Poet | Mystic | Existential Voice | Human with a haunted halo

Tristan Robert Lange is a poet whose work blends existential depth, gothic imagery, and spiritual subtext. This site is home to their published poems, reflections, and creative journey.

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Ashtray

Mar 6, 2026

· Collections, Concrete/Shape Poem, Experimental, Poem, The Mind’s Maze, Visual

A minimalist yellow background displays a circular poem arranged in the shape of an ashtray. Inside the ashtray shape are words like anxiety, grief, depression, abandonment, and body image issues, suggesting the emotional struggles behind habits people judge. The poem questions how easily a life is reduced to outward behaviors. — Image: AI-generated using DALL·E and modified by the author; Poetry: written by Tristan Robert Lange, Human-authored.

A yellow background displays the poem “Ashtray” by Tristan Robert Lange arranged in a circular shape resembling an ashtray. Around the rim runs a line questioning whether a life can be judged by its habits, while inside the ashtray appear words like anxiety, grief, depression, body image issues, and abandonment, suggesting the unseen struggles behind visible behaviors. — *Image and poetry created by Tristan Robert Lange.*

POET’S NOTE:
Part of The Mind’s Maze collection.

For accessibility, the poem appears below in standard reading order.

Ashtray
Tristan Robert Lange

You think you know a life by the habits built in it, as if a life—let alone a soul—can be read like a laundry list of clean and dirty.

Those smokers, clearly trashy, no?

Alcoholics? Either party animals or self-loathing losers.

A person who exercises? Clearly disciplined.

Or are they?

We are all butts within a messy, funked up ashtray.

ANXIETY
FEAR FOMENTED
TOO MUCH
UNENDING GRIEF
DEPRESSION
FAILED MARRIAGE
TAUGHT TO HATE
JUDGED
SUCCESS OR DIE
PRETTY
BODY IMAGE ISSUES
ABUSED
ABANDONED
NO ONE CARES

POET’S NOTE:
Part of The Mind’s Maze collection.

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Author

Written by

Tristan Robert Lange

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Welcome to the official site of Tristan Robert Lange — poet, mystic, and existential voice. Here you’ll find words that move through shadow and light, exploring the depths of suffering, transcendence, and human connection.

This site is home to published poems, reflections, and the evolving journey of a writer who believes that truth often hides in the gothic, the broken, and the sacred-in-subtext.

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