Technically speaking, I didn't know
That we said goodbye the first time,
Nor the second or third or fourth or
Any of the times afterwards.
It's just that we slowly became strangers,
At first, little by little, then altogether.
It surprised me, how smoothly it happened,
When we met up once again, it was as strangers.
– Arsh
Loneliness is a brine,
Something that so thoroughly soaks into your person,
Like a rot, a stench that you can never quite get off.
And no matter how many hours of doomscrolling, of trying to keep your mind from thinking,
There is nothing quite so depressing
Than admitting to yourself that you are lonely.
It is not brandished in your face,
Not coloured in your clothes, and
Not smelt in your deodorant.
It is far worse, a pathetic realisation,
The cause of such desperation.
For it was so wretchedly true
When someone once said
Misery has no pomp nor glamour.
-Desdemona
T'is a special kind of pain,
The kind that forms when you are
Surrounded by people
Yet, feel completely alone.
The pain of being surrounded by kindness,
Yet none of it softens your heart,
Clenched like a fist,
Waiting for something to go wrong.
T'is not an ailment that a salve can cure,
No witchcraft nor solidarity can erase this ache I know by name,
An illness called Loneliness.
-Desdemona
In my Heart there lies a Songbird caged,
Yearning to sing in the breeze.
Yet it is trapped in Human flesh,
Far too heavy with sorrows.
And each day that passes,
It drowns a little more in the blood of Human veins,
Far too poisoned, more than any
Heavenly Choir that inspired it.
– Desdemona
Stop! What are you doing?
Your life is ebbing away,
And here you are, ever idling.
The world is still spinning,
The sultry Swallow's birdsong still sounds,
The flowers still bloom,
And Life moves on.
Your labours shall last forevermore,
Your worries shall never end,
For as you live and breathe,
You shall be troubled yet.
For that is Life, my friend,
Full of beauty and sorrow in equal measure,
And so many feelings strange and new,
While so familiar, and so old.
So take heart! Move on!
Go forth, knowing that
There shall be greater follies than this to come.
The road is tough, the path is long,
But where it leads,
Is your life's call.
– Desdemona
"I jest ye not,
I only know what I see,
And that is a Fool on Our throne."
A peasant once said,
Only to find, the very next day,
His entire family dead.
The man himself
Was hanged for treason,
When in reality,
There was not one,
A proper reason.
A jester that day,
Made the very same claim,
In hopes that his fate,
Would end without much pain.
Yet that horrible crowd,
On hearing his rave,
Just laughed, complete and unfazed.
Had the peasant donned the mask of this harlequin,
His life would not only be spared,
He would be lauded for his comedic praise.
– Maya Desdemona
I am haunted,
Haunted by ghosts.
'Could have been', 'Should have been',
'Could be', and 'Should be'
Are their names.
Alas, it is only these four
That fill my lonesome days.
'Could have been',
'Could have been',
How pitiful you are!
Your grandiose wishes
Were crushed by
Circumstance and chance.
'Should have been'
Shushes all others,
A pearl among the gems.
He lies like a carcass
Hewn for the hounds, helpless.
'Could be' is the cruellest of them all,
A cry to the present,
But to 'face thyself' is to 'face thy enemy',
'Tis but a cascading conquest.
'Should be' is the sternest,
The shrillest of the four,
The future is in her hands,
Though the past is set in stone.
These companions, mine,
Seem to enter the eye
Only in the depths of Night,
To flow like sand under a rock,
Wasting hours of my life.
– Maya Desdemona
My heart is locked in a bony cage,
Where it writhes and turns for Freedom's sweet lips.
It toils to keep this mortal vessel alive,
Yet struggles to find some peace of mind.
But Darkness calls with comfort and change,
Death's loving embrace so gentle and safe,
The Night calls away all worries formed by Day.
– Maya Desdemona
Are you a burnt little matchstick?
Struck against scraping sandpaper
Till you shine bright enough to be a star,
But the joy of being enough is robbed by the end, without going far.
Burnt, crippled, broken, and used,
Now showing no more potential nor promise,
You are thrown away by the world,
Tossed in a pile without a thought,
The light you brought, they forgot,
So they have simply left you to rot.
-Maya Desdemona
I suppose there was truth when Calpurnia said:
"The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes."
For as I stare out my window,
Glancing at heaven above and ground below,
I see white lilies mourn the loss of a kind soul from this world,
And the mighty heavens themselves stand in shame at their helplessness.
On this day
A great and kindly spirit was robbed from this Earth,
Far too early, sooner than one would anticipate,
And simply...
That.
That spirit has left this Earth, and left us mortals in its wake
As fleeting as the picture captured
With these gifts called memories.
-Desdemona
