There is no middle ground for girls like me,
just a thin, cracking line of who we’re allowed to be.
Too old for swings in the fading park light,
too young to be trusted out late at night.
Too grown for dolls on a bedroom shelf,
too childish to speak for ourselves.
Too pretty?
You’re begging for eyes.
Not pretty enough?
You’re no one’s prize.
Bare face?
You look unwell.
Lipstick on?
You’re cheap as hell.
No boyfriend?
No one cares.
Have one?
They count your stares.
Too loud?
Sit down.
Too quiet?
Don’t drown.
Too soft?
You’ll break apart.
Too strong?
You’re hard of heart.
Every choice wrong.
Every step watched.
Growing up girl
is losing before you’ve fought.
It leaves traces in the body long after it leaves the room
Some of them are soft, like flowers pressed between pages
Just the way I like them
Like light that lingers on walls after the sun is gone
Forming the most perfect silhouette
But not all are kind; others are heavier
Like coffins we never asked to carry
Built from endings we did not choose
Sealed with everything we could not say
I keep living between both
My love sinks sometimes, dragging whole seasons downward
But hope,
Hope refuses to learn how to drown
And I have started to understand that memory is not always mercy
It can become a place you go to visit
Or a place you never leave
So I am now learning to hold what happened
Without letting it become the death of me
To remember to survive the remembering
To choose life even when memory calls me back
To everything I lost
To choose breath
Over collapse
Love.
I feel stuck in between
In between happy and sad
In between grief and life
In between good and bad
In between smart and dumb
In between old and young
What do you do when you are stuck?
Wish for luck?
Pet a duck?
Wade out of the muck?
Owls fly back into the dark,
threading between the trees.
Predators and prey slip away
appeasing their shared unease.
Playing hide-and-seek
between gusts of breeze
in the pre-dawn hush,
of the lilt and lull,
such a tease.
In-between this day and night,
awake and asleep, in degrees,
conscious and the like,
is where time forgets to count.
Happenstance leans in and pleads
to go between the sheets,
pulling edges apart, unpicking seams,
blurring shadows into mists,
until nothing left is what it seems,
when going in-between,
going in-between!
this is life
confusion experienced
loneliness felt
pain common
happiness lucky
seeing the world as
beautiful
unfair
cruel
dangerous
all those things
and so many more
but what do we do
what is our purpose
people spend their whole lives searching
dancing through life
never stopping to smell the roses
never willing to compromise
you enter this world with nothing
and you leave with nothing
only hoping
that the journey was worth it
that the future is impacted by the good you put in
you leave this world at peace or in pain
surrounded by people you love
or not
In between somewhere I lost -
Myself while trying to fulfill the vacuum-
Caused during chaos of my loved ones-
Or so my innocent soul thought they were .
In between somewhere I felt-
Need of a shoulder to lean on and to-
Share my feelings for which I tried hard to fit in-
Others world and hoped they would see me.
In between somewhere I just-
Realised that the best company for one is-
Themselves and there is no need for trying-
To fit in someone else’s world where we have our own.
The in-between
It is hard to live in the in-between
when the in-between cradles the past
which I believed to have been put aside
like a garbage bag in a deserted field
hidden between the cliffs and the sea,
between what you believed to have loved
and what you love today, between here and there,
between ‘how are you?’ and ‘is all well?’,
rocking like a ripe cumin plant
between one bay and another,
moving like the sea between one island and another.
It is tough to live in the in-between
when the in-between is hidden
between what is and fiction,
between the wretched thoughts and the vicious feelings.
Maybe today I will be able to relax
in the water flowing
from one step
to another.
We live, we die, but in-between,
It's how we try, that will be seen.
Don't waste your time, just do your best,
Free verse or rhyme, shall be your test.
The words you write, should never age,
But stay in-sight, upon your page.
This morning the sky looked undecided--
a wide stretch of gray
with a few slow openings
where light tried to slip through.
Nothing dramatic.
Mixed weather that slows your steps without your noticing,
without knowing why.
As I walked,
my mood echoed the weather;
not down, not bright,
just in-between,
with a few thoughts I let be
for now.
A narrow strip of sunlight fell across the pavement,
warming one arm
while leaving the other in shadow.
It made me smile…
the way the world makes its partial choices
and keeps moving.
Perhaps this half-gray sky
is truthful in its way
a sky that shows
both the weight
and the light
at the same time.
11152025_Vientiane
They haunt the castle halls
Lost souls of ghosts of bygone years
Adrift inexplicably in limbo circumambulate
Wordku: 5-7-5 words
AP: 1st place 2025
I am grateful for this little bit of wisdom
I learned from a life filled with love…
not from any books upon the shelves:
The moments in between our milestones
are as important as the milestones themselves
My gaze is high up above
black as it can be.
Every stars in the sky
are all my tears,
Hung in there patiently
waiting to fall.
In joy and sadness always
come unexpectedly,
Specially when heart is weary
and mind is blowingly blank.
But these stars so heavy
like a world carrying my back.
The annoying background
adds a long look of doubts,
Straight to the road I trod
wagging foot to step in.
The system of this world sigh
me in courage to do full force.
Loading success is a waiting game
of triumph to adversities,
Resting below my knees
is the summation of what's life ahead.
Before each sunrise,
One must live through a whole night;
Be brave in between.
I stand between the end and start,
A quiet room, a restless heart.
Fifteen years of pages now turned slow,
Yet what comes next, I do not know.
Years of growth, years of wonder.
Years of thought, years of plunder.
Years of dreaming, years of hopes.
Years of late nights, years of beers.
Years of baggage, years of stress.
Years of commitments, years of doubts.
Years of love, years of responsibilities.
Years of pressure, years of strain.
Years of mortgage, years of pain.
Years of fatigue, years of wine.
Years of laughter, years of sorrow.
Years of yesterdays, years of tomorrows.
Years of promises, years of memories.
Years of silence, years of fears.
Years of loss, years of tears.
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