Ultimatum

You say you’re tired;
But I’ll tell you how tired feels:
It feels like those countless times
Your dad picks on you,
Because you’re gay,
And you dread the sound of him entering a room;
So much so that he makes you afraid of men in general –
To be tired of the fear and the feelings of inadequacy.

You say you’re tired;
But I’ll tell you how tired feels:
It feels like falling in love,
When you realise it wasn’t meant to be just once,
Like all those books say,
It happens over and over again,
With people who cut up your heart;
Because they cannot love it whole.
To be tired of explaining who you are,
To those who want to love you entire
But cannot.

You say you’re tired;
But I’ll tell you how tired feels:
It feels like the pain that rips your inside,
When the children you love are taken
By death – and yet you get another –
For the love you gain
It’s happiness you sacrifice.
To be tired then of death itself;
Because you have met him as a guest
Who is unwelcome but demands attention
And a complete tally of records.

You say you’re tired;
But I’ll tell you how tired feels:
It feels like all those futile times,
When you tried to make yourself more than
A caricature
Of trying to prove your quality.
To be tired of prejudice itself;
Because you realise humanity is bitter
And their contentment lies in the ruin of the other.

You say you’re tired.
But that’s a bit of how my tired feels.

Fade

All relationships start off with so much fervor. Each of them is based on confidence as they start and as time passes, the confidence wears onto faith. Then faith quietly turns to hope and most people who are in relationships don’t even realise this progression. Finally, comes the acceptance, if logic and reason is applied. Otherwise, despair lurks like a predator in the shadows.

I have had friends by the dozens over the years. They have come and many have gone. A few have stayed around. But eventually everyone realizes their own inadequacies and the relationships falter. Distances help. I always wondered how they could. But they do. Familiarity really does breed contempt. However, I will say the strongest relationships pull through time and space constraints. Most do not have the temerity and or the will to stick on.

We all begin with so much care. Ambitions seep in and miles get interlaced between hearts and the desire to continue. We think we will keep in touch. But what happens is that the heart is morose when alone. The moment other people step into lives, the older ones get pushed back in the queue that happens to fall into place. Even the most fervent and intense relationship gets tested by time. Feelings remain, I suppose.

Feelings. A quaint noun. They signify all the shades of grey. From the darkest to the faintest. That’s how most of life’s heart goes. Dark to light. When you meet someone and find them fascinating, feelings grow intense and vibrate in their blackness. As time goes on, and it flows onto them, the colour fades. It depends on how dark they were to see if they last or fade into nothingness.

Then there are other colours merging into them. It is an ebb and flow. Like the tides upon rock. It is all a matter of time when the hardest rock corrodes and falls away into the sea. But that doesn’t mean the sea isn’t the better for it, or that the rock while it lasted never lent its support to land. Its entity changed and it went from dark to light.

Organ

I‘ve heard it can love, again and again,
And nothing can detract from its vigour,
No matter the crush of failure and pain,
Or of the stress of life or its rigour.

I have heard (now know) of its strength unmeasured,
As it makes heroes rise and empires fall;
It can single you out to be untreasured;
Yet ables you to stand against it all.

It teaches you just to feel and not learn,
It gives you your self, yet takes you away,
It makes you happy and it makes you yearn,
It stays with you when it leads you astray.

Even when word and thought are unspoken
It hums its song even when it lies broken.