ABOUT THE POEM: This text functions as a first information report of a life repeatedly broken and reassembled through experience rather than belief. It rejects consolation, mysticism, and aesthetic smoothing, insisting instead on factual accumulation: what was endured, what was lost, and what continued to move forward despite systemic unfairness. The speaker documents cycles of collapse and recovery—depression, self-punishment, physical discipline, social erasure, institutional control, and renewed resolve—without framing them as redemption arcs or moral lessons. There is no appeal to gods, destiny, love, or community; those are explicitly named and dismissed as insufficient or absent. What remains is agency stripped to its core: walking, again and again, as an act of proof rather than hope. The narrative resists therapeutic language and motivational mythology. Suffering is not romanticized, nor is resilience commodified. The repeated emphasis on “walking” marks continuity without illusion—movement as evidence of life, not victory. Identity oscillates between first and third person, signaling both distance and witness, as if the speaker must testify to himself to ensure accuracy. The world is presented as unfair and transactional, not maliciously designed but structurally indifferent. Against this, the sole unyielding claim is self-worth derived internally, not granted. This context positions the text as documentation rather than performance: a record meant to exist, not persuade. Its purpose is not healing the reader, but establishing that the subject endured, remained conscious, and continues forward with unfinished business intact.Title – Proof
I kept torturing myself-
a revenge for which
I did not allow myself to live,
or to ask for the right to be human.
What happened, happened.
But in the name of character,
I suffered.
I drowned my soul in alcohol,
burned it to ash
with innumerable chain-smoked cigarettes,
repeated physical exercise
until even Olympic athletes would fail-
and I surpassed that comfortably.
I lay in silence under the fan,
staring at it for air.
What did I not do
to punish myself?
All because I wanted my rights
from myself-
rights I did not know how to claim
when it mattered.
I was not worldly wise.
I lacked emotional intelligence.
What had to happen
slipped from my hands.
It will never happen again.
It felt necessary,
as if I deserved it-
a revenge like Beatrix in Kill Bill.
Only here,
I was Beatrix,
and I was Bill as well.
On my way,
I kept losing everyone
one by one.
I longed for something
the way a desert longs for monsoon,
craved it
like a hungry dog wants a biscuit.
I needed it
like a king
who would sell the world
for something
as fundamental as a human right.
Three decades later,
I am stripped of everything
a person accumulates in this world,
and everything
a man of ability and character
can possess.
I do not beg.
I do not brag.
I do not hope.
I do not pray.
I do not dream.
I am here.
And this monumental courage
is still keeping me on the path.
I am walking.
I have nothing.
I have fallen four times,
risen three.
This is the fourth time
I am walking.
I know where I am going.
I may not know everything,
but I know
what I do not know
within the range of my consciousness.
I realized this
the first time depression hit me:
it was not my mistake.
I lacked experience.
I walked-
no, I ran-
literally like Forrest Gump
when I was seventeen,
for two years,
to build such strength
that no one would ever again
make a fool
of an innocent person.
I hardened myself
against humiliation
and loss.
But every time
I learned to walk
and breathe freely,
life attacked
more ferociously,
more viciously.
The guy bedridden after high school,
nine months lost to depression,
wakes one day
and starts to jog, then run,
out of necessity-
and he succeeds.
The guy without a degree,
back home after college,
living like a retired salesman
in shorts and a vest,
picks himself up again,
earns real money.
Eaten alive again
by a wise woman,
buried alive.
Mother dies.
Father suffers a heart attack.
He wakes one day
and gathers all his strength
into discipline
for the rest of his life-
becomes a bodybuilder.
And this is the fourth time.
The world has not won yet.
And I have not lost.
He is walking and keeps walking.
He stumbles, falls, wakes up,
and runs again.
He falls again, and again.
The vicious pattern repeats,
but he never loses belief in himself-
that he was never wrong.
Once this belief goes away,
everything is lost.
They sent me to rehab
for seven hundred fifty-eight days,
where they wipe you clean,
force you to surrender.
And there I realized
I didn’t even need experience-
only that the world was not fair.
For twenty-six years
I believed I must have done something wrong.
Only then did I realize
the world was fake.
Instead of accepting defeat and surrender,
I came out alive
and stronger.
And the fight is on.
You were wrong.
I was sentenced to death,
put into the tomb alive.
This is me, bastards.
I am alive.
Do not giggle at my misfortune.
I am alive-
not dead yet.
I have nothing.
No dog.
No cat.
No plant.
No insect.
No wife.
No child.
No mother.
No sister.
No brother.
No friend.
No girlfriend.
No lover.
No whore.
No mistress.
No father.
No god.
No one ahead of me.
No one behind me.
I have no one.
None at all.
A saint received an imaginary god.
A monk found impermanent peace.
A lover gained fleeting love.
Academics and intellectuals earned money.
An artist forged lasting artifacts.
A dog got food.
Hunger consumed flesh,
the heart quenched thirst-
yet the warrior claimed what no other dared:
respect-
forged solely through unbreakable belief
in his own worth.
Courage alone carried him
to heights no god, no peace, no fortune
could ever reach-
heights visible only to his own eyes
and intent.
He has unfinished business.
He walks with fire in his heart
and the same heart in his hand.
The only right to win is his;
in the final moment,
not a single detail may be missed.
From life itself,
he claims satisfaction.
