the noise never fades;
my poise takes the bait;
in the halls of liberation,
i submit to my fate.

i took a solemn vow:
to be ‘holier-than-thou’.
neither wrong, nor right,
i knew, until now.

i failed to see a cause;
the effect? - a terrible loss;
blinded by obsessions,
i never took a pause.

it’s been a while since the fall,
when i sprung to a brawl
with my virtues, unmasked -
and caved in to nightfall.

it all seems a blur;
it’s ‘bout time i concurred:
my reason to exist
shall always be a curse.

My ill-filled mind adrift on winds ethereal,
Hopeless, I muse on my own burial.
I dug six feet in foreign lands immemorial,
As ruminations run wild, rabid, and feral.

Imprisoned self, reborn as antisocial,
Past cohorts are now strangers, fantasmal.
Depressing illusions intensify suicidal,
Knocking on doors of the heavenly celestial.
Yet kneeling at the pulpit feels nothing special.

Words misunderstood, deemed uncolloquial,
Unbothered to learn, It's deemed impractical.
Learning the language they use in their imperial,
To make my plea resound consequential.

𝒩𝑜𝓌 𝒽𝑒𝒶𝓇 𝓂𝓎 𝓅𝓁𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉 𝒻𝑜𝓇 𝒶𝓃𝒸𝒾𝑒𝓃𝓉 𝑔𝑜𝒹𝓈 𝒷𝒶𝓃𝒶𝓁!

"𝑯𝒂𝒓𝒌! 𝒐𝒍𝒅𝒆𝒏 𝒈𝒐𝒅𝒔 𝒉𝒆𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒚 𝒃𝒆𝒔𝒆𝒆𝒄𝒉 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒄𝒖𝒓𝒆,
𝑭𝒐𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝒔𝒐𝒖𝒍 𝒊𝒔 𝒐𝒏 𝒂 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒇𝒆𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒖𝒏𝒔𝒖𝒓𝒆.
𝑻𝒉𝒚 𝒔𝒆𝒆𝒌 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒔𝒆𝒍, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒆𝒍𝒔𝒆 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒆.
𝑾𝒉𝒊𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖 𝒐𝒍𝒆' 𝒈𝒐𝒅𝒔, 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒚 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒄𝒖𝒓𝒆.

𝑾𝒊𝒍𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒂𝒏𝒔𝒘𝒆𝒓, 𝒕𝒉𝒚 𝒔𝒊𝒍𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆 𝒂 𝒌𝒏𝒆𝒍𝒍?
𝑨 𝒘𝒉𝒊𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒓, 𝒂 𝒔𝒊𝒈𝒏, 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒔𝒉𝒂𝒅𝒐𝒘𝒚 𝒄𝒆𝒍𝒍.
𝑫𝒐 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒔 𝒏𝒐 𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒓 𝒉𝒆𝒆𝒅 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒂𝒍 𝒅𝒆𝒔𝒑𝒂𝒊𝒓?
𝑶𝒓 𝒉𝒂𝒔 𝒅𝒊𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒊𝒕𝒚 𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒏𝒆𝒅 𝒃𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒚 𝒑𝒓𝒂𝒚𝒆𝒓?"

For endless ages, I wait in vain,
Enduring this stone-hearted disdain.
Forsaken and lost, your silence profane—
An eternal ache, my solitary refrain.

a body is an archive: unveiled
when i stumbled open--
claw-click, serrate-jaw,
wet antennae mapping paths i had never known.
skin, then flesh, then
(oh—how the soft explodes)
a threshold becomes a feast,
& i was alive for it.

they sang in that minor key,
the one tuned for
half-breaths.
sinews hummed electric as
the burrow began--
an architecture of frenzied mouths
churning absence into corridors,
each passage alive with the memory
of something never buried.

and is this not the nature of hunger?
to make the once-firm
a slurry of purpose?
they never meant to unravel
all i held,
but the burrow was me now.
(to be remade is to perish inside out.)

what the insects did not take
were pieces too sharp to swallow:
a wrist pressed to pulse--
the wrist itself forgotten;
an eye, emptied of meaning,
but still watching--
watching even as the body became
a hymn sung low
in thorax vibrations.

and there was no end.
no death.
no quiet.
only their small & perfect hands
reaching
(yes, always reaching)
for the marrow,
for the root of whatever i had been.

what remained was not myself.
but the insects
were full.

death is humble;
death does not discriminate;
death is everything,
but life.

every day, he looked out the window,
his inhibitions toppling over like dominos;
he gawked at the blackbirds, all the same:
he could not tell a friend from a foe.

he never thought he’d go so far -
as to slay ‘the raven’ with a crooked crowbar;
his conscience dripped with sins, and rose -
a thorny heap of fallacies, charred.

he blamed the world for all he was;
convinced in his soul that he had a good cause:
it wasn’t enough to redeem his faux pas, so -
he bore the tag of an ill-fated outlaw.

of all the names, by which he was called,
who knew - one day - he’d cease to show up?
a child dead of his innocence, who
never learned how to -
as they say -

‘grow up!’

there’s enough anger in one man
to put even the Gods to shame;
it speaks to him in
mournful moments, when -
the shadow of doubt clouds  
his acumen, and his candour
reigns far too long.

he sleeps with it;
dreams of it;
and once it has
invaded his subconscious,
he revels in it --
it makes him feel powerful,
and hungry for a scam
that disguises itself as a reward.

belittled by his own words,
he seeks refuge in others
who share his wrath -
for they are everywhere:
they help him carve his words
into a dagger of insecurity,
with which he stabs those
who tried to offer him
an antonym for violence;

the blood he draws shall
dye his conscience -
evil red.

i can feel the weight,
on my tongue -
of a heart so heavy,
and a mind so young;
i cannot say -
why i went this way;
i do not know, how to
get off the causeway:

on one end, there’re facts;
though verified, and true -
on the other end, lie feelings,
i never really knew -
i had buried so deep,
i failed to see them through;
the facts - do not change,
but the feelings - they do.

i promised not to rely too much
on one way, or the other;
now i’m stuck, biding my time,
reflecting on shallow waters:
i look, long and hard, and see -
the feelings start to resurface;
but in fact, i see -
a herring’s carcass - floating -
so still, and perfect.

a shadow streaks across my face -
i brace myself for, just in case -
i feel it looming - heinously close;
in fact, it’s an eagle;
i step aside - clear the way:  
the eagle tucks its wings
for a nosedive;
it wants the herring -
dead or alive:
it takes what it wants,
leaves nothing behind -
neither facts, nor feelings;
only ripples of lies.

walk me down the alley, will you?
it’s so dark, and terribly true:
the walls close in;
the air cuts thin;
on a skin that’s weary of
a diabolical flu.

i’ll walk behind ya, all the way -
for i have nothing good to say -
of the ones who lurk
in dreary corners -  
where hope turns bleak;
i dare not speak -

for they can sense
my breathless words;
my every move;
even thoughts, unheard;
you must take caution,
stay low, stay far:
they might mistake us
for who we are  

almost there,
just a few more yards…
you may drop me off yonder -
that moonlit graveyard:
will be there, for a while -
don’t wait too long;
the night isn’t over -
things could go wrong.

mind commits a crime:
renders the body unsafe;
the soul bears witness.

it terrifies me sometimes…
the ugliness that smears the world -
with shades of despair, and evils unheard.

there’re things you hear, and learn, and know,
and wonder how mankind could stoop so low.
your fury knows what must be done, yet -
powerless you watch the madness grow.

the night is no longer the custodian of evil;
we see it day in, and day out.
the morning news, the afternoon bites;
come evening, you’d rather gouge your eyes out.

the screams of anguish of a woman bent over -
on the tasteless floor, her innocence devoured.
the wrath of a community, on the back of one man,
who dared speak his mind - his life is over!  

the game of politics,
the lies, the trecheries;
men without jobs - or homes -
living on the streets.
an animal slain to please a God,
as a child watches,
only to repeat.

yet it all goes on,
as though a **** in the wind.
the world tells you,
‘grow up, man! grow a thick skin.’
i wish i could tell you otherwise -
a story not so bleak.
but there…
they probably beheaded a son before his mother,
as we speak.