudiced views
They’re good for you, but I have mine
Which you would never like to choose
We’re foreign and we're quite the same
We’ll never meet, we won't regret
You know it all, you won the game
But I’m not saddened by this fact.
A Foreign Mouth Feeds Illness
Republican Today October 11th 2025
Dissertates oath as majority vote elected democracy to speak on behalf of itself.
As of mid-October 2025, the U.S. Senate is dominated by legislative inaction due to an ongoing government shutdown and partisan gridlock. The Republican Party holds a 53-47 majority
Hearing free speech in elected office must be across the entire earth or democracy destabilizes and civil unrest creates war within sound unlent.
No munitions need halt?
All minds require halt
Suggestion of internal document
Mid Terms are loses in gains
Capital gains taxes and reductions
Reductions in privatized expansion
If impulse markets
Markets as attempt to bypass work
Work a I'm ready awaiting labor
I loved you
the way one loves
a cathedral with shattered stained glass,
not knowing whether light
would ever pass through again.
On the bridge at Leidseplein,
I held your hand like a prayer
I never dared to utter.
It was cold.
But love,
warmer than all the painted walls
of Van Gogh.
The tram passed
between us
like a final judgment.
And we said nothing.
Because sometimes silence
is all we can give
when our hearts
bear too many scars
written in dead languages.
We loved each other
between two stations,
between a promise and a “maybe.”
At Albert Heijn
I bought you chocolate,
and you smiled
as if I had given you
an entire life
in a green wrapper.
I saw you then
in the empty church at Nieuwe Kerk,
where a candle lit itself.
Perhaps it was for us.
Perhaps for those
who never learned
how to stay.
And now,
as the rain falls on the pavement
where we once walked hand in hand,
I miss the way
you held my silence
like a poem
yet to begin.
I loved you.
In a foreign city,
with a foreign heart,
but with a light
that came from Above,
from a place
where love
never ends.
Nothing lonelier than being alone in a crowd
standing still in a bustling sea of aliens
they speak their dialects and look
right through me as if I wasn’t there
Feeling insignificant I don’t belong
and everybody knows it
like an imposter trying to fit in
but wearing the wrong camouflage
I try to merge with oncoming traffic
but they ignore me and won’t let me in
refusing to give me a chance
I am not worthy and they let me know it
Secretly part of me thrives in their ostracism
content that I have made my attempt
that like amber in layers underneath
there is more to be found in silence
Inspired by movie “Lost in Translation”
AP: 3rd place 2025, Honorable Mention 2025
A soul's etched cartography
compasses spins a needle frantic
above a parchment of skin.
A map…
Each line a river I've drowned in,
blood I waded and divide
each faded scar
a language scarlet, unfound!
My soul no longer shapes
foreign land of waste annihilates
behind my eyes...!
I see nothing
deserts exhale silent sacred sands…
Hearts pulse with unheard drums
an archway to oblivion
weathered eons I haven't lived.
I drift towards a courtyard,
run riot in green eternally…
Where faces blur like old cars
my mind whispers, doom from afar
on winds that don't remember me.
Trace the contours of my lost continents
in this cartography of bone and shadow.
Forgotten by the wraiths of the moon…
that echo within my chambered heart.
A tarnished key lies heavy in my mind,
unlocking doors behind infinite walls… sublime!
The map unrolls, a skin of dust
where landmarks shift like whispers lost to a gust.
I trace a fracture, jagged, unfamiliar...
place where my phantom feet wandered, chillier
than memory allows. A tongue they spoke is lost...
A melody unheard of, at dearly paid cost
within the crumbling walls of an infernal keep...
A cracked, blackened mirror shows a face
though the eyes hold echoes of a storm!
The history etched strangely warm
borrowed grief, a second skin I wear
conceals scars, wounds I cannot bear.
A raven calls from a bleached white tree
a language older than time, the bones of me.
Its shadow stretches, long n out of place
across a sun-blackened, desolate place.
In this dreamscape, my essence fled.
A testament of words better unsaid, unread!
Foreign soil clings, stubborn, dark embrace
reflecting back lost a vacant face.
In stillness, a faint whisper sighs
you search mirrored eyes
meaning n memories...
A land you left behind
names you can't recall or hide...
A journey destined to fall...further inward
strangest sights reside as I…
Dissolve upon the burning tide.
I was born with a foreign hunger, inherited from the shadows of those who were,
they placed a dream in my hand like a shining blade and told me to carve my future,
but the metal rusted in my deep sleep, leaving me to waver on paths of mist,
now I chase smoke through iron halls, where ambition drips
from the jaws of broken clocks, time defies me with a grin of merciless gears—
I run, and it devours every step, every moment stolen from me,
I am weary of digging graves and calling them milestones,
when each dug grave is just another reminder of what I have not been,
in a world of rusted dreams where choices are carved in cold stone,
and I, a traveler through stopped clocks, seek light among the ruins,
but only shadows answer me, whispering the burden of unfulfilled desires.
Amidst their poor land
Where their roots born
Ancestors' cherished land
Their identities shifting
Became foreign hearts.
I planned futures with you,
but your happiness came first.
When anger calls, you shut off
I must stay composed,
must communicate,
must hold it all together.
Smile. Talk nice.
The bare minimum is not enough.
Imagine giving your life
to someone who would build with you,
then leave when joy runs dry.
Words once meant something.
Vows weren’t meant to break.
I could climb mountains,
cross oceans,
fly the world
still, not enough.
So take this version of me:
hollow, nonchalant, unsubscribed.
If attention is currency,
I will devalue myself
crash the market.
When I speak a foreign language
I cross my eyes and dot my teas
Little wonder I substitute ~
‘Thank you’ for ‘Please’
Am just but a foriegner ,in this vile land,
I find no comfort,i see no peace,
This is alien,the food tasteless,
The water salty,the trees dry quick.
Am just but a traveler ,passing through this valley,
No hope nor future,am doomed to death,
I cant uprooot a grass,the mountains i cant shake ,
The custom is weak ,their grace a nuisance.
Am just but a sailer ,in this violent sea,
Currents beat strongly ,wind betrays me,
Pirates rule this world ,justice a treasure not found,
Rest is scarce ,profit is refutable.
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