A wheelbarrow,
Standing beside the clucking white chickens
Wheels sinking in the slightly damp soil
But do the chickens bring any company?
For the wheelbarrow carries such a heavy weight
And so much is depended upon it
The burdens of love and loss.
Then there is the rain
Which glazes it’s shiny red coat
And fills the empty space with fallen water
Excluding all other objects
And all other thoughts
But wait
The sun
For it has appeared once more!
And we hope for our period of burden
To be ceased
To be freed
From its shiny red shackles
The chickens cluck in rejoice!
The rain drips away!
But the wheelbarrow…
It stays, unmoving, emotionless
As if it is waiting
As if it wishes not to jinx it
As we have all done once before
As we do with no real end
thirteen ways of looking at love
i
The end is upon us
This is fact
Our hope is lost
This is opinion
This is option
ii
I live on the edge
Of a very tall cliff
Seems endless some days
Seems glorious
But you are the ocean
The one unknown
Down at the bottom
There to catch me
iii
Dark
Shackled
Cold
Yet you were supposed to be
My light
My freedom
My warmth
I suppose only I can be my own savior
iv
Hands touching hands
Lips touching lips
Fingers wildly roam
Pang of fear, quick
Moments of pleasure, quicker, it seems
Feelings of ecstasy and the ache for more
What else is needed?
What else matters?
v
Fizzled out spark
Dying flames
We get lost in the familiarity
The comfort
Our comfort of old
Begins to imprison us
vi
You dug your own hole of despair
Hid the shovel
And cried for help
You wish to be a damsel?
I am not your knight.
vii
There aren’t a million fish
In any pond or lake
viii
You only need someone else’s air
When you allow your thoughts
To pollute your own
ix
In a sea of deep blue
Alone
But not lonely
Your strength resonates its most
The longer you’re there
x
A single flame
In a darkened room
Means more
When you keep the lights
Off
xi
the fall isn’t what kills you
it’s the sudden stop
xii
Pills
Drinks
Puffs of smoke
All can kill
Love
Adoration
Expectation of such emotion
Can kill as well
xiii
A rainbow of meaning
A spectrum of truths
An array of lies
The complexity
And the simultaneous universal understanding
This is love.
believe
death
/deTH/
noun
the action or fact of dying or being killed; the end of the life of a person or organism.
synonyms:
demise, dying, end, passing, loss of life …
Everyone has a different opinion, but regardless on our take on such a seemingly daunting matter, each of us will one day have to face the figure under the dark hood. For some, hell, for many this concept frightens them. The fact that we will all one day leave everything we have ever known behind to face a strange and nameless future. Maybe this is the reason for religion. For faith.
~
faith
/fāTH/
noun
1.
complete trust or confidence in someone or something.
synonyms:
trust, belief, confidence, conviction …
2.
strong belief in God or in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual apprehension rather than proof.
synonyms:
religion, church, sect, denomination, belief, ideology …
Maybe because of the overwhelming feeling of fear some become ensnared in when thinking of their mortality, they choose to believe. The understand that death is inescapable and instead of leaving everything else to unknown power, they believe with the intent to preserve their souls. They believe to ensure that their death is followed by the peace they experienced in the mortal world. A utopia. A heaven.
~
heav·en
/ˈhevən/
noun
a place regarded in various religions as the abode of God (or the gods) and the angels, and of the good after death, often traditionally depicted as being above the sky.
synonyms:
paradise, nirvana, Zion …
informal
a place, state, or experience of supreme bliss.
synonyms:
bliss, ecstasy, rapture, contentment, happiness, delight…
Though only depicted in text, people strive for a heaven. For a place where they can exist joyously as a gift for their good behavior during their life. Heaven, for some, is the only reason that people need to believe. The guarantee that your afterlife will be as fulfilling or even more than your time on earth is enticing. The guarantee that you will be saved from an eternity of suffering convinces people to believe. There is power in the promise of being saved from such terrors. From such infernos. From such hell.
~
hell
/hel/
noun
a place regarded in various religions as a spiritual realm of evil and suffering, often traditionally depicted as a place of perpetual fire beneath the earth where the wicked are punished after death.
synonyms:
the netherworld, the Inferno, the infernal regions, the abyss…
Just as heaven is yearned for without any real knowledge of its features, the same goes for hell, but it is not adored, it is feared. Hell is where the rotten go to whither with no real end. A suffering with no solution. It is said that if you believe, you will not have to deal with such a horrid thing. But others, ones who don’t believe as easy make the argument that it doesn’t matter, for life on earth is hell all on its own. Wars in every continent, riots in the streets, fires burning into the night. There has not been an end, has there? And can we really recall the beginning of it all? Earth is it’s own sort of hell. So why work so hard just to guarantee something that may or may not be true. For all we know, afterlife is a white nothingness. For all we know it is bleak and bland. It is void.
~
void
/void/
noun
a completely empty space.
synonyms:
vacuum, emptiness, nothingness, nullity, blankness, vacuity…
A fear greater than any hell or heaven is a fear of nothingness. Empty. The fear that no matter how you lived your life, nothing will have ever mattered. The fear that the game was rigged before you even started playing. The underlying fear that such a horrid existence even occurs, a fear in which we attempt to swallow down and ignore. Even in hell you can feel something. Even if it is immense pain, it is there. It is at your side. It reminds you every day that you, or some part of you, exists. But in a vast desert of empty, how do you know for sure? When nothing ever changes except your sanity, how can you be sure that you exist? How can you be sure that you ever did? Because of this underlying fear, some people choose and alternate route. No real beliefs, no surreal fear of death or afterlife. But a route of right now. A route of living and being alive. A simple route of life itself.
~
life
/līf/
noun
1.
the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.
synonyms:
existence, being, living, animation…
2.
the existence of an individual human being or animal.
synonyms:
person, human being, individual, soul…
Everyone has a different opinion. But no matter what we think, no matter whether any of us wished to be alive or not, we are here. All of us coexist on this tiny planet together. That is the now. And while many of us have come and gone on to a separate existence, we are still here, and we have no other choice but to wake up every morning and do something with ourselves. This is life. This is our life. And while we could spend the majority of our time looking backwards or looking forwards, we could also spend our time looking right here at the beauty in front of us, for it is fleeting faster than any of our souls ever could or ever will. And if we miss it, we will regret until our days of demise. Our days of death.
So, let’s not miss it.