Broken Pages: Poetic Prose for the Broken Soul

By Papikins Poetry and Cyrus Ahmadnia

This is poetic prose for the broken soul.

The debut book from Papikins delves into the mind of an overthinker, as words are poetically merged together to give an understanding of what it means to love and to lose. Broken Pages is an experiential journey which places the reader through various thought processes to become self-aware of their feelings. The sole purpose of writing is to create a connection, and Papikins' hard-hitting emotional writing style brings out the fire within individuals, as the writer has been connecting to a large audience of 40,000 followers on Instagram for many years.

Broken Pages

We sometimes lose ourselves within the chapters of our stories. We let the light fade into darkness, as our memories try to ruin us. We're the broken ones. We're the ones who feel too much and fall a little harder. There will always be a certain beauty to sadness that most of us avoid. It's part of being human. It's part of who we are in our entirety. We keep thinking, and we keep thinking until we overthink. We're reminded of the pain of being and the love that slipped between our fingers. These are the broken pages that we go through, as we live without a sense of purpose. This is poetic prose for the broken soul. This is for you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Papikins Publishing
• Release date: May 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781916883215

Book preview

The broken

My name is Papikins , and I apologise in advance if any of this hurts. I just want us to connect. I want to show you why they call me the broken artist. I want to be your saviour, as I eventually play the victim and the villain. These are the stories of regret that somehow faded off into the distance. You see, everything is temporary. We fight to be relevant in a place where nothing stays the same. We breathe and we break. We love and we ache. It’s a shared story that most of us will go through, and I sincerely hope I do it justice, not just for me, but for you – the silent one who reads this.

We are the broken. We’re the truth behind the lies that we’ve been told. We desperately yearn for validation, as our hearts are torn by a thousand reasons. These are the chapters that haunt us to no end. I always wanted to connect without the fear of being censored, and here I am with these broken pages. I hope you enjoy my poetic prose for the broken soul. This is me in all my glory. This is me in my entirety. These are the reasons why my heart bleeds blue.

This is for you

I’m an overthinker , and maybe you are too. We wouldn’t share this moment if we had nothing in common. You see, a thousand words echo through my head to calm me from my nerves. I keep thinking, and I keep thinking until I overthink. I wander all across my mind to find the pieces I somehow left behind. It’s sad. It really is. We adapt to those around us, suppressing who we are inside, until we’re a scattered soul without a home. This is Papikins. This is Cyrus. This is me in my entirety. This is my journey. This is everything I’ve felt and done, but the worst is yet to come. These are the words that have ripped my heart in two, as it bleeds a broken shade of blue. I’m the victim, the villain, and the saviour. It’s the hardest part to handle. Throughout our lives we’re viewed from many angles, and most of us are perceived as someone we may or may not be. It depends on the eyes that scan our insecurities.

I’ve been labelled as the villain more than I can count. I never seem to understand why I’m the one at fault. I’m restlessly in love with the idea of human nature, because we seamlessly place the blame on others. It’s how we move the world around us. We wear masks to decrease our chances of rejection, because we fear we may not be accepted. It’s how it is to be the victim. You constantly regret the flaws that you’ve been hiding until suddenly you’re alone again. It’s bound to happen. You lower your defences, not knowing that you’re vulnerable without them. The truth is you have to save yourself rather than rely on someone else.

Some of us fail to understand that emotions are like travellers. We slyly move around the hurt, not letting it all out. We fall into distractions to remove all of our doubts. I never knew what I was doing until I took some time to think, and believe me, I thought a large amount. I wanted to be connected to all these pretty pictures that flew around inside my mind. I wanted to catch the stars and somehow steal their shine. Sadly, there was nothing I could do to stop myself from falling. I guess you have to fall sometimes to remember who you are. I never meant to change, but that’s part of life that many of us despise. We have a fear of letting go of a past that burns us without fire. We’re afraid of the unwritten, because the chapters may lead us to somewhere foreign.

There’s a sadness to the world that most of us avoid. We want to be happy when happiness isn’t close to what we need. I’m no different when it comes to being human. I have this desire for my words to be my version of almost perfect, yet I know that they’ll never reach it. I always wonder what it’s like to be a different person. I never enjoy the smaller things, because I’m in a constant state of thinking. My mind is made of moments, yet all I do is focus on the broken. Maybe it’s the reason why I’m like this. I’m fascinated by my feelings, or I used to be at least. I wanted to find the reasons why I’m hurting, and if I’ll ever feel enlightened, but sadly, that part of me is dead. I was slightly fixated on wanting to find myself beyond the mask I’m wearing, but unluckily, I found a broken mess.

There were a thousand chapters in my life, or that’s how it seemed to feel. I kept going in circles, trying to find myself after every ending. It isn’t easy starting over. You build the characters and settings until they stop existing. It’s the reason why we can barely overcome a broken heart. We’re not used to pain. We try to avoid it at all costs. We’re the broken beings of yesterday, because we never seem to live within today. We’re stuck inside the past to heal the part of us that never seemed to last. It’s the saddest truth when it comes to overthinking. We focus too much on what used to be rather than what is.

I would always look at the stars to find peace, but all I ever did was turn them into dust. It’s how my mind works at times. I stare at something for so long with a million different thoughts and suddenly they’re gone. I guess it’s the human side of me that prevents me from remotely being anywhere close to happy. I stopped believing in happiness a long time ago. I couldn’t bear to handle it, because it made me feel lesser than I usually do. It never appealed to me after my heart began to bleed in blue. That’s how the world is. It takes you from point to point, as it breaks apart your sanity. We experience love and loss without ever realising that it could happen to us. That’s why it’s unexpected. That’s why these faces fade away whenever we hope to stay the same. I’m sorry if this hurts you but hurt is part of life. I wanted to surround myself with beauty yet found it hard to control the broken side of me. We can never control our thoughts as fully as we want to. We’re bound to fall a thousand times as we drown within the boundaries of our lives. It happens to the best of us. Believe me, I know it.

I’m an overthinker that ruins everything around them. I used to blame it on my thoughts, because I never had control. I still have many flaws, but I’ve been trying to get better. I have this craving for attention, and no matter how much I think that I’m adored, I still have the need for more. It’s weird, isn’t it? I want to be loved yet want to be alone. I want the world to know me behind the skin I live in, but I prefer to sit here on my own. Is it wrong to feel like I’m disconnected? Is it wrong to want to be somebody else? Someone loved and not neglected? It’s the same story, isn’t it? You know me, and I know you. We’re miles apart, but you somehow feel this. Congratulations, you’ve let me in. I hope I can make you feel less lonely. I truly do. This isn’t just for me; this is for you.

The person I once knew

Love and loss come hand in hand like yin and yang. They complement one another as we somehow feel two extremes at once. I wish everything was simple. I wish I could tell you that love is never-ending, but the reality is that heartbreak is forever trending. It happened to me, it’s possibly happened to you, and it may happen once again. That’s how life is when it comes to being lonely. You want to find a purpose, so you let go of all your senses. There’s this drive to feel as though you’re needed, but in reality, you’re a broken shell of who you used to be. Believe me, I’ve felt it. I’ve chased for reasons why these waves would fill me with discontent as they crashed into the shore. I thought that I’d resurface, but I changed into a person that I never knew before.

I’m sorry if this isn’t what you expected it to be. I want to share these broken pages that are made up of my story. I want to let you in and be the one who saves you from the madness. It may be wrong to feel like this, but suddenly words escape my breath that ashamedly make sense. I’ve tried to change my style of thinking, but the resistance made it hard for me to find acceptance. I was always far away and dreaming, yet I never allowed myself to do exactly what I wanted. I couldn’t achieve anything, or maybe I could, but I just refused to see it. My self-esteem has always been my downfall. It’s the part of me I hate the most. There are days where I feel invincible, but there are others where I disconnect from everything I know. I’m my own worst enemy at times, especially when there’s no one else around. I just want to stop these thoughts from ruining me, because they seem to flow into my veins and strip me of my dignity.

I was begging for change, but I was too far gone to actually be saved. I never wanted to admit that I could be the problem, but suddenly I saw the world from views that were out of my perception. I saw so many flaws that I refused to witness,