Hunger

All throughout the gaps in concrete

that frames the morning of my working day

Seeds got trapped and now their roots bleed

Creating cracks as they make their way.

When weeded out, they always come back,

So small, but so hungry for their chance

I brace myself to withstand the attack

“How is this life? Don’t you want to dance?”

“You think you’re okay now, but it’s all pretend.”

I grit my teeth. The taunt bites and stings

“Get things done for today, but when does it end?”

An erosion, exposed nerve endings.

There’s so much life to live and so little time

To create and rest and laugh and find my point of still

My chest full to burst, I choke myself with rhymes

Why not now, but a distance away, some vague “until”?

Run through a grass field to meet the wind with a playful kiss

Wrap myself in blanket and feast on pages, stories

Go to all the places I never knew I missed

Not listen to any doubts and worries.

Do I have what it takes to make this life worthwhile?

The guts to follow where something calls my name?

Of the roads untravelled, there are countless miles

Unless I tread each one, was it all in vain?

I’m a tricky image of still waters which indeed run deep

and when storm arrives, they spill at the brim

Through eyes, nose, mouth, robbing me of sleep.

I want and crave so badly it claws at my skin.

Hunger for all there is, pitless and unsated

and what it detests the most is having to wait

Done with being placated and sedated

Sick of “later, later” dangled like a bait.

Of the constant stream of the ego’s lies

how it settles, never dares to change

When unhappy, it will overanalyze

and each bit of truth becomes rearranged.

The lengths it goes to preserve its fragility

to defend itself from challenging views

until lightning shatters the feigned stability

So something better can rise from its ruins.

The animal at last has the upperhand

Unleashes wants and centuries of pain

It lied still so long it seems to have no end

It invades every structure, swells in every vein.

The beast roams freely and bites into its own tail

consumes itself in desperate need to eat

and then what remains, once everything failed

Is pristine, unmarred, untouched by defeat.

Brighter than a cloudless summer noon

Wiser than intellect that comes from the mind

and constantly changes, continues to bloom

Doesn’t heed under fake constraints of time.

I saw it a few times - they call it soul

how intense it must be for body to withstand

it’s every opposite joined, both young and old

And finally, I seem to understand.

I’m not my wins, nor my past mistakes

Anything that’s possible to define

I was and I will be, in endless different shapes

Whatever I need is already mine.

I’m not static - I lived many different forms

I’m not a victim - I am the one responsible for choices I made

I’m not in danger - this soul can be reborn

I’m not alone - separation is an illusion; it dissolves and fades.

Life itself rests inside my chest

it’s not outside of me, there’s nothing I lack

I am all the worst and all the best

A seed of black within white, a touch of white in black.

My soul weaves a nest from every cell,

warms me down to toes and fingertips

An embrace of friend that knows me all too well

I discover peace I so dearly missed.