Blind

 

I do not see the stars. 

Too blind.

Too far gone. 

 

I sit cold as my heart contends with the winter around me. 

The dogs can bark and the cars can go flying by. 

But I will not breathe their breath. 

 

I can smell the sea. 

The earth that hums beneath me. 

I do not feel myself. 

 

I have slept. 

In my closing eyes, I see visions. 

Pictures and images, art among the skies.

They are not true. They are not of my creation. 

 

The stars that I cannot see.

They form patterns and shapes. 

I feel their dance beside me. 

But they are not seen by my dying vision.

 

In this midnight sky, this airy still. 

Do the stars finally sit?

Blind like me?

 

Truth

 

I am on a path now. 

The wind’s current brushes me.

The rain splinters me.

 

It is welcoming me, to this journey I start.

I already feel the blood rushing. 

The tumult at the bottom of my heart, 

As the truth threatens to break. 

 

There is light and then there is none. 

The cloudy skies up above show me nothing. 

I’ll try, and I did, to surrender. 

But they did not take me, I sat like a boulder, anchored to place. 

 

The story in my head refuses to stop.

The voice that narrates my life, unrelenting. 

I could not break free, even as the skin of me died away. 

I stand chained,held to this mortal hold. 

 

I could not walk, I could not see. 

I am in the ocean.

And the ocean is in me. 

 

Hey golden fruit,

Come to me, feed me. 

The undying truth of me.  

 

Silence

 

Hey, silence. 

Seed me with questions.

Break the vase I so carefully crafted. 

Destroy my mythologies.

 

In this darkness I brood,

The screeches call to me, 

Like whalesong they echo. 

 

This still room shifts.

The disappearing feeling,

Drifting back.

 

Like ghosts of a past realm, 

I hear my spirit sing to me. 

Howling death of me,

I welcome you. 

Rumbling pain of me,

I birth you. 

 

Here you are my nemesis. 

The beast which pursues me. 

By my side attacking me.

The fear that nooses my neck. 

 

Here you are. 

 

Here I am before you. 

You claw at me and I resist. 

I see you and miss. 

Fight me, dementor of my heart. 

Fight me till I break. 

Hit me till I surrender.

Kill me till I die.

 

But I wasn’t ready.

Like clockwork, untuned,

I shattered in fear.

 

The crinkling sounds of leaves beckon me back. 

The passageways of my castle are crumbling. 

The silence is roaring.

 

Written by Haran Thirumeni and edited by Lauren Timmins. Published on 16/7/23. Header image by Unsplash.