Neurodivergent and proud (poems by Marcella Boccia)

Love does not save me, but it holds me (Marcella Boccia)Love does not come to rescue mefrom the depths of my soul’s tempest—it does not offer its hands,glowing like stars above the chaos.No, love does not save.But it holds me,tenderly,in the way shadows hold the earthwhen the sun has gone to rest.It does not extinguish the firesthat burn within me,nor still the storm in my chest—it watches,quiet as a ghost,as I spiral into myself,and waitslike a forgotten songthat lingers in the corners of silence.Love does not heal the cracksthat grow with each passing hour,nor fill the emptinessthat stretches out,endlessly,like a barren field under a cold moon.But it holds me,in the way the ocean holdsthe waveseven as they crash against its shore.It is not a savior,not a cure for my wounds,but a soft murmur in the night—a warmth that does not burn,but touches me like a whisperthat speaks in languages I have forgotten.Love does not save mebut it keeps me from falling apartinto the dust of a worldthat has forgotten how to breathe.And in that quiet,in that steady embrace,I find a sliver of peace—not salvation,but something far more fragileand beautiful:the comfort of knowingthat I am held,even when I am lost.

Screams suffocated in pillows (Marcella Boccia)Beneath the weight of dreams,I scream—a sound swallowed by the hollow night,a cry that never escapes my throat,its edges sharp like broken glass,but muffled, lost in the softness of a lie.In the silence of my room,where the walls are made of shadows,I am crushed by the weight of my own breath,each inhale a struggle,each exhale a surrender to the dark.The pillow beneath my headbecomes a tomb for the words I dare not say,its fabric soaked with the tearsI do not want to cry.I scream for the souls I never saved,for the love I could not give,for the promises I broke in my sleep.My voice shatters,but no one hears it—not the moon,nor the wind,nor the silence that cradles mein its indifferent arms.The scream is a secret,tucked away in the folds of my mind,where it festers,waiting for the moment to break free.But it remains trapped,suffocated by the comfort of false hope,and the pillow,oh, the pillow—it whispers back,telling me that silence is salvation.So I lie,the scream still lodged deep in my chest,a fire smothered by the weight of my own shame.And I breathe in,and out,as the night wraps itself around me,silent and heavy,a reminder that some screams are meant to die in the dark.

Dying and reborn in the same hour (Marcella Boccia)In the hour when the sky bleeds into the earth,I die—not in the silence of a distant night,but in the trembling breath of dawn,where life and death make love,their bodies woven in the threads of shadows.I die in the arms of a memory,one too fragile to hold,its weight a river that cannot be crossed,its waters too bitter to drink.The past pours over me,its fingers leaving bruises,each one a story I no longer wish to tell.Yet, in the very same moment—I am reborn.A fragile flame stirs in my chest,its flicker weak, but not extinguished.From the ashes of my grief,a new world rises,its edges sharp like the promise of rain,its sky unclouded by the weight of old wounds.I am born of a river I did not choose,its currents dragging me under,and yet, I swim.My body is both broken and whole,a contradiction as old as the wind,as certain as the sun's return after the storm.I am dying and reborn,a cycle too tangled to untie.In this brief, fleeting hour,I am both dust and stars,both prisoner and freedom,both lover and lost.And in the silence that follows,I find myself anew.

In the arms of nothingness (Marcella Boccia)I lay myself down in the arms of nothingness,where shadows breathe like lovers,and silence carves its name into my soul.The void holds me close,its cold fingers trailing along my spine,each touch a whisper of the world undone.No stars hang in the sky,no moon to guide my sorrow,only the weight of empty promisesthat echo through the chambers of my heart.I have forgotten what it means to dreamand yet, I dream in the dark.The earth beneath me is a grave,and I, a wanderer lost within my own skin,searching for a voice in the whispers of ghosts.The night speaks in riddles,its tongue sharp and broken,teaching me the language of the unspoken.In the arms of nothingness,I am both lost and found,drowning in the silence that blooms like a flowerwithout petals, without roots.There is no escape from the hollow inside me,no refuge from the echoes that hunger for release.And yet, I remain—a flicker of somethingcaught between the suffocating breath of the voidand the fading light of the world I left behind.I am not dead, not yet alive—just a heartbeat in the arms of nothingness,waiting for the momentwhen I will be nothing at all.

Poetry keeps me alive (Marcella Boccia)Poetry is the breath I stealfrom the silence of the earth,a thief who robs the night of its secrets,and leaves me trembling,naked in the light of unsung stars.It is the fire I drink,its heat turning my veins to flame,until my skin crumbles into ash—and I rise again,reborn in words that echo in the shadows.Poetry keeps me alive,when the world falls silent,when the weight of history crushes my bonesand time, like a shadow,eats away the hours.It is the rhythm of my heartbeat,the pulse that races in my veins,the whispers of a love lost in war,a rebellion against the darknessthat tries to swallow my soul.When I am broken,and the world speaks in curses,poetry is my salvation—a thousand arms that pull me from the abyssand stitch my wounds with ink and fire.It is the laughter of forgotten dreams,the cry of children left behind,the hope that rises from the ashesof a world that has forgotten how to live.Poetry keeps me alive,like the wind that refuses to die,like the ocean that calls to the shore,like the stars that burn even in the darkest skyit is the pulse,the breath,the life that never stops.

The day I got lost (Marcella Boccia)The day I got lost, the sky turnedits face away, no longer blue,the clouds wrapped their bodies in the scent of ash,whispering secrets only the wind could hear.I wandered, not knowing where to go,but feeling each step echo through me,as if my feet were tracing forgotten roadswhere names had been erased long ago.The earth beneath me was a stranger’s touch,cold, unfamiliar, a tremor in the soil,and the trees, once silent companions,wept their leaves into the winds of time.I stood still, waiting for the stars to call,for the moon to cradle me in its silence,but no light reached my eyes,and no sound broke the sorrow that lay heavy on my chest.I got lost in the spaces between heartbeats,where memory fades like distant thunder,and the echoes of my nameare swallowed by the hollow of the universe.It wasn’t the map I lost,but the sense of home—the quiet knowing of where to place my soulamid the ruin of my thoughts.The day I got lost,I found myself in the cracks of time,holding my breath,waiting for the world to remember my name.

Drinking darkness in small sips (Marcella Boccia)I drink the darkness in small sips,savored like wine from a shattered glass,its bitter taste a quiet kissupon the lips of a haunted past.The moon bleeds a pale, tired light,casting shadows that twist and crawl,whispering secrets to the night,secrets I cannot recall.In the hollow of my chest,a storm brews, silent and fierce,I cradle my soul in its unrest,swallowing sorrow with every tear.I drink the night, like I drink my rage,slowly, savoring each drop of pain,as if to taste the poison’s wageand find some comfort in the strain.The world is a blur of fading stars,a canvas smeared with ash and grief,and I, a wanderer behind the barsof my own mind, searching for relief.But I drink, for in the dark,I am not afraid to feel the weight,to taste the poison, bite the bark,of this heavy world, this broken fate.Drinking darkness in small sips—I find my solace in the sting,as each swallow burns my lips,and yet I ask for one more drink.

Invisible scars (Marcella Boccia)The silence hums beneath my skin,a thousand whispers stitched to bone,echoes of wars only I have fought,blades of memories I have not known.I carry scars that no one sees,etched not in flesh, but in the mind,where shadows paint with tender easethe stories that were left behind.The world looks at me and wonders whymy smile trembles like the autumn leaves,but it does not know the weight I hide—the tears that never fall, but grieve.Invisible scars, they cut so deep,not with steel, but with unspoken pleas,the kind of pain that never sleeps,the kind that blooms and never leaves.I am the phantom in the mirror’s gaze,not a victim, but a warrior, still,my wounds are invisible, yet they blazewith the fire of an iron will.So I walk through this world unseen,holding my scars, and holding my crown—for every wound that lies betweenis the strength that will never drown.

I am not my pain (Marcella Boccia)I am not my pain,though it has worn me like a second skin,etched in the deep lines of my face,woven through the silence between my breaths.It has touched my bones,taught my heart to breakwith the precision of a forgotten lover's kiss,but I am not its prisoner.I am not the scarsthat mark my flesh like a mapof every war I’ve fought within—each one a victory,each one a woundthat whispers its story in the dark,but they do not define me.I am more than what was takenor what was lost.I am the wind that risesand tears through the dust of the past,carrying with it the scent of a worldnot yet ruined,not yet broken.I am the voice that risesfrom the ashes of my own despair,shaking the earth beneath my feetwith the roar of somethingthat will not be silenced.I am not the tears that falllike fragile promises forgotten in the rain,nor the hollow nights when the moon is just a ghost,its light a whisper of what could have been.I am not the darkness,though I have danced in its embrace,nor the shadows that follow melike unwanted memories.I am the pulse of lifethat refuses to die,the flicker of lightthat refuses to dim.I am the silence that speaks louder than words,the breath that fills the spaces between the beats of a broken heart.I am not my pain,though it has walked beside melike an old friend.I am the one who rises—the one who survives.

Hands that shake, mind that screams (Marcella Boccia)My hands tremble,as though they hold the weight of the worldin their bones,a tremor passed downfrom the shadows of my ancestors,their silence echoing in the pulse of my skin.They shake in rhythms I cannot break,as if the air itself conspires to pull them apart,to scatter my soul like dust to the winds.The mind,oh the mind,it screams,a fire that cannot be tamed,a beast clawing at the cage of thought.It whispers of forgotten dreams,of untold stories wrapped in chains,drenched in the blood of the unsaid.It fights against the silence,against the stillness that demandsI stay quiet,but I cannot—I will not.There are nights when the world presses down,when the weight of the moon feels too much to carry,and the darkness grows heavywith the weight of things left unsaid.In those hours,my mind is a battlefield,a storm that howls with the fury of a thousand lost souls,and my hands—they shake.I reach for the fragments of peace,those fragile, fleeting moments when the silence is soft,but they slip through my fingerslike sand in a storm,leaving nothing but the screamof my own nametorn in two.Hands that shake,mind that screams—they are bound in a dancethat cannot be broken,two parts of a soulthat cannot rest.

Sometimes I want to sleep forever (Marcella Boccia) 🎧Sometimes, I want to sleep forever—to let the weight of the world slip off my bones,to sink into the stillness of a dreamwhere time dissolvesand I am no longer boundby the aches of waking.In the dark, I stretch my hands toward silence,toward the soft, unspoken lullabyof an empty sky.I long to be nothing,a shadow caught in the twilight,a thought abandoned before it is born,a whisper swallowed by the night.There are days when the noise of lifeis too much,when even the air is sharp,cutting through my lungslike a blade searching for the truthof a name I can no longer remember.And in those moments,I ache for the peace of oblivion,for the cold comfortof being lost to the world,of being buried under the weight of sleep,where nothing demands to be felt,nothing calls me back.But sleep is a thief,and it has no mercy.It waits in the corners of my mind,a promise I cannot trust—a kiss that leaves me breathlessbut never satisfied.So I keep walking through the waking world,even when the path blurs,even when the ground beneath me tremblesand the sky above mebegins to break apart.Yet, sometimes—sometimes I want to sleep forever,to drift beyond the edges of this aching skin,to find a place where my soul can restwithout fear of what it has forgotten.But I remain here,awake,searching for the silence that will never come,waiting for the sleepthat will never be enough.

Surviving my shifts (Marcella Boccia)I shift through hours like a ghost,passing through spaces that hold no weight,where the clock is a thief,stealing minutes that dissolvebefore I can taste them.The air is thick with waiting,with words that never reach my lips,like smoke held in the lungsof a broken promise.I swallow them whole,letting them burn their way downinto places too dark to remember.Each shift is a battle,not with time, but with myself—a war fought on the edge of silence,where the mind races and the bodyfollows only because it must.The hours stretch like shadowsacross a land I no longer recognize,a place where I exist in fragments—a flicker here, a whisper there,all waiting for the moment I can restand forget the weight of these shifting hands.I survive by turning my eyes awayfrom what I cannot change,facing only the fragile lightthat cuts through the cracksof my tired skin.I am a wound that knows how to endure,how to carry the world on the back of a breathand never ask for help.There is beauty in this survival—not in the way I wear my scars,but in the way I breathe through them,in the quiet strength of a soulthat refuses to break.And when the shift ends,when the light fades into the night,I find myself whole again—not healed, not saved,but survivingthe only way I know how,by becoming the silencebetween the hoursthat have come and gone.

The void that tastes like me (Marcella Boccia)There is a silence in meso vast,it consumes the stars—a gaping mouth,hungry for what cannot be found.It tastes like dust,like the ash of a dreamforgotten in the heat of waking.I reach into it,fingers trembling,but the void has no form,no edges to grasp.It is a weightless thing,like a shadow without a body,like a breath that never leavesbut refuses to enter.I am the emptiness I crave,a hollow echo of a wordI cannot say,a silence so thickit coats my tongue.I am the space between breaths,where even time forgets to pass.The void tastes like me—not the skin or the bone,but the places in between,where the light cannot reach,where my name dissolves into the air,and all that remainsis a hungerthat knows no end.I am both the voice and the absence,the beginning and the end,a wound that has never healedbut learns to sing in its silence.And in this void,I exist—not as a body,but as the tasteof something missing,something that never was,but always will be.

A night without skin (Marcella Boccia)I walk the earth tonight,bare,stripped of the fleshthat once held me together,a trembling silhouette in the dark,where the moon is a questionand the stars burn like unspoken secrets.There is no skin to shield me now—no walls to guard the heart,no breath to pull me back from the edge.I am all raw,all exposed,a wound that has learned to whisper.The air is colder here,as if the night itselfknows the cost of vulnerability,and the silence seeps deep,leaving a taste of ash on my tongue,a taste that lingerslike forgotten sins.I stretch out my hands—hands that have touched everythingand nothing—and in their trembling,I feel the pulse of the world,the sorrow of a thousand broken lives,the weight of promises unspoken.Without skin,there is no boundary,no place where I endand the universe begins.I am the sky and the earth,the space between,the crack in the soul where lighthas forgotten to fall.And yet,I walk,alone,into the night that does not careto dress my wounds.For in this emptiness,I find the raw truththat the heart beats louderwithout the skin to soften its cry.

Beyond black and white (Marcella Boccia)There is a world that lies beyond the edgesof black and white,where shadows stretch like hungry rivers,and the sun does not rise or fall,but hangs in the air like a question,unanswered, suspended.We are born into it,this land of unspoken truths,where the lines we draware never straight,and the colors we seekmelt into the dusk,no longer separate,but one,in the belly of the night.Here, there is no good or evil,only the space between breaths,where silence speaks louder than words,and every whisper carries a thousand histories.Here, we are both the lost and the found,the dreamer and the dream.In this world,I have learned that loveis neither light nor dark,but something that flickersbetween the two,like the flame of a candlefighting the wind.It is both fragile and eternal,a paradox wrapped in skin,and we,we are the fire.So let the world call it black or white—we who dwell in the spaces beyondknow the truth that burnsin every soul,the truth that cannot be named,but can only be felt,where the colors bleedand become one.

The days I disappear (Marcella Boccia)There are days when I am no longer me,when my skin wears thin like paper,and my bones tremble beneath the weightof a world that calls but cannot reach.I slip through the cracks of time,my breath swallowed by the silence of forgotten things.I disappear into the shadow of my own name,where even the stars grow tired of lighting my path.The mirror breaks beneath the weight of a facethat has forgotten how to smile,and the echoes of my thoughtsare swallowed by the darkness I carry.I am not lost,I am only hiding—hiding from the light that once knew my face,hiding from the love that once lived in my chestlike fire.Now it is nothing but embers,the last breath of a flame that chose to fade.And still, the world spins,filling its days with noise,while I wait in the stillness,waiting for the days when I can breathe again,when I can return from the silenceand reclaim the self that has become a ghost.But some days,I am the ghost.I am the shadow cast by a life that has gone dim,and I do not know if I will returnor if I will stayamong the days that have learned to forget.

Love that becomes fire (Marcella Boccia)Once, it was a whisper,soft as silk,a murmur in the shadowed corners of the heart,caressing the edges of doubtwith the gentleness of a breeze.It spoke in the language of light,and I listened—I listened to its sweetness,believing it was enough.But love, when it chooses to burn,does not ask for permission.It ignites from within,turning the flesh to tinder,the soul to ash,and the heart to a flame that does not die.It consumes what it touches—innocence, trust,even the air between two soulsthat once spoke in sighs.Now, it is smoke that chokes the lungs,and fire that dances in the eyes.I thought love would keep me warm.I thought it would shelter mefrom the cold winds of the world.But instead, it has made a furnace of my chest,a fire that will not be quenchedby time or rain or prayer.Love, once tender,becomes a storm—a wildfire spreading through the marrow,a blaze that must burn until there is nothing leftbut the charred remainsof what we once called peace.And even in the ashes,even when the flame has taken all,love remains—not as it was,but as the fire that cleanses,the fire that leaves only the bonesof who we are meant to be.

Nameless rage (Marcella Boccia)It is not the fury of a storm,raging in the belly of the sky,nor the crack of thunder breaking the bones of the night.It is quieter,a flame that eats the soul from the inside,turning breath to smoke,soul to ash.I carry it in the hollow of my chest,where once there was room for love,now only the gnawing hunger of rage.It is nameless—unspoken—and yet it howls like the wind in empty streets,like footsteps that never return.It is the cry of a mother,long after the child has gone.It is the weight of history,built from every broken promise,every empty word,every hand that struck without reason.It cannot be drowned in rivers,nor buried beneath stones,nor silenced by the weight of years.It feeds on the very marrow of the land,on the roots of forgotten trees,on the bones of the forgotten.Nameless rage—it is the shadow cast by war,the dark heart of the storm,the mark left by the hand that no longer believesin the power of mercy.It lingers,and it waits.

Letters to a burning land (Marcella Boccia)I write to you with hands stained in dusk,fingers trembling with the weight of ash.The sky is no longer sky—it is a wound split open, spilling fire into the bones of the earth.What words survive in the mouth of ruin?What verses can be born from the throat of war?I have only this ink, heavy as blood,only these letters, scattered like bonesin the silence between explosions.The rivers drink the dead,their names sinking beneath the currents,while the mountains wear the echoes of screams,wrapped in the smoke of nameless homes.Tell me, how does a mother holdwhat the war has taken?I send these words like prayers without a god,folded into the wind,pressed between the ribs of a city that does not sleep.If they reach you,if they are not swallowed by the flames,read them aloud—let the wind carry them back to me,a whisper, a requiem, a proofthat someone is still listening.

The tears of mothers (Marcella Boccia)They do not fall like rain,wild and reckless upon the earth.No, they descend in silence,one by one,like forgotten prayers slipping from trembling lips.They salt the cradle of the dead,bathe the wounds time dares not touch,carve rivers into withered handsthat once traced lullabieson sleeping brows.A mother’s tears do not dry.They turn to stone,to shadow,to the weight carried in the hollow of her chestwhere laughter once lived.And when the world forgets,when names are erased like footprints in wind,they remain—woven into the earth’s sorrow,whispering through the branches of orphaned trees,rising in the hush before the call to prayer.No grave can hold them.No war can silence them.The tears of mothersoutlive even the men who caused them to fall.

The scent of fear (Marcella Boccia)It does not smell of fire,nor of gunpowder curling in the air.It is not the acrid breath of burning homes,nor the sharp sting of metal and blood.No—fear smells of something softer,something slower,like damp earth before a storm,like the last trace of perfume on a vanished wrist,like the skin of a child pressed against silence.It clings to the folds of the wind,woven into the fabric of waiting,into the space where footsteps hesitate,where doors close before duskand voices are swallowed whole.It seeps into the bones,turns marrow to shadow,makes hands tremble before they touch,before they write,before they reach for somethingthat may not be there tomorrow.And even when the streets are empty,even when the guns fall quiet,even when the world pretends to forget—fear lingers,invisible as breath on cold glass,a scent that never truly fades.

Blood in the snow (Marcella Boccia)The first snowfall came like a hush,soft as a prayer left unsaid,covering the streets in a quiet so deepeven grief seemed to sleep beneath it.But the earth remembers.It drinks red where white once lay,where footprints vanishbut wounds remain.Somewhere, a mother calls a namethat will not answer.Somewhere, a hand too small to hold a gunis clenched around absence,fingers curled like petals in frost.They say the snow cleanses,that winter is a forgetting—but I have seen the color linger,seep into the marrow of the cold,turn ice into witness,silence into scream.Come spring, the rivers will rise,carrying away what cannot be buried.And yet, even then,somewhere beneath the blossoms,the earth will whisper its hungerfor the blood it was forced to swallow.

Children who no longer play (Marcella Boccia)Once, their laughter was light,spilling like marigolds across the courtyards,hands clapping, feet chasing shadowstoo swift to be caught.Now the streets are mute,hollowed by the hush of abandoned games.The air is heavy with things unsaid,with echoes of names never called home again.They have learned the language of sirens,the rhythm of distant gunfire,how to flinch without moving,how to dream without closing their eyes.The sky, once their boundless roof,now presses down like a silent witness,watching as childhood folds itselfinto something unspoken, something gray.Who will teach them to run again,to lose themselves in the windwithout fear of never returning?Who will give them back the daysthat slipped through their fingerslike sand through the cracks of time?Somewhere, a skipping rope lies still,a ball rests where it was last kicked,and the wind carries only dust—never the sound of children at play.

Explosions in the heart (Marcella Boccia) 🎧 EnglishThere are wars no one sees,battles waged in the hollows of ribs,where silence is both weapon and wound,where love and loss burn in the same fire.I have walked through streets that echo gunfire,where the sky collapses into smoke,where the air carries the scent of endings,and yet—it is not the bombs that shatter me,but the quiet after,the way grief lingers like dust in the lungs.Your name is written in the ruins of my pulse,each syllable an ember refusing to fade.I carry it like a fragment of shattered glass,pressed deep beneath my skin,cutting, always cutting,so I do not forget.Tell me,is love not its own kind of war?Do we not detonate in each other’s arms,collapse into ruins built for two?Do our hearts not scatter like debris,longing for hands that will never gather them whole again?The world burns outside my window,but it is the quiet explosions in my heartthat leave the deepest scars.

Dust and prayers (Marcella Boccia)The evening bends like a tired beggar,draped in the hush of unsaid words.Dust rises from the earth in soft laments,whispers of footsteps long vanished,of hands that once built and destroyed,of names carried away by the wind.Prayers hang in the air,weightless as candle smoke,climbing unseen toward a silent sky.Do the heavens listen, I wonder,or do they only collect echoes—a hymn of the forsaken,a song with no reply?I walk where the dust clings to my skin,where the river drinks the light of dying suns,where the air tastes of longing and loss.In this place, even silence has a voice,even absence has a shape.Somewhere, beneath the ruins of yesterday,someone still prays for mercy,someone still gathers the broken hours,threading them into rosaries of hope.But the dust does not answer.The dust only rises.And the prayers keep burning,like stars no one looks for anymore.

War in the pupils (Marcella Boccia)There is war in the pupils of those who have seen too much, A battlefield hidden behind the quiet of their gaze, Where echoes of gunfire do not fade, Where the dead still whisper their unfinished names. I have watched the children of ruin walk home at dusk, Their hands small, their shadows long, Carrying silence like an inheritance, Carrying absence where laughter should be. The sky folds itself into mourning, Ash and prayers tangled in the wind, And the river swallows the weeping of the lost, Its currents heavy with stories That will never be told. Tell me, How do you unsee what the eyes have carved into the soul? How do you close your lids Without feeling the weight of ghosts pressing against them? There is war in the pupils of those who remember,A fire smoldering beneath the hush of their breath,And in the mirror of their gaze,Even love walks barefoot,Afraid to make a sound.In the quiet of their silence,Echoes of shattered dreams find their refuge,Fingers tremble as they traceThe scars that time has forgotten to heal.In their chest, hearts beatLike the distant thrum of a drumThat once called the brave to battle—But now, it only calls them home.The weight of history hangs heavy on their shoulders,Like the shadows of soldiersWho never made it back to their mothers.They carry it with grace,A burden cloaked in dignity,Yet in the hollow of their eyes,A storm rages—Unseen, but always there.And still, in the depth of their gaze,Where memories fade like the dying embers of a fire,There is a tenderness left untouched by time—A softness that trembles beneath the furyOf the war that rages in their souls.

The sky over Jhelum (Marcella Boccia)The sky over Jhelum is not a sky—it is a wound split open by time,a whisper stretched thin over the river’s breath,where the dusk bleeds into the watersand the waters carry the weight of sorrowwithout ever breaking.I have stood on its banks,where the air tastes of longingand the mountains press their silence into my skin.The boats drift like forgotten prayers,their wooden ribs creaking under the weightof words never spoken.Somewhere, beyond the mist,your voice is a thread of wind,a tremor in the hush of twilight,a song unfinished,left in the hands of the riverto be carried away,to be drowned,to be remembered.Tell me—do you ever look at this skyand feel the same ache pressing against your ribs?Do you hear the water call my namein the language of ghosts?The sky over Jhelum is not a sky—it is a mirror where the past does not fade,where love does not end,where we are forever waitingon opposite shoresfor a bridge that will never be built.

Always, beyond time (Marcella Boccia) Always,Even when the seasons fold into the cold of silence,When the stars refuse to burn,And the earth sighs beneath the weight of centuries—You are there,A shadow I cannot touch,A flame I cannot extinguish.Beyond time,Where the rivers of past and future meet,Where the echoes of forgotten lives weave through the air,Your presence is a ghost I cannot outrun,A pulse in the deep of my veins,A song that plays in the spaces between breaths.In the quiet,When the world forgets to speak,I hear you in the rustle of the leaves,In the tremor of the wind,In the spaces where words have diedBut still, your name lingers like a prayer.You are always—A constant ache that never leaves,A desire that bends the arc of time,A flame burning quietly in the distance,Yet close enough to burn me whole.And still,I reach for you,Not with my hands,But with the longing that has no shape,The yearning that knows no end,As I move through the shadows of the world,Always chasing your echo,Always lost in the place where we never met,But where we are always,Beyond time.

The silence that binds us (Marcella Boccia)There is a silence between us,Thick as the night before a storm,A space where words cannot reach,Yet where everything is said,And nothing can be undone.It holds us—Like the stillness before the first drop of rain,A breath drawn too deep,Too fragile to exhale,As though even the air knowsThe weight of what remains unsaid.In this silence,You are both a ghost and a flame,A shadow cast on the edges of my thoughts,A fire I cannot touchFor fear it will burn me whole.Yet still, I reach—Not for you,But for the echo of you,For the space you leave behindThat swells like an ocean in my chest.We speak without sound,Each glance a letter in a language we cannot write,Each pause an eternity that folds us closerAnd pulls us further apart,As if our hearts are bound by invisible threads,Pulled tight with every unspoken word.This silence,It is the air we breathe—Heavy with longing,Cloaked in the dark of forgotten dreams,Yet it is also the space where we exist,Where love rises like smokeAnd disappears before it can be named.And so we remain—Not in the sound of our voices,But in the silence that binds us,A bond stronger than any vow,A truth that neither of us can escape,Not even as the winds of time carry usFurther from each other.

Love in suspension (Marcella Boccia)Love hangs in the air here,A fragile thread spun between us and the abyss,It sways, caught in the breath of unseen winds,As if afraid to fall,Yet too heavy to fly.I feel it,Tugging at the spaces where my heart once beat freely,Now a hollow echo in the chest,A memory that lingers like smoke,Refusing to be inhaled or exhaled.In this suspended moment,You are both near and far,A shadow that touches my skin but does not stay,A dream that slips through my fingers,Each word you never spokeBecomes a weight I carry in silence.We are two souls,Frozen in time’s cruel embrace,Neither here nor gone,Bound by the tension of what could have been,And what we never dared to say.Your love—It is a dark flame that never warms,A fire that flickers on the edge of this quiet void,Waiting for the wind to blow it out,Waiting for the world to forget its name.And still, I hold it,This love in suspension,Like a star whose light never reaches the earth,Like a river that forgets to run,Both endless and empty,Both alive and dead,Suspended in the space where I am not,But where I will always remain.

Your voice in the wind’s echo (Marcella Boccia)Your voice drifts through the valley,A whisper caught in the throat of the mountain,As though the winds themselves were tryingTo hold it—To keep it from fading into the night.It is a voice like the dark of forgotten stars,Soft as the touch of rain on a broken leaf,Heavy with the weight of something unsaid,A song lost to the silence of time.I hear it,Not in the clear light of day,But in the murmur of dusk,When shadows stretch like the fingers of ghosts,And the earth is bruised with the memory of pain.Your voice,It is both promise and sorrow,A flame that burns without light,A fire that feeds on the air,As if it knows the hunger of this world.And still, I chase it,Not to capture it,But to understand the space between each breath,The pause that hangs like a tear on the edge of the world.For in the echo of your voice,I find the silence I cannot fill,The emptiness that calls me home,Even as it pulls me further away.Your voice in the wind’s echo—A love both eternal and forgotten,A song that will never be sung,But whose melody I will carry,Through all the seasons,Until the wind itself has nothing left to say.

Chinar leaves and poetry (Marcella Boccia)The chinar leaves fall,Crimson tears on the earth,Each one a poem written in the silence of the sky,Each one a breath caught in the throat of time.They flutter like whispers,Carrying the stories of a thousand lost years,And I gather them,Not for their beauty,But for the ache they carry in their veins.The wind sings its song through the branches,A hymn of despair and longing,And I hear it—Not as a melody,But as the language of the earth,The voice of the dead,Echoing through the spaces where love once bloomed.These leaves,They are not just leaves.They are words that do not need to be spoken,Fingers of flame that touch the soul,The memories of a war forgotten by men,But never by the land.They tell of lovers who never met,Of names erased by time,Of dreams that died before they could take root.In this place,Where the chinar trees bleed into the earth,I write poetry,Not with ink,But with the blood of these fallen leaves.Each word a scar,Each line a wound,Each verse a prayer for those who have gone,And for those who will never return.In the shadows of these trees,Where darkness wraps itself around the light,I am both lost and found,Both the writer and the written,Both the leaf that falls and the earth that weeps.

Letter to a distant man (Marcella Boccia)I write to you,Though you are not here,Not in the space where my breath lingers,Not in the silence that calls your name.Your face is a distant sky—A cloud I chase in the dusk,A horizon I touch only in dreams,As the winds of the past blow me to you,And pull me back to the edge of nowhere.Your voice,Once a song that echoed in my bones,Now fades into the roar of rivers I cannot cross.Yet still, I hear it—soft as the fall of ash,A tremor in the earth,In the spaces where love once lived.I’ve written your name in the scars of my skin,But it disappears,Each time the ink of my memory blurs.Yet, in the corners of my heart,You remain—A shadow stitched into the fabric of my being.I do not ask for you to return.I do not ask for the weight of your absenceTo break me further.I write to you,Not to seek you,But to remind myselfThat even distance cannot erase the hunger,The ache of having known you—For you are both the woundAnd the scar that keeps me alive.And so, in this letter,I leave you as you are,A distant manWho will never know the quiet warThat rages in my soulEvery time I say goodbye.

Your name is a sweet wound (Marcella Boccia)Your name,A soft blade that cuts the air,A whisper of blood on my tongue,It lingers,Not with bitterness,But with the sweetness of a woundI will never allow to heal.It echoes in my veins,Where silence once bloomed,And now it blooms with pain,Like roses that thrive in the night,Their petals sharp as the longingI dare not speak.Your name is a song I sing in darkness,A melody woven with sorrowAnd the taste of somethingI cannot quite touch—The warmth of a handThat never held mine.It wraps around my heart,A string pulled too tight,A breath I choke onEach time I try to forget,Each time I try to step away—But there is no distanceBetween you and the mark you left.I have learned to love it,This sweet wound,For it is the only part of youThat remains.I kiss it like a secret,A flame that never dies,And I carry it,Proud in its ache,For in its pain,I am both lost and found,A ghost living in the nameYou gave me,Forever.

Words I do not say (Marcella Boccia)There are words that burn,And I keep them close,Pressed between ribs and regret—They are the secrets I feed to the night.They are the whispers that curlAround the shadows of my soul,Where no light dares to travel,Where silence becomes a language of its own.I have tasted them, bitter as iron,Written them on the walls of my mind,Yet still they stay unspoken,Like fire held in a glass.They are the love I cannot give,The sorrow I cannot spill,The truth too sharp for this world—A blade I clutch with trembling hands.You, who stand on the edge of my thoughts,Will never hear them,For I have learned to wear silenceLike a veil over my heart.And still, beneath this quiet storm,A scream rises, soft as the dawn,But I do not say it—For what is a voice,When the world has already forgotten how to listen?

Writing to you from the edge (Marcella Boccia)From the edge of a world torn in silence,Where the mountains bleed and the river cries,I write to you, the flame of my thoughts,On pages soaked with moonlight's sigh.Beneath the weight of an ancient sky,I trace your name on the winds that pass,And the echoes of our souls intertwine,Dancing with shadows, flickering like glass.You, who speak in a language of stars,In the softest hum of forgotten days,Your words, like sacred birds, fly so far,Across the borderlines where silence stays.Here, where time is broken and thin,Where history bleeds from every stone,I find myself, caught in the grip of sin,A lover's dream on a war-worn throne.But in this darkness, your voice is light,A beacon that swells in the hollow of night.I send you my truth, veiled in despair,As I stand on the edge—between hope and air.Can you hear me, love, from this hollow sea?Or am I but a shadow lost in the tragedy?

Srinagar between the lines (Marcella Boccia)The lake whispers in tongues of mist,its breath a veil over forgotten names.Shikaras drift like silent prayers,soft ripples spelling verses only the moon can read.The air tastes of lost letters,unwritten vows, half-formed songs—love that burned in the hush of dawn,grief that lingers between jasmine and ash.Mountains loom, guardians of sorrow,their spines carved with the weight of echoes.Somewhere, a poet stitches silence into rhyme,while a mother folds the night into her palms.Srinagar—written in longing, erased by time,a city etched in ink that never dries.

Neurodivergent and proud (Marcella Boccia)I do not walk the world in straight lines,nor think in measured whispers.My mind is a constellationwhere stars refuse to stand still,a river that does not askfor permission to flood.They call me disorder,but I am symphony—a chaos of violins in a burning sky,a song too vast for the limits of silence.They call me fractured,but I am mosaic—shattered light woven into meaning,a prism of feeling too wild to contain.I have danced at the edge of oblivion,loved with a fire that devours the night,felt joy like a thunderstormand sorrow like an oceanthat will not let me sleep.Yes, I am different.Yes, I am more.More storm, more softness,more hunger for a worldthat will not shrink to fitthe smallness of their understanding.I refuse to be less.I refuse to be tamed.I wear my wiring like a crown of fire,my mind an uncharted sea,my heart an anthemthat will not be silenced.I am neurodivergent and proud—a wildfire in a world of embers,a voice that will not fade,a universe expandinginside the pulse of my veins.

THE WEIGHT OF BEING MEI wake to a sky that does not belong to me,to air too thin, too heavy,pressing against the bones of my chestlike an unspoken grief.The mirror does not recognize my face—or perhaps it does,and simply chooses to turn away.I carry myself like a burden,a body filled with too many ghosts,a mind stitched togetherwith the frayed threads of yesterday.Each step I takeis weighted with the echoes of every selfI have ever been—the girl who dreamed in light,the woman who unraveled in the dark.The weight of being meis the silence between words,the space between longing and loss,the ache of a heart that beatsout of time, out of tune,always searching for a rhythmthat will not betray it.I have swallowed my name so many timesthat I no longer know its taste.I have worn a hundred faces,each one a mask slipping from my hands,melting into the spaces where shadows live,where memory wavers like a candleburning at both ends.Tell me,is there a place where the weight of mebecomes lighter?Where the storm inside my ribscan rest,where I am more than a questionwhispered into the void?Or am I fated to carry myselflike an ocean carries the tide—forever pulled,forever drowning,forever returningto shores that will never call me home?

Liquid dissociationI am the river that cannot hold its form,the water that slips through fingers,too soft to grasp,too swift to see.My thoughts, like currents,flow and break,dissolve into the night,leaving nothing but the taste of salton a tongue too tired to speak.I am liquid—a shape that shattersbefore it takes shape,a reflection that fadesthe moment it is seen.I am the fracture between the selfand the shadow,the moment where time stretches thin,like a thread pulled too farand about to snap.Do you hear the murmursof my soul,the whispers of the oceanthat lives inside me?Each wave, a cry for what is lost,each ripple, a question without an answer.The sea is my mirror—but I am not whole enoughto meet its gaze.I dissolve in the spaces between moments,like rain falling through the cracks of a broken sky,I am caught between becoming and unbecoming,betwixt the shore and the abyss,an edge where nothing stands still,where all is fluid,and the self is only a dreamthat slips through the cracks of the world.I am the weight of a thoughtthat cannot settle,the thirst that no river can quench.In the deep,I am lost to the current,a body that no longer remembershow to stay afloat,a heart that beats in liquid dissociation—a pulse that breaks into the flow of time,forever searching for somethingthat cannot be found.And yet,even in this endless fall,I am the ocean,I am the sky,I am the horizon that never arrives—forever dissolving,forever reborn.

A heart in intermittence (Marcella Boccia) 🎧 EnglishMy heart beats like a clockthat does not know time—its rhythm erratic,its pulse a rebellionagainst the steady march of hours.In the silence of the night,it quickens,like a lover who cannot wait,then falters,a hesitationtoo heavy to bear,too light to ignore.I am both the flame and the ash,the fire that devoursand the embers that linger,smoldering in the quiet.My heart—a song sung in staccato,each beat a notedropped in the void,too brief to reach the ears of the stars,too long to escape the grip of the earth.In the spaces between beats,I hear the echoesof everything I never said,the whispers of a pastthat clings to the present,like shadows that never leave.The gaps in my heart are filled with them,those forgotten words,the dreams too fragile to hold,the love too heavy to speak.Do you hear it too?The silence that swellsin the spaces where my heart should be,the quiet that roarslouder than any cry?A heart in intermittence,a pulse that tremblesbetween life and death,between the now and the never,caught in the tremor of what wasand what can never be.I am both the woundand the healing,the question without an answer,the longing without a name.My heart—a place where time falters,where desire lingers,where hope is a shadowand love a ghost.In the gaps of its beat,I find myself—a breath caught in the web of moments,forever waiting,forever breaking,forever alive in the silence.

VOICES BETWEEN THE SYNAPSES 🎧 (Marcella Boccia)I hear them—the voices that live between the synapses,whispering secretsin a language that trembles like broken glass,too sharp to touch,too soft to hold.They dance on the edges of thought,flickering like firefliescaught between moments,too fleeting to grasp,too persistent to ignore.They are the sound of silence,the music of a mind undone,the rhythm of a pulsethat cannot find its beat.Do you hear them too?The ones that call your nameand forget it in the same breath,the ones that say nothing,but speak louder than the storm?I hear them,in the spaces between my thoughts,in the tremor of my skin,in the hum of my bones—a symphony composed in the darkand played without a conductor.I hear them—the voices between the synapses,like shadows that refuse to fade,like ghosts who never die,they live in me,and I live in them.Too many to count,too fragmented to form a word,too whole to be nothing.They are the echoes of everything I’ve lost,and the fragments of what I’ve yet to find.They pull me apart and weave me back together,one thread at a time,until I am both whole and broken,a song that can never be sungbut plays on forever.Do you see the dance?The one that happens between the sparks,in the silence between the sounds,in the chaos of my thoughts?Do you feel the weight of their presence,the pressure that shapes my mindand shatters it at the same time?I am both the flame and the ash,the fire and the smoke,the one who hears the voicesbut cannot speak their name.Between the synapses,where thoughts are born and die,I exist—too many voices to be called mine,too few to leave me alone.

I am not a diagnosis 🎧 (Marcella Boccia)I am not a label pinned to my skin,not a diagnosis that can be circled in ink,not a box to be checkedon a form that knows nothing of the depth of my soul.I am not a name that can be spokenand understood,not a word that fits neatly in the mouthand slips from the tongue with ease.I am the silence after the scream,the darkness after the light,the space between thoughtswhere no one dares to look.I am the storm that rises without warning,the calm that follows without reason,the river that carves its own paththrough mountains no one sees.I am not a diagnosis.I am the fire that burns and heals,the hands that tremble and build,the heart that shatters and mendsin the same breath.I am too much,and never enough—a paradox in the flesh,a riddle too tangledto ever be solved.Do you see me?Not as a label,not as a disorder to be fixed,but as a wild thing—fierce and freein my madness,in my quiet,in the pieces of methat do not belong to this world,but to the spaces between stars.I am not a diagnosis.I am the blood that flowsthrough every broken vein,the voice that whispersin the shadows of your mind,the song you cannot name,but feel in your bones.I am not a diagnosis.I am the breath between the words,the silence that follows the cry,the chaos that calls you home.

Thoughts in overdose 🎧 (Marcella Boccia)I drink from the cup of thoughtuntil the edges bleed into the void,swallowed by the flood of voicesthat speak louder than silence,louder than love,louder than the beating of my heartagainst the cage of my chest.Too many thoughts,too many roads winding in circles,each one a path to nowhere,each one a siren’s callthat pulls me deeper into the storm.I am lost in the overdose,drowning in the weight of my own mind—a heavy, suffocating tidethat never recedes.I think too much,but what does it mean to thinkwhen the thoughts have no edges,when the mind is a labyrinthw unraveling,lost in a sea of endless reflectionsthat never stop crashing?Tell me, do you feel it too?The thoughts in overdose,the chaos of too muchand not enough,the space between breathswhere we cease to existbut continue to burn.

TOO MUCH AND NEVER ENOUGH 🎧 (Marcella Boxcia)I am the river that never rests,too full of stars to be calm,too deep to be touched by light,a torrent that knows no shore,a longing that swallows the nightand spits out the dawn.I carry too much within me—the weight of a thousand silences,the echoes of words never spoken,the dreams of a thousand livesI never had the chance to live.I am too much,and yet,I am always empty.Do you see the gap in my soul?The space between love and loss,where I keep every wordthat never found its way to your lips.The emptiness,the hunger,it gnaws at me,a beast with a thousand faces—each one yours,and none of them enough.I am a flame that burns too bright,consuming the worldand leaving nothing but ashes,a song too loud to be heard,its melody lost in the wind.I am too much,and never enough,always searching for somethingI cannot name,but feel in every breath I take.And still, I walk this road—too far from the truth,too close to the edge,holding too much in my hands,and nothing at all.The weight of everything I amdrags me down,but the sky calls me higher,and in this space between too much and never enough,I am both broken and whole.Do you understand now?Or do I remain,too muchand never enough?

A MIND IN CHECKERED PATTERNS 🎧 (Marcella Boccia)I am a tapestry of restless threads,woven in patterns no one understands,each thought a square,each feeling a line,each moment a fracturein the delicate design of my mind.Do you hear the whispers?The secrets that slip through the gaps,as I trace the edges of madness,my fingers tremblingat the sharpness of truth.A mind in checkered patterns—a puzzle whose pieceswill never fit.The world spins like a carousel,one breath a revolution,the next a fall into a void.I watch the colors blend and blur,a swirl of reds and grays,as my soul dances between them—a shadow moving,yet never quite whole.I am both the prisoner and the key,the cage that holds me,the bars that set me free.In the chaos, I seek order,in the stillness, I seek the storm.Each thought an echo of a past I cannot remember,each feeling a door I am too afraid to open.Can you see it?The way my heart beats in fractured rhythm,the way my mind sways like a tree in the wind,roots tangled in yesterday,branches reaching for tomorrow.A mind in checkered patterns—a map I will never read.And yet, I walk.Step after step,in circles I cannot break.I am the labyrinthand the lost traveler within it,seeking something I cannot name,but knowing it existsjust beyond the edges of this mind—a truth waiting to be foundin the spaces between the patterns.Do you see the pattern now?Or am I still a mystery,woven in the dark?

I trace the sky with trembling fingers,wondering if your gaze still lingersin the soft glow of forgotten stars.Heaven has your eyes now—those endless pools,those windows to a soulI never fully knew. In the silence between dusk and dawn,I hear your laughter,carried on the wind,and the taste of your namestill burns my lips like bitter wine.You are not gone,you are the echo in the night,the breath of air I cannot breathe,the fire that has turned to ash. Heaven has your eyes now,and they haunt me—those endless pools of sorrowI fell into,drowned in the weight of their beauty.Every star I see is a piece of you,a reflection of something I lost,something I cannot holdbut cannot forget. I weep not for your absence,but for the silence that remains,for the spaces between uswhere your voice once lived,now swallowed by the dark.You are a memory made of light,but my fingers cannot touch you—only the ghosts of your gaze,now scattered across the heavens,reminding me that heavenhas your eyes,and they will never return to me.      

Borderline blues (Marcella Boccia)I walk the edge of silence,where words are knives, and silence is a wound.Between two breaths, I am both fire and snow,a soul split open like the sky at dusk—half light, half shadow,always in-between,never quite whole.Do you see me?The one who wears madness like a cloak,whose eyes are mirrors of shattered dreams,who dances in the ruins of hope,each step a prayer to the unknown.I am the storm you cannot tame,the sea that refuses to be mapped.My heart beats in intervals,a drum with no rhythm—borderline, they call it.But what if it is the only truth I know?Tell me, where does the storm end and the stillness begin?Is it in the space between thought and breath?Or in the dark places where I hide,where even love trembles and falters?I am both the artist and the canvas,painting with tears that never dry,writing with blood that never fades.A poem carved in the marrow of my bones,a song sung in the spaces between madness and grace.But still, I walk this edge,one step closer to the abyss,one step further from the world you know.And I will keep walking,until I learn to breathe in the void,until the blues of this broken soulbecome the music of the stars.Do you see me now?Or am I still just a shadow,dancing in the dark?