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Ink Made of Blood

a poem about turning pain into poetry, and survival into story

By Shoaib AfridiPublished about a year ago 1 min read

I don’t write with a pen.

I write with what’s left.

The pieces of me

That couldn’t scream loud enough

To be heard.

My ink is made of blood—

Not the kind that stains,

But the kind that remembers.

Every drop

Is a memory I couldn’t bury

Without burying myself.

These pages?

They’ve seen war.

Not the kind on TV,

But the kind inside a body

That’s tired of breathing.

I stitched poems

From panic attacks,

Pressed metaphors

Into midnight breakdowns,

Carved stanzas

From the silence of being misunderstood.

They say,

"You write beautifully."

But beauty is what happened

After I bled all the ugly out.

Each word—

A survival scar.

Each line—

A place I almost gave up.

Each verse—

A heartbeat I fought to keep.

You don’t need to understand it.

Just know:

This isn’t art.

This is evidence.

Of how I lived

When living didn’t want me.

Of how I wrote

Because screaming was too loud.

And silence—

Too cruel.

So when you read me,

Read gently.

You’re holding

More than words.

You’re holding

The proof

That I am still here.

heartbreaksurreal poetry

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    Written by Shoaib Afridi