I would give up
The world, my life
My soul, my heart
Give everything up for you
But the only thing
You will give up on
Is me

I fill the pages to cover up the guilt I feel,
I question to make me feel better,
I complain to weight my sorrow,
Do I deserve all of this?
The old broken poems regretted the hands that never held,
I live to save the name that gave me.

To bargain the loneliness ,
I sing a song of depression.
To perfect the insanity,
I labelled the smiles of grief.
But no matter, I still wrong the innocent….

It is rare for one to choose to live so isolated.
There are people everywhere,
Only meters away,
Barricaded in their boxes,
Guarded in their prisons of fear,
Wanting to be left alone,
Wanting to be left out of drama,
Wanting to be left out of judgement.

Isolation has become the new way of life,
The easy way out, than facing my fears.
To let someone in,
Is to let complication in,
Judgement, disapproval & burden,
I don't need that from another,
I have all that myself.

Instead I replace people with things,
Shiny possessions that fill my void,
Delicious cuisine that fulfills my pleasure,
Strenuous exercise to exhaust me at night.
To prove to you I'm doing great in the world,
To prove to you I'm not in need of your concern.

But loneliness is a sneaky thing,
Creeping in at your lowest moment,
Reminding you that your life is empty,
That your soul lacks communication,
That your soul lacks connection,
That your soul lacks completion.

What joys, what torments, what treasures
does this new day bring?

I have left sleep behind,
fitful and unsettled as always,
with its strange images
and surreal conversations with the long dead,
conversations that make no sense.

As consciousness comes back to me,
I hear a tolling bell
calling the faithful to prayer
but I pay no heed
because I know my prayers,
if I had any,
would go unanswered.

Instead, what prayers I may have had
are given to the coffee cup
as I drain yet another
and swallow its bitter grounds
and draw on another cigarette,
taking its harsh smoke
deep into my lungs.

And even though it’s Spring
with the burgeoning of new life,
it is cool and a wind stirs the newborn leaves
and the sky remains dull and grey.

Fully awake now,
the familiar pains return.
Not just the physical
but also the ones in my mind
as I contemplate another day ahead,
mundane and alone.

But, if I were honest with myself,
the mundane satisfies me
and I relish being alone.

I put on some melancholy music
and lets its sad sentiment
flow over me, gentle, welcoming,
to keep my sombre mood
from falling too far into despair.

This state of mind
is all too familiar now
and I no longer try to push it away.

And every day I make a cursory effort
to stop myself from contemplating my remaining years
but acknowledging that all too few lie ahead.

Looking back,
I can recall from over those many years, many decades past now,
the memories I have
as a child,
as a youth,
as a man,
as a father.

I remember those memories fondly:
of people, too many now the ghosts I speak with in my dreams,
and of times when the future was so far beyond the distant horizon
that I didn’t give it a moment’s thought.

But now that once far-flung horizon looms ever closer
and where before I could contemplate
ten, twenty, fifty years hence,
now even a mere ten, twenty years from now
is uncertain and shrouded in a fog of unknowing.

It is with this mindset I face each day
and this new day is no different from yesterday’s
and will be again tomorrow,
and the next day,
and the days beyond that
until I reach that horizon.

And I dare not contemplate what lies beyond.


© 2025

⚠️ TRIGGER WARNING ⚠️
(this one hurt to write)

I forgot the sound of your voice.
Yet ironically,
in a room full of people,
I’d still recognize it.

I forgot the warmth of your hug.
Yet once in a while,
I still feel the ghost of your presence
enveloping me.

When I still held you,
I begged to meet your shadow.
I wanted to understand
the pieces of you
that were hidden.

You, of course, denied.
“You’d despise it.”

My love—
why would I ever despise anything
that belonged to you?

Did I not prove to you
time and time again
that in all lifetimes, I’d say “yes”?
In all timelines and universes, I’d love you—
not for who you showed,
but for who you hid.

I beg you.
Tell me where I went wrong.
A river of why’s and how’s
floods my mind like a current
I didn’t have a boat for.
I drown
in the despair of questions.
“If I had done better…”

Please.
Tell me what I did wrong.
I beg—
could I have been enough?

I submitted myself,
entirely,
wholly.

I worshiped you
like a temple of sanctity.
Was that not enough?
I beg you, dear—
tell me.
What went wrong?

I wanted so desperately
to understand you,
to carve my skin
with every phrase you found
too insignificant to say.
Every
“I love you.”
“I see you.”

And if I could,
I’d rip myself apart,
piece by piece,
to make you feel whole.

You promised,
at the altar—
“Until death do us part.”
Why did you mean it
so soon?

If only you had told me
you were hurting.
I could’ve helped.
It might not have been enough,
but I would’ve done something.
Maybe then
you wouldn’t have jumped.
Maybe,
just maybe,
I wouldn’t have flipped down
your portrait that hung proudly
above the fireplace—
because it hurt too much
to see it.

Occasionally,
I still visit the bridge.
And it’s like I can still hear
the ambulance
as they drag you
out of the river.

And so I think to myself—
if only
you would have told me.

I would’ve found a way.
There are therapists,
resources,
help.
I could help.

But I won’t let anyone say
it was a shallow thing
you did.

You had finally found the source,
the cause,
and you just wanted it to stop…

You were pointing,
exclaiming:
“Here.
Here is where the pain is.”

From then on, I knew—
you would be gone
before I knew it.

Now your voice whispers
like a bittersweet memory
I swore I had forgotten.
Your sheets still smell like you,
no matter how many washes,
it’s still the same vanilla perfume you
begged me to buy you.

One last time,
darling,
whisper to me,
“I love you…”

The void,
Its emptiness, fills my sense of self with nothing
Dark , its expanse as the midnight sky
Rules my emotions, like a king
I fight with the darkness for a sweet escape,
but it tones down to just a futile try.

Come one, come all, it’s happening again
Pushing away people, as I make my descent
I walk down the dammed lane
The blood moon forming a crescent.

Tantalising thoughts howl like a wolf at the moon
The feed on my trepid soul
The darkness is devoured, a void left like a boon.
Wandering through the road, with not a goal.

A flicker of hope,
Then lends you a rope.
It beams you up, a classic Trope.
It fills your void with what you think is good,
But you drown in water like no one should.
Drowning makes me breathe again, a fresh new perspective.
Frau Trude works like an antiseptic.