Poetry

Finally Home

Scars and bruises
An emblem of Stories left unsaid
As memory fades into history
I forge ahead
Treading the path, I once fled Erasing those footprints, I left behind Heartbreaks and Goodbyes
A necessary burden to self-discovery
I died a thousand times Trying to find myself Seeking and yearning
In the dark quarters of ennui In deep waters of nothingness A rebellious streak
Until my world caved in Darkness engulfed existence A tortuous bleakness Still I turned my back Rejected his warm embrace Defiant to his appeal
In the midst of the rubble
He reached out still
A silent appeal Irresistible to ignore
I stumbled through the chaos
Till I found that light
Lumen Christi!
Finally, the prodigal son came home.

An Ode to Depression

Some mornings, getting out of bed feels like carrying ten bags of cement. Other mornings, you float through space, watching your life pass by from a distance. You are struggling to dig your way out of a bottomless pit. The more you dig, the deeper you plummet. A crashing descent into a bottomless vacuum.

You try to hold on to the rails of euphoria. One hit, two hits. You puff in and out to grasp at a distant hope. To find meaning in the smoke around you. You try to read the signs, but the fog keeps you in bleakness. Blue pills, syrup and methanol, to numb your senses to the hollowness.

Maybe if you shut down you could find some succour. The pills and syrup percolate through your bloodstream. You drift away. But not for too long. Reality always lingers. If euphoria is your escape from reality, then dysphoria is the air you breathe.

The cloak of emptiness cleaves to your skin like tissues gluing parts of your body together. It becomes the very essence of your existence. The whole world shrinks through your pigeonhole. Living becomes a distant memory. Becomes a portrait you stare at from afar. You want to run away from everything. Run away from life.

Have you ever been too tired to live and yet too scared to die? Too young to give up hope and too old to dream? Each new day fills you with despair. A helplessness that gnaws at your lungs. You are choking. You struggle to breathe. You are conscious of each breath. Of each heartbeat. You become conscious of your vanity. Your whole existence wrapped in a blanket of ennui. Living becomes a Sisyphean charade. What is the point of living to die? You try to pull the trigger but courage takes a leap. You realize that dying isn’t any easier than living, but you know this: living is torture, dying is a latent horror.

Fallen Men

I come from a history of fallen men

Whose feet are stuck in the mud but looking at God

their hands stained with residues from the times

they've tried to dig themselves out

I come from the womb of grieving women

whose tears flourish in the spring of creation

who have held lives in their hands

Their very existence depends on it

I was asked to pray to seek penance for my existence

the very one I'd gladly deny when we bleed

is it because we cut ourselves? Or because blood makes us tick?

I watch the world go to ruin for a life it did not create

Lamentations of a Wanderer

PART I

I was warned not to wander too far.

That there are places where

the flesh is ripped open to reveal our skeletons

PART II

How could I have known that in the dark corners of a building

In the chaos of music and swinging hips

In the cloud of smoke and streams of liquor I'd find meaning

PART III

Only to realize that at the bottom of each drop of liquor

At the last whiff of smoke

And in the warmth of a maiden

I'd find the emptiness I tried to escape from.