Neurodivergent and proud (poems by Marcella Boccia)

The scent of fear (Marcella Boccia)

It does not smell of fire,nor of gunpowder curling in the air.It is not the acrid breath of burning homes,nor the sharp sting of metal and blood.No—fear smells of something softer,something slower,like damp earth before a storm,like the last trace of perfume on a vanished wrist,like the skin of a child pressed against silence.It clings to the folds of the wind,woven into the fabric of waiting,into the space where footsteps hesitate,where doors close before duskand voices are swallowed whole.It seeps into the bones,turns marrow to shadow,makes hands tremble before they touch,before they write,before they reach for somethingthat may not be there tomorrow.And even when the streets are empty,even when the guns fall quiet,even when the world pretends to forget—fear lingers,invisible as breath on cold glass,a scent that never truly fades.

Blood in the snow (Marcella Boccia)

The first snowfall came like a hush,soft as a prayer left unsaid,covering the streets in a quiet so deepeven grief seemed to sleep beneath it.But the earth remembers.It drinks red where white once lay,where footprints vanishbut wounds remain.Somewhere, a mother calls a namethat will not answer.Somewhere, a hand too small to hold a gunis clenched around absence,fingers curled like petals in frost.They say the snow cleanses,that winter is a forgetting—but I have seen the color linger,seep into the marrow of the cold,turn ice into witness,silence into scream.Come spring, the rivers will rise,carrying away what cannot be buried.And yet, even then,somewhere beneath the blossoms,the earth will whisper its hungerfor the blood it was forced to swallow.

Children who no longer play (Marcella Boccia)

Once, their laughter was light,spilling like marigolds across the courtyards,hands clapping, feet chasing shadowstoo swift to be caught.Now the streets are mute,hollowed by the hush of abandoned games.The air is heavy with things unsaid,with echoes of names never called home again.They have learned the language of sirens,the rhythm of distant gunfire,how to flinch without moving,how to dream without closing their eyes.The sky, once their boundless roof,now presses down like a silent witness,watching as childhood folds itselfinto something unspoken, something gray.Who will teach them to run again,to lose themselves in the windwithout fear of never returning?Who will give them back the daysthat slipped through their fingerslike sand through the cracks of time?Somewhere, a skipping rope lies still,a ball rests where it was last kicked,and the wind carries only dust—never the sound of children at play.

Explosions in the heart (Marcella Boccia) 🎧 English

There are wars no one sees,battles waged in the hollows of ribs,where silence is both weapon and wound,where love and loss burn in the same fire.I have walked through streets that echo gunfire,where the sky collapses into smoke,where the air carries the scent of endings,and yet—it is not the bombs that shatter me,but the quiet after,the way grief lingers like dust in the lungs.Your name is written in the ruins of my pulse,each syllable an ember refusing to fade.I carry it like a fragment of shattered glass,pressed deep beneath my skin,cutting, always cutting,so I do not forget.Tell me,is love not its own kind of war?Do we not detonate in each other’s arms,collapse into ruins built for two?Do our hearts not scatter like debris,longing for hands that will never gather them whole again?The world burns outside my window,but it is the quiet explosions in my heartthat leave the deepest scars.

Dust and prayers (Marcella Boccia)

The evening bends like a tired beggar,draped in the hush of unsaid words.Dust rises from the earth in soft laments,whispers of footsteps long vanished,of hands that once built and destroyed,of names carried away by the wind.Prayers hang in the air,weightless as candle smoke,climbing unseen toward a silent sky.Do the heavens listen, I wonder,or do they only collect echoes—a hymn of the forsaken,a song with no reply?I walk where the dust clings to my skin,where the river drinks the light of dying suns,where the air tastes of longing and loss.In this place, even silence has a voice,even absence has a shape.Somewhere, beneath the ruins of yesterday,someone still prays for mercy,someone still gathers the broken hours,threading them into rosaries of hope.But the dust does not answer.The dust only rises.And the prayers keep burning,like stars no one looks for anymore.

War in the pupils (Marcella Boccia)

There is war in the pupils of those who have seen too much, A battlefield hidden behind the quiet of their gaze, Where echoes of gunfire do not fade, Where the dead still whisper their unfinished names.
I have watched the children of ruin walk home at dusk, Their hands small, their shadows long, Carrying silence like an inheritance, Carrying absence where laughter should be.
The sky folds itself into mourning, Ash and prayers tangled in the wind, And the river swallows the weeping of the lost, Its currents heavy with stories That will never be told.
Tell me, How do you unsee what the eyes have carved into the soul? How do you close your lids Without feeling the weight of ghosts pressing against them?
There is war in the pupils of those who remember,A fire smoldering beneath the hush of their breath,And in the mirror of their gaze,Even love walks barefoot,Afraid to make a sound.In the quiet of their silence,Echoes of shattered dreams find their refuge,Fingers tremble as they traceThe scars that time has forgotten to heal.In their chest, hearts beatLike the distant thrum of a drumThat once called the brave to battle—But now, it only calls them home.The weight of history hangs heavy on their shoulders,Like the shadows of soldiersWho never made it back to their mothers.They carry it with grace,A burden cloaked in dignity,Yet in the hollow of their eyes,A storm rages—Unseen, but always there.And still, in the depth of their gaze,Where memories fade like the dying embers of a fire,There is a tenderness left untouched by time—A softness that trembles beneath the furyOf the war that rages in their souls.

The sky over Jhelum (Marcella Boccia)

The sky over Jhelum is not a sky—it is a wound split open by time,a whisper stretched thin over the river’s breath,where the dusk bleeds into the watersand the waters carry the weight of sorrowwithout ever breaking.I have stood on its banks,where the air tastes of longingand the mountains press their silence into my skin.The boats drift like forgotten prayers,their wooden ribs creaking under the weightof words never spoken.Somewhere, beyond the mist,your voice is a thread of wind,a tremor in the hush of twilight,a song unfinished,left in the hands of the riverto be carried away,to be drowned,to be remembered.Tell me—do you ever look at this skyand feel the same ache pressing against your ribs?Do you hear the water call my namein the language of ghosts?The sky over Jhelum is not a sky—it is a mirror where the past does not fade,where love does not end,where we are forever waitingon opposite shoresfor a bridge that will never be built.

Always, beyond time (Marcella Boccia) 

Always,Even when the seasons fold into the cold of silence,When the stars refuse to burn,And the earth sighs beneath the weight of centuries—You are there,A shadow I cannot touch,A flame I cannot extinguish.Beyond time,Where the rivers of past and future meet,Where the echoes of forgotten lives weave through the air,Your presence is a ghost I cannot outrun,A pulse in the deep of my veins,A song that plays in the spaces between breaths.In the quiet,When the world forgets to speak,I hear you in the rustle of the leaves,In the tremor of the wind,In the spaces where words have diedBut still, your name lingers like a prayer.You are always—A constant ache that never leaves,A desire that bends the arc of time,A flame burning quietly in the distance,Yet close enough to burn me whole.And still,I reach for you,Not with my hands,But with the longing that has no shape,The yearning that knows no end,As I move through the shadows of the world,Always chasing your echo,Always lost in the place where we never met,But where we are always,Beyond time.

The silence that binds us (Marcella Boccia)

There is a silence between us,Thick as the night before a storm,A space where words cannot reach,Yet where everything is said,And nothing can be undone.It holds us—Like the stillness before the first drop of rain,A breath drawn too deep,Too fragile to exhale,As though even the air knowsThe weight of what remains unsaid.In this silence,You are both a ghost and a flame,A shadow cast on the edges of my thoughts,A fire I cannot touchFor fear it will burn me whole.Yet still, I reach—Not for you,But for the echo of you,For the space you leave behindThat swells like an ocean in my chest.We speak without sound,Each glance a letter in a language we cannot write,Each pause an eternity that folds us closerAnd pulls us further apart,As if our hearts are bound by invisible threads,Pulled tight with every unspoken word.This silence,It is the air we breathe—Heavy with longing,Cloaked in the dark of forgotten dreams,Yet it is also the space where we exist,Where love rises like smokeAnd disappears before it can be named.And so we remain—Not in the sound of our voices,But in the silence that binds us,A bond stronger than any vow,A truth that neither of us can escape,Not even as the winds of time carry usFurther from each other.

Love in suspension (Marcella Boccia)

Love hangs in the air here,A fragile thread spun between us and the abyss,It sways, caught in the breath of unseen winds,As if afraid to fall,Yet too heavy to fly.I feel it,Tugging at the spaces where my heart once beat freely,Now a hollow echo in the chest,A memory that lingers like smoke,Refusing to be inhaled or exhaled.In this suspended moment,You are both near and far,A shadow that touches my skin but does not stay,A dream that slips through my fingers,Each word you never spokeBecomes a weight I carry in silence.We are two souls,Frozen in time’s cruel embrace,Neither here nor gone,Bound by the tension of what could have been,And what we never dared to say.Your love—It is a dark flame that never warms,A fire that flickers on the edge of this quiet void,Waiting for the wind to blow it out,Waiting for the world to forget its name.And still, I hold it,This love in suspension,Like a star whose light never reaches the earth,Like a river that forgets to run,Both endless and empty,Both alive and dead,Suspended in the space where I am not,But where I will always remain.