Poetry #2: Recursive Tendencies

On self and awareness

Hi all!

Here’s another poetry edition. I found a couple of poems buried in my drafts from last year and figured I’d share them. I solemnly swear I was not on drugs when I wrote them. Just me trying to pin down a few thoughts that felt too slippery for prose.

They’re about attention, awareness, maybe identity if you squint. No big agenda here. Hope they land for you, or at least don’t make you roll your eyes too hard.

---

1. Clenched Fist

I clenched my fist—
tighter,
and tighter. 
So tight it hurt.

After all, 
I had to protect 
that which I was holding.

"But you’re holding nothing," 
you say. 
"Your hand is empty."

Indeed—
not unlike 
how I hold the idea of myself 
in my mind.

---

2. To Be It

It is.
I see it, I notice it.
I see myself noticing it.
Then something shifts
and I am it.

But then it goes away,
And I’m left with a longing—
for moments when the recursion stopped,
when there was no meta, just it.
Then I let the longing fall away.
It returned.

Again, I was at it, chasing it,
that stable and steady presence.
But how can it chase itself?
It already has.

---

Until next time,

— Aayush