S.A. Shivaay

[trishivaay]

We find eyelashes on our cheeks and stop everything to make wishes. grown people, holding weeds to the sky like they're proof we still believe in something. maybe hope is just the refusal to stop looking for magic in things the world already threw away.

[vancruejovi]

[trishivaay]

Do Not Walk Their Circles Blind

Dylan Thomas's villanelle won't leave me alone. "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night' showed me that repetition isn't just a trick, it's a weapon. Second time trying this form. First was "You can rearrange my face but not my gaze". Villanelles break if you miss even one rhyme. But when they hold together, they stay with people. You'll know what this is about if you've ever been sent in circles for something that should've been simple.

[trishivaay]

Do Not Walk Their Circles Blind

Dylan Thomas's villanelle won't leave me alone. "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night' showed me that repetition isn't just a trick, it's a weapon. Second time trying this form. First was "You can rearrange my face but not my gaze". Villanelles break if you miss even one rhyme. But when they hold together, they stay with people. You'll know what this is about if you've ever been sent in circles for something that should've been simple.

[trishivaay]

I still can't read this one without feeling it in my chest. war IN her bones came out of me during the worst stretch I've had. The kind where you wake up and the first thought is dread (panic, something like fear...), where your own mind feels like an enemy. Nobody really talks about how lonely it gets when you are fighting battles inside yourself. How you can be surrounded by people and still feel like you are drowning in silence. How heavy everything becomes until you forget what light even feels like. but somewhere in all that darkness, there was this one defiant part of me that refused to quit. A pulse that kept gardening in the dark. not asking to be whole again, just asking to survive one more day, just one more breath and then another. I wrote this for the version of me who did not think he'd make it to morning. for anyone who's ever felt abandoned by their own hope. If you're still here after everything tried to break you, this is for you. You're wilder and braver than you know.

Full Piece here if you want to read it : https://lnkd.in/diTaRZsZ

[trishivaay]

I still can't read this one without feeling it in my chest. war IN her bones came out of me during the worst stretch I've had. The kind where you wake up and the first thought is dread (panic, something like fear...), where your own mind feels like an enemy. Nobody really talks about how lonely it gets when you are fighting battles inside yourself. How you can be surrounded by people and still feel like you are drowning in silence. How heavy everything becomes until you forget what light even feels like. but somewhere in all that darkness, there was this one defiant part of me that refused to quit. A pulse that kept gardening in the dark. not asking to be whole again, just asking to survive one more day, just one more breath and then another. I wrote this for the version of me who did not think he'd make it to morning. for anyone who's ever felt abandoned by their own hope. If you're still here after everything tried to break you, this is for you. You're wilder and braver than you know.

Full Piece here if you want to read it : https://lnkd.in/diTaRZsZ

[trishivaay]

So my manuscript is sitting on my desk, finished. All the chapters, the illustrations my friend made, everything designed and ready. And now I'm stuck on the most practical question I've been avoiding for months. Traditional publisher or self-publishing? The traditional route sounds nice in theory. Someone else handles printing, distribution, maybe some credibility comes with it. But I've been sending queries and the silence is loud. My kind of writing is a tough sell, I know that. Publishers aren't exactly lining up for an unknown writer with a first collection. Self-publishing means I control everything. The timeline, the design, how it reaches readers. It also means I handle everything. The cost, the marketing, the risk of it just sitting in a box in my room while I pretend I'm not checking sales numbers every day. There's this part of me that feels like self-publishing is "giving up" on the traditional dream. And another part that knows that's nonsense, that getting your work out there however you can is what matters. I've got until February to decide while exams happen and life continues. But I keep going back and forth on this. For anyone who's published anything, books or otherwise, how did you make this call? And did you regret it or feel good about the choice later?

[sadierosewrites]

What do you mean I can physically only write one thing at a time?

[trishivaay]

You know that feeling when you've been working on something for so long that it becomes part of your daily routine? I just closed my laptop after placing the last illustration in my poetry manuscript and honestly, I'm just sitting here not knowing what to do with myself. The book is done. Actually done this time, not the "almost done" I've been saying for months. Every verse edited about seventeen times, intro rewritten until it stopped sounding pretentious, notes added where I thought someone might wonder what I was talking about. One of my friend created these illustrations that somehow captured exactly what I was trying to say in the verses, and I spent way too many nights just moving them around, trying to get the placement right. Everything is there now. Complete. And here's what nobody tells you about finishing something you've poured yourself into. I thought I'd feel this huge rush of relief or excitement or at least something that felt like victory. Instead I just sat there feeling this weird mix of pride and absolute terror. Like I've been carrying this thing close for so long and now I actually have to let strangers read it and have opinions about it. December showed up right on time though. Semester exams are coming and the book has to go into pause mode for a bit. Which is probably good because I need to figure out what comes next anyway. Self-publishing or keep trying with traditional publishers who haven't exactly been rushing to respond. Realistically looking at February to actually put this out into the world. Funny how finishing something just opens up a whole new list of decisions you have to make. So let me ask you something. If you've ever worked on a creative project, how did you know when it was actually done? Or did you just reach a point where you had to decide it was done and let it go?

[somezambiandude]

🙂 See? Nothing to worry about. At all.

[trishivaay]

I was writing last night and got stuck on a line for almost an hour. Kept changing one word then changing it back then trying something completely different. My notebook looks like a mess of crossed out attempts. But here is what I realized. Sometimes the first version was actually the right one and I just did not trust it yet. This happens to me all the time and I wonder if readers can even tell the difference between my lines that I fought over and the ones that just came out.

When you read a poem that really moves you do you ever think about how long it took to write it

Never crosses my mind I just feel it

Sometimes especially the really perfect lines

Always I am curious about the process

Only if the poet mentions it

Voting ended onDec 20, 2025

[academic-vampire]

𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔡 𝔠𝔩𝔞𝔰𝔰𝔦𝔠𝔰

[trishivaay]

So, I was at a bookstore yesterday, standing there for like 20 minutes trying to decide what to buy next. you know that moment when you're torn between playing it safe with something everyone's talking about or taking a risk on that random book with the interesting cover? I always end up doing both somehow, my wallet hates me for it but genuinely curious, how do YOU pick your next read?

tell me i'm not the only one who buys books faster than i can read them

How do you choose your next book?

Recommendations from friends

Bookstagram & BookTok hype

Random browsing, vibe check

Always have a TBR list

Voting ended onDec 19, 2025

[trishivaay]

3 years to write 30 pages

When I started my chapbook in my first year of college, I really thought it would be simple. Maybe one or two months and I would finish it. Now I am in my third year and I am still writing and still learning. I slowly understood that the writing part was easy. Everything around it needed time. Learning how to write. Reading a lot. Writing. Deleting. Writing again. Thinking I had finished. Realizing I was not even close. Then I reached the stage of editing the manuscript. I talked to a few editors and the quotes were much more than I expected. I told this to my engineering friends and one of them said something that stayed with me. We learn new things all the time so why can’t you learn this too. So I tried. I started teaching myself editing. Watching tutorials, reading guides, making mistakes and then correcting them. And soon I understood that I could not do this in complete isolation. I needed other people to look at it. So I brought in help my sketch artist who is creating illustrations for the book, a close friend, a few professors. Every review session opened my eyes in a new way. This whole thing was not only about saving money. It was about taking responsibility and understanding every part of the process. My chapbook is not published yet but the journey has already changed me. If you are working on something and it feels like it is taking forever, maybe that means you are doing it right. Some things take time and that is okay.

[trishivaay]

He Is One of Us

Not every monster hides in the shadows. Some are crowned, some are worshipped. I wrote this piece because we always exile the sin, never the sinner in ourselves. It’s raw, dark, and might make some people uncomfortable — but maybe that’s where the truth lives. Read ‘He Is One of Us’ and tell me what you feel, not what you’re supposed to.

[trishivaay]

He Is One of Us

Some poems aren’t written for comfort — they’re written for confrontation. ‘He Is One of Us’ was born after revisiting the case of Asaram Bapu, a man convicted of raping a minor while millions called him a saint. But this poem isn’t about one man. It’s about a pattern. About how societies protect power, deny violence, and crown monsters — until their sins spill too close to home. It asks what we choose to remember, and what we quietly refuse to see.

Read this. Not because you have time — but because silence has already cost too much. Because the monsters we deny don’t disappear — they just learn to wear better robes.

[trishivaay]

He Is One of Us

Some poems aren’t written for comfort — they’re written for confrontation. ‘He Is One of Us’ was born after revisiting the case of Asaram Bapu, a man convicted of raping a minor while millions called him a saint. But this poem isn’t about one man. It’s about a pattern. About how societies protect power, deny violence, and crown monsters — until their sins spill too close to home. It asks what we choose to remember, and what we quietly refuse to see.

Read this. Not because you have time — but because silence has already cost too much. Because the monsters we deny don’t disappear — they just learn to wear better robes.