In my dreams,
I saw a grove;
Farm animals walked around in a drove.
Birds fluttered and chirped;
To me, it was strange,
For these animals seemed unusually free.
The sky seemed eternally blue,
The blades of grass a vivid hue -
As I lay to rest beneath a tree,
I heard an enchanting voice,
A chorus of sentience vibrating in harmony.

Given the choice
To sit there
Or walk towards this mystical source,
This musical, human recourse,
A cry for help perhaps, sounding like a tune of despair,
I felt moved.

So, for what felt like days,
I walked.
As the enchanting voice got clearer,
I approached the figure of a woman.
This sonorous presence
Heard my feet crunch on a bed of leaves;
Her body was coated in this essence,
Life itself
Seemed to flow out of her robes.

As soon as she turned to look at me,
A slack-jawed mortal, in disbelief,
I found myself flooded with relief
When she stopped singing,
And said:
“Welcome home, son.”

I finally understood
This grove that smelled like pine and wood
Was home to someone ethereal.
“Mother?”
I asked, the anticipation and the confusion
Being too much.

“I am not the Mother
Who brought you to Earth.
I am Mother Earth, your home and life-giver.
I am the air that you breathe
The earth that you walk upon
The water that you drink
And the fire that you misuse.”

Upon this stately declaration,
I felt this manifestation
Of shame and sadness.
“What ails you, my child?”
She gently asked,
Sensing my emotions.
Steadying myself, I said:
“For years, I’ve held these notions
That as humans,
We should be guardians of all,
Both the great and the small,
Creating life and mourning death
Not wasting a single breath
Until our children
Inherit a world that is better
Fixed by solutions that were deemed the most clever.

Instead, I failed you;
We all did.
Instead of respecting you,
We abused you.
Taking you for granted,
Our plans we mercilessly supplanted.
To our species
You were a conquest
Another addition to the dominion.
I am sorry,
Forgive me.”

Her immortal hands
Reached out to hold mine;
A kaleidoscopic ecstasy of visions
Gripped my very soul,
Suddenly, in tune with life as a whole.
As I felt this blissful connection,
This divine intervention
Of the infinite briefly meeting the finite,
She said:

**“Son,
Don’t let your apology weigh on your heart.
It isn’t Mother Earth you should worry about;
It’s your future that is in doubt,
Not mine.
When the rivers run dry,
When the air becomes sickly,
When the earth is scorched
And fire its master,
When you are all destroying each other,
I will survive, you will not.
I will find a way to thrive
As your cities crumble and rot.”

Please, PLEASE -
Grant me this release.
From the burdens of this reality
I would like to be freed.
These lines are something I want you to read
Before it's too late.
To your hearts, I capitulate,
To your minds, I delegate,
To your souls, I supplicate -
LISTEN.

Not all of us can cry it out loud,
Or effortlessly open up.
Not all of us are gifted
With an endlessly-flowing cup.
Many of us
Struggle to survive;
If you're lucky, you might have a 9-to-5
Maybe even have time to be alive,
And not just exist.

But, that is not enough -
We have a world that is rough,
Where millions die every year,
Where people hold bodies that were once dear.
Look at ourselves;
Those who are sheltered from the storm
Lie in its deceitful eye,
Incapable of understanding beyond their norm.

We are wearing blinders,
And have plugged out the noise, too;
If I were you,
The next time someone needs help,
I would listen to everything,
Through and through.

This one is for the broken, the beaten and the ******;
All the people that were persecuted and attacked.
All the slaves and migrants
Lining the floor of the sea.
All the men, women and children
Who died trying to be free.
This one
Is for those who toil and hustle
Without any hope for improvement -
Fragmented we are powerless,
Together we are a movement.

I demand to make my choices.
We are here to raise our voices.
These irreversible changes are locking us in cages;
These are real, life-or-death issues.
This is no show, and these lives are no Broadway stages.

Let's talk about decisions;
Let's put aside biased visions.
Let’s talk about who makes these decisions;
I’m looking at you, old white dudes in boardrooms.
Last time you took a class in ***-ed,
Gatsby and Daisy were just about this close to being bride and groom.

Let's talk about consent;
Let's use this space to vent.
Let’s talk about who has the right to judge;
I’m looking at you, anti-abortion crusaders.
Feeling threatened by strong women and their placards and posters,
Like they’ve got pistols in their uterine holsters,
Like they’re all daughters of the dark forces of Darth Vader.

Why do we insist on going to war with each other?
More importantly,
Why does our ****** education,
The root of this problem,
The rotten core of this issue -
Why does our ****** education **** so much?

Why do we talk about choice for a woman instead of the choice of men to respect a woman in the first place?

Why are we still debating?
Grown men telling women to listen,
It's absolutely infuriating!
Let's fight for rights and quit the hating.

Women are resorting to desperate measures,
Whilst men walk away with fulfilled pleasures.
I adopt this tone gravely;
Women are jeopardising their safety, daily.

Is a living woman worth less than an unborn baby?

I want to scream until I’m hoarse,
Until I can’t scream any more.
Then, when my voice box is bleeding,
When these demons are done feeding,
I’ll fall to my knees, in due course.

Clammy hands, high rate of respiration,
Fight or flight mode, in full activation.
Rough waves in the ocean of the stomach,
Enough to turn a dancer into a lummox.

The seduction of steady doses of self-destruction,
De-construction of the self, as if by court injunction.
Drink this bottled rage, distilled onto this safe, contained space;
Feel its unbridled power as it courses through your veins,
Unleash it onto those who have many ill-gotten gains.

I want to be free of this anxiety,
To do away with impropriety.
I want to stop feeling sick in my soul,
Whenever I analyse society.

Maybe, I’ve gone batshit insane;
A caged animal, crazed, in pain.
Maybe, all my cries are in vain;
But, I’ll be ****** if I die in chains.

__

What could have been;
What should have been done.
What could have been seen;
What should have been shunned.

I speak to you, my rejected friends.
Take the messages failure sends.
I speak for you, for I feel the sting, too.
Maybe I should take my own advice,
Instead of spilling my guts out to you.
But, failures linger, don’t they?
They stick around like glue,
Make you not want to see the next day.

I grieve with you, my fellow renounced outcasts.
Life sometimes crumbles like houses beneath blasts.
I grieve for my own woeful misadventures,
For all of life’s haunting spectres,
The ghosts of what could have been,
The paradise that won’t let us in.

This one is for us;
All those who failed to get into the Harvards and the Yales,
All of those who wish they’d gotten better grades,
But got burnt out, instead.
All of those who haven’t made it in sports,
But whose dreams were cut short.
All of those who wished to become actors,
But found no supporters nor benefactors.
All of those who wished to chase music,
Those who have talent but couldn’t use it.

All of those who died at sea,
Stranded on a boat, trying to be free.
All of those whose heart was broken,
Whose wounds are always open.
All of those whose ideas were trashed,
Only to then be copied and rehashed.

All of those whose minds were broken,
Who danced with demons and evil unspoken.
All of those who never met their parents,
To whom life was never readily apparent.
All of those who reached for the stars,
But found their arms were too short.

This one is for us.
Stay strong, for these nights can be long.
Sing your song.
PS:
**** whoever said ‘the sky’s the limit’.
Let’s go for ‘above and beyond.’

Hello?
Is there anything left? Body heat, perhaps?
Is there a pulse or a deft heartbeat?
Any rough oceans of emotions?
You sit there, phone to your right,
Laptop in front of you, adjusted to the adequate height.

You’re motionless for most of the day,
Inebriated or mindless for most of the night.
Your only movements change channels,
You’re lonely, for your soul never travels.
You remain in the same place,
Occupy the same space, the same nook;
The only humanity you see, you don’t touch or feel, you simply look –
No interaction, only to laugh and mock like a rogue crook.

Your friends and loved ones are images on your phone,
It feels like solitude is all you’ve ever known.
You pose for the camera, but only fool yourself;
You close yourself off, you scoff at those who show emotions.
When was the last time you let yourself be vulnerable?
When was the last time you didn’t pretend you’re unstoppable?

Have you ever breached the barriers of your blindsides?
Have you ever gleaned beyond those white lines?
Please, take off those slave-forged shoes,
Run freely in the soil, you have nothing to lose.
Switch off your mobile prison cell,
Don’t let yourself drift back into this iniquitous hell.
Embrace your soul, peer inside;
Be alive, don’t cower and hide.

A rolling stone, hurtling down a hill;
A smoke-blowing rogue, with infinite skill.
A bearer of ill will,
Tumbling down, in these demons I drown -
I'm just hunting for a thrill.

I am a man fully grown,
With a depth of thought previously unknown.
In touch with the void,
Cold like an android,
Floating through emptiness like an asteroid.
Open your ears if you want your mind to be blown;
Spoken word and a gaunt face is all I own.

Nothing to lose, went through years of abuse,
My body is a slave to my muse,
Helpless, an illiterate knave trying to read the news.
Wilderness incarnate, running amok -
Gunning with no luck, giving no *****;
I'm just here for the drugs and the carnage.
Hidden pain, glossed over with varnish;
The soul is deeper than the oceans and the seas,
Yet it lives in shallow bodies, heavily garnished,
In narrow alleys governed by the Grim Reaper.

Kick your ego off its throne,
Realise that the time we have is merely a loan.
From realities we cannot see in any degree,
Our souls have flown.
And thus, the stone stopped rolling.

This is all I see.
The stump of a dead tree,
Murdered, in an enraged spree.
There seems to be nothing left for you or me.

What else can I do?
I make poetry to cry to,
For when there’s nothing left inside you.
All I see are backs against walls,
Hands behind heads, as liberty falls.

I don’t have a place here.
I serve no functional role.
It’s like I don’t even have a name,
It’s like death already took its toll.

Why am I like this?
Dangerous, like a snake’s hiss,
Lost, far from any kind of bliss.
An anarchist, and an artist,
Doomed, someone who history won’t miss.

Foretold to never die old,
But rather, alone and cold,
In a rash moment, probably defiantly bold.
I’d rather be so, than be bought and sold.

Elbow-deep in *****;
Got nothing to lose.
An offer from hell;
I couldn’t refuse.

My brain’s out of happy chemicals;
A lifter with broken clavicles.
The air’s too thick, I can’t breathe;
Choked up by smoke and rage as it seethes.

The betrayal of our generation,
Born into destructive condemnation.
Born with a noose, tightly coiled round our necks,
Evil let loose, like a curse from a hex.

Stumbling into adulthood, dazed and confused.
Lesson number one -
If you’ve got a conscience, best leave it unused.
Binge-drinking, to refrain us from thinking.
A ship that’s sinking, eyes that are blinking,
Frantically keeping up with tear ducts,
But hey, at least you still feel something!
This heart has been seared, shut.

In fact, tears don’t fall down these cheeks, no more.
Crystallised pain; time to settle the score.
Time to take aim on those who came before,
Those who left us wastelands, a world forlorn.

No time to unwind, to let one’s guard down.
We must take back our homes, our streets, our towns,
It’s time to hang, draw and quarter these clowns.

Comrades, born with a guillotine over your head;
Step away from the edge towards which you’re being led,
Let us stop living like we’re the living dead.

Or, at least, let us die trying.
Like lifeless husks, slowly drying.
Our dreams, slowly fading away;
Scraping the bottom of the barrel,
Hoping to make it through the day.

_____

Burning bridges.
Originally, defined as follows –
Intentionally cutting off one’s retreat.
In the words of the immortal Caesar,
As he crossed the Rubicon, unwilling to concede defeat -
Let the die be cast.
A bloodbath that built an Empire,
Stretching wide, impossibly vast.
Thus, later meaning –
To alienate former friends.

Is it an act to be reviled?
Is it an act to be condemned,
An instance of passions running wild?
Or is it an act to be emulated?
A last resort when hope for reconciliation
Has been all but desecrated?

We need connections, hope and love –
We crave Ishtar’s white dove,
A blessing from ‘the Queen of Heaven’.
Yet, by the time the night’s hour numbers eleven,
Many of us are collapsing, battered;
Relapsing in toxicity, our spirit tired and scattered.

When our soul is shared with others,
It goes one of two ways;
With the right influence, it grows and flutters.
With the wrong kind, it falters and stutters.
Trust your gut –
If you get a feeling that says, Run,
Do so as if you were an Olympic athlete
And you just heard the starting gun.

Do not compress yourself
To fit the boxed-in view of someone else.
Do not edit or trim out a single verse
From the poetry that is your life.
Live freely, choose wisely,
Wield a voice that is steely, treat yourself and others kindly,
Stand ALONE if you have to.

In other words, some bridges need to be burnt;
Some lessons need to be learnt.
For sometimes it is better to burn the bridge as you retreat
Than to keep on fighting just to avoid defeat.
Caesar might have violently conquered all his opponents,
But in the end did it matter
When his own kinsmen were his assassination’s proponents?

The world’s first, major corporation,
Architects of the enslavement of entire nations.
Shedding blood in the name of God;
Never has there been a greater fraud.

The Catholic church in Malta has held hegemony for more than 2,000 years.
They have nurtured moral subjugation in my country,
Even though the end of their shabby, crumbling reign nears.
Like us, there were many others;
Global sisters, brothers, fathers and mothers,
Ripped apart from each other and forced to suffer.

Who knows how many brilliant minds sizzled at a stake?
Who knows how many resilient cultures fizzled away?
Eradicated, dissolved like a stain –
The house of God, built on a sacrificial altar of pain.

Hidden hands seizing lands,
Forbidden acts, thieving bands,
Bands of God-awful sacks of ****,
The kind with souls so blackened with grit,
They wouldn’t even burn in their own version of Hell,
Mostly because Satan wouldn’t want to deal with that awful smell.

I hope you’re resting well,
Living swell in the Vatican –
We are going to burn it down,
Vengeful like an enslaved African.

Contempt of court –
The legal term for a charge
Levelled against those who dare
Those whose emotions and criticisms are laid bare
In front of judge and jury.

Contempt of court
Is when one is disobedient, or discourteous,
In the face of a system which is injurious;
It is the charge
That snaps one’s knees into bending,
That makes your dignity cave
And one’s case never-ending.

To oppose or defy the authority of the courts
Is viewed as improper, an act
That will have you prosecuted by your own cohorts.
Fellow human beings
Tasked with the imprisonment of another
Brother turning on brother
As the wheels of justice turn and grind,
Leaving trails of lost lives behind.

Contempt of court
Is a feeling I find difficult to abort –
How can I respect an institution
That is responsible for the destitution
Of societal morality?
It is the court’s stated responsibility
To maintain order and propagate
Fairness and equality for all,
To scrutinise and investigate
Not just crimes committed
By men and women struggling to make ends meet,
Putting their heads together so they can eat,
But those
Who hide behind banks and get to foreclose
Not just our homes but also, our dreams and hopes.

If you want me to respect the court,
I want the court to enforce laws justly.
If you want me to respect the authorities,
I want the authorities to stop lying to us so abruptly.
If we are to have authorities and laws
I want sensible, sustainable laws, to be upheld everywhere
Not to be iron-****** with some,
A velvet glove with another.

If I ever see
A banker sentenced to jail
My respect for the court I shall hail;
If I ever see
A politician swallowing his lies,
Forced to live like us, and realise
The extent of the damage that they wreaked
If I ever see
An abusive or corrupt judge
On the other side of the gallows,
Locked up and told when to exist like a drudge
Then
Only then
Will I shed this contempt
Only then
Will I be content.

I don’t destroy people.
If I did,
It would be evil.
Broken, shattered pieces.
Little would be left;
Like Latin America,
After they met measles.

I could sling these words for a living;
I want to be merciful, forgiving,
But I’m failing, constant sinning.
I try to keep the poison away from my tongue,
But I am surrounded by it,
Another Hamlet, about to become undone.

I want to be evil, sometimes;
A thunderstorm.
A harbinger of troubled times,
A bringer of ominous signs.
Amid these blurred lines,
Among these endlessly steep climbs,
I feel death’s clock as it chimes.

Amid bouts of disappointment and rancour,
Of venomous, virulent anger,
Life feels like an unresolved cliffhanger.
I want to be evil, sometimes;
But I’m not.
My train of thought leads me to think life should be lived,
Not bought.
Evil buys you pleasures,
Pleasures I’ve sought before.
There’s nothing to them,
Let them be gone.

Don’t give me reasons to lay this nuke at your doorstep.
Don’t **** with my inflamed, ******* cerebral cortex.
My mind is now the ocean,
And you are in its vortex.

I’ve experienced the fear of violence;
If fate holds us with a string,
Mine feels strained, like a violin’s.
I’ve felt the terror of speechless silence;
The pressure that life brings,
Like it’s 4:00am, and you’re still doing that assignment.
It shook me, but it didn’t break me.

I’ve read and studied about oppression;
There’s enough material to fill several skyscrapers,
Enough to slump anyone into a depression.
I’ve delved into accounts of sheer horror,
Enough to make your soul ache,
Stories of humans treated like fodder.
It’s heartbreaking; but, it didn’t break me.

Running rampant, unaccountable and irresponsible;
Stunning examples of corruption.
Criminals in command, hiding behind uniformed men,
Trapped in a den of thieves hiding behind constables.
You try every day; but, you won’t break me.

I’ve faced scrutiny and bigotry;
I call for mutiny, **** pleasantry.
I’ve seen hatred, and I’ve felt it;
If hate is a poisoned dagger,
It seeped through the hilt as I held it.
I’ve glared angrily at my own reflection;
I’ve put my brain through trauma,
And my soul died a bit from all the dejection.
I’ve come close, but I am not broken.

Every day is laborious;
It has to be in this world,
One that’s far from meritorious.
It would be so in a free world as well,
Except for the fact that your labour wouldn’t feel like hell,
Mostly because you will toil for a fair life for all,
And the future would be glorious.
It’s going to be the fight of our lives.
But it will not break me.

My head feels like a visit to the cranioscopist’s,
Like someone bored through it with a drill.
Inflamed and ill,
Like the ego of a billionaire philanthropist.
Flashbacks of “You”,
Got me off my tracks and feeling blue,
Stumbling around in pain, without a ******* clue.

My neck is aching,
My body is shaking,
My ******* soul feels like it’s breaking.
Volcanic unrest, putting my heart to the test,
Got manic anger strapped to my chest like a suicide vest.

I’m the spectre of truth, a hard hitter,
Like that last, smooth drink that fails your liver.
A lone wolf whose claws are made of words,
A man grown bitter and whose heart hurts.

My legs feel heavy and tired –
Is it now accepted to not have energy to even exist?
For that certainly isn’t how we’re naturally hard-wired.
I don’t know how to accept the illusion,
There seems to be no solution –
I look desperately, amidst the confusion.
I look for similarly empty eyes,
For those who do see the lies.
The only truth left is this;
He who murders lives, and he who loves dies.

My heart
Feels like a frostbitten cave nobody should ever go in.
My soul
Feels exhausted, drained and spread really thin.
My mind
Feels like its fighting battles it can never win.

I find my thoughts
Consumed with anger and despair,
Evil feelings who have created a lair –
A base of operations within my mind,
Staring at the world with a terrifying glare.

And yet, despite all this,
Nothing kills me more than being alone.
This need to experience humanity
Is not simply an act of vanity,
Or a call for attention,
But an attempt at reclaiming sanity.

We are the loneliest generation of all time;
Previous overlords used force to rule,
And whoever didn’t follow was lambasted,
Marked as a traitor and a base fool.
Now, force is merely a tool,
One in many of a lethal arsenal.

Social hierarchies are fake, sometimes downright farcical –
Now, we are divided and conquered.
Our communities have collided,
Our love for each other is drained and flustered.
We are armed with shields of prejudice,
Careening towards a perilous precipice
Of watching out only for ourselves,
With no room in our hearts for anyone else.

I just wish I could let go –
I wish I was an atom of boiling water,
About to break free and become steam,
I wish to taste of true freedom,
To at least get one, tiny gleam.
Yet,
I find myself weary, tired and trapped,
A torturous routine so well-travelled
That, at this point, I could say my brain has it mapped.

I close my eyes
And see visions of you I wish I could forget.
I wish I’d looked before I leapt,
Rather than live with this pain and regret.
I close my eyes, and see
Years of seeking somewhere I belong,
Brothers and sisters with whom I can stand strong.
Yet,
All I seem to find
Is people struggling with their daily grind,
Souls that are just as tired as mine, if not more.

And so, I find myself
Dealing with this constant craving,
Ranting and raving,
Hoping that this frosty cave is still open to reclaiming,
Hoping that my soul is still worth saving,
And that my mind still finds this battlefield worth braving.

I love how we could literally talk for hours –
Lighting a spark in each others’ hearts,
Figuratively glowing like meteor showers.
I love singing that one song with you;
You know the one,
The one we sang in the rain,
The one that always rings true.

I can’t stop myself from looking at you,
Not without this twinkle of wonder in my eyes.
Certainly not without this tingle that runs along my spine,
Not without a heartbeat so loud that it sounds like thunder.
You make me smile so much, my face hurts sometimes;
You take me high to places with better climes,
Spiritual spaces, elevation by design.

The signs are all there –
Lives running on parallel lines,
With no direction, no need to know where.
Unburdened, beautiful, loving care,
Sensations unheard of,
Dutifully calming like someone stroking your hair,
Hearts laid out to each other like we’ve got a spare.

I love how grateful we are for each other’s presence.
The word ‘hateful’ doesn’t even exist here,
It’s almost like you make me forget its essence.
Every second is a learning opportunity,
And you’ve helped me learn so many lessons already –
Maybe we should call our hang-outs ‘life sessions’.

I love how even a hug carries so much weight,
Momentous in its significance,
Enough to make my heart flutter like I’m late for a date.
I’m going to miss you so much when you leave.
Thank you for reminding me how to wear my heart on my sleeve.

Liberté, égalité, fraternité.
L’ homme est né libre,
Pourtant partout il est enchaîné.
An eternally torturous question,
Oozing out of our minds like an infection;
Are we all equal?

Perhaps not when it comes to skill;
Some can lead, some can thrill.
Some can cook, and therefore feed;
Some can run, some can read.
All of us can do something –
No standardised test,
No uniformly assigned competition
Could ever possibly measure
This unique treasure,
The human ability to set off on an endeavour
And achieve astounding feats.

So, then –
Are we born equally endowed?
Perhaps not; should differential talents
Be stimulated, encouraged,
Voiced aloud?

A resounding yes, a thousand times yes!
We should only accept being under duress
When of forced labour and working to exist
We start hearing less and less,
When that concerted effort is directed
Not at striving at surviving
But at truly living, not just slowly dying.

Truly living is about doing what you love,
Being able and free to do so,
Learning that which you don’t know
And expanding that which you do know.
This is not our reality –
We are all born exactly the same,
Yet the country you were born in
Hell, even your family’s name,
Are things that determine
Where you will be positioned
In this foul, ***** game.

This is where we aren’t born equal –
In our right and access
To freely engage in the pursuit of happiness.
There is a seedling of potential in all of us,
One that can be grown –
Let it be known
That all seedlings can become a mighty tree,
If given the following three:
A space in which a fertile mind can be cultivated,
A community in which love can be propagated,
And the freedom to exist without being incarcerated.

Exasperated.
Feelings that have been exacerbated;
Grinding each other, tectonic plates
Shaking the world itself,
Sliding past each other like bolts in gates.
Despair weaves its cobwebs around me,
My hunched figure is immobile.
Paralysed, my throat is sore and vile
Unable to speak
Unable to give you
The stability you seek.

If only I could stand
Shake off the silky threads
Reach out across this vast expanse
Of failed attempts and regrets
Of poor judgement,
Of ignoring things that were incumbent.
If only
I could reach out
Make you see through my eyes
Feel beneath my skin
I would be able to show you
That it wasn’t a mistake to let me in.

You would feel
This anger I have, hard as steel
This growling, hungry lion
This snarling shade of Orion.
You would feel how I am a volatile substance
How a trail of corroded bonds lies on my conscience
How heavy my heart feels
How badly it mends and eventually heals.
A crooked, misshaped *****
Sometimes functional and happy
Sometimes made of stone, cast under the eye of a Gorgon.

Forgive me
I have tried
Within me, it seems something has withered and died.
Maybe I will get to see you
One day, after the clock’s heavy hands do slide
After experience teaches me more
After I find peace within myself,
After my heart stops being sore.
Maybe,
I will be able to serenade and thrill your soul
Maybe,
We will share ourselves again,
Make building our life together our goal.
Or
This frozen world
I shall wander alone,
Of this pain and suffering
I shall forge an iron throne
And be the ruler of myself.
Be wary
Of a king whose subjects are his own reflections;
For every decision shall be the consequence of a war of thoughts.

Rusted handcuffs leave their mark,
Your wrists are chafed, coarse and stained dark.
You are used to light sneaking in through your cage’s bars,
Knees bent in adulation for kings and tsars –
A prison built for us in our hollowed-out minds,
A life lived with shuttered doors and closed blinds.

The handcuffs are our perceived obligations,
Our possessions and designated work stations.
The cell’s cold bars
Are not made of steel and enforced laws,
But of fear and hate, our biggest flaws.
Fear of ostracisation,
Hatred of those from another nation,
Fear of being downtrodden,
Hatred over differences that weren’t chosen,
But were simply there.

We are afraid of making waves or changes,
Stuck to a routine like slaves throughout the ages.
Our way of life has broken our spirit –
We are drunk with luxury, and we’ve imbibed over the limit.
We are afraid of looking at the mirror sometimes;
Afraid of eyes that stare back blankly,
Terrified of looking at this world honestly and frankly.

Do you wish to be liberated?
Do you wish to stop suffering because of this hatred?
Would you like to see
A world full of people that are brave and free?
Then here’s the point that matters most;
If you wish to live without restriction and not like a ghost,
Then these mental chains you must break.
When you realise that freedom is the only thing that matters,
The illusion stops being real, the matrix shatters.

If you hold back because you’re afraid of prosecution,
What’s the point of going about your day,
When your right to speak freely has already had its day of execution?
If you do not work on what you feel is right,
What’s the point of dreaming of a future that is bright?
If you’re in a system where your ideas and desires are impossible,
Where dreams and aspirations are rendered implausible,
Then is it a life worth living?

Do you wish to die having lived for someone else’s greed?
Do you wish to spend your days watching the world around us bleed?
If that is not your wish, then do not forget;
The greatest power at their disposal is your fear and regret.
We are here for a very short time –
To attempt to unfuck humanity is a long, difficult, climb
But this is how we begin.
We must find strength from within,
Admit that our life is unsustainable,
Living for impossible standards that are unattainable.

We must search for our lost roots, our core;
You will not find happiness or peace in the next clothing store,
For it is a journey of letting things go.
It is a journey leading to a truth which you already know –
When you are no longer terrified,
When your faith in yourself you have solidified,
When these beliefs you have internalised,
Then you will suffer no longer.

Doubt and turmoil will cease,
For you are now carrying the flag of peace.
People shouldn’t be afraid of their governments;
Governments should be afraid of their people,
For a global awakening is happening
And we are sick to the core of all this evil.

If the unadulterated truth is on your side,
Although it may take years of swimming against the tide,
Your actions WILL bear fruit,
Maybe not in a month, maybe not even a decade,
But it’s a journey worth pursuing, a life as a renegade.
We are in this mess
Because old men sent young people to die for them in wars –
Now it’s time to reverse the course,
And learn how to think and fight on your own,
Before it’s too late and we’re all kneeling
In front of some *******’s throne.

A god –
Or ‘the’ God,
Or a whole plethora of gods;
Refer
To whichever of these nominations
Your perceptions prefer.

Entire cultures,
Cultivated in distant lands,
Some born to arid, desert sands
Some born in the cold, shivering,
Desperately clinging to warmth with trembling hands.
All of their scriptures mention
Beings deemed otherworldly,
Masters of the universe who would only address
Those who they deem worthy.

These gods were beyond reproach;
With deference one must approach,
On bended knee, offerings at the ready,
A stream of prayers and supplications,
Coming slowly, surely, steadily.

One God
Seemed to be hell-bent on conquering others.
According to religious leaders,
Responsible for pitting brothers against brothers,
This God, as we’ve been told,
To us his kingdom in heaven he has sold.
If we pay our dues in worship and obedience,
We will get to live happily, grow old,
And enjoy life in Heaven.

This God, apparently,
Wished for the attention of all –
Other temples must crumble and fall,
Differing cultures are simply wrong,
Their moral fibre is weak,
And we are strong.

The great lie, an illusion now ageless;
One God to rule all, a resolution that is baseless.
Really, God must be a corporate banker –
Spreading all over the world like a cancer.
Think about it;
War has been waged in the name of God, no?
Well, it might shock you to know
That wars generate insane amounts of debt
And guess who’s there to reap the benefits and collect?

Ah! The penny dramatically drops, the dots suddenly connect;
Who issues the money we depend on?
Who is responsible for economic castrations?
Fluctuating values and inflations?
Causing debt ceilings to collapse on top of entire nations?
Certainly not any God who loves living beings.
Clearly, bankers are now God;
Living in palaces of gold and ivory,
Pillaged, precious metals and gilded thrones,
Whilst people have to deal with austerity and loans.
Dictating policies, a niche of power,
Funding bloodshed, settling scores,
Sometimes both sides of the conflict,
Just look at the Napoleonic wars!

Things will be clear
Once the origins of this system you properly hear.
Those among us who are truly bright
Know that a free life is the true divine right,
Not an inherited claim to the world’s money supply,
Not being in a position or of the inclination
To bleed an entire planet dry –
Those people among us
Need to stand up and fight.

Starving, bones poking out;
Unraveling, loans choking you out.
Carving a niche, trying to survive,
Struggling to find a meaning to being alive.

You lie in bed,
Thinking about the tears you’ve shed,
The sweat, the blood you’ve bled –
The tough times scraping by,
The close calls you’ve had.

Hunger, a nauseating pain;
What would you give up for a single grain?
You strain your brain,
Rack it trying to find a way –
Trying to find a way out of this life,
A life that is dull and grey.

Your soul does not see the light of day;
Your faith starts to shake,
You manage no more than a mumble,
Your beliefs start to crumble.
Concerned, disturbed,
Angry at the world, constantly hurt;
Cornered, perturbed,
Life is but a whirl, with death we flirt.

Cursed, deserted,
We thirst for that which we will not quench;
Dispersed, disconcerted,
The sewers of poverty air their stench.
You pull the covers up to your nose,
You shudder like a victim from an attacker’s blows.

Ġrieħi miftuħin,
Xejn ma jrid jingħalaq.
Suppost, il-ġnus maqgħuda,
Iżda lkoll qegħdin mifruxin,
Donnu, xejn ma jrid jiċċaqlaq.

Feriti ifferoċjati bil-melħ,
Kruċjati, bla ebda sens ta’ ferħ.
U l-imħabba għal proxxmu -
Dik x’sar minnha?
Issa sibna x-xoqqa f’moxta;
Ħlifna, bit-tarf ta’ din il-pinna,
Naslu għal verità, naraw x’insarrfu minnha.

Allura, x’inhi din il-verità?
Qiegħed nassumi li hekk qegħdin tistaqsu.
M’hemmx dibattitu, ir-realtà turik,
Kollox f’ħinu, kollox f’waqtu.
Ir-risposta tiegħi hija din;
Tlifna kull sens ta’ valur,
Tlifna kull sens ta’ twemmin.

M’għadniex nemmu fil-valur tal-ħajja ta’ kullħadd.
M’għadniex nemmnu li kull azzjoni għanda impatt.
Nemmu li aħna progressivi, u Ewropej;
Jekk vera nemmnu hekk,
Lesti nħallsu għall-eċċessi u d-dejn?
Mhux dejn fiskali, iżda dejn immortali,
Id-dejn tad-demm li xxerred,
Dejn is-sudditti, dejn l-iskjavi.

In fatti, is-superjorità materjali ġejja minn hekk;
Mill-gwerer tas-slaten, u l-gideb ta’ dawn tal-ġlekk.
Daħħalna xafra disa’ pulzieri ‘il ġewwa,
Biex imbagħad ħriġniha sitta ‘il barra;
Ta’ parsi għandna l-ugwaljanza,
Għax issa jsawtuk xorta, iżda b’aktar ħlewwa.

Qabel, kellna l-ktajjen u l-forza brutali.
Issa, għandna l-kuntratti, u l-kodiċi penali,
Bil-banek jirrenjaw,
Bil-gvernijiet korporazzjonijiet statali.
Mhux ha nitlobkom temmnuni -
Nitlobkom biss teżaminaw il-fatti.
M’għandix spag x’jiġbduli;
Il-kuxjenza nadifa,
U m’għandix gideb x’ngħatti.

_______

’Open wounds’

Open wounds;
They aren’t closing.
Nations should be united,
But we are far apart,
Seems like nothing wants to budge.

Wounds, seasoned with salt,
Crucibles, with no sense of joy.
And, about that love for one’s fellow man -
What happened to that?
Now, we’ve found the perfect moment;
We’ve sworn, with the tip of this pen,
(that) We’ll get to the truth,
See what we can make of it.

So; what is the truth?
I am assuming that’s what you’re asking.
There’s no debate, reality shows you,
In due time and place, in the right moment.
My answer is this -
We’ve lost all our sense of valour,
We’ve lost all our sense of belief.

We no longer believe in the value of everyone’s life.
We no longer believe every action impacts others.
We believe that we are progressive, and European;
If we do believe that,
Are we ready to pay back our excesses and debts?
This is not fiscal debt, but rather an immortal one,
The debt of the blood that has been shed,
The debt of subjects and slaves.

In fact, material superiority stems from this;
From the wars of lords and the lies of the suits.
We’ve pushed a blade nine inches inward,
And pushed it six inches outward;
Pretending we have equality,
Just because now, they’ll still beat you, but more sweetly, more subtly.

Before, we had chains and brute force.
Now, we have contracts, and the penal code,
With banks reigning supreme,
With governments who are now state corporations.
I am not asking you to believe me -
I am asking you to examine the facts.
I have no strings, none that can be pulled;
My conscience is clean,
And I have no lies to cover up.

Ħadna buzz.
Fawra tespandi.
Jien u int.

*     *     *
(in English)

We had fun.
Steam, growing in size.
You and me.

Haunted, yet I am undaunted;
Infuriated by this world we created.
One drink turns into seven,
On the brink as the world burns,
Denied entrance at the gates of Heaven.

I close my eyes, but my mind’s eye still sees –
I chose to stifle my cries, part the seas of tears,
To stand when I wanted to fall on my knees.
‘You’ left a poisonous aftertaste,
Truly, a treasonous exit, made in haste.
I was in pain, with nothing to gain,
Like a dragon in chains waiting to be slain.

Now, as I spread my scaly wings,
As I light a fire in my belly,
Blow out smoke in rings,
There still are a few things I want to say.
Every thought of ‘You’ brings dismay,
A memory that still rots and decays.

Ingrained inside my library of perceptions,
Stained all over my heart,
A long catalogue of assorted deceptions.
I know every new day is easier,
For life is but a spark and a show,
And a fresh dawn just marks the next tier;
Yet, sorrow on every morrow follows like a pet.
One day…
One day, I will forget.
I’ll fill my cup with joy,
And drain it of regret.

The pen and the paper;
Like a pensieve for my memories,
So I can ponder them later.
For the thoughtful and the pensive,
For minds fraught full of traps and defences.

I pour my heart and soul into these lines,
With no goal except to make art that’s sublime.
I fiddle with rhythm with methodical precision,
I riddle your mind and meddle with it,
Like your doctor’s prescription.

All I want is for you to listen,
To digest my thoughts, to make an acquisition.
Reject it, hate it if you must,
Denigrate it, fulfil your bloodlust!

But, I implore you, do not ignore it.
Explore my mind forevermore if you wish,
Or store it for another day if you plan on giving it a miss.
Just acknowledge this:
I don’t want to be a poet who dies in obscurity.
I want to reach out now, to taste of human unity.
I don’t want to just die for what I stand for;
I want to live, so give me an encore.

My pen feels dead in the water;
It’s got nobody to speak to,
Nobody reads during global slaughter.
I feel like we’re in a temple of evil,
To be sacrificed at an altar.

I don’t want to compete with anyone.
The fragility of the ego -
I find it far too cumbersome.
I don’t want to secure a home loan;
There’s a whole world out there,
Just waiting to be known!
I’ve got beautiful things to be shown,
Skills to hone, places where I want to go;
I wish to soar to the heights where the hawks have flown.

So, I write, and I think, and I dream;
I believe in my ideas, in the thoughts I conceive.
I try to bring my thoughts together,
To create links like a river’s streams.
I do not wish to have to adhere to schedules,
To meet deadlines on the factory floor;
I do not wish to be enslaved to generate revenues.

Freedom is the spontaneity of life,
To walk hand-in-hand with your inner demons,
Like a loving husband and doting wife.
It’s letting passion inflict its distinct fervour,
Letting emotions overload your servers.

I do not wish to be wealthy;
Because of this rat-race,
Our tomorrow looks sickly and unhealthy.
We’re all out here, chasing the next banknote,
Running away from the debt squeezing our throats.
We simply are, there shouldn’t be much more to it.
Everything else is superfluous,
So might as well just lose it.

PART I – BORN TO CHAOS AND IMPRISONMENT

Imagine –
Being born in a decade of hate,
Of fear of being attacked, front and rear,
Of sleeping with one eye open,
A present reality that is far from golden –
It is a nightmare of self-perpetuating terror.
Welcome to Palestine;
The land where the dogs of war
Come to feast and dine.

70 years of violence;
70 years of resilience.
Millions killed or displaced,
Homes vacated but never replaced,
Not even by those who got out alive,
Scrambling to rebuild, desperate to survive.
For how can you not be enraged and stupefied
When your country’s being erased
And hopelessness is causing suicides?
How can you not throw stones and riot
When your own government kills you
And then proceeds to alter the story or deny it?

That is the reality
That Mohanad Younis was born into;
One of many, a broken generation,
Born with a noose around their neck,
Betrayed and forgotten as a nation.
Desperation was an eternal companion,
A sibling, practically,
Always with them like the Colorado River with the Grand Canyon.

Mohanad was a bright, industrious soul;
A voracious bookworm, with the hunger to swallow a library whole.
Dostoevsky, Dickens and Euripides,
Amongst many others;
A young man who wrote his own tales,
Perhaps keen to escape reality,
Or encapsulate it if all else fails.

When guillotines rain down from the sky,
When prayers are said but your god(s) don’t even reply,
No author, nor their best tales,
Can overcome the missile storms and the bullet hails.
This will be the story
Of Mohanad Younis,
The beloved writer who killed himself
Because all else really did fail.

PART II: A GLASS CEILING DRIPPING WITH BLOOD

Mohanad Younis, of Gaza City;
Where the sand is stained with blood
As the world feigns pity.
Broken families, unspoken tragedies –
The order of everyday life.
He was born amidst chaos and strife,
To a divorcing husband and wife.

If life were lived in peace,
This dissolution would’ve been a release.
Not much more, not much less –
A family’s lore, a decision to digress.
In war-ravaged land, however,
One needs every helping hand,
Especially a soul that was so clever.

Such a curious, voracious mind needed to understand;
A furious, rapacious search,
Unexplained conundrums to unravel and unwind.
Why do we exist?
Why do we fight and resist?
Is it worth living with all these scars on my wrists?
Does anybody outside Palestine care?
Will they keep on watching?
Or will they be unable to bear?

Of this and much more Mohanad must’ve thought,
As he sat at the Marna House Hotel,
Smoking cigarettes, freshly bought.
A student at al-Azhar, a mild-mannered pharmacist,
A prudent man who would have gotten far.
An admirer of Bassel al-Araj, another victim of oppression –
An inspirer, a brother who alleviated his depression.
Hunted down and killed by the IDF,
Another pacifist murdered for being an activist.

One figure of many who died;
One of those who did not want to hide.
Mohanad wasn’t a resistance fighter –
He felt that such persistence did not make their burdens lighter.
Instead, he wished to make his mind brighter,
And perhaps have family of his own.

He was in love, and wanted to get married,
But life was rough, and warranted a future far more harried.
The final twist of horror?
Having the intellect to apply for University,
And deserving the respect needed to obtain a reply,
Yet not being allowed to leave the city.
That is the news Mohanad had received,
Hopes and dreams suddenly deceived.
Denied a right to education
Because he was born on the wrong end of a cruel fabrication.
The glass ceiling, dripping with blood,
Swallowed his hopes whole like a flood.

PART III: THE LOCKED DOOR

The straw that broke the camel’s back.
The lethal blow that made his resilience crack.
Think, analyse the commensurate reaction to his fate;
Paralysed and desperate, in his own words.

‘Asphyxiated’ seems like such a clean word;
‘He died of asphyxiation,’ that’s what the articles wrote.
What about dying of starvation? Let me elaborate on this note –
I meant, dying from being starved of hope.
I hardly think one ‘asphyxiating’ does this justice.
How about ‘a sense of debilitating hopelessness’, instead?
Or maybe ‘hopelessness that feels like all-encompassing dread?’

Because that’s what all of Gaza feels right now.
How? How the **** did we get here?
Year after year, Palestinians die and suffer.
Fear after fear, they come alive, one after the other.
‘We’re dead, already’ –
How does reading something like that not make you feel unsteady?

So, what do you do after suffering like that?
Nothing, except for lying down flat on your bed,
Crying, watching everybody around you dying.
And then, when you can’t cry anymore,
When you realise your entire country was treated like an eye sore,
When you can’t take it anymore,
That’s when you lock the ******* door.
That’s when Asma broke through that door,
To find her prodigal son dead, collapsed on the floor.

I am.
That’s it.
I am not in your parameters;
I am not defined
By what I make
At the end of the month.
I am –
Spawn of this earth,
Of stardust and chaos given birth.

We are.
That’s it.
Not our countries, nor our flags,
Not the imaginary lines and borders,
Not our laws, or self-assured orders.
We are –
Sons and daughters of Mother Nature,
The fruits of her beautiful labour.

I am.
It is this belief
This sheer conviction
That universal respect for all life
Is key to avoiding strife.
That is what should unite us all.
To answer
The now ubiquitous question
“To be or not to be?”
I would dare say,
”We have little choice,
My dear Prince Hamlet.
The moment we borrow our first breath
We are, already.”

Even though
Many of us
Have been under siege,
Oppressed, hushed up,
Manhandled, cuffed up,
Generations of families
Lost forever
So a corporation can get contracts
To rebuild their nation,

EVEN though
EVEN more of us
Have had their souls ripped out
And left
To stumble around with no purpose,
A life in service
To faceless overlords
Who will drain and absorb
Not just us
But the world in which we came to life,

EVEN THOUGH
All of this pain,
All of this greed
This amalgamation
Of hate riding loneliness like a steed
Has been infesting us
Since time immemorial
We still are.

We
Are here,
We
Can be the tip of the spear,
A vanguard not bent on blood
But on refusing
To look the other way and obey
When the world which we breathe
Our air, the food we eat,
Our health, our spiritual,
Immaterial wealth,
Are taken, abused,
Packaged, used,
Spent and then left,
To rot and pollute.

This is why
Not enough of us
Are fighting whenever we can;
The resistance is there
Its strength lies
In this belief, a steady hand
That fortifies.
Action,
When taken
Like a swift, decisive arrow,
Like the forlorn will
Of thousands of millions
Of souls lost, of children
Washed ashore,
Of blood and gore
Spilled for a billionaire’s gains,
Someone’s profit margin;
When action
Is taken as described
When that rage,
That void inside
Is realigned,
Re-aimed,
Recalibrated to hit
Not an innocent soul,
Or a friend, or any
Of those who are
In the same gladiator pit
But those who built it –
Then,
Then we will all get to be.

Sumer, the people of ancient Mesopotamia.
Known to us as nascent humanity;
Spreading across the world quickly,
Like news of a calamity.
They existed thousands of years ago,
A civilisation truly gifted,
Knowledge of whom many of us forgo.

They were but one shade in a kaleidoscope of human presence.
Kings of the Fertile Crescent –
Establishing empires or mastering commerce,
Starting fires or learning to converse.
Mankind in its infancy,
A bloom of activity and artistry.
In our attempts at deciphering our history,
We turn to the relics of their poetry,
Discoveries that are a historian’s ultimate victory.

‘The love song of Shu-Sin’ –
The world’s oldest, known reference to love.
Written thousands of years ago,
Possibly older than we do know.
It is a rite of marriage, a recital;
In it lies a passage, one that needs a revival.
It is about a vow that we have now twisted,
An exquisite message that leaves one’s spirit lifted.

The bride promises the following to the groom;
To act as a refuge when all that seems to loom is doom and gloom.
To caress, love, and soothe.
To savour beauty and intimacy,
To be like honey, sweet and smooth.

The king - a man who was thought divine,
A man whose life was valued more than yours or mine,
A man who could eternally wine and dine –
That man was still no sultan to love.
His heart was still in the palms of his beloved,
Their naked frames intertwining, arched and cusped.
His hold on her is not one of force,
Nor a promise of power,
But rather earned in due course,
Like the development of a beautiful flower.

I grieve beyond words when I think
Of how love, nowadays, is on the brink.
The glue that holds life itself together,
Discarded by many, like an ex’s letter.
I look at the eyes of people I’d love to be with,
And in their expression, I discover a graveyard of sad memories.
Scars that feel indelible, past histories -
Souls that look like war-torn territories.

I look at my own eyes in the mirror,
And see a starving spirit, growing thinner.
I see a window for restoration, becoming slimmer.
Sometimes I hopefully wonder – is there a glimmer?
Is there another hungry apparition,
On a desperate search for heavenly admission?
I seem to have forgotten how to love,
And do not know how to rid myself of this condition.

Brain-powered brutes; kings of intellectual pursuits,
Vastly superior, sadly divorced from our roots.
Propelled to be upheld as the peak of all life;
The human species, as sharp as a corsair’s knife.

There’s about 80 billion neurons in your noggin,
Networks, working all day until you lie in a coffin.
Brain and spine; co-ordination, perfection, divine.
Plainly sublime, an observation of gifts we’re assigned.

Whether it’s seeing a sunset in the arms of your new love,
Or hearing thunder as it claps from heavens above;
Whether it’s embracing a friend you haven’t seen for too long,
Or smelling and tasting street food, lost in a throng;
It’s all assembled in your organic computer,
Your decoder of reality, your trouble-shooter.

That’s precisely why I don’t trust the brain blindly.
Despite its marvels, we can be deceived, wildly,
In a manner that is grotesque and unsightly.
Use your senses, but administer them wisely,
Live in reflective harmony, speak forthrightly.

And, most importantly, listen to intuition,
For it’s basically like getting divine tuition.
We know of love when we feel it inside us,
When we hold one another defiantly, and say:
“You will not divide us!”
We’re awed by thunder when its loudness strikes our soul,
Hunger gets to us when we’ve felt it as a whole;
We know how much we miss one another upon going home.

We say we’ll know it when we see it –
No; we’ll know it for sure when we feel it.

Is-solitudni hija inkredibbli.
Il-pinna tirtogħod jien u nikteb,
Estensjoni tat-taħwid ta’ ġismi.
Inħossni qisni forti imwaqqa’, inaċċessibli.
Xi kultant, nitħajjar nitfa ruħi għall-irkant;
Nagħmel patt ma’ xi dB jew xi Gasan,
Jew inkella, mal-mexxej, l-aqwa negozjant.

Mhux xorta?
X’fiha billi nilqgħu il-partit f’darna?
X’jimporta?
Mhux l-aqwa li mmorru l-fosos bi ħġarna?

Iżda, mhux dak hu l-messaġġ;
Minn dil-lejla siekta, nixtieq niehu vantaġġ.
Xtaqt neżamina għalfejn ninsab waħdi;
Qiegħed id-dar b’ommi u missieri sular taħti,
Iżda, minflok ninsab hawn, magħluq f’kamarti.
Mistoħbi, bl-iskuża li qiegħed noħloq l-arti.

Sħabi kollha xogħol jew isaħħarhom xi eżami,
B’hekk, ninsab nirrifletti, b’espressjoni gravi.
Fejn tobsor, li ta’ tlieta u għoxrin
Tkun weħilt go ħabs mentali agħar minn Kordin?
Ċella magħmula mill-ħsibijiet,
Joħorgu qishom ħalba mis-smewwiet.

Tgħix b’mohh mixgħul ġo pajjiż li jħobb id-dlam
Tħossok distint daqs tazza inbid aħmar li waqgħet *** l-irham.
Xi kultant, mejjet tkun biex titfieh;
Xejn ma jirnexxilek tagħmel biex tistrieh.

_________

(in English)

The solitude is incredible.
The pen shakes as I write,
An extension of my body's agitation.
I feel like a ruined fort, inacessible.
Sometimes, I fancy putting my soul up for auction;
Strike a deal with dB or Gasan (1),
Or maybe, with our leader, the best merchant (of them all).

Is it not all the same?
So what if we let the party in our household?
What does it matter,
As long as we go to il-Fosos (2), en masse?

But, that is not the message;
Of this quiet night, I'd like to take advantage.
I wanted to examine why I'm all alone;
I'm at home, with my parents a floor below me,
Yet, I find myself here, locked in my room,
Hidden, with the excuse of making art.

My friends are either working or bewitched by an exam,
Hence, I find myself reflecting, with a grave expression.
Who would've thought, at age twenty-three
I would be stuck in a mental prison worse than Kordin (3)?
A cell made of thoughts,
That come out like a storm from the heavens.

To live with an enlightened mind in a country that loves darkness
Feels as distinct as a glass of red wine spilled on a marble tile.
Sometimes, you just wish you could switch it off;
Nothing helps to give you relief.

I hope wherever you are,
Whatever you’ve done,
Know that I’m sorry I wasn’t the right one.
We almost killed each other,
Became hateful, when we were once lovers.

I don’t want to write this,
I don’t want you to read it;
Part of me still feels you don’t deserve it,
Yet here it is –
I’m sorry for making my issues yours,
For the forest’s worth of used tissues,
For the days of unrest, weeping on the floor.

I hope you’re happy,
Because I know you weren’t.
It was apparent and evident, I chose not to see it;
Selfish needs and the wrong words acted as intermediates,
I wasn’t really there, I shouldn’t have been.
I was recovering, and I was still weak and lean.
Silently uttering, when all I wanted was to scream.

Maybe one day we’ll forgive one another,
Until then, I think you know who this is.
I was passing by and I just wrote this,
Sorry for the bother.

* * *

This is not an attempt to rekindle a catastrophe,
This is quite simply an overdue apology.
I’m not accepting all the blame, either;
Excepting the shame I felt for letting you get into my head,
I have become stronger and wiser,
And I wish to use this wisdom to make the world brighter.

I’m in your street because I’m publishing a book,
Or at least trying to;
Not that poetry ever meant that much to you.
But, it has brought me and my thoughts here again,
To the times where our fights were not a matter of if,
But when.

I have found it very hard to love again;
After ‘You’, anxiety killed me, made me upend,
Upend everything, a bevvy of sick feelings,
Memories of every time we had each other begging and kneeling.
I’m still in the process of healing,
This is my way of doing that,
Coping and healing.
I hope you found yours.

_______________

M’hemm ebda mod ieħor
Li stajt niddivina, biex forsi tisimgħuni –
Bil-Malti issa qlibt, jekk forsi qegħdin tinnutawni.
L-ewwel ħaġa:
Fehmuni għalfejn għadha tezisti d-duttrina.
Akkost li xi ħadd jibgħatni nieħdu jien u nirfes il-bankina,
Ser ngħidha!

Għax ma ngħallmux lit-tfal tagħna
Jifhmu l-imħabba lejn il-proxxmu
Minflok il-liġi inuffiċjali
‘Min mhux magħna kontra tagħna?’  
Għax ma nitgħallmux niddiskutu u niddibattu,
Forsi nċedu ftit, flok dejjem nċaħħdu u nirribattu?
Forsi immexxu bl-eżempju; flok immorru sa’ tempju
Nitpaxxew b’deheb misruq u b’moħħ magħluq,
Nitgħallmu nieqfu niskappaw u nistaħbew,
Wara wiċċ imżejjen falz, jew xi metafora.

It-tieni ħaga, u għalissa nieqaf haw’:
Fehmuni għalfejn lesti li l-futur taghna ninġazzaw?
Nikkompromettu, nidħlu fid-dejn,
Il-valuri tagħna nirremettu, basta fl-aħħar tax-xahar
Jidħlulna imqar dawk l-elfejn.

Qabli hawn oħrajn li dan il-kliem diġà qaluh –
Malta m’hijiex ward u żahar u kollox ifugħ.
Anzi, l-intiena tal-korruzzjoni tqanqallek id-dmugħ.
Jien ma ġejtx hawn biex immaqdar u nitlaq,
Nixtieq li nkunu konxji u nieħdu dak li jixraq.
Jekk inti tixtieq hekk ukoll,
Mela ejja ningħaqdu, għax għandna ħafna xoghol.

__________________

­[in English]

There is no other way I could divine
To make you hopefully listen to me –
You may have noticed I switched to Maltese.
The first thing on the list;
Can someone explain why (religious) doctrine still exists?
Although this may elicit someone’s anger as I step out on the sidewalk,
I shall say it!

Why don’t we teach our children
To understand loving one’s fellow man
Instead of the unofficial law
‘Whoever is not with us, is against us?’
Why don’t we learn to discuss and debate,
Maybe concede a bit, rather than deny and rebate?
Maybe lead by example; instead of going to a temple,
Awed by stolen gold and closed minds,
Learn to stop escaping and hiding
Behind a fake, decorated face, or a metaphor.

The second thing on the list, and I’ll stop ‘ere:
Can someone explain why we’re ready to ruin our future?
Compromising, racking up debt,
Our values we are regurgitating as long as, at the end of the month,
We get a couple thousand (as in, money).

Others before me have already said these words –
Malta isn’t all flowers and roses, and not everything is fragrant.
Actually, the stench of corruption will make you cry.
I am not here to complain and leave,
I just wish we’d be aware so we can get what we deserve.
If you want this as well,
Then let us join together, for we have a lot of work to do.

The wind whistled with wistful woe.
I saw my sins written in blood, on the wall;
Spilling gin like an alcoholic flood, in an empty hall.
Tortured by demons, just going at it toe-to-toe.
My faults, my bad calls –
All the catastrophic somersaults,
And all the many falls.

Sometimes, I’ll forget to eat or sleep,
To relax and unwind, fall back to a natural beat –
All I’m here to do is bring you heat,
This series of verses that echo and repeat,
The kind that take over your soul, ergo, it concedes defeat.
I chose to neglect my needs,
I smoke my ****, go berserk with this craft,
I hone my intellect like I’m scared of being daft.
Besides myself, I have nothing left.
Inept at fitting in, not even close to adept,
Stuck in red tape like I’m buried in applications I’m filling in,
Living in this world of endless theft.

This is all I’ve got,
So I give it all I’ve got.
One chance, one shot –
Taking a soldier’s stance,
Choosing a ******’s spot.
A verbal marksman,
A thousand-yard stare –
Swinging like Tarzan,
To dream is to dare.

Thing is, pretty words and tight rhymes don’t matter,
Not when you can’t fall asleep.
‘Tis a fitting curse, writing wise lines –
No matter how clever or steep,
Nothing helps with those terrors from the deep.

The heart ache I have;
I think it finally broke me.
This rat race we made;
I think it finally choked me.
I think I’m done;
Nothing can console me.

REAL NAME ALTERED TO SAFEGUARD IDENTITY*

I know what you’re going through.
Aged nineteen, I wanted to die, too.
I can offer no consolation;
The world is messed up,
A fact that needs no arbitration.

All I can tell you is that you are not alone.
Listen to my words, ‘cause they’re about to hit home.
You need do nothing but be, just breathe;
Let love into your heart, again.
The mightiest tree starts from the humblest seed;
Let love take root, build its little den.

It is always darkest before dawn.
Life feels like you’re facing a firing squad,
And they’ve all got their rifles drawn.
Ten barrels of steel, pointed right at you;
You’ve been running for so long.
Eventually, they finally catch you.

Darling, killing yourself doesn’t solve your problems.
You won’t be around to care, but others will,
And seeing you go will turn them into stone golems.
As such, you just pass on your grief to your people.
They’ll find no relief, like they’re sitting on steeples.

Maybe, you hate the people who love you, or they’re **** at it,
So it’s more harm than good being done to you.
Very few of us have managed to figure this **** out.
In fact, many of us are straight-up *******.

That doesn’t mean life can’t be beautiful.
That doesn’t mean love can’t be bountiful.
Everyone’s too scared, though;
Trust is a taut rope,
And there’s very little hope.
I know that love and beauty can be scarce;
I know discourse is sometimes trifling, sometimes terse.

But darling, you mustn’t ever give up.
You are not crazy, nor are you insane.
The world is run by people who actually are heartlessly insane,
And they’ve built a cage to **** with your brain.
But please, don’t give up.

I hope this gets to you in time;
I wish I could say it’ll all be okay,
That everything will be fine.
But, it won’t be.
We are doomed to a lifetime of fighting back,
Either that, or just getting attacked.
I will not stand to suffer any longer,
Not without retaliating in defense, in kind.
Take my hand, for together we are stronger.
It’s time to halt the daily grind.

Mingħajr flus,
La tgħannaq u lanqas tbus –
Hekk qalulna l-imgħallma tal-passat.
Nesew javżawna *** is-serq sfaċċat;
Lanqas ħasbu *** kif il-moralita’ ta’ pajjiżna spiċċat.

Qawl li jiżvela realta’ kerha;
Messaġġ li tassew iġegħlek tħares lejn il-mera.
Mingħajr flus, aqbad u insa’ d-drittijiet!
Dak li qiegħed ngħid m’huwiex sigriet;
Għall-liberta’ tal-pajjiż,
Bkew l-ommijiet, u mietu l-missirijiet.

Issa, minflok, il-liberta’ tmur għand l-ogħla negozjant.
Sadanittant, tefawha ghal bejgħ, u gidbulek;
Qalulek li għal ġid tiegħek,
Huma u jidħku bik u jdeffsu idejhom ġo butek.

Bil-flus, mela, tagħmel triq fil-baħar!
Bil-flus, ibni torri ħalli jkollok biex tiftaħar!
Mingħajr il-flus, insa’ s-saqaf *** rasek,
Ara taħseb li xi ħadd ħa jagħti kasek!
Mingħajr il-flus, ara minn fejn ha ġġib l-ikel,
Kif ħa titma lill-uliedek mingħajr ma jkollok tfittex fiż-żibel.

Bil-flus, pero’, tħabbilx moħħok;
Mill-maġġoranza tal-poplu,
Tistħix tigi alabibżobbok.
Mistoqsija waħda għad fadalli:
Gheżież antenati li ġew qabilna, li messew xtutna –
Hawn x’għamilna lilna nfusna?

__________

(in English)

Without money,
You shall receive neither hugs, nor kisses -
That's what the wise men of old said.
They forgot to warn us about shameless theft;
They didn't think about our country's morality,
In decline.

A proverb that reveals an ugly truth;
A message that forces you to really look at a mirror.
Without money, forget your rights!
What I am now saying is no secret;
For this country's liberty,
Mothers have cried, fathers have died.

Nowadays, liberty goes to the highest bidder;
In the mean time, they put it up for sale, lying to you;
They told you it's for your own good,
As they laugh and dip their hands in your pockets.

With money, then, build a road in the sea!
With money, build a tower so you'll have plenty to boast about!
Without money, forget a roof over your head;
Don't even think someone will pay attention!
Without money, figure out where food is coming from,
How you're gonna feed your kids without dipping your hands in trash.

With money, however, don't fret;
As for the rest of the population,
Do not be embarrassed to admit you don't give a ****.
I only have one question left:
Dear ancestors who came before us, who touched our shores -
What have we done to ourselves?