Dumping My Tangled Thoughts in this Thread
They know where your roots twist,
how your leaves tremble in the wind.
Empathy isn’t kindness here,
it’s a hand that pulls the earth
from beneath your feet.
They don’t scream,
just whisper with the weight of knowing,
and you feel the ground shift
where you thought it was solid.
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They listen to every word,
each pause between sentences,
as if your silence
holds secrets you never meant to share.
They catch the rhythm of your heartbeat
like a song they’ve learned to play,
watching for the moments
when it stutters,
when it falters.
They pause and play
For their delight.
Every breath,
every sigh—
it’s all cataloged
and returned to you
like echoes you can’t outrun.
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Monsters roam in the daylight,
teeth bared, eyes alight.
I’m exhausted, tired and weak,
a crack, a slip, they seek.
They feast on my dread so deep—
I just want to sleep.
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Tangled thoughts that spin and twist,
a web of ideas, too fast to list.
The mind races, but there's still peace
in the mess that refuses to cease.
A voice desperately whispers:
It isn’t all that bad.
The roof over my head, sturdy and sure,
a shield from the storm, the night so pure. It isn’t all that bad.
The soft bed beneath me, a place to rest,
a sanctuary where my mind can find peace. It isn’t all that bad.
Health in my bones, breath in my chest,
a body that moves, a gift, at its best. It isn’t all that bad.
Freedom to speak, to choose, to roam,
a world of possibilities to explore. It isn’t all that bad.
The coffee’s hot and dark and strong,
it smells divine. It isn’t all that bad.
A dog barks somewhere at nothing again,
a strange sort of company. It isn’t all that bad.
There’s a stain on my favorite shirt,
but it reminds me of laughter and wine. It isn’t all that bad.
The air is cold and bites at my skin,
but it wakes me up like a slap of life. It isn’t all that bad.
A mismatched sock hugs my left foot,
a quiet rebellion against order. It isn’t all that bad.
The rain whispers softly through the speakers,
a gentle white noise filling the room. It isn’t all that bad.
WiFi hums in the background,
connecting me to thoughts, to words, to you. It isn’t all that bad.
The 7 Cups website is open,
a space for words and feelings to unfold. It isn’t all that bad.
I write this poem, imperfectly,
but it’s mine, and that’s enough. It isn’t all that bad.
The small moments add up like beads on a thread,
simple, flawed, but here. It isn’t all that bad.
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@azurePond For the Forest Guardian
Focus not on the branches, but the forest.
Carry the blessed flame—let it light the way,
But remember, it also casts a shadow.
Guard it from the wind,
Lest it burn the forest down.
Guard it from the tears,
For if the flame dies into ashes,
The forest will succumb to darkness,
And the guardian will cease to exist.
Focus not on the branches, but the forest.
Keep your eyes on the path,
Toward the heart of the woods.
You own the flame,
For the twigs and stones made one,
So you owe the forest light and warmth.
Focus not on the branches, but the forest.
In the end, the forest knows—
The flame you carry drives out the dark,
And the path you walk becomes your own.
Guard it well, and it will guide you,
For those who carry the flame
Will always find their place in the woods.
@azurePond Why am I vicious
for going after what I want,
for reaching toward predetermined goals
you said they were mine to claim?
Why am I greedy
for wanting to know more,
for seeking the answers,
hungry for the lessons
others don’t seem to care about?
Why am I calculating
when I offer my help,
when I try to solve the problems
that no one else is paying attention to?
Why am I annoying
for caring too much,
for voicing the worries
that others brush off like dust?
Why am I fake
for trying to understand,
for putting myself in your shoes
even when other's don't?
Why am I rude
for drawing the line,
for keeping my boundaries
like a wall that’s somehow
too high to climb?
Why am I ungrateful
for needing room to breathe,
for wanting space
when the world insists
I keep fitting into its shape?
Why do I become
my parents’ reflection
when I’m ambitious,
when I’m charismatic,
when I step into myself
and dare to be more?
Why am I just my name?
Why am I just my face?
Why am I just a 3D-printed,
custom-made doll
stamped with a sigil?
Why do I get stuck in the branches?
Why do I still care about the forest?
Why can’t I just burn it all to the ground,
watch it crumble into ash
and start from nothing?
Why do I keep hoping for more?
Why am I still here with these matches
Why am I not lighting the forest?
@azurePond
Another great! So passionate, I can feel the confused righteous indignation. This feels like more fury than we have seen previously, and yet in the last few lines the why feels like it changes from an aggressive rhetorical question fuelled by the imposed need to justify, to a self doubting why. Who is managing to steal your thunder I wonder?
If these are indeed questions you feel bound to pose to yourself or incredulously need to shout to the sky in frustration, i would like you to know you are the ultimate you. You require no definition, for Azurepond is exactly who they are meant to be, every second, every day, whether changing or staying the same.
@azurePond
I very much liked this piece. Fragility and strength, darkness and light, vulnerability and guardianship. It is beautiful. It certainly deserves a much greater exploration, but my dozy brain is running on fumes at the moment, so for now i shall just relish in it's immersive aura.
@azurePond
This one made me feel so unutterably sad. The first half of the poem stings...i think the lines that caught a lump in my throat the most at he beginning was "Empathy isn’t kindness here, it’s a hand that pulls the earth from beneath your feet." Such expression of futility and vulnerability clutches the chest and squeezes tightly.
The second half is a wonderful exploration of the little thing which make things worth while, and the repeated mantra of "It isn't all that bad" sounds superficially like the slow realisation of all that is to be hopeful and grateful for. Yet beneath this positivity it also sounds like an attempt t convince oneself. A gentle chastisement of the self to accept, be stronger even though it might not be felt. For "It isn't all that bad", is not It is good.
I would like to think I am seeing things which are not there; that it is indeed a triumphant piece of self empowerment. If however there is even a nugget of anything else in there, you have my empathy and well wishes.
@BastionKnight Thank you Bastion Knight - for your analysis and your well wishes!
My brain is also dozzy so here is an old picture for you - Pangong Tso Lake , Ladakh, India . It is the highest salt water lake in the world! (I am not the photographer of this one but I was there )
@BastionKnight 
@azurePond
Absolutely gorgeous. Wait.....blue waters reflecting the sky, majestic backdrop that stirs imagination.....an Azure Pond!
@BastionKnight Haha, it is a lake though... a super salty one! You can see the Himalayas in the background.
Sand takes different shape in each hand,
Shifting, coarse, sharp, then soft and reassuring as land,
It stings, it slips, it finds itself in many places,
A thousand grains, with a thousand different faces.
Pressed together, still it lingers near,
Never whole, Never owned, yet always here,
Like a desert storm, an hourglass, or a beach the sea holds dearA fleeting thing, with a mind of its own, that will always persevere.
@azurePond
Awww, that one was so sweet. I loved it's peaceful reflective nature. Your descriptions are so tactile one can almost feel it run between our own digits. I shall not be able to look at a beach again without bring back to mind your imagery of the eternal, immutable (and yet paradoxically always shifting), and formlessness. It reminds me so much of several philosophical ideas about the notion of Void, the undifferentiated state which yet still contains everything. It is a delightfully nuanced piece.
The Woman with a Parasol
She told me, in that calm, brittle voice,
Of a museum guide tired of Monet,
“Do you feel that hollow pit in your stomach?
A hopelessness gnawing at your soul?
Pain pressing on your chest?
Good.
I hope it was worth it.”
She dabbed the napkin on her mouth,
Folded it carefully–,
Tucking away her mistakes and regrets,
Then asked for the bill,
As if we were discussing lilies on water.
“If you beg, I might help.
Mothers forgive, don’t they?
Even ungrateful children like you.”
I couldn’t cry—my eyes burned dry,
The hypocrisy thick,
Similar to the paint collected on a palette knife.
"I won’t take any of you with me,"
She said, a finality to her voice,
"I am not that magnanimous."
Her eyes never meeting mine—
"You’re your father’s daughter,
So he won’t let you die."
Her words, drifting
As the soft blur of the Impression, Sunrise,
Faint and unfinished,
"Even though you look like a sorry excuse of me."
She smirked,
"I don’t want that kind of albatross
Hanging around my neck."
Her cruel laughter
Spread across the room
The way a boat disturbing a quiet port.
Then she stood,
Slow, deliberate,
As if she had rehearsed it all—
Leaving me was a masterpiece
She had long ago stopped working on.
"I’m done here,"
Her voice softer now,
Reminds me
Of the dimming light over the Giverny.
"You’ll survive."
Then she added,
“You all will.
That man always has been–
too proud of his family name.
He will raise you all to be…”
She paused, assessing me,
A figure caught in a blur of colours—
"Torchbearers," she completed,
As though we were nothing,
No more than a reflection
That shifts and disappears with the wind.
I wondered then, if she knew
How many children she birthed,
Each one a fragmented hue,
Like a palette left too long in the water,
Bleeding into each other.
“I will let him have that one win.”
With those parting words,
She was gone.
The door shut with a finality
That left me in a strange peace,
And the empty chair across from me
Sighed louder than her tainted words.
@azurePond
Your talent for characterisation is prodigious and impressive. The sheer wicked callousness of the mother makes all her rebukes feel like a slap in the face. I thought your references to Monet and his works ("Lillies on Water", "Impressions, Sunrise" "The dimming light over the (Artists Garden of ) Giverny" gave us a visual sense to cement the emotional ambience and lead so seamlessly into the metaphors and similes in the pieces. The mother is depicted as the epitome of selfish cruelty. This ice cold, spiteful harridan becomes the artist who creates dispassionately, uncaring and unheeding of their progeny. Her barbs about them relegates the narrator to little more than a punching bag and indirect weapon against the father. A weapon she seems to hope will crumble, not for any sense of great victory, but rather in the same unheeding way as she might batter the head of her brush to remove the pain, or scrape the dregs from her palette. Discarded and no longer thought about. This sense is so palpable in the last stanza. I think every part of the last stanza is perfect.
"The door shut with finality" Closing the conversation, the poem, and the chance for emotional response. A closed barrier and rejection of anyone else's opinion.
"That left me in a strange peace" Though not stated, the previous line lets us hear a slam. Juxtaposed with the peace which could be both literal, intellectual, and/or emotional. Calm, yet not settled. All the cruelties brought to a close with the door, but the effects lingering still.
"And the empty chair across from me" Our focused follows the narrators. We do not look to the door. Maybe we even flinched with it's closing. Instead our gaze is locked still on the seat which housed the tormentor. The empty chair also carries with it the air of finality and mortality. This echoes so powerfully with the image of the shutting door.
"Sighed louder than her tainted words" Anthropomorphising the chair it becomes a witness, but also is the projection of the narrators own feelings. We cannot know for sure if this is sadness, disappointment, ruefulness at a missed opportunity, resolute defiance, or any combination of these or other emotional states. All that we know is that whatever it is, it is even heavier on the heart than the cruel comments they endured. Furthermore, it is the final letting out breath after the taught self control necessary under the brittle stings and relentless assault to the character the narrator sate through. This brings us back full circle to the beginning of the poem, and the description of the mother "She told me, in that calm, brittle voice, Of a museum guide tired of Monet". The narrator has sat through the tour, silent and passive, and now it is over they can move freely once more, left to digest the barrage of words. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.
@BastionKnight Thank you so much for your incredibly thoughtful and detailed comment (again)! Your analysis of the characterisation and the symbolism, especially the imagery of the Monet references. ( I'm glad that you picked up those). truly humbling to read such a comprehensive and perceptive reflection on the piece. Thank you for taking the time to share this, I really appreciate it!
