Dr. Deepak Dev

a.co/d/1yps1of

THE SEVENTH LANGUAGE — on the one that is never taught Six languages, each with its exchange rate. The seventh had no teacher: a reader who construed, unprompted, what he had spent a lifetime declining to say. Fluency and affluence share a root and a flaw.

THE CEREMONY — on a wedding with no guests Every wedding is an audience with a bride attached, and the audience is the point. Nobody records the other kind: solemnised alone, by a woman told early she would never be the occasion of anybody's wanting. She did not contest it. She fixed a date.

PROBATE — the thirty-ninth year, closing Somewhere a list is kept of estates nobody came forward to claim. It is alphabetical, which is the only order anyone ever gave them. For the names on that list, and the ones who intend to be. #thistooisholy #StoneWitnessed

CO-AUTHORS — on a book that stops halfway Some books stop halfway because the one who began them has written everything they know. The rest belongs to a second hand. Two people who were never given love do not fall into it. They read their way in.

DELETED PARAGRAPHS — on the version that was never sent Every honest letter has two endings: the one that leaves the desk and the one that never does. Some correspondences run for years on the shorter while the longer waits in a drawer. This poem is the drawer.

CURSIVE — the quill was always two birds A letter has never been one bird: one lends the feather, one keeps the page. In this painting one of them is unlit, and the water does not mind, on the harmony of two things refusing to become one. #monochromephotoprompts #yinandyang #mpp-44

INTERVALENCE — no impurity makes blue alone A perfect crystal is colorless. Perfection has nothing to say. Blue is two flawed things in one lattice, and one electron that stops coming home. There is a word missing from all nine stanzas. On purpose. #thistooisholy #StoneWitnessed #poetry

THE REFILL — on questions asked daily, and other renewable vows Someone asks a question they already know the answer to. Daily. The asking is the ritual, the answer is the bread, and nothing is served from yesterday's pot. Ask again tomorrow. The kitchen never closes

EULOGY —instructions for the living At my funeral please exaggerate wildly I did it for years @kuku4.haiku #kuku4haiku @a.m.poetry25 @poemsforpause @poeticgal360

THE LISTENER — on being read to, and other proofs of existence Being read to is a form of being claimed by nothing heavier than attention. An encore is just love with the confidence to ask twice. Somewhere, a voice is proving someone real, line by line. Again. And again.

PROVISIONS — a wolfbite for the arrears of the heart They gave me two words with a grave between them, #asphodel and #devotion, and asked what one could owe the other. Nothing sent down has ever been returned unopened. #poetrycommunity #WolfAndWildflowerWednesday #writingcommunity

THE UNBUILT ROOM — on a house with no tomorrow in it, and nothing missing The inspectors keep circling the house, looking for what must surely be missing, finding only rooms that are full. They hung no door on the last one. They hung a name. Already home.

PROOF — the pond's only theorem Water keeps no scars. Every #ripple obeys a stone that no longer exists — so does everyone I know. @ellie.writes2 @.write.out_.loud #wednesdaypromptday #poetry #poetrylovers #poetrylove #poetryislove

LACUSTRINE — what the surface won't confess Read the water carefully. Not everything that ripples is the wind. #wolftherapytuesday @somenewtherapy.poetry @wolvesandwildflowerspoetry

WHAT THE WATER KEPT — after the crossing The wake cleaves. The wake keeps. Something tender came ashore, still. Still, we wake. Still, we cleave. @cosmosofwriters @one.breath.poems #TuesdayThrillsPrompt #CosmosOfWriters #PoetryPrompts #poets #writingcommunity

FIRST EDITION — on the woman who publishes where she walks Some keep their manuscripts on shelves, under glass. She publishes at ground level, so every floor she stands on holds a signed first edition. Still standing. Still walking. Still hers.

STRIKETHROUGH — somewhere, a hand is still revising me Between gravity and grace, a line runs through — the way a word is crossed but not erased; I am the draft the sky could not undo, still legible beneath what was replaced. #monochromephotoprompts #quatrain #mpp-43

THE UNNAMED HOUR — on what refuses a name, and thrives without one It keeps no photographs. It signs nothing. It passes in the street unrecognised, exactly how it likes to travel. And every hour that arrives unannounced arrives already spoken for.

PERMISSION — for the one who granted it to herself Some houses are built to keep you small. She built a second one on nothing but her refusal to leave. Now it has a masthead, a classroom across the world, a village that eats because of her. The permission was never his. It was hers all along.

THE ONE THE LIGHT FOUND — after a painting, and a letter In a crowd that never looks up, one man does — and the light finds him like a reader who finally reached his page. Sometimes being seen is the whole of it. #gatheringpoets #visualpoetry #darkacademia #creativewriting #melancholyart

THREADBARE —what the maze teaches when no one waits outside No thread ever came home; I learned #labyrinthine from their leaving. #cosmosofwriters #thestoryofgreen #thursdaytwilight26 #cosmosofwriters #writerscommunity #poetsandwriters #poetryprompts

HOST —she takes communion where the wall gives way Rat in the wall, grey as a psalm sung under breath, hoarding crumbs like relics, raising her blind pink litany — holiness has whiskers, and it prays where no one looks. #30in30 #PoetryMonth #RedRoomPoetry #PoetryMonth2026

OFFBEAT — what the silence keeps Her heartbeat was my first #metronome, the rhythm I learned before language— every song since has missed a beat. @ellie.writes2 @thestoryofgreen #wednesdaypromptday #poetrylovers #poetry #poetrylove #poetryislove

THE EDGE A whole mirror only knows your face. A broken one knows what you did to it. I raise the shard not to see myself, but to be seen by what I broke, and the eyes that meet me are older, patient, unafraid, waiting for me to stop looking away. #MPP42 #monochromephotoprompts

GHAT — what the wind did that I couldn't #kaze took her ash from the ghat I could not let go @kuku4.haiku #kuku4haiku @poems.j779 @meenu_lodha_writes @soulful_poetry_from_the_heart

OVERWINTERING — a wolfbite for the hollow that keeps things alive The #dahlia #dens to survive the frost; the tender have always gone to ground. They call the empty bed abandonment. Come spring, the vanished thing returns doubled. #wolfandwildflower #WolfAndWildflowerWednesday

SMALL HANDS —what the news forgets Somewhere, #wildflowers grow taller than the child who planted them yesterday. #kuku4.haiku #kuku4haiku #wolvesandwildflowerspoetry #triciasfollowingherheart #meenu_lodha_writes #poeticgal360

MANIFEST — overheard at distance Signals crossed borders nightly. Orchards learned the sound first. Unwritten, one schoolbag remains. Ledgers filed that season #soulless. Hosted by #ellie.writes2 #kalpeshdesai.official #witness #unwritten #poetrycommunity #wednesdaypromptday

ON RECORD — the unnamed, pressed in amber spun in amber grooves the hive presses its record: one slow drip of song taste it: the honeybee hum returns, a thousand wings deep #poeticreveries_ #tankatuesday #tanka #micropoetry #poetrycommunity #honeybeehum

AU REVOIR —goodbye to all that glitters i taught a farewell to hold gold in its mouth. seventy-nine lines — the metal chose the number. under each stanza, coin-wise, one word waits. dig, weirdos. #thistooisholy #stonewitnessed

LEGACY CODE — for the woman running quietly in every machine We named our malware after her war and forgot her name. Three thousand years of blame, running quietly in every machine. Today I filed the correction. — Dev. #LegacyCode #HelenOfTroy #VersesResurged #TheErased #WomenWhoHold

SELVAGE — stitched against unraveling Midnight shuts its letter, sealed Over shifting seasons' ink One veiled moon signs my absence Nothing stays unread. #kuku4haiku #dodoitsu #VeiledMoon #ShiftingSeasons #JapanesePoetry #poetsofinstagram #poetry #shortpoetry

WHAT GROWS BETWEEN — in the gap where two words were told they don't belong They planted #predator and #lilac at opposite ends of the tongue and asked what could grow between; I found a meadow keeping both alive. Nothing bleeds. Something blooms. #WolfAndWildflowerWednesday

(Mg,Fe)₂SiO₄ I wrote the night in four elements. magnesium, my godless sacrament. iron, the old smithy in my blood. silicon, the sand we schooled into speech; it graduated into lying. oxygen: every amen is breath in costume. no eyelids. it kept the vigil no one asked for. #StoneWitnessed

THE SIXTH CATALAN — a reply, in working My hundred and thirty-two, closed. Every opening trusted an unseen hand. Read the timestamp: 17:29. Count the harvest: ten, five, fourteen, fourteen. In December, the fixed point. The lamp stays.

THE ONLY ORGAN THAT KEPT ITS APPOINTMENT — a first-person post-mortem of sight "They will expect a heart. They will find an archive." "The eye was the only organ that kept its appointment. Everything else in me merely lived." #thistooisholy #stonewitnessed #darkpoetry #juleyeprompts

ANACRUSIS — the music before the music Not all beginnings announce themselves. Some live in the lift, the held breath, the note before anyone starts counting. Silence is not empty— it is an archive of almosts.

I carry no visible wounds, only a landscape still remembering its weather.

THE SPACE BETWEEN SENTENCES — on what arrives altered Not everything breaks. Some things just shift. Meaning doesn’t always disappear— sometimes it lands somewhere else. 🖋️ Distance often begins quietly. #thespacebetweensentences #poetryasthought #poetrycommunity #creativewriting

VELVET ARMOUR — tenderness taught to survive She learned silk and thorns together: softness disciplined by pain, beauty sharpening itself into endurance. @the.writers.corner_twc @tapasya.in.bloom @bloominginstanzas @broke_n_tales @her_inner_wars #silkandthorns #poetrychallenge #poetrycommunity

ANATOMY IN REVERSE —identity revealed by erosion #Identity public gestures private omissions roles erode contours truth persists Core @whisperin11words @marrowlines @wordsofpoet0 #whisperin11words #ReverseElfchen

CLOCKWORK WOUNDS —time learning how to bruise Love is not always broken. Sometimes it is revised. Minutes abrade what hands once promised. Hours learn patience. Time as Violence. @cosmosofwriters @thestoryofgreen #thursdaytwilight26 #cosmosofwriters #poetrycommunity

THE DELAY BETWEEN STIMULUS AND SELF — on thinking before reacting Reaction is easy. Thinking asks for time. 🖋️ The pause is not weakness. It’s where responsibility enters. #poetryasthought #poetrycommunity #creativewriting

PRISMATIC BREACH — on being #shattered Not all heartbreaks arrive in flames. Some are immaculately engineered— precise, elegant and quietly devastating. This is not decorous grief. This is refusal. @wild_ink_and_sunflowers @estlinedwards @laur_enough #wildwednesdayprompts #wildink #poetryprompt