An Ode for the Troubled

 

Raise your glass to the anxious one,

The one who battles their silence

Aching to participate in the conversations

But always keeping their words to themselves.

The one who dreads every change in the winds,

The one who never feels complete,

The one who struggles to express what bothers them,

The one ready to endure instead of facing the demons ahead.

Raise your glass to the people-pleaser,

The one who feels small every time they try to explain what is in their mind,

The one who is always scared to draw the line,

The one who always feels unloved if they don’t serve,

The one who is always drained from the people they love,

The one who is never valued for what they are.

Raise your glass to the second best,

The one who is always there when the main friend is somewhere else,

The replacement with the good advice,

The one always happy to help yet often left on read.

The one who cherish the wrong crowd,

The one who is deafen when they try to take control,

The one who is never included when the plan is made.

Raise your glass to the second-guesser,

The who always doubt what choice should they take,

The one who never knows what is to take control,

The one who troubles with a firm stand,

The one who fears the consequences,

The one who is fighting with themselves yet unable to win the match,

The one willing to watch from the side lines.

Raise your glass to the fatalist,

The one who made peace with what is about to come,

The one whose battles are always lost,

The one unwilling to take the blame for what when wrong.

The one who is secretly scared if they take the reins and wind by chance,

The one who never learnt accountability when not deciding what to do

Is actually a choice – the worst of them all.

Raise your class for the mind-racer,

The one who craves control yet unable to put his mind on a simple task.

The one whose coping mechanism is the unvoluntary switch of thoughts,

The one who never felt what stability means,

The one who survives on short-term ideas often left incomplete.

The one who is often overwhelmed yet lacks the tools to center their inner monologue.

The one who has never taught how to process their surroundings,

The one whose mental clutter rival the absence of the mind.

The one who always feel the world is always falling behind,

The restless one who craves to stop at last.

…

Raise your glass to the many troubled never mentioned in the lines above,

I might write about you in the future poems.

I want to tell you - you are not alone, always forgotten, left in the footer note.

I salute your endurance often unnoticed by the normal ones,

You are not undeserving – you are simply different, not hard to love.

You have hidden resilience; your brain is knitted with the darker yarns.

Be proud of who you are and if the life feels hard in the darkness of the night

Ask for help, don’t be shy.

Your efforts always lurk in the shadows - never spoken, never shared.

There is my second ode for the outlander of the nous,

I feel your pain; I sense your presence – you and I are so alike in many ways.

Toast to the Invisible

 

Raise your glass to the perfectionist,

The one who plays with the chaos surrounding his thoughts,

The one who tries to navigate the unpredictability

With the precise calculation of when and what to do.

Raise your glass to the overthinker,

The one who needs to reply every conversation to the smallest detail,

Endless monologue with possibilities in his head.

The one who still cringes at night for moment happened when they were only 10,

The one who will solve every problem with fading smile.

Raise your glass to the dreamer,

The one who escapes reality with such an ease,

The one who make the fantasy into reality,

The one who is not afraid of the unknown,

The one carrying the clouds as crawn,

The one who shapes their world while they sleep.

Raise your glass to the worrier,

The one who attracts the scariest storms inside their head,

The one who map their future out,

The one who never enjoys the smallest joy,

The one who always bears hurricanes in their eyes.

Raise your glass to the insomniac,

The one who never knows the rest,

The one who fights the darkest hours in the bed alone,

The one who still trying to hold on to the slipping sanity,

The one who promised to take the magic pill

And yet is unable to find their will.

Raise your glass to the observer,

The often left unseen,

The one who struggles with the unprocessed feelings,

The ready to fight when they feel the danger,

The one unable to prevent the patterns,

The one circling in never-ending shame.

And last but not least, raise your glass to the survivor,

The one burnt in thousand flames,

The one drowned in hundred floods,

The one who never stops moving

Even when the situation feels like a dead-end.

The one who chooses to trust even though they are wounded to the core,

The who not only saves themselves, but saves us all.

The Cycle of the Flesh

 

“On a crossroad I stand in the middle of the night
To keep walking the lonely walk or to burn like a candle one more time.”

…

These lessons I am never going to learn,

I am crawling back for more – this feeling of undoing me

Like a drug is running through my veins,

I cannot get you out of my system – you are endless.

I swore I am done; I needed to pull myself back from your trap

And yet my body got a mind of its own – my worst enemy.

One of those special gazes and every little sense I had is stripped away.

One smile and I am running back you – I beg you for one last time.

When it comes to you, all I have is self-destruction, so feral in my desire

To be tamed by the coldness of your hands - you mold me like a clay.

Every whisper of my name is like a sweet melody - so hypnotic – tear me down, I don’t mind.

You are my weakness; you are the curse I cannot escape.

Tear my spirit like you tore the clothes on me – I don’t look for reasons to stay away,

Your bitterness wakes those nasty desires one by one.

With the burning touch of your fingers I sing our song,

I am not a predator; I have turned into the prey.

These visits are not for love; they are dressed in sins;

This hunger overpowers every sane thought,

This taste is all I think every night I spent with myself

And I am giving in repeatedly, no excuses left.

…

You claim you can withstand this yearning

Yet you run toward me like I am going to escape,

Broken and ruined, united as one.

Your grip says it all – you call it devotion; I call it emotional havoc.

Succumb to the darkness hidden deep within.

…

This inner betrayals won’t stop until we are exhausted,

Until the vail of the night swallows us whole.

I need us to stay like this – no one touches my mind the way you do

Quitting you feels like dying – cannot overcome this withdrawal again.

…

And here we are on the same crossroad, step back from the progress we have made.

We vowed it was for the last time, blind to this usual lie.

We cannot live without our love scars – we cannot flee unscaved.

We know we are each other’s ending- yet we are attracted to what we create when no one is around.

One is born sinner; the other is turned to one – we survive on each other’s flavour.

Why we are so seduced by our venomous dance?

And yet every time each of us leave scarred and damaged to the core.

What is this unconventional game – we bleed from our greedy cravings.

Stubbornly, tomorrow we will return for another round,

We are so helpless when our bodies got language of their own.

The life comes in cycles and we feed the worst of them – the one who destroys us the most

Yet it is the only chaos our demons call home.

The Dance of the Damned

 

Hello my dear, my sweet control freak.

I like the game we play like mouse and cat.

..

I watched you take the reigns as if your life depends on it

Yet I needed your breath to breathe.

Your touch fueled me with the passion I have lost,

Like an answer to a filthy prayer, you keep me begging.

Your scent makes me surrender; all walls are down.

Like a hungry animal I keep coming for more,

Every glance is like a shaky ground - I can’t balance my walk.

You said you want me ruined but every day you crave me more.

You wanted my chaos and I let you have it – who is the master now?

Fingertips branding every inch of me like a solid proof you stayed the night with me.

You asked for passion I gave you fire – let this steamy dance continue.

We are in the flames we are not supposed to be

But our weakness is not allowing us to pull away.

You thought that I was soft and gentle and here we are in the eye of the storm.

You thought you are the untamned one and yet we play in reverse.

You wanted to relive the dark romance fantasy – you claimed to be the sinner

Who seduced the saint but I gave you the biggest surprise.

You are the angel when my demon is awaked by the taste of your lips.

We are so damaged, yet these moments feel so real like a happiness in the darkness of the night.

You wanted to break me yet I kneeled obediently,

Letting you to lead while I follow your pace.

Drag me down, drown me in your flavour, this is how I tricked once more.

….

We are each other’s reflection, shattered by different circumstances

Pieces of the puzzle so perfectly fitting within the monster frame.

Begging is our love language, pretending to be whole

Lying to ourselves that this destructive passion is called love.

…

I fooled myself that you are easy to survive, that I master this game,

I was fool, I never walked away with my soul whole.

It was foolish to think all this toxic thing is love.

You and I only need the pain and ache,

This emotional violence mixed with the poisonous grip of you

Is what I needed to forget the devil in me.

You being my master was the filling to your emptiness, you craved possession.

…

Now the empty bedroom smells like ashes,

I still feel your uneven breaths on my neck,

My sheets still carry you and I dream of night I swore I will forget.

I keep those memories hidden yet the wounds still bleed for you.

I managed to cut the red thread between us yet the void engulfs me,

Every day I manage to stay away I lose the peace inside my heart.

…

On a crossroad I stand in the middle of the night

To keep walking the lonely walk or to burn like a candle one more time.

Midnight Tears of Iron

 

I don’t need anything; I am so used to being just me.

Any interruption I treat like a threat of my existence,

External disturbance of unhealthy voices.

I don’t need anything,

I’ve built what I lacked with my own persistence.

Away from foreign thoughts and comments,

It is my way of coping with the chaos I grow up in.

…

Some see it sad that the trust is broken, some even see me as damaged goods

And yet I am here fighting every day to what I hold dear to my heart.

I don’t see myself as a lonely princess waiting to be rescued.

In my world I am the one who carries the deepest scars

Yet always is regarded as the softest of them all.

But still those close to me try to intervene and give advices

I don’t ask for that – I only demand respect to my nature

I will talk when I find it best – as I said million times before - I don’t need anything.

Some of them are so offended – here wo go with the Hero complex:

Let me save you from yourself.

And when this request is denied, this friendship no longer serves them -

The ego boost declined.

Others present themselves as victims triggering my willingness to help

And when they got their validation, comfortably forget to call.

…

I don’t need anything,

I am what I had to become – harsh and blunt to the core.

Uncomfortable conversations held in the middle of the night

As if the darkness of the sky will hide the ugly truth revealed

Away from curious glances – enemies presenting as friends.

I don’t need anything,

I’ve cut the ties that no longer serve me.

I am no longer slave of my sweetness taken for granted,

I am not here to be the calm sea of your stormy weather.

I simply erase those existences from my life,

I am not here to heal the wounds I did not inflict.

I don’t need anything; I don’t want to be understood.

Every boundary I set is met with silence,

Let them call me Lady Cold - the thick ice cannot be broken by the timid steps above.

I don’t need anything - I’ve burnt the shaky bridges,

I don’t need those filthy hands touching my soul.

Like a phoenix rising from the smoke and ashes

I don’t pretend to be untouchable

Just claiming what feels true to me – unwilling to bend to those

Who try to make shrink into a little glimpse of their twisted illusion of who they need me to be!

I don’t need anything!

The Song of The Unnamed

Death of thousand cuts, pain deeper than the fresh wounds

Scars like medals of honor grace the body.

Is this the famous warrior or a wretch cursed by someone powerful?

Is this the promised saviour or the plague surfacing from the misery within?

…

Life like an ancient fairytale I relive every day -

Pages filled with pretentious heroism as if the world is only black and white;

Misunderstood villain with the best case ever plead losing sympathy just because.

And in this fantasy utopia I try to stay alert for all the misalignment

Shiny does not mean better – the brighter the colour more poisonous the creature.

Pointless cheers burden the throat yet the truthful whispers cost the tongue.

And here I stand engulfed by countless thoughts if these applauses are for victory to see it clear

Or another spectacle witnessing my inevitable fall.

Every smile feels insanely fake as if I am the brainless princess from the castle above,

Every act of kindness looks like calculated move.

Is the clear thought a sign of golden crown or finely forged shackles leaving invisible prints on the body?

Every face I’ve met I marked it mentally with the signs of the betrayal,

Loyalty is the impossible currency that everyone claims to posses yet the pouch is empty.

High demand yet hard to find.

This fairytale command for strong hero, yet no one really wants to pay the enormous cost.

Villains born out of necessity for opposition – who is the secret puppet master?

Every war I win feels like a compromise; every feast tastes like ash and dirt.

What if the world is dividing us into saints and monsters from an early age,

What if feel I am both yet neither feels close to my nature within?

What if the bright weather is just another mirage – poisonous air inhaled in every step I make?

What if I know I am going insane and yet I bravely chose this path?

What if the day is just a wishful thinking when I am prisoner in the darkest dungeon

And my eyes forgot the feel of sun rays?

What if this fantasy world is just my way to stay sane in a world extremely unhinged and deranged?

…

I close my eyes, tired I have decided to leave this story unfinished

Leaving the imagination to run wild as we all know the truth is not universal

Everyone has its own version like cover of a famous song.

And if I am fictional, I don’t need to find a bard to make a tune for me.

I prefer to stay a silent whisper on the lips of someone unknown.

A hero or a villain – I am unsure if I was ever real at all.

Quessence

 

A life measured in questions, each one heavier than the last.

…

Another story of unbecoming - words put in cold order

As if the pain will be tolerable for a day.

No medicine in the back pocket,

Waves of chill and heat dancing underneath the skin.

Another story of anger so well written,

No more polite conversations – let it out.

…

Growling screams so inhumanly, so abrasive.

Abstinence of happiness, fear overflowing the nervous system;

Every gesture is robotic – every action makes us increasingly undone.

Am I the only one fighting this unfortunate imbalance

Juggling between the darkness and lightness of my soul?

And yet so incomplete I feel minute by minute,

I am the only one at loss?

Walking on familiar streets yet I feel so foreign

Like an alien from outer space, so out of place

As if I am outlander banished from my home.

I can’t feel the coldness of the pouring rain,

The frigidness of the snow is no enemy to my skin,

The sun fires don’t leave marks on me anymore.

Am I still human or another human-made gadget clad in faux skin

Set free to roam the world and get better of reading human lives?

My head is spinning from too many questions, answers left unsaid;

I feel dizzy, panic mode unlocked.

Living and breathing puzzle, memories coming in riddles.

Where are the clues?

Surrounded by whispering shadows yet their voices never sound,

Staring at the reflection in the mirror – I cannot recall as mine.

I steal quick glance at my clock – time feels frozen – I am stuck?

I stand still on the solid ground and yet I feel the movement as if I am trying to walk through quicksand.

…

Surrounded by passers-by – no faces recognized, so crowded yet so empty.

I reach the end of the road, horror house in front waiting for its guests.

I stand motionless contemplating if I want to enter

I might end up in a world that doesn’t belong to me

And if I am welcomed, how will I realize if I am still me or lost for eternity?

Bonds Beyond Time and Place

 

A new season rolled out, a new year - almost passed.

Yet I find it hard to realize that the clock is ticking faster

Calendar changes like a blink of an eye – I am frozen back in time?

I find it hard to understand these concepts, my perception is not the same

I feel locked inside the prison of reality that bend the rules of the mundane life.

…

I question myself if I am way too lost in my thoughts and feelings,

Often cross-examine if I am stuck or maybe I went too far away.

And then I met you in our yearly gathering – I still feel the bonds so strong

Whatever uncertainty I had quickly vanished – I am almost me.

We sat with smiles bright, catching up excited – we have grown so much.

This friendship is like a spoon of honey to a bitter tea – add the sweetest gentle flavour

In the world bitterness and inner crises often left unsaid.

One conversation is enough to go back to what we believed when we entered this adulthood

A bit scared and confused yet so brave and sometimes even reckless,

Ready to fight in what we believed wholeheartedly.

Even when we were too naïve that the world is not a shitty place

We never backed down, side by side we pushed even harder

Eager to achieve what we wanted us to be – successful in what we found appealing

Ready to conquer in the impossible dreams.

Through hellish fires and snowy storms, we were each other’s rock – always there even if were on the brink of exhaustion, we chose to be the support system that cheers us regardless of our differences.

We chose to show up for one another, sometimes tired of the pressure, sometimes even ready escape.

…

15 years later I still see our cores so clear, a bit more serious, a bit more darkens, even beaten down at times.

And yet even though the life hasn’t always been so gracious, mercilessly painted on our souls and bodies

We stick to each other, genuine happiness for every milestone achieved.

For us the time weaves different – we are the mirrors that reflects the wins and struggles,

The hopes and even the wildest visions and fantasies.

As long as we stand by each other, we will always see growth with different lenses

From the girls with just ambitions to the women we have become – more stable and fulfilled,

Ready to face the impossible and still wild enough to keep dreaming, knowing what we need.

And most importantly fully capable to achieve whatever we decide the main goal this time is.

We keep it real to bones, we are always truthful to ourselves,

Bonds beyond time and place – four souls brought together by a chance –

A lasting friendship by choice.

Freedom Is My Name

 

Freedom is my name or maybe I keep telling myself that

Tired of all the invisible chains of the adulthood,

Forced to perform well, measured by possessions,

Should do what the others do, caged in normality.

Freedom is my name, I keep telling myself that

Not to forget the sweetness of my dreams coming true

Going against the current of what I was instilled by other,

Possessing different perspective, doing what I love.

Freedom is my name; I don’t belong to anyone but me.

Seeing beauty in what the others despise, dancing wild in my own music

Running like crazy on the green grass, everyone sees dry,

Like a bird I freely fly unbothered, refusing to bent the knee.

Freedom is my name, I don’t gel with what Is expected

Chasing the winds when everyone looks for shelter from the storms;

Pouring rain instead of hair, fire instead of eyes – I ain’t made of clay

I am unmoldable, iron heart from I can’t recognize as mine.

Freedom is my name – I am the untamed one

Whose joy comes from falling inlove with her soul every day,

Refusing to change when the change is not required,

Evolving in my own pace, my life is not a race with other’s timelines.

Freedom is my name – I keep shouting aloud when the world goes silent,

When the lines of my reality are blurred with someone else’s direction,

When the song lose its meaning I refuse to dance,

When lyrics don’t match my voice and vision anymore.

Freedom is my name, I keep telling myself that

Not to settle with less before I try to forge my own path,

It’s like a mantra I chant every time I feel down,

Influenced of what does not reflect me.

Freedom is my name – it is never easy, rarely do I face kindness or understanding

But the power comes from within – I am my biggest critic yet my greatest supporter,

Life is never easy when you walk on your own, against the grain.

Freedom is my name, Bravery is what comes with it.

I don’t look for applauses nor spotlight, I am perfectly contain with what I currently am,

No need of flashy stage, just a small corner where I am what I was always meant to be–

To be fully, wildly, unapologetically ME!

Freedom is my name and I feel FREE!

The Emptiness Within

 

Wake up, work, go home, repeat…

A never-ending time loop as if the world is not moving

Or I am frozen in time without a chance for change – I am suffocating.

Managing expectations of what the adulthood is supposed to be - the opposite of me

I am no longer alive – dead inside.

I walk through days like I live in an abandon asylum – lights are flickering

The corridors are dirty, endless maze of lost hope – lost in time.

Each step I take is humming the same dull song of duty and decay.

The clock is my executioner, the calendar chained to my mind.

I fake my purpose with long to-do lists; endless chain of duties,

Meeting my goals with processes and procedures which keep stealing my spark,

Yet pretending this shell of a life is what I chose – this existence is so wrong.

…

I hate what I have become, enslaved of sick ambitions, never happy,

Always pushing further – it has no end…

I chase goals that vanish once completed,

Like mirages on the edge of reason - living and breathing in the vast corporate desert.

What is success, if it guts me empty?

What is growth, if it costs me my sanity?

I am left so hollow once I get in and out the place that sucks me dry.

This isn’t living – it’s rehearsing death in slow motion - animated version of success.

I want to scream, but I have forgotten how.

My voice is buried beneath countless meetings, bills, and forced chats—

Deafen by the rhythm of a shallow routine,

Drowned out by the noise of doing just enough to get by.

I speak fancy words I don’t mean, smile when I feel nothing,

Nod through conversations that test my patience.

How did I let this happen?

When did the primal instinct for survival replace the desire of living?

When did I stop asking the questions that mattered the most to me?

When did the endless Curiosity of mine became such a luxury, a wonder, a distraction?

I traded my spark for stability I didn’t even want.

Now I measure life in deadlines and quiet disappointments,

Shiny reports and pages of documentation

Burying the questions that once lit up my mind.

Each day feels so borrowed, I have had enough —

A slow drift from who I was to "who I have to be".

And I barely recognize myself anymore - the silence inside me is growing louder.

…

Another weekend, lifeless on the couch with enough to just create something once a week

When emotions running high before the drastic energy decline,

A glimmer of hope and purpose drown into the infinite fatigue.

Words drift in but I cannot make them stay with me – chased by the exhaustion I coupled with.

And I whisper to myself – "Maybe next time" knowing too well I have been lying to myself,

The words I have said countless times – the echo of forgotten promise that feels heavier every time.

Womanhood Or Something Like That

 

Brought up by semi-modern women,

Values mixed with prosperity and flavor of obedience.

We keep trying to fulfill what we are expected to by the society and parental hopes.

We are being told that we should be fighters yet gentle with a strong feel of being someone’s home

And we should not stop supporting those we call other half.

…

And here we are so damaged and so broken, feeling lost,

From all the teachings we received, we were never taught to seek what we truly desire.

I keep hearing my mother’s voice that I should be so independent,

That I should always have my own money, home, ambitions until I meet the one.

Then I should settle, forget about what I strive to achieve and give birth to children

As my life is not yet so bright, not so deep.

Yet I am so confused from all this wisdom what should I be – a homemaker and achiever.

What this live is supposed to be?

And it clicked me after years of depression, tons of therapy and tears shed

That I have never been asked the question – What exactly you want to be?

Religion put into the picture, extension of my parents what makes the life good,

Never taught to choose what it right, just what should make them proud.

As young women we struggle – be a good girl, be smart, don’t provoke attention,

Stay invisible, don’t push too hard and yet we are expected to be pure perfection –

Look at them, it’s not that hard.

…

So we break ourselves quietly, framed into the shapes they demand.

We swallow grief in the dark, wipe off the evidence only to return to the stage.

Taught to pour tea with trembling hands, to bleed and smile through it.

Told that agony is noble, that silence is our inheritance.

When we shatter into pieces, they scoff—weak, hysterical, ungrateful, not pretty enough.

They want us clever yet not defiant,

Driven but never to go in life too far—

Soft enough to soothe, dumb enough to forget what they truly meant,

Numb enough to never fall in waves of rage - not so ladylike to admire.

When the loneliness wraps its bony hands around our ribs,

We whisper our guilt into the mirror, ashamed of needing more.

Some of us chain ourselves to strangers, mistaking it for rescue.

Some of us remain untouched, too haunted to trust.

…

No one tells us—

You don’t owe them your silence.

You don’t have to vanish to be loved.

You weren’t made to fix what’s broken in others.

You weren’t born just to carry tradition like a curse.

But by the time we learn this,

We've already been reshaped— cut down, dulled, rewired.

Our identities surgically edited to match the script of “the real woman.”

Now we drift somewhere between versions of half truth and a lie—

Some polished and pretty, others barely stitched together.

And the ones holding the pen keep rewriting our parts,

Claiming it’s truth, claiming it’s fate.

We walk in borrowed skin - costumed like clowns in someone else’s circus,

Trapped in lives we have never subscribed for,

Called by names that never felt to belong.

Still we lie next to people who never saw us.

Still we whisper in fear—What the fuck is wrong with me?

And the truth is so cruel and so clear—

They never gave us the space to become real.

Only carved us into something they could hold,

Something easy to OWN.