dailyzappai Archives - The Cracked Door

10/18/26 A New Poem for a New Day

I am not the cold man
Who fled because it was easier than staying
Who wouldn’t listen
Who wasn’t willing to grow
Who never tried to make it work

I am not the cold man
Who couldn’t stand the pressure
Who chose an easy way out
Who ran away from suffering

But I am the cold man
Who is too sick of it all
To do anything but
Find his own warmth

Context (if you’re interested):

Someone in a recent interaction portrayed going your separate way as a type of cowardly retreat, and the idea for this poem came to show that that is not always the case.

10/17/26 A New Haiku for a New Day

Oh lovely silence,
The sound I play to conjure
My haunting memories

Context (if you’re interested):

This poem is about how when things get quiet that my memories come back.

10/14/26 A New Poem for a New Day

I’d like to go back
To the wind, the only one
Who ever made sense.

I’d like to go back
To the wind, the only voice
That can still speak to me
While it listens

I’d like to go back
To the wind, the only place
I could call my home.

Context (if you’re interested):

I have been fascinated by the wind lately. Sometimes I feel like I can really relate to it.

10/10/26 A New Haiku for a New Day

I dive deep into
The waters from whence I came and
To which I will be

Context (if you’re interested):

It is based on a poem about Himmapan that I saw at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre. I was thinking about plunging into the depths of one’s personhood.

10/07/26 A New Tanka for a New Day

At the center of
The magnificent sun that
Radiates its light
For the rest of the world, there
Is the darkest place to be

Context (if you’re interested):

It’s about the experience of being the center are warmth and light to others. You give to others, but from your perspective, the world seems less warm to you. It can feel incredibly dark when you are the one transmitting light to others around you.

10-04-26 A New Haiku for a New Day

Only remembered
For your death and for those you
Brought down with you

Context (if you’re interested):

I visited the Terracotta Army that day. It’s a real marvel of human ingenuity. I was learning about how often Chinese emperors would bury wives, servants, and others with them to serve in the afterlife. Nowadays, some of them we know very little about them except the humans they killed with them. Sometimes in life, the main lingering impacts we have are the destructive ones. It can make you think.

10/01/26 A New Haiku for a New Day

Tell me the way to
Heaven. This? Or that? Or, which?
What maze of paths!

Context (if you’re interested):

I wrote this to express feeling confounded when I see others so confident they know what is best for everyone.

09/30/26 A New Haiku for a New Day

Each night we’re apart,
I look up at the same moon
Like you smiling down

Context (if you’re interested):

Based “Water Melody Prelude: When Will the Bright Moon Appear?” By Su Shi. This is also a tribute to the Mid-Autumn Festival in China, although I am a few days late. (At the time of the festival, I was running around too much to be able to pause and write a poem about it.)

09/29/26 A New Haiku for a New Day

Come as you aren’t
I’ll be better able to
Make you how I want

(The story behind this poem; only read this part if you’d like to hear my personal story. Skip if it you’d prefer to glean your own meaning from the poem: I wrote this poem to help me vent my emotions about a specific dispute that happened. I am trying to convey how humans tend to event more and more arguments to solidify their initial impression in their mind even as more facts made it clear their position was wrong.)

For me, this poem is about conformity, about the pressure to be a blank slate so one can conform to how others want you to be.

09/19/26 A New Haiku for a New Day

Shrouded in mist
Where are you, oh, mountain peak?
What mysteries do you hold?

Context (if you’re interested):

I was hiking in Jiuzhaigou in Sichuan. In the morning, the mountains were shrouded in mist creating an interesting effect. It felt like the mountain itself was a mystery slowly revealing itself through the fog.