just whisper to yourself…
who…
am I…
Surrounded by my friends
But I still go home and start
Writing all alone in my room
Thoughts keep coming back to you
Each time I taste the liquor
All it does is sour my memories
I can’t see the good you brought me
Same with the others before you
I have to stop and look at myself
Is it a pattern, am I a bad person?
What’s wrong with me and the way I love
Maybe I don’t deserve it all
My therapist said I made progress
But I don’t quite see it.
Cause if I was the perfect man
I wouldn’t repeat all these mistakes again
I find it so hard to trust my heart
In anyone’s hands, maybe I’m the problem
But I still crave physical attention
Without having to go deeper
Where do I go from here?
Should I try again
Or lock myself in my shell
Maybe something fake is what I need
I’m trying to unlearn all the things
That hurt me and lead me to hurt others
So if it means to block off love
I’d do it until I know I’m worth loving
In echoes
I hear the ground shake
Anger with our kind
At the violence and hate we display
While a whispers
Of hands held out,
Assisting the world’s
Suffering.
Not because of a god or gods
They are the symbols.
Our excuses.
We have to admit,
We make our own graves
And affect nature and fellow humanity
Around us.
But too much self fear holds
Us back.
Self reflection.
Understanding
Our repetitive history.
Sickness.
Ugliness.
Truth,
Ancestry
Of our history.
Self reflection.
A simple phrase.
Fear.
Such a simple word
But we give them power.
It’s time to admit to ourselves,
We can change things,
But we need to know.
And here I stand,
Before the mirror
Of my own self reflection.
Scared Mary,
Unprepared Mary,
Incomprehensible yet strangely legible,
Outside of the box in isolation Mary.
New Mary,
Old Mary,
Realities are a kaleidoscope,
Always big vision and big picture seeing Mary.
Spontaneous Mary,
Boring Mary,
Gifted the role of everything and nothing,
Multidimensional experience Mary.
Cyclical Mary,
Unpredictable Mary,
Goggles ethereal with physical on the side,
So strange and unable to be normal Mary.
Selfless Mary,
Selfish Mary,
Fiercely loving and Protective to a fault,
Contradictory and human at best Mary.
Celibate Mary,
Desperate Mary,
A Biological Divine combination,
Big impact but small blip in wider space Mary.
Unholy Hell
There is an incredible emptiness
that will not settle,
a holy loneliness blocking my way.
They tell me not to think so much,
not to worry,
but the heavy quiet of failure drowns out that vow.
Inside these walls, there is no sovereignty.
Just hands, reaching—
everyone wanting a piece of me.
Only music remains a cure,
a quiet place to go to ease the road,
to carry this bitter load.
I was a proud soul once.
Now, I am stripped to the nerve.
Left entirely alone to survive their quiet contempt.
I dream at night, and the nightmares come to call,
and I wake up to the morning sun
already shattered before the day even begins.
More work is what I get.
No time away to sift through the wreckage,
to find what is left of me.
Just the endless expectation of another’s payday.
Deep in my soul,
my mind cries out for reprieve
that my battered, bloody body will never get.
The void is deep.
The pain is real.
The days gone by are misery.
Tough as nails they reference me.
Deep inside only history.
i was a frog who wanted to be king
until i realized i couldn't even sing
a songbird shrilled
"you're only a croaker out of tune"
still i stood on my stump with a tortured smile
croaking my heart out all the while
i dreamed of being a stand-up crooner
a swamp-side sinatra maybe a little sooner
the crickets laughed
the herons one-legged stared
every fragile dream i swallowed
sat inside me
broken and unprepared
the wart-filled toad spat from his lily pad
"you’re stretching your skin boy
settle into the scum"
i carried an empty pond inside
where a thousand thorny dreams went to die
the audience left
the moon went home
a cold blue screen spit its light onto the scum
unthinking
no one returned my croak
i died a little every time i tried
my face looked back from the pond
mud-covered
wart-covered
ugly
my reflection looked away
all it could do was cry
today the water settled
the mud claimed the surface
when i looked down
there wasn’t even a frog
left to die
i
Weaker, drowning in ego
Six estranged hours bleet commands
Today vanished: 2 ticks, 2 tocks
Nothing nests at my desk
Fragment aspects, time slipping
On course with the "I Am"
Ringing for dinner is Pavlov
It's been days since I have written anything, was busy matching the real and reel
I smile when I catch eyes on me,
hiding my pain,
separating the alphabets of day and night;
unbinding my thoughts from my poems.
"Does it matter? ; Will it matter?"
are now out of the drawer
I know nothing would change till I do myself.
No loop holes, no magic shall happen
till I push for a breakthrough
but there is a glass not half empty instead
broken into pieces invisible to all but me.
Wondering why was she sent with
groundbreaking ability to survive
Live and live but to live like death
A Lost soul with a weeping heart
and a smile plastered on,
telling a happy story in hell.
I am not writing anything these days
My fingers may bleed
but I am out of band-aids.
~ Shreshtha Mishra
i travel barefoot on the hot sands
of a deserted mind
a plane of shallow dunes that tower above the distance
lost in the equivocate of direction
the blaze in the sky exposing the void between my eyes
each step forward staggered and hesitant
regret scorched soles aching for direction
to the score of my soul’s pleas for supplication
i thrust my palms to the heavens begging for an audience with God
“guide me, open the door to your mercy to a weakened heart”
there is a shift in tablature
springs of honey, water and oil
emerge from the barren earth
bringing bouts of life in bounty
ranges of juniper slopes cluster the horizon
colour spreading vast beyond my step
ever sweet is the restored air
You've been searching for a craftsman to build you up with clay.
So I'll sculpt you with my love as I sit upon the brae.
I'll gaze up at the sunshine and talk to God; I'll say,
"Just what were you thinking when you molded her this way?"
Did you know that she—had breaks along her back?
Or when she feels sadness—her heart begins to crack?
Do you know her head—was hollowed far too thin?
There's too much room for thought; she keeps it all within.
Her feet have chipped from walking, her eyes—they see too much.
She doesn't even recognize she has the magic touch.
You could've made her stronger, at least along the rim.
Or maybe even built a smile; you could've shaped a grin.
You should've added color—a little sunshine too!
Maybe then she'd take the chance to see what she can do.
For now, I'll just keep sculpting;
I'll fill the cracks with love.
I promise not to change the girl or change what she's made of.
I’ll just soften out the sad parts, so that she can shine.
And one day she will know —that she was made just fine.
Some days, I suffer enraptured
No scornful arrow can reach so high
Flappy angels think me a spy
For what reason, why?
Is it wrong to be this happy before I die
Or should I just watch life pass me by
Too deliriously sad to offer a smile?
They just flapped and stared a while
Unable to reconcile
Then flew away
With aught more to say
But now I'm sad
And sinking fast
And maybe even a bit mad
That angels, or anyone, could think that way
And how I let them ruin my day:
Giving their flappy opinions-
Too much sway
Oh, well-
At least I've shattered dreams-
And bills to pay!
What was I so happy for anyway?!
I've got a headache
I think I'll find a place to lay
Or go jump in a lake
I bet those flappy wings were fake
And those halos: wire and 'Papier-Mâché'
Twas a portrait, puddles painted.
No face of ours, am I acquainted.
And yet wait still, for quite the visage,
Something new, in someone's image.
It wasn't quite, no frown nor fright.
Though waters spill, from strokes of skill.
Simple paints or mercury,
The subject's hand was cursory.
And so it melted, so it cried.
Lines blurred heavy, and the viewer died.
The mirror poses
with a strangers heart,
gazing in accusation,
Nameless.
Faceless.
An incarnation of pain
possessing the body,
And yet —
I reach.
For that obsidian glaze.
For the opacity that hides your face.
For a remnant of strength.
For salvation.
For something that still remembers my name.
It’s not rocket science you know,
Either you are part of the problem
Or part of the solution.
And how we stand
Is only really knowable
To us alone.
(10/15/25)
maybe it’s not you.
maybe it’s everyone else.
or maybe…
it’s me.
the one always called
too emotional,
too cold.
so maybe what i need
is a plant
growing slower than my thoughts,
a cycle
moving forward when i cannot,
a lego set
to build,
to break,
to begin again.
and maybe then
anger
will finally
leave me alone.
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