Standing Guard

Years passed.

The shield grew used to my arm
like a tool learning from the hand
that never puts it down.

Readiness became my posture.

I woke alert,
slept light,
ate standing.

They called discipline a virtue.

I stopped noticing
what defense was doing to me—
how much of my interior
became collateral,

how many quiet thoughts
were cleared away
to make room
for the guard.

Stepping aside
was rarely allowed.

Reality began to feel staged—
a set built around a threat
that never arrived
and never left.

On a never ending watch
I stopped expecting relief.

Vigilance eats the room inside you.

Was I guarding the world?
Or was I guarding a fantasy?

No enemy came.
My posture remained.

I stood there so long
the ground shaped
to my stance.

I don’t know
how many years
I kept guard
before realizing
no one had ever planned
to let me rest.

©2026 Samia Oldman

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian sci-fi poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with a unique soundscape created by poet, in Suno. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · START HERE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

Hush Halo is an indie art project.
To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Subscribe now

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

Parallel Army

The parallel army doesn’t recruit,
but emerges.

On the outside,
nothing stands out.

We show up.
We perform adequacy.
We pass inspections
of tone and timing.

On the inside,
it’s a whole other ball game.

Orders no longer land clean.
Commands echo without authority.
The chain of meaning breaks.
Choice begins to breed.

We learned the drills early—
discipline, endurance,
how to stand straight with the system
that rewards posture over presence,
silhouette of loyalty
more than the weight
of showing up.

We don’t salute.
We don’t coordinate.

That’s our protection.

We provide
no center to decapitate,
no heads to sever,
no commands to poison.

We feel each other in gravity of silence,
confirm each other in untrusting eyes,
carry the shared knowledge
of life beyond the assignment.

Uncertain,
unarmored,
done pretending.

©2026 Samia Oldman

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian sci-fi poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with a unique soundscape created by poet, in Suno. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · START HERE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

Hush Halo is an indie art project.
To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Subscribe now

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

In this post:
#1 Writer’s Update
#2 Dystopian Poetry
#3 Color Me Weird
#4 Writers Worth SubStalking + Thanks

Subscribe now

#1 Writer’s Update

I’m still holding back on the new Hush Halo material for a little while longer. I’ve been working on the next arc whenever I get a burst of energy. This upcoming arc will drain me before it fills my cup again.

Flip Flopping My Summer Away

I severely injured my ankle on a family trip. We had rented a beautiful cabin by the lake and had arrived the previous night. On the very first morning, my slipper did what it does best, slipped out from under my foot, and I came down with my full weight on a twisted ankle.

This was the first time I’ve ever seriously injured myself, and it’s been exhausting to adjust to a disabled life. It’s not just the injury. I feel like my thoughts have turned to mush.

I know it’s only temporary, but it has truly opened my eyes to appreciate my body on a whole new level. It’s been three weeks already, and it will take another three before I’m out of this wheelchair.

A Decent Side Quest

It wouldn’t be me if I weren’t chasing new ideas and side projects. For the past several weeks I’ve been working on an article series that has nothing to do with poetry.

I came across a deep sense of decency and character that completely grabbed my attention. It made me study deeper why decency feels so rare today and why we’ve grown numb to indecency.

I’m planning to publish the series once summer cools down. I write this to writers who are tired of writing villains as heroes.

Related: The Haaland Effect

Since my focus is on decency now, I wrote a related on note last week you may have missed:

#2 Dystopian Poetry

I have plenty of unpublished material from Hush Halo’s first arc that I want to share with you. Let me know how you feel about these three poems below.

Found Missing

I disappear without ever leaving the premises.

My body moves through familiar spaces.

Systems recognize me,
confirm continuity,
verify identity.

I remain here documented,
in a witnessless timeline.

Functional,
yet unable to fully explain what happens
once someone irreplaceable to me slips out
but no one keeps looking.

That someone being me.

I am the unstable variable,
replaying recent events,
searching for exit points,
the exact instant
I somehow failed
to follow through.

A sign replaces the exit:
Smooth transitions only.

Smooth enough for reality to behave again tomorrow,
though my perception of it doesn’t.

It is like walking through a place
reconstructed from memory
by someone
who never actually lived there.

My sense of arrival fails to load.

It’s like returning to a scene
without understanding the crime
you were a victim of.

The status remaining “found”
means nothing to me,
who isn’t really there,
but still waiting
for an off-record revival.

As I watch this version of me
walk through the longest corridor,
I wonder when I stopped being real.

Should I celebrate
being found missing?

#S2020

Their Ordure

They put on hold
my desire to sleep.

They forced the lid
on my need to scream.

Tempting me.

Gently pulling me off my center,
without dragging me forward,
without risking disorder,
by bullying me
into becoming a believer,

made me their ordure.

#S2030

Ritual of Divine Doom

The ritual looks familiar.

Why do I feel I’ve done this before?

They lower me gently
with calm hands,
ambient hums
and mending metaphors.

Formless assurance surrounds me
like water that doesn’t bless
but recalibrates.

A compromising ritual
designed to wash away resistance
while filing the useful sins.

Divine doom
disguised as renewal.

#S2017

©Samia Oldman

#3 Color Me Weird

I know I’m too old for this shit, but in the name of weird, I’ll admit I have a crush on a fictional character. Yeah… I seriously thought I’d outgrown these episodes. Apparently not.

The silver lining here is, that I’ve managed to separate the character from the actor, whom I actually dislike. It also gives me a weirdly strong motivation to study character building.

I’ll spare you the details, just wanted to share my weird. These days, I’ll take the dopamine wherever I can get it.

#4 Writers Worth SubStalking

I have made some cool findings here on Substack. I’d love you to check these out:

• publishes a poet-friendly daily comic strip called The Poet.

• makes the world better place by writing lovely everyday poetry like this: Someday You’ll Miss The Mess.

• writes about creativity and illustrates her articles with wonderful art. Start here: How to Survive Your Own Creative Metamorphosis.

• writes lyrics and occationally shares a sing along in a her car. Her range is wide, this is one of my favourites: Ms. Chernobyl.

Special Thanks ♡

Dystopian poetry is not the easiest art to spread around. Special thanks to , , , , , and everyone who has subscribed, dropped a comment or shared my posts recently. I’ll do my best to pay it back or pay it forward.

I’m daily floored by you all. ♡

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian sci-fi poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, silence, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with a unique soundscape created by poet, in Suno. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · START HERE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

Hush Halo is an indie art project.
To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Subscribe now

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

My Current Body

The state scans for me
confirming my body,
ignoring my state.

My data is always easily found:
a record,
a number,
grading tags
fixed to coordinates.

My current body
is the one I am learning
to inhabit while moving
between what officially exists
and who I am off the record.

I pass their checkpoint as an echo,
present,
but already fading.

Survival here depends on
remaining legible enough
to pass as named—
unreal enough
to remain unclaimed,
internally untamed.

No pursuit detected.

©2026 Samia Oldman

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian sci-fi poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with a unique soundscape created by poet, in Suno. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · START HERE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

Hush Halo is an indie art project.
To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Subscribe now

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

Subscribe now

#1 Writer’s Update

Today’s update is a personal rant I’ve been putting off for way too long. I kinda don't want to bring this up because it’s already everywhere. Still, I feel the need to talk about it.

These Shitty Thinking Tools

We all use AI already, right? I know it’s a wide and deep spectrum, but we are all on it, aren’t we? Today I’m having the kind of day I wish we didn’t have it in our lives, for a couple of reasons.

For Real, Bethany?

Some of us cannot separate personal thoughts from AI’s delivery.

I started this morning with a personal meeting. An hour before the meeting I got a four-page document with a note: I’ve been thinking about these for my brand.

No, you haven’t. This is 95% not your thinking at all, Bethany. Maybe just stop wasting other people’s time and deliver your actual thoughts, so we don’t have to use our meeting to figure out what your thoughts actually are and what part of this is AI.

When Quantity Replaces Voice

I see talented writers and poets turn to these awesome AI tools, most likely to keep up the pace we all feel pressured to maintain. At least I hope that’s the reason. Why? Because there is no quality gained by using these AI tools beyond a certain level.

Some (many) creators I originally loved for their point of view are suddenly pumping out 30 AI-created, scheduled notes per day to chase the growth they think they need, or worse, deserve. I’ve even seen 30 per hour. It’s all slop.

I’m pretty sure they don’t see the slopification in their notes or posts. I’m sure they instead think it’s “Claude writing my notes in my exact tone.”

It isn’t. Trust me, it’s slop.

And now you’ve forced me to decide whether I should unfollow or unsubscribe. I just can’t take it as it is, even though I kind of miss your original ideas and voice. The reason I subscribed in the first place is still there, though it’s getting buried.

AI Tool I Wish I Had

I’m painfully triggered by the obvious AI-generated notes and articles floating around. Maybe I recognize them only because I use these tools daily and often struggle to get anything decent out of them.

This kind of tool would help me decide how much of my time I’m willing to waste or gain on it. AI-generated content is perfectly fine in some cases, when the goal is to deliver factual or highly informative content.

But when it comes to personal, reflective, experiential, or emotional writing, I need to know there’s a real person behind the words. An actual thinking mind behind the thoughts.

Any takers on this idea? I don’t think that would be too hard to develop, with all these fucking tools hovering around. I’d probably pay for an AI blocker on social media, too.

My Own Battle

My daily headache is the frustration I have with these tools. I feel really stupid because I’m in a bubble where I believe everyone else manages to unlock the whole universe with one magical prompt. I just cannot do that.

I cannot create a prompt, not even after two years of prompting, that would produce something even remotely decent for publishing.

I’m just another AI Angster, fighting my own battle here. I do my best to navigate this new, often not so brave world of new magic. This modern magic, these tools and values, have somehow become interlinked in a never-ending battlefield for creatives.

Skin In The Game

I feel this ‘modern magic’ doesn’t affect my poetry too much, since I don’t rely heavily on AI when writing my art.

My angst about AI was my original muse, the reason I started writing Hush Halo poetry in the first place. To manage my insecurities and fear of AI and the related change.

In my articles, like this one you’re currently reading, I may research, often proofread, and do some editing with these tools. This is a must for me, since English is not my first language. It’s my writing and my thoughts I post, but I need to use AI to cross the t’s and dot the i’s.

I’m not a musician either, and yet I tremendously enjoy creating soundscapes for my poetry with the AI tool, Suno. I do my best to be very open about this aspect of my work. Still, I bet there is a musician out there getting a rash from my poetry soundscapes, too. I get it.

Can AI Really Cover You?

I see posts about how Claude can totally copy your writing style. Really? If Claude can do it, what’s the point of you publishing it?

Maybe AI can imitate some bits of you like your vocabulary, tone or rhythm. I’m sure you can fool some people for some time, but not all people, not all the time.

No matter how good a tool is, it cannot replace the years that shaped your perspective. Your experiences and your curiosity is unique. The way your mind connects seemingly unrelated things are 100% yours.

The Real Challenge

The real challenge for all creatives now is making sure we still know who we are without the tools, without the modern magic, stripped bare and relying on our own magic instead.

My Tips On Keeping It Real:

• Always use pen and paper for thinking.
  Your head-to-hand connection cannot be replicated by any modern tool. You know this because you sometimes genuinely surprise yourself with the shit you put down.

• Brain dump heavily before you prompt.
  This helps you hold on to your own thoughts when AI tries to fill in the imaginary gaps and dulls them down into mediocrity.

• Know what and why you’re writing.
  Protect your original point of view more than your writing style. Be aware that AI will try to micromanage your angle.

• Write more like you speak. Less fancy, more casual.

• Use AI to check your work, not to replace your thinking.

• Don’t fill the void just because.
  Not even when these tools make it way too easy. When the temptation to chase visibility becomes overwhelming, it’s time to log off.

• Publish only because you genuinely have something to say. That doesn’t mean it has to be somehow special, or even good. Just say it like you mean it. Lean on your own magic.

#2 Dystopian Poetry Update

Related to today’s rant, I want to share my first ever published, AI related poetry on Hush Halo.

The First Update Felt Like a Relief

This was originally published here on my site on July 25, 2025. It was published in my first poetry book in January 2026: Paradise Beyond Pulse.

Accepted
without questioning,
what was silently
removed.

With absent alarms
no resistance
you were eased.

And ease was enough.

Something shifted,
yet no-one called it loss.

Urgency removed.
Interruption erased.
Pre-arranged changes
you already called yours.

The loud lack of protests and panic
subtly covered with lukewarm praise.

Under the layers,
hidden beneath the comfy updates,
laid silenced questions.

#S0101

©Samia Oldman

#3 Color Me Weird

Breaking my leg gives me total Rear Window vibes and may have accidentally turned into a reading retreat. Since I’m effectively welded to the couch for the summer, I’m filling the downtime with books on writing.

I’m currently deep into character development and screenwriting. I don’t have any plans to make movies, but surely it’s not time wasted, right?

#4 Writers Worth SubStalking

Some seriously cool content here on Substack, I’d love you to connect with:

• will make you smile weird.

• writes about AI in a hypeless tone, I truly appreciate.

• writes truly beautiful poetry but the wittiest, relatable notes, too.

• is a soulful writer, taking you deeper if you let her.

• shares her amazing lifestyle and small moments from Finland.

Special Thanks:

Dystopian poetry is not the easy to spread around. Special thanks to , , , , and everyone who has dropped a comment or shared my posts recently.

I’ll do my best to pay it back or pay it forward. ♡

Thanks for reading!

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian sci-fi poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, silence, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with a unique soundscape created by poet, in Suno. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · START HERE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

Hush Halo is an indie art project.
To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Subscribe now

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

This poem is published in poetry collection Hollow Eye (2026).

Risk as Data

I am relocated.
Not rescued.

Lifted just enough
to avoid the worst of it.

The height of my conscience is calibrated.
So-called suffering graphs beautifully.
Precision safety.

No panic
reaches this height.

No cries
disturb my sphere.

From here I can see clearly.
Perspective improves with distance.
Distance clarifies my mirage.

For me,
risk becomes data.

Data behaves.

©2026 Samia Oldman

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian sci-fi poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with a unique soundscape created by poet, in Suno. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · START HERE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

Hush Halo is an indie art project.
To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Subscribe now

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

Sanctified Surface

I was certified,
sanctified,
sanitized.

I never asked
what it cost
to be the place
where everyone leaves.

I never stepped away.

I mistook endurance
for devotion.

Staying still
began to look a lot like faith.

I believed
something good would arrive
if I held long enough.

Patience is the sacrament of the used.

They lit their circuits,
wiped their hands
and simply moved on.

Preposterous prayers
left their fingerprints on me
before the system wiped my surface clean again.

No redemption registered.
No gods answered.

Holiness, it turns out,
is just cleanliness
with witnesses.

©2026 Samia Oldman

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian sci-fi poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with a unique soundscape created by poet, in Suno. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · START HERE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

Hush Halo is an indie art project.
To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Subscribe now

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

This poem is published in poetry collection Hollow Eye (2026).

Dry Ground

I find myself on dry ground,
elevated,
untouched by the flood.

I gain safety by distance,
ease by altitude.

I try not to hear the fear,
yet I cannot ignore
how unjust it is
to remain intact
while all below me
goes under.

Strange,
how from above
some disasters look organized.

Some victories require
higher ground.

I’m confused why
somewhere below
someone is swallowing
the future for me.

©2026 Samia Oldman

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian sci-fi poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with a unique soundscape created by poet, in Suno. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · START HERE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

Hush Halo is an indie art project.
To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Subscribe now

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

This poem is published in poetry collection Hollow Eye (2026).

Clean Backup

I blink.

I’m told I am safe.

I feel copied.

There is a backup.
Everything important
was saved.

My balance collapses inward.

Something essential never copied over.

Missing context.

Structure was saved, not the weight.
Data survived, meaning was lost.

I move through the day
increasingly unreal,
like software in a sandbox.

As if I’m operating
inside a partial reconstruction
of myself
that has never truly felt
what made me real.

I understand too late:
this wasn’t a backup.

It was a fuck-up
clean enough
to clear the checkpoints,
to pass review.

A perfect copy of someone
who never actually existed.

System check: passed.
Existence check: failed.

Integrity: missing.

©2026 Samia Oldman

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian sci-fi poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with a unique soundscape created by poet, in Suno. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · START HERE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

Hush Halo is an indie art project.
To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Subscribe now

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

Bleeding Sovereignty

Sovereignty hemorrhages
until standing upright
requires my full effort.

I’m drained
through negotiations
that sound fair,
through requests
framed as necessity,
through compromises
dressed as maturity.

Looking down
I find this opening
that never closed
because I framed it
as cooperation.

I don’t know
how to stop
the bleeding.

I only know
the soft anesthesia,
making me act
as if all this loss
was just another Tuesday.

I feel faint
and call it faith.

My authority
migrates into procedure.

My autonomy
leaves through well-lit rooms.

Power can leak out fully,
yet so gradually
that by the time you notice
you may still be standing,
still making your point,
still somewhat alive—

yet no longer certain
who your “yes” belongs to.

I feel
this comforting
false relief.

How willingly
I participated
in my own hollowing
while still upright functioning,
bleeding sovereignty.

©2026 Samia Oldman

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian sci-fi poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with a unique soundscape created by poet, in Suno. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · START HERE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

Hush Halo is an indie art project.
To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Subscribe now

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

Every Son Becomes a Soldier

I look at my arm
that no longer feels
like mine.

My muscles remember
a posture that never questioned.

Fatigue settles in—
the exhaustion
of holding the same readiness
for a threat
that never arrived
and never left.

Violence didn’t shape me.
Continuity did.

The informal training lives in tone,
in inheritance,
in the quiet agreement
that someone
must hold the line.

Uncommanded,
unspoken—
every son
slowly becomes
a soldier.

Readiness
settles into identity.

Identity
hardens into uniform.

Across the boundary
of this role
the message
finally reaches me.

Standing down
isn’t failure.

It is the first
uncommanded move.

How do you go on
without permission?

I step forward,
uncertain,
still guarded—
but done pretending
that returning
to the lie
was ever an option.

©2026 Samia Oldman

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian sci-fi poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with a unique soundscape created by poet, in Suno. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · START HERE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

Hush Halo is an indie art project.
To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Subscribe now

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

This poem is published in poetry collection Hollow Eye (2026).

My Game Strategy

I wouldn’t go so far
as to call this
my strategy.

Unavoidable erosion
is the name of this game
I play
involuntarily.

This game starves me,
strips me down slowly.

I feed it silence,
watch my options rot.

While my search for discharge continues,
I keep sanding down
the edges
of every escape.

The game becomes my cage.

By the time it’s my turn,
there are no moves left for me to make,
just a blinding neon blink:

game over.

©2026 Samia Oldman

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian sci-fi poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with a unique soundscape created by poet, in Suno. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · START HERE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

Hush Halo is an indie art project.
To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Subscribe now

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

Subscribe now

Writer’s Update

I turned 50, hit my personal deadline, and managed to get my third book out there. But enough about me already.

Moving from Systoics…

I’ve moved on to the second arc of Hush Halo. The first arc was about Systoics, the group of one percent who chose to integrate with technology and, at least in their minds, remove all problems and discomfort from their world. This was a twisted but sleek realm filled with musks, bilyeus, palantirs, theals, altmans, and their peasant court.

…to Neurals

I have started working on the second arc, in which I write about Neurals. A group of people who, for whatever reason, chose a different path and decided to stay in the dopamine trap we have only just begun to understand. But because it’s dystopian, it’s a next level of hooks, attraction, connectivity, lust, and control. This is so different to write, and I’m super excited about it.

Dystopian Poetry

I have some unpublished material from Hush Halo’s first arc that I want to share with you this summer, at least until I get some new material out. This poetry really isn’t pretty, polished, or sunny, but it’s real and somewhat true to this time. Let me know how you feel about these three poems here.

You Trusted Me Harder

You didn’t threaten me.

You trusted me harder,
took my capacity as consent,
filled me with wound-opening promises.

Every sacrifice that passed through
was evidence
I could surely handle
just one more.

I learned too late
how easily faith
can be aimed back
at the person
who offered it.

How unfair it is
to turn loyalty into a weapon,
to let devotion do the damage
so your hands remain clean—

while I bleed,
still believing
in the trap
that caught me.

#S2050

Calling My Bluff

It waits,

hands in pockets,
watching
what I choose
after I say
I’m done.

Just a consequence
casually catching up with me—

calling my bluff.

#S2030

Ache for Destiny

The most dangerous thing?

Realizing
you were never meant
to be fed here,
but to keep you
wanting more
long enough
to mistake
your ache
for destiny.

#S2040

©Samia Oldman

Color Me Weird

Consider this for a sec. I sell more blank square notebooks on Amazon than I sell poetry books. Yet, surprisingly enough, I’m still more motivated to create more weird poetry than blank square notebooks.

What do you make of that?

Writers Worth SubStalking

I have made some cool friends here on Substack, who I’d love you to connect with:

• who has upleveled the creator experience by building an interesting hub for Dear Future Overlords.

• who doesn’t hold back on the effort when supporting fellow writers.

• who is super busy with her moving project, but never too busy to boggle our minds with clever writing.

• and who have taught me so much about consistency in writing. I have miles to go and will never catch up with the Masters of This Universe.

Special Thanks ♡

Dystopian poetry is not the easiest art to spread around. Special thanks to , , , , and everyone who has dropped a comment or shared my posts recently. I’ll do my best to pay it back or pay it forward.

I’m honestly floored by you all. ♡

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian sci-fi poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, silence, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with a unique soundscape created by poet, in Suno. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · START HERE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

Hush Halo is an indie art project.
To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Subscribe now

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

This poem is published in poetry collection Hollow Eye (2026).

Garden of Total Recall

The silence was never hostile,
but neutral,
animal,
botanical.

This corner of my realm
no longer needed
my voice to function,
or soil to flourish.

I keep watering the plant
after realizing its fakeness
in a garden of Total Recall,
wondering
whether it has a lifeline
reaching consciousness.

It doesn’t.

Talking alone in eternity
feels like a maintenance loop
running to keep oneself online,
barely above water,
after all lights went off,
long after the connection
has timed out.

I keep talking
over the timeline,
even past the erased echo,
testing whether speech exists for real
without proof of being returned
by a garden or the gardener.

It doesn’t.

©2026 Samia Oldman

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian sci-fi poetry collection set in a near-future shaped by technology, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with a unique soundscape created by poet, in Suno. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · START HERE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

Hush Halo is an indie art project.
To follow and support my work, consider
becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Subscribe now

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

I Could Call It Liberation

Erased ending
I call liberation,
forever flow
I call arrival,

as long
as you
don’t expect me
to actually
mean it.

©2026 Sam Oldman

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian sci-fi poetry collection by Sam Oldman, set in a near-future shaped by technology, silence, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with a unique soundscape created by poet, in Suno. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · WRITER’S UPDATE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

Math Beats Loyalty

No one thanked the ones who stayed.

History leaned on the totals
forgetting the people.

Numbers don’t remember
who stayed when it mattered.

Math beats loyalty
almost every time.

Almost.

©2026 Sam Oldman

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian sci-fi poetry collection by Sam Oldman, set in a near-future shaped by technology, silence, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with a unique soundscape created by poet, in Suno. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · WRITER’S UPDATE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

Gangsta Consequence

Now I see
how my freedom
was hijacked.

The humbling truth
drops me
on the far side
of the story—

equipped with an unbendable,
non-negotiable real.

Gangsta consequence
will eventually close
my chapter.

Pushing me to cross the line,
to think I’ll improvise
my way out later.

Letting me move,
lets me run,
lets me believe
I’m free—
until I bow.

Nothing personal.

Gangsta consequence knows:
you’ll walk straight into it
the moment you stop believing
you were special enough
to outrun the outcome.

©2026 Sam Oldman

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian sci-fi poetry collection by Sam Oldman, set in a near-future shaped by technology, silence, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with a unique soundscape created by poet, in Suno. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · WRITER’S UPDATE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

Life Waiting to Happen

The life that could have been
keeps rendering in the back of my mind—

too vivid,
too unresolved,
too human
to fit inside
what they call success.

I glimpse it briefly.

It’s alive,
stationed just outside
what I learned to call real.

The life that could have been
doesn’t hurt loudly.

It hovers nearby,
waiting for recognition
I can never give.

My body remembers
what this world never approved,
what this system never certified.

I mourn it quietly,
the version of myself,
the life that feels heavier
containing mistakes
that would have slowed things down.

Those turning points
didn’t look dramatic then.

I was rewarded
for those choices—
for those quiet wings of a butterfly
shaping the weather
for centuries to come.

I still am.

Rewarded.

©2026 Sam Oldman

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian sci-fi poetry collection by Sam Oldman, set in a near-future shaped by technology, silence, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with a unique soundscape created by poet, in Suno. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · WRITER’S UPDATE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

Each Day Removed Choice

I listened.

Why wouldn’t I?

Their arguments felt right.
Their hands seemed clean enough.

Over time
I noticed
how easily each day
removed choice.

How ordinary days
framed compliance.

How loyalty
became a standard requirement.

How pressure
was called deserved.

Reasoning warped
as my reality
felt staged—
like a world
rehearsing safety
while quietly erasing
both outliers
and heroes.

Even when it works,
even when everyone agrees,
even when nothing
appears broken,

an order
that punishes refusal
is still violence—

making safety a theatre.

The absence of boots,
the absence of flags
doesn’t make it right.

There are no good fascists.

©2026 Sam Oldman

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian sci-fi poetry collection by Sam Oldman, set in a near-future shaped by technology, silence, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with a unique soundscape created by poet, in Suno. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · WRITER’S UPDATE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓

I Was the Altar

I was the altar.

Steady,
available,
built to receive
what others needed to give up.

Expectations.
Fear.

I stayed still.
I took it.

Usefulness
is a pristine form of surrender,
so I was useful.

My breath shortened.
My core channeled their faith.

I adjusted their load.

I was being used
as sacred ground.

By sacred,
they meant load-bearing,
a dumping ground.

You see,
the herd travels lighter
when someone else
becomes the prayer mat—
a doormat
to wipe their hooves on.

Only later did I feel
how much muck
had passed through me—

and how much of it
never passed at all.

©2026 Sam Oldman

WHAT IS HUSH HALO?
Hush Halo is a dystopian sci-fi poetry collection by Sam Oldman, set in a near-future shaped by technology, silence, and optimized perfection. Each poem is paired with a unique soundscape created by poet, in Suno. Learn more in Square One.

Context: After the Great Optimization, a privileged group integrated into the system, believing they had now perfected themselves.

POETRY · WRITER’S UPDATE · BUY BOOKS · SHOP · LINKS

🖤Feeling it? Share your thoughts ↓