CHRYSSA VELISSARIOU

 

 

My Compulsion

 

I must be doing something wrong—

yet I refuse the comfort

of being the only one to blame.

 

What saves me

is the stubborn faith

that beauty is worth excess—

better too much of it

than none.

 

I carry an urge

to uncover the world’s tenderness,

humanity’s light,

as if it were my work—

 

because I can’t bear

a life where only ugliness

gets revealed.

© Chryssa V., 2026

 

Whenever I Speak The Truth

 

Whenever I speak the truth,

others grow angry,

they don’t take me seriously.

Each time, they step a little farther away.

 

I shouldn’t be wounded by children—

and yet, they are the greatest betrayers.

Not because they wish to hurt,

but because they don’t know what it means to endure.

 

They haven’t felt yet what you have lived through.

They live inside what you once adorned.

They walk on soil that was once blood

and call it inherited land.

 

They don’t see the cracks beneath the floor.

They don’t understand your scars.

They see only that you smile.

 

You don’t want them to understand the horror you witnessed—

yet in the end, they don’t escape it.

 

They suffer the same fate

you screamed about moments before they were torn open,

while they stuck their tongues out at you.

© Chryssa V., 2026

 

CHRYSSA VELISSARIOU

 

CHRYSSA VELISSARIOU (Chryssa V.) is a Greek poet, physicist-educator, and social entrepreneur. She is the 1st International NBPF Beat Poet Laureate (Greece) and an NBPF Poet Laureate (Lifetime), and recipient of the Poets Network & Exchange Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement. She serves as Poetry Canada & International Peace Ambassador to Greece. Her poetry insists on tenderness without denying scars.