The Right Abode

Guilt

The urge to remain where we are, not wanting to move, not wanting to change and then feeling guilty for not achieving, for not changing, for not beginning, for not ending, for not continuing.

Standing in front of the mirror yet avoiding it to not witness the failure achieved, to avoid the reflection of the coward who refused to give the best, who chose to ignore everything.

The guilt of not putting efforts and then reading the disappointed expressions hidden beneath the acts of consolation. To show that you worked when you never did and when they say, “At least you gave your best. That’s what matters” 

How do you break it to them? How do you present your cowardness, your lethargy, your unfaithfulness. And then, you opt for a path you never thought you would take. You become something with a void building within. All the emotions that were never expressed eventually stop hurting, they become a habit. The void gradually growing consumes all the emotions leaving a creature too selfish to even care. Showing acceptance for something you should’ve fought harder for but you leave it, you leave yourself where you were.

But in all of this, one thing remains,

The guilt of not feeling guilty. The constant war to define it, to categorise it as justification or an excuse. But these words seem inappropriate, what do you think would fit?

Cowardice, distracted, remiss or the inertia of not moving ahead from the information to know the difference to the wisdom of making one?

There were two reasons I was scared to let people in; the damage they could do, and the damage they could find.

Chris Mc Geown

Belonging

I let people go while I hold onto things. People drift apart, flowing rivers and I remain a shore, holding onto their fragments. The letters they wrote, the illustrations, the conversations, I preserve them, becoming soil, fertile and fruitful.

I hold onto memories, capturing the person I know would change eventually. Who finds the same person twice even in the same person anyway?

So, thereby, my efforts are never focused on caging the flowing river rather, take a part of it and make it a part of mine. 

Be it good or bad, I absorb everything to nurture my being, to experience bliss and pain, to experience fertility, to experience solitude when called barren.

The rivers become a medium of change sometimes, I flow through them, my silt deposited where it didn’t belong but still absorbs in it, becoming a part of something different yet I remain different. 

I wonder whether my identity of being silt was just an imagination. Being a human, I must be a river, ever flowing, irrigating fields of livelihood, ever changing, giving and taking yet never keeping.

But that’s where the difference came. I too give and take but after making it mine. 

I possess; hence, I belong. I belong; hence, I remain trapped.

How do I teach myself?

The Pot's Everything

The seed sown in a pot, Nourished with its care in ways untaught. The pot's everything was the plant. The reason for its existence was the plant. One day, The plant outgrew the pot. And was now held by the other. The pot, abandoned because of its care, Swore to never love anything in its life, Due to the hidden fear. But the other seed sowed in its heart, Germinated and opened it once again, Knowing, that it wouldn't sustain. But still grew just to keep the pot's soul alive, To keep it filled with warmth, For bringing the another to life.

~ark

They'll Too

The situation I had been in, Was the situation they were in. I wanted to warn them, As I already knew the end, But I decided against it. As I was the one who ignored the warnings too, And I knew they'll too. Thinking, The way I realised, They'll realise too. The way I learned, They'll learn too.

~ark

My own work disgusts me, at times. I find it flat, I find the words that had depth now are as shallow as a children's pool. I look to the right, and then to the left: so many other of us here and there, their poems with hard-to-read fonts, and crazy weird background colors. Big ones, 10k+ ones, think they are fools. But I see the magic, I see the struggle, the courage, the craziness, the sadness, the reflection in the mirror—blurred. The writing is good, but my eyes are dull—addicted to the aesthetic, to the trend, to the dopamine cycle, to the movement—how do I break this cycle? I'm being swallowed by it! I want to me the same, and to fight the norm. I want to inform, to conform, to deform, and then to destroy everything. I want to be real, to open a way, to see and be seen, and to become, and delight in the fact that I am another human being.

The Ashes of Herself

The relics of her feelings, The ashes of her burnt soul, Were locked in an old chest, Buried deep in her heart enclosed. The burden of those burials gradually, Outweighed her. She wanted to get rid of it, As the weight had been consuming her.

That day, The chest opened itself, And dissolved the ashes in the rivers of tears, After years, she felt relieved and alive. She could finally breathe with a pleasant sigh.

There kept a pen on the table, Staring back at her. It was time to write her life again. The droplets of tears fell like rain, Wetting the paper on which, She had to sculpt her life ahead.

She instead wrote everything about her past self, Burnt it, and dissolved the ashes of herself, In a peaceful river. She then wrote again, Looking at herself in the unbreakable mirror, Unknown to what would happen ahead, But known to what would never happen again.

~ark

The Unread Files

As I open the cupboard of my life,

A mountain of files crashed on me.

The number was infinite,

I tried to organise the unopened files.

Wiping the dust off them,

I started keeping them inside.

But as time ran out,

I shoved them recklessly in the night.

The cupboard remained closed,

Opened sometimes.

But the files unread,

Exposed the cowardness I tried to hide.

Now I wonder when I take my last breath,

Would I be able to gather the strength,

To read those unread files?

~ark