Echoes of Queen

Author's Note: I've always loved words. Poetry, especially, has fascinated me, not because of its rules, but because of its ability to say so much with so little. Recently, I came across a painting on Instagram accompanied by a challenge: Write a short poem inspired by this image. Something about it stopped me. The solitude. The distance. The moonlit silence. It felt familiar, as though it was speaking a language I already knew. Though poetry isn't something I often share here, I decided to answer the call. This is what the painting whispered to me. The moon hangs low, a silent witness to the distance between where I stand and where the lights begin. Behind me, ghosts of yesterday drag their weary feet, calling my name as though memory were a place I belonged. Ahead, a village glows with promises I cannot yet touch, warm windows, gentle laughter, a life still waiting to know me. And here I remain, between departure and destination, between the ache of what was and the uncer...

 Some people are still alive today because they found art before destruction. Read that again. “ How many times have people used a pen or paint brush because they couldn't pull the trigger? ” I came across this quote, and it has been sitting heavily on my chest for a very long time now. At first glance, it sounds poetic. But the deeper you think about it, the heavier it becomes. Because behind so many poems, paintings, songs, sketches, stories, photographs, and melodies... was someone trying to survive themselves. Art is beautiful, yes. But sometimes beauty is born from unbearable things. Some people did not create because they were simply talented, even if that is undeniably what we see on the surface. Some created  because they were drowning. The writer who fills page after page at 2AM trying to silence the chaos happening inside their mind. The singer pouring pain into lyrics they could never explain out loud. The artist sketching endlessly because drawing or painting felt ...

 I remember writing this letter after the noise settled. After I stopped needing to justify my pauses, my distance, my decisions. I wrote it when clarity finally replaced urgency, and truth no longer needed an audience. The letter held everything I once rehearsed and replayed in my head. The explanations. The corrections. The spiraling noise. The truth I kept refining, believing the right arrangement of words would finally be enough. It wasn’t written in anger. It wasn’t written in hope either. It was written from a place of understanding that arrived quietly, after confusion had already done its damage. I named the moments where I abandoned myself in order to keep the peace. The times I mistook endurance for strength. The season I stayed quiet, not because I had nothing to say, but because saying it felt heavier than carrying it alone. What surprised me wasn’t what I wrote, but what I didn’t feel while writing it. There was no need to persuade. No need to convince. No need to be v...