The weight that hangs, a shadow near,
A scream within, no one can hear.
Each breath a war, each thought a fight,
The days are storms, consuming night.

I’m lost in seas too vast, too deep,
I long for rest, a peaceful sleep.
But something stirs, a fragile plea,
Could someone light the dark for me?

I do not wish for this despair,
To lose all hope and not to care.
I crave a hand, a gentle voice,
To guide me toward 'nother choice.

The walls close in, the air turns cold,
My weary soul feels far too old.
I yearn for more, yet find but gore,
A wound so sore, down to m'core.

Therefore, I spend my days, I ask,
Do I seem happy with this mask?
A painted smile, a crafted guise,
To hide the tears that blur my eyes.

But even masks begin to break,
Beneath the weight of all they fake.
And so I whisper, soft and low,
Is there a place where hope can grow?

Hey everyone! I (19M) am an engineering student, and my main focus is on my degree. But every now and then about few times a month I find myself writing poetry. It’s not something I do professionally, but I really enjoy it. It’s more like a personal creative outlet.

I was just wondering:

1. Is there any realistic way to make even a little bit of money from poetry? I’m not after a paycheck or anything, just curious if people ever manage to earn something on the side from it and if yes then how.

2. And even if not for money, are there any other benefits poetry could offer someone like me?

Would love to hear your thoughts!

I’m sorry for the words unsaid, for every indifference, the hurt you bled. A silence stretched between us wide, an empty space where fellowship died.

Passing time in isolation, the moments lost, too late realized the invaluable cost. Now aware, yet unsure and stumbling, honest self-reflection is quite humbling.

The desire paths ahead are unclear, yet with determined steps, I blindly persevere. Uncertainty held in trembling hands, unable to reach for viable plans.

I apologize for the pain I caused, for breaking trust, and for all my flaws. In my words, remorse you’ll see, for you deserve accountability.

Conch seashells sealines sand in every pore of the skin

Starfish tantrik arise above anise tapping the limbs on the seashore

Acid green apple cider on the skin let our eyes do all the talking

Skin to skin spiritual intimacy air is on what we're walking

Bedside souvenir joyride chipped nails

Cold watermelon tropical weather dripping on clams with a thousand eyes

Push the ceiling is more than just a figure of speech now because the tsunami ahead can fight off more than a thousand sails

-Danke

My hearts all over the place,
The thoughts in my heads are a mess,
For when I think about you,
Someday, inevitably I'll have to confess.

Till then let me hope,
Let me admire you from afar,
I know you're the entire constellation,
What I wouldn't give to be just one star.

I know you're too good to me, for me,
I know I'm not worthy of you,
But I'm selfish and delusional, you see?
How can I stop fantasizing about us,
Especially when the other person is you?

She comes at night, she haunts, she taunts, her prey. 

She creeps, she crawls my way. Why won’t she just go away? 

She knows I hate the way she comes at night. 

How she pokes, she prods, has her way with me. 

She knows my fears, my dreams, how to silence me. 

She creeps at night. She toys with me. 

Slinking, crawling on the floor to me, 

I hate the way she likes to look at me, 

Before it starts, and she has her way with me. 

She takes it all, leaves none for me. 

All my life, at night, I must repay. 

She comes at night, she haunts, she taunts, her prey.

when you told me your favorite color was green, i chamelioned with you; my favorite color became green. When you jokingly expressed how you did not want kids, I reconsidered my future; did I really want to burden you with two kids? When you told me your favorite fruits were blackberries, I started buying blackberries so I could taste apart of what I felt as... you. The last thing you fed me were blackberries. I did not eat for the next two days because I wanted to have apart of you. When we broke up, I started to read and cry to that book you cried to; A Little Life. When you told me to move on; I told you that I did not want to. I do not want to move on from who I am.

Where are you now, I need you like hell You said you’d be there, that I could count on you to help

You spun a thread of lies tangled in truth You stitched me up but the sutures came loose

Im falling apart You left me to die

My withering heart rotting inside

I hate you.

But I love you, I want you tonight

I want to hurt you Like you hurt me I want you to die

They tell me to take a deep breath

To keep drinking water

That I’ll be alright More lies to push me aside

If only you knew how much I hurt inside

Addicted to the abuse

Used to the misuse

You got me hooked For the love I mistook

Where are you now

I need you like hell You’re not here to hurt me So I do it myself

-Quinn

(Miserable Monday, everyone. Feeling abnormally hollow today. I just wanna sleep the day away)

Oxytocin, dopamine, serotonin oh my

Your Love is like heaven

you make me feel high,

your touch,

your voice,

your scent

and your eyes

Are “when the moon hits the sky like a big pizza pie,,,

thats endorphins”

"I was sitting near a sea and i noticed that perhaps,

The waves desired to know the sand and the sand desired to know the sea,

The sea seemed to hate that and pulled it's waves back to itself every time,

leaving the sand and waves be forever unknown to each other"

Come home to me after showing the outside world that you’re a bright, cold knight in disguise.

But I gaze upon the storm through the helmet inside your eyes. I notice you feeling blue.

Let me be your princess, the one who removes the helmet and your armor, who stops the storm inside your eyes and finds peace for you in the middle of the night.

The one who brings a smile to your face in every light, Even on the darkest night.

Don’t carry the storm on your shoulders, my sweet knight. Let me be the one who turns the darkest storms into light.

Maybe I

Was there

When the world

Started

Maybe I

Held hope

For life

For love

Maybe I

Smiled when

The sun set

And when it rose

Maybe I

Loved with my heart

With my soul

And my mind

Maybe I

Looked around

And found joy

In life

Maybe I

Took hope

With me

When I died

Maybe I

Was selfish

And left

Hope behind

So it wouldn’t

Get lost

Maybe I

Am lost

Without Hope

For love

For life

For anything…

Maybe I

Need it to rain

So I can drive

To the top

Of the parking structure

And watch the lighting

And count the seconds

Before the thunder

So that I can feel

The tears roll

Down my cheek

And count the seconds

Before the thunder

People passed by

Bystanders begone

No one looked the scars

Branches hunched

And her skin torn

I asked her

"Oh Lady, The Resilient one!

Tell me - why do you frown?"

Passing a deep sigh

She replied

"For the people around me

Have mocked me

Told me Lies

That I'm never enough

And never have I won"

But that's not true

For I have seen her now

Not just her beauty

But the courage in her heart

Exuberance in her action

Brilliance in her motion

I felt limited by words

Frail in front of her

How could I ever tell her

She's alive too

Having the right to live

She's bright too

Her smile so living

She's enough for me

And I love her too

It is raining, and I can hear the soft sound of it through the open window.

I smell it on the breeze that caresses my skin as it lightly dances through the room— the soft touch of a mother checking that her child is asleep.

And I pretend to sleep, just as a child would, too entranced by the moment to let myself drift off.

The breeze smells like springtime. It carries in its warm hands the scent of dirt and grass and a thousand kinds of blooming plants. And it carries the smell of the rain— that sweet, earthy scent that is, all at once, like everything and nothing at all.

It smells like catching fireflies on a summer evening as a child, like kissing my first love while the droplets run down our faces, and like watching my own children experience puddles for the first time in the bright yellow boots they got for Christmas— boots that will not fit them by this time next year.

Thunder booms in the distance. It is loud, but not unkind— a deep, rolling percussion that lifts with it the light notes of the rain as it passes through my room.

It is followed by the breeze again, warm and heavy with humidity. I can feel the weight of it as it covers me like soft cotton sheets— a mother tucking in her child. She knows he is not asleep, but they both enjoy this game.

It is raining, and I am lying in my bed, listening to the sound of it through the open window as the breeze blows through my room.

And though I fight it at first, my body grows heavy with sleep.

And I drift off, a child asleep in his mother’s arms as she sings him a lullaby, perfectly at peace, enveloped by the sound, the smell, the feel of her embrace.

hello:) I've just started writing poetry. here's one about my relationship with myself and my parents (and integrating my German American identity)

Present

Gift (noun) /gift/ - English: a present. /gift/ - German: poison.

March 28, 2017: "Happy birthday to you," they sing. 9 pink candles crowd the cake and dribble roses onto the sickeningly sweet chocolate. I hate pink. Too girly, too loud, too seen. I choke down violent words and hurl a gagged smile full of sugar at my beaming parents. All teeth, no taste. I am their gift. But I wonder if I was wrapped too tightly to breathe. Will I ever be opened?

March 28, 2021: “Happy 13th, Rockstar," reads the card waiting at the table. The ink is bold, bleeding jagged letters across the page. A backfired attempt at nonchalance. The red ribbons stare blankly from a corner. I hate that shade. Cherry cough syrup pools in the back of my throat. I cough, and the memory trickles downward, running the daggers from my mother's eyes along my lungs. My tonsils shriek and my gums burn at the sugar groping them. Artificial cherry contusions strangle my wheeze. The ribbons watch. They know something I don't. Still. Shiny. Patient. My hands shake as I reach to unwrap them.

March 28, 2025: “Today is your birthday," Google reminds me. Like it's breaking news. I shudder and sigh like my breath has been snatched from my lungs, and swallow a tiny pill. "Sertraline", the bottle reads. "Take once daily for 30 days." The prescription bottle clicks shut with the lightness of a sealed secret. Light like air. Like lies. Empty promises. The bottle might as well be filled with button eyed bears and roses red, red like the blood I keep from seeping out of my shuttered eyes.

My lungs are filled with smoke. I will it to dissolve, hushing my coughs. Not yet. A smiling black thread dances around my throat, appealing my feeble, half hearted attempts to claw at it. The string pirouettes into a bow, tied tight with a mocking belligerence. The velvet tightens. It doesn't choke, but it holds, tattooed into my spine. I do not breathe freely, but I breathe.

These fields in bloom begin to weep Beneath a shoreline of particular blue. The stars all blink themselves to sleep As the morning sky comes out for you.

The oaks all wave their withered hands With tender gifts of pink in hue. Sparrows sing to your heart as you walk these lands And the morning sky is out for you.

What to do or say aside from getting on with it / Shuffling away / and dealing with the consequences / Beyond a shrug or an excuse / Possibly the aftermath of surviving all the abuse /

A different decade and a different time / I get complacent in comfort / Is it understandable to just watch for a while / I can feel the irony as it contrasts what I said / Hard to explain how I do so much and yet so little / It's all a lot to comprehend /

I can enjoy the sun now / I worry more at night / I'm my own worst enemy / My demons like to come out and play at night /

Quiet in the darkness / Creeping up to scream / Waking in restless thoughts / It was all but a dream /

The inside of my mind is a liminal space.

familiar, uncanny, unfamiliar.

Distant

empty frames that exist as memories

that only I, myself,

am able to walk through.

Dream-like.

Stuck.

in constant motion.

-signed

A Loop Prisoner

.

Serpentine seduction artfully moves along well worn and polished tracks sketched around the rough barked trunk of a simple, solitary tree.

Iridescent scales ripple in waves along to the white noise rustle of twigs and leaves in seemingly random patterned gusts of a wilful breeze.

The arctic air is parted twice by the silken dry fork of the devil's detailed taste. The vertical abysses deeper than black across amber hued eyes look destructively disinterested.

Temporarily overflown by the shadow of cumulative interwoven layers of mist, the low hanging globular gradient of gold to scarlet seems to dissolve the darkness right before being touched.

In between fields of grayish green reeds the circular path of packed earth is trodden by hunters and gatherers alike, following the heel to toe indentations of their ancestors.

A flock of migrating birds follows the curvature of the partially blueish lacquered porcelain white dome diffusing spherically over and above a simple, solitary tree.

.

Perhaps,
I'm simply chasing the rush,
That your warm smile
Bestows upon me.

But then,
Why is it so calming,
I'm aware of your beguile,
As if you're the honey, I'm the bee.

I am what I am. nothing more. nothing less.

somedays I am nothing. others I am everything.

You ask who I am and ultimately I know you lack depth.

for I am many things and none at all.

Who I am to you will not be who I was to him.

Who I think I am is a lie confabulated to keep me sane.

If I’m up today and left tomorrow will you say I’ve changed.

If I never change wont I surely age?

If I’m always evolving then there is no definite form.

except death of course.

So am I just dirt? or am I a journey to be explored?

Asking will get you no where, there is no short cut to get to know me.

I am what I have been and all I will be.

I am who I am. takes time to never know me.

We're scared of falling in love

Aren't we?

The cozy nights

Sundays full of warmth

You and me

Side by side

Eyes into eyes

You sharing a part

I'll give youmy whole

I'll understand ur silence

Giving a reason to hold

To hold onto love

I want to brain storm

But there's a storm in my brain

And I'm feeling I'm losing the fight

I say everything is alright,

While wondering if everything will ever be alright

Sometimes i struggle to get out of my bed

And feel I need to run away

From inside my own head

Step the gas in the highway

Not knowing where I go

But going away from what is behind

And I don't want to hide from anything

Or hide anything I'm , but seems I don't get rest

Is easier when I'm alone in the forest

Where every wild animal should be

If I don't see anything binding my arms or feet

Why can't I feel I'm free

Why I don't see wounds

Yet feel this pain

Maybe that's it ...

I've become my own chain

Defeated by your selfish pride,A heart must be buried deep inside.You speak with venom, wrapped in lies,With hollow words and spiteful eyes.

A vindictive grin upon your face,You tear through lives while demanding embrace. My existence spins around your name, you “own” me, you struggle to stake your claim.

With vile words and daggers thrown,Each violating act, a seed of hurt you've sown. You shove, you take, you rarely give, and under your reign, no one can live.

Spoiled by entitlement and self-obsession, you stomp and demand my undivided attention. But I have witnessed the truth unfold, your brutal acts and utter betrayal have left my heart calloused and cold.

For simple kindness is the key to hearts,And in its absence, love quietly departs.So live your life, but know the cost. You will never fully have me, both doomed, we are lost.