This poem captures the raw, unfiltered moment of confronting oneself without excuses. It explores the weight of silent endurance, the buried fire beneath fatigue, and the courage it takes to reclaim one’s own life.
At its heart, it is a declaration — not of perfection, but of presence. A reminder that even when we feel paused, the flame within us is still alive, waiting to be claimed.
# When I Faced Myself #
Today
I stood in front of the mirror
and did not look away.
No fixing the hair.
No rehearsed expression.
No polite lie of “I’m fine.”
Just truth.
And truth is not gentle.
It showed me the exhaustion
I’ve been calling strength.
The silence
I’ve been naming peace.
The weight in my chest
I’ve been pretending
is discipline.
My eyes—
once wild with wanting—
now carried the dull sheen
of someone surviving
instead of living.
So I closed them.
And fell inward.
Inside me
is a house with too many locked rooms.
Rooms filled with postponed dreams.
With swallowed words.
With courage that waited
and waited
and grew tired of waiting.
I thought I had lost my fire.
But fire doesn’t die so easily.
It hides.
Beneath disappointment.
Beneath responsibility.
Beneath the quiet fear
of failing one more time.
And there—
under years of dust—
I found it.
A pulse.
Small.
Defiant.
Unapologetically alive.
It said—
“You are not finished.”
Not broken.
Not too late.
Not too much.
Not not enough.
Just paused.
I realized then—
the burden was never the world.
It was the story
I kept telling myself
about who I must be.
So I opened the windows.
Let regret leave first.
Let comparison follow.
Let yesterday take its throne
in the past where it belongs.
And I chose—
not comfort,
not approval,
but aliveness.
Tomorrow
when the first blade of sunlight
cuts through the dark,
I will meet it standing.
Not because I am fearless—
but because I am done
being absent
from my own life.
This breath.
This body.
This brief, burning chance—
I claim it.
Fully.
(Vijay Verma)
www.retiredkalam.com
Categories: kavita
Retiredकलम 
very nice .
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Thank you so much.
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Verma ji, This is not just a poem… it feels like a reckoning wrapped in tenderness.
The way you peel back the polite layers “the exhaustion I’ve been calling strength” hits quietly but deeply. There’s such fierce softness in the realization that the fire never died, it only hid.
And that closing claim “This brief, burning chance I claim it. Fully.” doesn’t shout. It stands. Steady. Certain. Alive. So much depth, so much courage, and such compassionate self-seeing in these lines. Truly powerful. 🤍✨
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Thank you so much for such a deeply felt response.
Your words mean more than you know. When I wrote it, I wasn’t trying to be powerful — I was simply trying to be honest. Sometimes honesty trembles, sometimes it burns quietly… and sometimes it just stands still and refuses to look away.
I’m grateful that you sensed that “fierce softness.” That balance between breaking and becoming is something I think many of us live with but rarely articulate.
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Verma ji, this is extraordinarily powerful.
The way you’ve mapped the geography of inner awakening—from the unflinching mirror-gaze to those “locked rooms” of postponed dreams—strikes something deeply universal. Lines like “the exhaustion I’ve been calling strength” and “the dull sheen of someone surviving instead of living” landed with the weight of recognition.
But what moved me most was the turn—that discovery that fire doesn’t die, it hides. Beneath dust. Beneath duty. Waiting. And the quiet proclamation at the end—”not fearless—but done being absent from my own life”—that’s not just poetry. That’s a compass.
Thank you for writing what so many of us feel but cannot name. This one will stay with readers long after they scroll past.
🙏✨
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What a great poem.
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You are a wise man, sometimes I walk through our house and go out there’s a mirror there I never look at them.
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I love how you wrote this reflective piece. I always refer to our stoic nature of saying everything is alright as the “the lies we tell ourselves”. In summary, it is alright to not be “alright”. We just have to let ourselves accept what is going on. Happy Wednesday. Allan
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I truly appreciate your thoughtful words. You’ve expressed it so honestly—“the lies we tell ourselves.” That quiet habit of saying everything is alright when, deep inside, it isn’t. It takes courage to admit that sometimes we are not okay.
You are absolutely right—there is strength in acceptance. Allowing ourselves to feel what is real, without pretending or masking it, is not weakness. It is awareness. And awareness is the first step toward healing.
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