u/Beginning-Zone-7093

thud

thud

thud

soft beginnings small and brave

in the hush where dreams are made

beat fast

faster

fly

a laugh a spark a trembling sky

joy runs wild beneath my skin

I open I open I let it in

then

slow now

softer now

the ache comes low

like thunder far away

one beat one breath

one name I cannot say

thud

thud

the rhythm breaks

then mends

it hesitates

then dares again

hold

hold

let go

I learned the rhythm

of grief long ago

it slows it stumbles

it still goes on

a pulse made fragile

yet never gone

then light

flash

flame

love returns I feel it there

the rhythm climbs

the pulse forgives

the broken heart

still dares to live

beat fast

faster

fly

I am breath I am blood

a storm contained

a thousand songs

that sound like home

thud

thud

thud

each one different

yet the same

the music whispers

my secret name

and when it fades

it will not end

for even silence

learns to bend

around the echo

of where I’ve been

​

Poetry is not a cage of rhyme. Nor a ledger of syllables to be counted like coins in a miser’s hand.

It was born screaming not bowing. It rises from fire. From hunger. From the desperate need to carve truth into the silence of the world.

It is the cry that breaks in the throat when grief has no other language. It is the whisper of love when speech feels too fragile to hold it. It is the fist pounding the table. The silence trembling louder than any words.

You say it must rhyme. I say it must bleed.

You say it must follow form. I say it must break it. Splinter it into pieces sharp enough to cut through apathy.

Do not tell me the heart must rhyme to prove it is real. Do not tell me the storm must obey when its purpose is to shatter the sky.

Poetry does not kneel. It does not ask permission. It thunders. It burns. It claws through the paper leaving scars that outlast the ink.

Every jagged line, every shattered rhythm.

Every word bent out of shape carries the weight of a soul saying I was here. I felt this.

Critic, judge, gatekeeper. Your rules are ash. My words are wildfire. And no hand on earth can smother them.