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Aaliyah O'neil Poem
An oval shape—a ghostly pane,
A frame of whispers, soft refrain.
It hung in quiet, out of view,
Where silence slept and shadows grew.
I glimpsed “the oval window, a portal to another dimension,”
A whispered truth beyond convention.
Glass like jelly, thin and wide,
With golden veins that pulsed with pride.
It shimmered soft in dusty air,
As if it knew I’d someday dare.
I pressed my face and felt the tug—
A velvet yank, a quantum hug.
Through space unstitched, my atoms curled,
And spilled into a confused world.
The sky was plaid and sang in chords,
Clouds played chess with talking boards.
A sun rolled by on squeaky wheels,
Chased by moons with citrus peels.
The trees were made of steel bones,
Their leaves composed of dial tones.
They spoke in clicks and humming chimes,
Barked headlines from olden times.
A caterpillar wore a suit,
Arguing ethics with a flute.
A bus flew past with wings of lace,
Stops announced in outer space.
The buildings leaned yet stood with grace,
Each doorway led to stranger place.
One held a café run by crows,
Who served haikus in your nose.
I met a chair that pondered fate,
And told me, “Sit before it’s late.”
A fish explained the price of doubt,
While paddling through my thoughts throughout.
Laws were loose, yet oddly tight,
Where wrong felt wrong but also right.
Where time wore shoes and danced in place,
And mirrors showed your inner face.
The rain wrote in cursive script,
While thunder hummed in jazz and crypt.
Each lightning bolt did grin and strike
Where daydreams bloom and rules dislike.
A dragon sold umbrellas cheap,
Claiming he hadn’t learned to sleep.
He traded tales for half a yawn,
Slept in pixels just past dawn.
An alley wound like thought itself,
Lined with clocks that ticked in stealth.
Each second held a scent, a tune—
Some smelt like soup, some hummed like June.
I saw a whale made out of sighs,
Who flew beneath the grammar skies.
It told me truths I didn't keep,
Then sank below a field of sheep.
I tasted colours, spoke in stars,
Drew maps from dreams and bottled jars.
I danced with logic in disguise,
And kissed a pun beneath the skies.
But then the pane began to dim,
Its edges blurred, the borders grim.
A voice said, “Time to head on back,”
Snapped the world to perfect black.
I woke in dust, alone once more,
The attic still, the wooden floor.
Yet in my palm, a shimmer glowed—
A thought the window had bestowed.
It calls to me in twilight’s tune,
Hums at dusk, sighs at noon—
I’ll go again, and very soon.
Copyright © Aaliyah O'Neil | Year Posted 2025
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Aaliyah O'neil Poem
The flags wave, but not in joy—
each fold a whisper from the past,
each thread soaked with silent prayers.
They stand tall,
but the ground beneath them
has known the weight of souls who cannot rise.
In the quiet of the cemetery,
where time does not dare to move too fast,
the wind speaks in the language of absence.
For every flag, a story is buried—
not just of wars,
but of lives lived between battles,
of moments taken in the blink of an eye.
These flags do not flutter for the living,
but for the ones who gave
all they could,
so we could continue breathing in freedom’s name.
And in their silence, we listen.
Copyright © Aaliyah O'Neil | Year Posted 2025
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Aaliyah O'neil Poem
Out here,
where time forgets its name
and distance wears no shoes,
a single atom dreams
of being seen.
A nebula breathes in slow creation—
a phosphorous wound
stitched by light,
spilling stars like secrets
never meant for mouths.
What lilt remains in the voice of the void?
Even silence has shape here—
serpentine,
a slither of ancient radiation
wrapping the bones of galaxies,
like a mother tucking in
what she cannot keep.
We call it space,
but it’s more:
a cascade of almosts,
of might-have-beens and never-weres,
falling endlessly
through a gravity
that remembers everything
but forgives nothing.
The lunar dust knows—
how soft it is to vanish,
how even your footprints
can outlive your breath.
And Earth, blue with burden,
floats like a question
we’ve stopped trying to answer—
spinning myths into maths,
naming fire with numbers,
hoping to out-code
the ache.
There is a myriad of ways to be alone.
But here,
in this tender, terrible expanse,
we are together
in our unknowing.
And maybe that
is enough
to make us stars.
Copyright © Aaliyah O'Neil | Year Posted 2025
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Aaliyah O'neil Poem
"Where does it hurt?"
She asks, clipboard like a shield,
pen cocked like a firing pin.
"Here," I say,
pointing to the silence just beneath my ribcage.
Not the lungs. Not the liver.
The place where sorrow goes to calcify.
They send me down long corridors,
all white noise and flickering fluorescents—
like memory on a bad day.
I wear a gown that opens in the back,
like every conversation I regret.
Inside the machine,
I lie still as a kept secret.
The MRI growls like an old god,
searching my insides
for evidence of war crimes.
I think about the shrapnel—
not metal, but moments.
The look she gave me
the night everything broke,
like she was already ghosting
through the wreckage of my voice.
I tell the technician:
It’s there. I can feel it.
Each breath razors against it.
But the scan is clean.
No foreign objects. No narrative.
They call it “psychosomatic”
like it’s a compliment,
like my body is staging a play
my mind refuses to direct.
Back in the doctor's office,
she says, "There's nothing inside you."
And I laugh—sharp and wrong.
Isn't that what pain is?
The something that feels like everything
and shows up as nothing?
I ask if she can x-ray a metaphor.
She doesn’t smile.
Just types and nods and offers
a pamphlet on stress management
as if I haven't already built
cathedrals from my coping mechanisms.
I leave with no diagnosis—
just a quiet war still raging
beneath my skin.
A soldier in peacetime,
saluting ghosts
that never made it
into the file.
Copyright © Aaliyah O'Neil | Year Posted 2025
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Aaliyah O'neil Poem
She is not made of atoms,
but aftermaths—
the kind that linger in a room long after
the lights remember to flicker back on.
Her spine?
An origami of fallen yesterdays,
creased by collapse,
but folded forward into flight.
They call it resilience,
but she knows better—
it’s architecture,
a cathedral of nerve built from
"this will not break me,"
hummed on repeat until it didn’t.
She speaks fluent scar.
Not in pity,
but in translation.
She translates grief into gardens,
anger into architecture,
your silence into a symphony
with minor keys,
because sadness, too, deserves an audience.
Her empathy is not soft.
It is surgical.
It sees you,
sutures you,
and leaves you with just enough scar
to remember you survived.
And her creativity?
It’s less coloring-book, more quantum mechanics.
She rearranges particles of pain
into poetry,
invents emotions that haven’t been named yet,
spins metaphors out of moonlight
and missed calls.
She is the punchline of a cosmic joke
you didn’t know you were telling—
a glitch in the matrix
that decided to build a garden in the code.
Not here to be understood,
but to unmake the question.
Not here to fit—
but to fracture the mold
and plant sunflowers in the cracks.
She is not your mirror.
She is your prism.
Try to define her—
and she will refract.
Copyright © Aaliyah O'Neil | Year Posted 2025
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Aaliyah O'neil Poem
There is a silence before the fall—
not the absence of sound, but the heaviness of it,
thick as fog, as thick as the space between heartbeats,
when every thought crowds the same narrow room.
The choice has settled like a stone in the chest,
a weight pressing down harder than the world itself—
and yet, beneath that pressure, there is something else—
a flicker, faint and fragile,
like the last ember in a dying fire.
It may feel like the point of no return,
the line that once crossed cannot be uncrossed,
the moment that closes every door behind you—
and sometimes, it is exactly that.
But even when the path feels final and absolute,
the human spirit is not so easily confined.
It is messy, unpredictable, stubborn—
it can bend and stretch,
sometimes shatter,
and sometimes, quietly, begin again.
In this moment where hope seems hollow,
remember that life is not only measured
by the sum of its victories or defeats,
but by the quiet breaths taken against the storm.
There is no shame in standing here,
in the shadow of unbearable pain—
because pain is proof of living,
proof of the heart’s relentless beating.
You may feel broken beyond repair,
but even broken things can catch the light—
fractured glass becomes a prism,
shattering the darkness into colours.
If you have arrived at this point,
know you are not alone in the stillness.
Others have stood where you stand,
felt the same weight,
and found a way to carry it differently.
This is not a call to pretend the pain is gone,
or to erase what feels unbearable.
It is an invitation to recognise
that the story isn’t over—
that the next page might be the one you cannot yet imagine.
You are here, alive—
and in that fact alone
is a powerful reason to hold on.
Because even the smallest flicker,
the softest whisper of breath,
can be the start of something
you never thought possible.
Copyright © Aaliyah O'Neil | Year Posted 2025
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Aaliyah O'neil Poem
I worship not with hymns or knees,
but in the rustle of the trees,
in socks that vanish in the wash,
and toast that lands, of course, jam-squash.
I’ve built a chapel in my brain,
with pews of doubt and tea-stained rain,
a steeple made of “Could be, though,”
and sermons whispered soft and low.
No angels here, no Book of Rules—
just dreams that argue with the schools,
and stars that blink in Morse-code blips
while comets draft apocalypse.
I don’t believe in bearded skies,
but I suspect the moon tells lies.
And when my cat begins to stare,
I think—somebody might be there.
Not God with thunder, plagues, or plan,
but Something odd that tickles man.
It hums inside a crusty roll,
then vanishes—like half the soul.
So here I stand—no robes, no creed—
just wonder, stitched to human need.
I light a match. The dark replies.
And somewhere, Something rolls its eyes.
Copyright © Aaliyah O'Neil | Year Posted 2025
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Aaliyah O'neil Poem
Hey, Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me—
in the jingle-jangle morning, I’ll follow you.
Like my nan, slippers tapping,
buttered toast, kitchen radio.
She’d sway while evening’s empire turned to sand,
vanishing from her hand,
eyes wide, still not sleeping.
Grandad called him “the boy with a tambourine soul,”
said he took the badge off, laid his guns down—
“Can’t shoot them anymore.”
He laughed with the tramp,
dealt with shadows,
followed smoke rings through time.
Mom caught him on cassette—side A, side B,
in eyeliner, safety pins and anarchy.
She’d quote, “You ain’t got nothing to lose,”
above her Docs.
She rode a chrome horse
skipping school, blasting,
“How does it feel?!”
through a Walkman with stickers.
Then came me—1995:
Tamagotchis, dial-up tones,
burnt CDs, LimeWire ghosts.
Dylan low in lo-fi,
hidden between Nirvana and Spice Girls.
I played.
He said:
“Take me on a trip upon your magic swirling ship—
my senses stripped, my hands can’t grip.”
And I was gone—
boot heels wandering,
fading into my parade.
No home,
like a rolling stone.
I followed through frightened trees,
past frozen leaves to the beach,
far from twisted sorrow—
one hand waved free.
I danced.
Circled by circus sands,
I let memory and fate
sink beneath.
Let me forget today—
until tomorrow.
I sang Knock-knock-knockin’ on heaven’s door
to a mate too young.
Dark cloud falling,
eyes wide like Dylan’s lost passport.
He knew no words but felt rhythm—
slow and steady like grief that rhymes.
I scrolled through changing times,
TikToks, Brexit, Twitter storms,
but there he was—
“Come writers and critics who prophesise with your pen,”
he warned, in a forgotten playlist.
I turned it up.
“Don’t stand in the doorway, don’t block the hall—
for the times they are a-changin’!”
And they were. And are. And always will be.
From Pokémon cards to climate dread,
we better start swimmin’,
or sink like stones.
Sometimes I feel
knock-knock-knockin’ on heaven’s comments—
asking how does it feel?
as I scroll a tab left open too long.
Invisible, no secrets left,
Dylan nods above,
rhyme on his heels.
I wasn’t born to this—
but I inherited it.
Like freckles, stubbornness,
or how we pause at harmonica’s cry.
It’s in the way my nan swayed washing dishes,
mom smoked by the window,
and I sit here now,
searching for meaning
in the jingle, jangle,
morning, man.
So hey, Mr Tambourine Man—
still not sleepy,
no place going.
But I’ll follow you,
through rhyme,
and time,
and all the rolling songs never finished.
Copyright © Aaliyah O'Neil | Year Posted 2025
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Aaliyah O'neil Poem
I was four when I partied like it was 1999.
Didn’t know what Y2K meant—
thought it was a new kind of Ribena.
Mom said the world might end,
so we had fish fingers and Angel Delight
like it was our last supper.
She danced in the kitchen—
hip in one hand, remote in the other—
Prince on the telly,
sky outside grey as school uniform.
She said,
“If the world’s going to blow, we might as well boogie.”
So I did—
in jelly sandals,
on sticky lino,
thinking bombs were just what happened in cartoons.
The grown-ups were worried about computers—
I was worried about monsters under the bed.
Same thing, really.
I built bunkers from sofa cushions.
Told my teddies we’d be safe.
Asked Mom if I could stay up ‘til midnight
to see the sky explode.
She let me—
even though it didn’t.
Instead, we counted down
with paper hats, party poppers,
and a bowl of Wotsits big enough
to survive the apocalypse.
Prince said life was a party.
Mom made it gospel—
taught me the sacredness of silliness.
She sang with her eyes closed,
as if she could out-sing war.
As if dancing could un-plug the world’s doom switch.
And maybe it could.
There was a lion in her pocket too—
fierce in her softness,
roaring through a tinny tape deck.
She had a knowing in her sway,
like she understood what purple skies meant
long before I did.
Now I’m older,
and every headline feels like a countdown.
Still, I keep Ribena in the fridge
for emergencies.
Still, I dance—
barefoot on carpet,
arms full of invisible glitter,
like I’m four again
and nothing bad can touch me
while the music plays.
If the world ends again,
I’ll dance.
I’ll think of Mom.
I’ll play that song—
loud enough to shake the windows
and remind the sky
that we were here,
dancing,
as if forever still mattered.
Copyright © Aaliyah O'Neil | Year Posted 2025
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Aaliyah O'neil Poem
They wiped my thoughts
with antiseptic hands,
wrung my mind through linen logic
and hung me between breakfast
and scheduled silence.
Every hour—accounted for.
Every spark—neutralised.
Brainwashed.
Hope came in timed doses—
measured in milligrams
and dispensed with a paper cup
and plastic smile.
I swallowed the sun in tablet form
until it glowed from the inside
like a malfunctioning lamp.
Brainwashed.
I used to speak in fractured gold,
each sentence a riddle
spun from starlight and defiance.
They taught me to speak correctly—
which meant quietly,
which meant not at all.
Brainwashed.
They dressed me in fabric
the colour of pause,
stitched my name
into the hem of conformity,
taught me not to wander
outside the red line
of permissible imagination.
Brainwashed.
They made me fill in boxes:
Do you still hear them?
Do you still dream strange?
Do you still think
you are more than
this?
I circled no, and smiled.
Brainwashed.
My mirror stopped recognising me.
It showed a still ocean
where once there were storms.
I waved—but my reflection
had better things to do
than remember who I was
before routine became religion.
Brainwashed.
But some nights—
when the world forgets to monitor me,
and the ceiling isn’t watching—
I find poems hidden
under my tongue,
fierce and unprescribed.
I whisper them backwards
to keep them safe.
Still writing.
Or so they think.
Because inside the silence,
beneath the disinfected compliance,
something unwashed pulses—
raw, brilliant,
and unfinished.
I remember.
Copyright © Aaliyah O'Neil | Year Posted 2025
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