Kash Baloch — Poetry, Prose & Survival

I built myself like a structure meant to intimidate— all angles, no softness. A cinderblock of chaos, stacked high on ego and sealed with deflection; nothing got in. Not truth,  not tenderness,  not the quiet voice that asked me to slow down. I called it strength. I called it resilience. I called it anything but fear. Because fear doesn’t look like trembling when it lives long enough—it looks like control.  It looks like reaction. It looks like a man who destroys everything before it has the chance to leave him.  But even concrete cracks. Even the hardest version of me could not withstand the pressure of being wrong for so long.  So I broke,  not loudly, not dramatically; but in small, undeniable ways that forced me to pay attention.  And in that fracture,  something honest finally entered,  n ot to ruin me— but to rebuild me without the need to be untouchable. 

I spent years becoming someone I thought I had to be: louder,  harder,  less breakable. Someone who could survive anything by feeling nothing. It worked. until it didn’t. Because numbness is not strength—it is absence. And absence cannot sustain a life. So I started unlearning— the anger I mistook for identity, the control I mistook for safety, the detachment I mistook for peace. It was not graceful.  It was not immediate. It was not easy to sit with a version of myself I had spent years avoiding. But beneath all that noise, there was something else— quieter,  steadier,  unafraid of being known.  And for the first time, I did not run from it.  I stayed,  a nd that was the beginning of everything. 

I  used to think growth was loud— announcements,  apologies,  dramatic declarations of becoming better. But real change does not perform— i t repeats, quietly,  consistently, without needing to be witnessed. I learned this the hard way— through every moment I said I would change and didn’t. Through every promise I broke before it had time to mean anything. Accountability is not regret— it is behaviour, i t is choosing not to react when reaction feels justified,  it is biting your tongue before it becomes a weapon,  it is showing up differently even when no one expects you to (especially then). Because growth is not proven in what you say— but in what you refuse to repeat.

With my heart in the Antarctic and my mind in monsoon heat, I have become a contradiction that breathes. Fire one moment— consuming,  demanding,  impossible to ignore. Ice the next— distant,  silent,  impossible to reach.  People call it instability; I call it weather. Because what else do you name a system you didn’t design but are forced to live inside? I have been blamed for every storm I didn’t know how to stop,  apologized for climates I didn’t understand,  feared for seasons I couldn’t predict. But even the wildest environments can be studied, even extremes can be navigated. and maybe I am not broken— just unregulated. Just learning how to exist without destroying everything in my path. I am not one season.  I am all of them— and I am finally learning when not to rain. 

Voices fracture into faces as memory freezes over— people replaced by glaciers that move slower but cut deeper. I lower myself into the Arctic and pray I remember how to swim in something that does not want me alive.  Cold has always been honest, it does not pretend to hold you while plotting your disappearance. It does not whisper love with teeth behind its tongue. It simply takes—heat, breath, movement— until you learn what survival actually costs.  They say the ice is melting, but no one talks about how fast a person can freeze when left alone inside themselves. I have been both— the collapse and the witness,  the fracture and the flood. Still... beneath all this frozen language, there is something moving; a current,  a pulse, proof that even here, in the most inhospitable version of me, I have not stopped trying to live. 

And I swear with all my sovereignty that I’d never curse you or corrode you. When the rest evade you, I couldn’t even desert you. The Creator’s breath inside you marked you and it made you— there is no battlefield, the war has always been within you. No holier war has been fought than the one that seeks to make you whole. You are loved. You are worthy. You are safe. You are free. Not in theory— in truth. Strip away the noise, the shame, the borrowed hatred you mistook for identity. There is nothing broken here that was not taught to fracture. There is nothing missing that cannot be remembered. So stand in your divinity without apology. Because the only salvation you have ever needed was the courage to believe you were never lost. 

You’re dead to me, since you weren’t there through the death of me. No need for Ouija boards— there’s no talking to you. I remain a phantom, a relic from your past. Isn’t it a shame our friendship couldn’t last? I threw you out like trash, flicked you away like cigarette ash. But grief is strange— it lingers long after burial. it revisits long after goodbye. So this is not vengeance—it’s closure. Not violence—but release. Because the truth is, you didn’t kill me. You just revealed who I had to become to survive you. And that version of me— no longer knows your name.

You dilapidate me, like condemned factories that line forgotten streets. Even as you raze my foundation, you chip away at me like concrete. Stampede me like a wildebeest, scatter the remnants of what we used to be like debris in demolition. Our love— gentrified. Replaced with tempered glass and hollow architecture that reflects everything but contains nothing. Still— I scrub you away like acid rain, until erosion feels like cleansing. Until absence starts to resemble peace. But you return, as ruins do— romanticized, reframed, mistaken for something worth preserving. And I remember why I loved you— and why I had to let you collapse.

And I swear with all my sovereignty that I’d never curse you or corrode you. When the rest evade you, I couldn’t even desert you. The Creator’s breath inside you marked you and it made you— there is no battlefield, the war has always been within you. No holier war has been fought than the one that seeks to make you whole. You are loved. You are worthy. You are safe. You are free. Not in theory— in truth. Strip away the noise, the shame, the borrowed hatred you mistook for identity. There is nothing broken here that was not taught to fracture. There is nothing missing that cannot be remembered. So stand in your divinity without apology. Because the only salvation you have ever needed was the courage to believe you were never lost. 

So there I was, sunken at my latest definition for what it meant to hit rock bottom. At thirty-one, I was penniless, promiscuous, and panicking— teetering dangerously close to manic, and overdue for another severe break from reality. How did I get to this point? Everything was supposed to be different. I was supposed to be different. But somehow, it was always more of the same. Perhaps my greatest delusion was believing I was destined for greatness when really I was just made to be a stain— a grease fire that refused to go out, an aneurysm that never quite learned how to clot. But if there was anything left that resembled grace, it was this— I could not lie to myself anymore. No scapegoats. No rewrites. No romanticizing ruin. Just truth, raw and unflattering, staring me down without blinking. And in that moment, buried beneath the wreckage of who I had been— there was something else. Not hope. Not yet. But accountability. And that was enough to begin again.

Anxiety’s an infestation of the mind, it lays its eggs under my skin, securing a foundation for the home where it will rear its kin. It is the black widow of doubt, and simultaneously its web; the venom in her sac, and yet the prey within her net. Untherapeutic thoughts crawl like millipedes, racing in Olympic circuits across my chest as I concede defeat. It is a caterpillar spinning its cocoon inside the fragile forests of my overripe emotions— threatening transformation, but promising collapse. It is the voice that sounds like mine but speaks in sabotage. The hand that grips my throat and calls it caution. The fire alarm that rings in empty buildings. But I am learning— not every thought is truth. Not every fear is prophecy. Not every storm requires surrender. Sometimes survival is simply sitting still while your mind invents new ways to destroy you— and choosing not to believe it. Sometimes healing is not silencing the noise, but recognizing that you are not the one making it.

Wolf of Wall Street types, with slicked back hair, stole the stained ceramic tiles right out from underneath my single mother’s sweet, aching feet. She saved every penny that she earned to buy this house— her pride and joy! Only to be evicted by sharks disguised as sheep who dragged her out into the streets between their teeth. “Starbucks coming soon,” like the kiss of death— another five within twenty feet, in the same spot where my b-boy crew and I once breakdanced to the Beastie Boys and Run DMC. Ma was relocated forcefully to some suburban scene that might as well have been called Hell. They locked their doors when she stepped outside— as if survival was suspicious. Gentrify some other guy, erect your crooked condos in some other sky. You build profit on the bones of belonging. You erase culture and call it “progress.” You price out pain and package it as aesthetic. But we remember. We remember the laughter that echoed off cracked concrete, the borrowed sugar, the shared grief, the...

My earliest memories are of your hand slipping away from me, like sand through my fingers, across the land, agonized that you don’t understand. Bruised, beaten hearts are my brand, ripped me apart like poison, and somehow resilient, I still stand— devoid of anger, an unchanged man, despite your plots against our plans. So I raise a paper cup to my parched lips again; a toast to your assault of your best friend. For you, I would’ve dived the depths of every ocean, or ventured to the edges of the Earth, if only you had asked— but your neglect was enough to destroy my worth. So I chased my dreams at the bottom of bottles instead. Drowning, despair embraced me as I descend; here is where I belong, safely sedated by a siren song. I crash into jagged shores that tear me open— though I swear I’ll be whole again. If I survived abandonment, there is no wound from which I cannot mend. But healing is not heroic— it is quiet, it is humiliating, it is slow. It is learning how not to reach for the s...

I stood there helplessly, drowning in defeat, darkened by my inability to breathe life into your rusted heart’s resilient beat, a symphony I memorized in forty weeks from the inside. Incapable of returning you to the raven-haired beauty of your prime, I bite my tongue until I’m numb, as my lips are sewn shut with twine. You heal me when you hold me, as though I am still your innocent, little child. I am haunted by the trauma when I will one day find that I can no longer turn to you for comfort, or the reassurance of your smile. I know I run but I am frightened, as I see you become so frail; my mind refuses a reality where you are not my nightingale. Your song lulled me into slumber, as you softly sang the world to sleep; if only I had looked at you long enough to see that all you were ever doing was trying to love me. There is no bond like that between a mother and her only son, even if he is less deserving of her pride than of her scorn. And yet, even now, I know your love has never o...

I am a constant gardener, in a war with weeds, determined to keep my landscape green, although sometimes I dwell on dandelions to see the scatter of their seeds. All the tears I give the earth are roots that ground the tallest trees. Not threatened by thorns, with shears as my weapons, I bloom like tulip bulbs in Spring. Now that I stop to smell the flowers, I luxuriate in their lessons and count the blessings that they bring. There’s no healing without feeling; life is suffering. Bouncing back, real resilient, can be beautiful and rewarding. Lush as palms, pinned to prayer, I place my patience in the soil. What survives neglect still bears the memory of toil. So I water every withered part I once abandoned out of shame, and learn that growth is not a grand performance— it is repetition, light, and rain. Some seasons arrive as famine, some as floods that overfeed. Some losses rip up whole foundations and salt the ground beneath. Still, I return with dirt beneath my fing...

I close my eyes and disappear sometimes, in a cloud of cleansing sage. Quiet my chaotic mind, I vanish without a trace. As apprehension subsides, I find myself in a daze; set adrift in bliss, I resurface in some foreign place. There, my spirit is softer, less splintered by the machinery of thought. My nervous system loosens its fists, and every burden I’ve carried for too long falls soundlessly to the floor. In that suspended hush, I am no one’s enemy, not even my own. The ghosts that pace the hallways of my body grow tired, sit down, and finally stop speaking over one another. For a moment, I remember what it feels like to be housed gently. To inhabit myself without bracing for impact. To breathe without borrowing panic from futures that haven’t happened. Then slowly, as all rituals must, the smoke thins. The room returns. The world knocks again. But something holy lingers— a reminder that peace is not a myth, only a practice; and that even I, with all my storms, am still capable of b...

All it took was time to truly let my wounds heal, as introspection taught me how to feel. I was as angry as a warrior starved for honour, like a soldier in trenches waiting to be called a martyr. I made the world walk on eggshells around me, mistaking fear for respect, control for stability. The slightest misstep woke the dragon— they were David, I was Goliath, my voice a weapon that echoed like thunder. When all I needed was a reminder that I was also filled with wonder. Not every battle required blood. Not every silence was an attack. I was not being hunted— I was being held accountable. So I unlearned war. I loosened my grip on anger as identity. I stopped rehearsing conflict in rooms that were already safe. And slowly— the world stopped bracing for me. And I stopped bracing for it. What remained was not weakness— but peace I no longer felt the need to defend. 

Chronic C U T I E, shout it from the roofs, and call for accessibility. I can do it all, even on days when I flare like nostrils. I am the raging, blazing sun when it’s determined to burn. Waited patiently, but now it’s my turn. So I’ll shine like crystalline sand, like the diamond in the rough that I have always been. Chronic C U T I E, own it, just don’t let it decide you’re not the one. Ableism aids and abets a society that tells us that we’re different, or that we can’t and need to stay in our own lanes. Refuse to be a product of their prescription, even if we fit the description. Our intuition’s strong from living so close to pain’s precision. We become fluent in endurance, in the language of adaptation. We know how to build a life inside limitation without letting it become our entire narration. I am not a cautionary tale. I am not your pity project. I am not the body you reduce to what it cannot do on its worst day. I am innovation. I am stamina. I am a witness to my own becomin...

I am a constant gardener, in a war with weeds, determined to keep my landscape green, although sometimes I dwell on dandelions to see the scatter of their seeds.  All the tears I give the earth are roots that ground the tallest trees.  Not threatened by thorns, with shears as my weapons, I bloom like tulip bulbs in Spring. Now that I stop to smell the flowers, I luxuriate in their lessons and count the blessings that they bring. There’s no healing without feeling; life is suffering. Bouncing back, real resilient, can be beautiful and rewarding. Lush as palms, pinned to prayer, I place my patience in the soil. What survives neglect still bears the memory of toil. So I water every withered part I once abandoned out of shame, and learn that growth is not a grand performance— it is repetition, light, and rain. Some seasons arrive as famine, some as floods that overfeed. Some losses rip up whole foundations and salt the ground beneath.  Still, I return,  wit...

Only you— could make absence feel inhabited, as though emptiness itself had learned your shape. Only you— could turn my pulse into percussion, my restraint into ruin, my silence into something dangerously awake. It’s not one heart,  but two halves misfiring beneath a sky too small to contain what we became.  You were the match,  the oxygen,  the arson and  the aftermath— and I, too willing to be the flame. Only you— with your gravity disguised as gentleness,  your mouth made of prophecy and trouble.  You touched me once and every locked room in me forgot its combination. I carried your name like contraband beneath my ribs,  smuggled it through sleepless nights, through want,  through worship,  through all the ways desire tries to masquerade as fate. Only you— could make me mistake surrender for salvation.  Could make a bruise feel holy,  a risk feel written,  a downfall feel deserved. And still, after the wreckage,  a...

As ships brave stormy weather, nearly sinking to the ocean's floor, sailors whisper silent prayers, hoping to return to lives they left ashore. No sea monster could inspire fear quite like electric skies that roar, as lightning strikes repeatedly, until the night is sore. As though lured by some unseen source, water fills this fractured hull, each creak a whispered warning, each wave a violent lull. The compass spins in circles, drunk on chaos, void of north, while courage clings to splintered wood and bargains back and forth. At the edge of dusk and sunset, when the skies are watercolor bright, where amber bleeds to violet in surrender to the night, I see reflections of myself in oceans I can’t outrun— a man at war with tempests he mistakes for setting suns. And if I make it back to land, salt stitched into my skin, I’ll know the storm was never out there— it’s always been within.