As She Lay Dying

Death is such an enigma.You think it's a usual happening,an inevitable toll to be exacted from humanity, a sort of a plague that hits a distant continent and wipes out its residents, but as long as it leaves you alone,all is good.

All is good, until it steals someone close to you.
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News of a demise should never be conveyed through phone. It is an inhumane gesture and extremely crude; as you never know what the person on the other end is doing at that moment ;they might be engaged in a mirthful conversation and thinking that life is quite peachy and gay and generous, when they open their phone and get a terrible,shocking blow.

Not everyone can handle sudden blows to the jaw, It's something else when you don't see it coming.
If one had a weak heart they might lose their footing, or worse, their stability. In that case the bearer of the news becomes an ominous raven that causes another calamity by their lack of tact.

It once happened that a close friend of mine passed out when she heard of her cousin's death. She didn't wail, she didn't have the time; she just fell backwards, and hit her head upon the impact. Just like that.

News of a demise should never be conveyed in a manner that is not coated with caution and delicacy.
But I received a curt text.

It took some time to register at first, and for a while I didn't understand the very shortened text until I read it a few times. And then a fit took possession of me, something that rarely ever happens because i rarely ever lose my composure; I gasped for breath for a few seconds, i could hear my heart beats drumming right through my ears, drowning all the sounds around.

i was scared because i was alone at that time, scared of losing my breath and scared because the ceiling was rotating and getting further for some reason.
I dropped 5 tears. Exactly 5, to my horror and wonder. They dropped on my open notebook and dried up,visible on the white page; an everlasting reminder of all of this... a memento frozen in time. I thought they would evaporate and disappear but they didn't...Probably because of the salt.

Death, it is such an enigma,

I was saddened, I was convulsive and wincing in pain, though i wasn't hurting any where, I cried, but I...wasn't crying because she was gone.

I go on and on about compassion, about being able to relate to others and feel what they feel, but it is only when i'm a witness of the misfortune that befalls someone else. When I'm directly hit by its magnitude and depth..I couldn't relate to her, the most unfortunate of them all..

I dropped tears, but they weren't for the deceased, they were for him, his boundless sadness which its echoes i could hear across a thousand miles. His sadness that reached me, and shook my being, vibrating through my limbs and sending shrills through my nerves. I wept for him, and for his suffering that i could hear in his voice, sounding like a a formidable castle about to fall apart.

I was so horrified at my apathy and lack of sentiment I felt bad receiving all these calls, people I haven't heard from for over a year suddenly calling out of courtesy like it's important to make a good impression on a person they've lost their connection with. They would offer their condolences and then disappear for another year or two, when someone else is dead.

Until this moment I still didn't grasp the full reality of my situation, occasionally i'm obliged to make a face and assume a sad tone when i answer a condoling phone call,and momentarily i'm reminded of my spinelessness and apathy, and resort to melancholy brooding for a while. But most of the time i'm fine. I'm perfectly fine,i'm capable of resuming my life with perfect normality one wouldn't doubt that I lost someone close.

Her departure from this life seems to me like a vivid dream, as if it happened in a parallel universe, a separate reality that I could observe through a looking glass. Something trapped in a transparent basin;

She lays there,in her bed, motionless, breathless,pale, cold, dead.

And the whole scene keeps moving further and further beyond reach,and beyond vision,
to the back of my mind,where i can't think about it..

Is this what they call denial ?

To You, Adorato

Let me tell you something
About my strange soul
About my fickle heart

And dreadful malady

My chest, it has a void
For a heart-a black hole
'tis abyssal, for the night
Clouded it in tyranny
And It feeds on affection,
Sentiments and passion
Tries to fill that hole
Without a spec of infamy

As I had an abundance

Of stolen emotions

The only choice I had

Was to feign my devotion
So I told my dear ones
How much I regard'em
How their avid love was
What's kept me around
But this 'love' I pledged,
It lacked all zest
And its bashful echoes
They didn't recur a sound
Though,"love you", I'd say
In vain joie de vivre
To the gracious souls
I met along my way
As their boundless affection
And unwarranted tenderness
I could in no other way
Adequately repay
Though I split my heart
Into frivolous pieces
And along I shouldered it
In a smart cyst
And,
To the ones that showered me
With love and care
I gifted my sentiments
Right and left
Though these feels are benign
And are almost sincere,
They never sent shivers
Down my spine
It is "love" alright,
But arduous it is not
Like the Alps and the Rhine
Were neighbors, but taut
So, to the one I adore,
My beloved Eugene
I say,
You may only live
In the dungeons of fiction
I waited for you, darling
In our secret tryst
But you left me expecting
Drenched in depression
This is not a reprimand
For standing me up
But,
Against my skittish reason,
T'is a verbal insurrection

O, the one I adore,

To whom my heart calls
The one I waited for
Holding a rose

I may never say "I love you"

Nor would I give you
A fragment of my heart
Like the rest of the beaus
For true love is lived
Not verbally conveyed
Bargained in a market
Of supply and demand
Love is not a rhyme
You can jot on command
It's a thousand jolly rainbows
You can hold in your hands
Love ,
Is mental buoyancy
Love is a state of mind
When your heart soars ,evading
The mind's supremacy
All of these sentiments
I've described piano
That's not how I felt before
And this is not a blunder
But I can only tell you
With absolute certainty
That
The pouch of hearts i'm carrying
Poses as a hamper
This feel they call "affection"
Maybe
It isn't worth the trouble
This ambiguous sentiment
Is making me dander
Stay, Eugene, my dearest
Can't you see at all
That my poor soul is
Trapped between an anvil
And an atrocious pestle ?
That this wretched loneliness
Is way beyond perpetual ?
And that you've been languid
In your grand arrival?

And can't you see that I am
Trying hard to buy
That this emptiness I feel
Awaits you to occupy?

I may have been awaiting

But really i'm convinced

That if you actually did come
You would've been dismissed
That's because deep down
At the bottom of my heart
I believe in all honesty
That you. Don't. Exist

L'Albatross

The Seagull

When I close my eyes, I could always recall
Vivid memories in white and black
Every moment my poor little heart
Received a good thrashing and 
Got itself cracked
I looked and looked for a wise doctor
But no one had a knack for mending the broken
When it can't be touched
So when the bones of my soul started to whimper
And pride and vanity became a cumber
I decided that I should learn the trade myself
At first I was my only patient
But with time I became an excellent quack
Patched a good deal of chests
And my patients would flock 
Their sorrows they'd stack on my desk
And I believed I could fix the world, if broken
Even grow rich if I could collect some tokens
With every examination, grapes of rage grew
Along my ribs
These fools with riches to spend and hearts so sickly
How could these louts lack the courtesy and tact
To compare their scratches to my smashed bits?
When I was in your shoes you were so self absorbed
To notice the agony that I would hide behind a smile
So meticulously
My compassionate conscience would wring and chide
So to listen, as I do, I would soon abide
But the weight of the aches was too much to bear
An Albatross off my neck I couldn't tear

My fragile heart couldn't take the shear
Pressure of emotions clasping from every side
Being a doctor, for fun, takes its toll on the soul
This causes wear on the long run
Though I made it my trade and transfigured it
Into some form of art
Alas, a doctor that gets sick by healing folks
Is better off becoming a hack
Spreading patches of poetry on their sores.

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This is addressed to no one,
This is addressed to everyone,

Why do you think it is okay to open up to me, to let me know about your miserable encounters, all the misfortunes that befell your sorry life and weigh me down with your 'sufferings', totally ignoring the fact that i, too, not only have my own problems, but that i need you to listen to me as well......and fix me.

Wretch.

It is the height of exploitation and abuse to take advantage of someone's compassion, knowing fully well that they are always willing to shoulder the weight with you, because that's what they do, because without the weight of compassion, their existence is just too light to hold still on earth...because the unbearable lightness of their being is what makes them soar in the air like a stray balloon, desperately trying to cling for salvation.

"For there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes."

You don't need to tell me how broken you are, i'll figure it out myself, and i'll fix you. Without you noticing.
That's my life-long curse, and it's also my pride and joy.
You'll get better without ever knowing that i was the one who fixed you, and if you did; the patient shall never repay the doctor for his services because he thinks the doctor does that for internal satisfaction.

Well, what do ya know ?, maybe he's right.

It's very difficult to constantly have to weigh your words and always try to think of the right thing to say, because you know well that every syllable you articulate is going to have dire consequences.
It's a tough responsibility that comes with wisdom; a wisdom that i don't really think i possess, but allegedly attributed to me by virtue of my good counsel.

The question is, why do i care so much ?
Why do I have to be so compassionate as to think ahead of the consequences of my advice lest it ruins a life? The one who seeks solutions should handle all the side effects themselves.

Why do I take it upon myself to fix people, when nobody bothered,bothers, to fix the broken ME ?

And why do i think i'm special enough,being on a higher mental plane, that I was assigned a specific role in this life ;to fix what's broken ?

Compassion is such a dire malady, dear batushka.
I don't want it.
I didn't ask for it.
I was looking for an anchor to keep me down, but instead I got a seagull wrapped too tight around my neck it's becoming harder and harder to breathe.

It's true that i find it delectable to fix people, and it is true that no doctor out there can heal me when i'm sick , for even if there were; i would defy them out of spite; because i know better and i have more experience in fixing wreckage i'd rather spare myself the trouble and the embarrassment.

But i'm actually hurt that no one really ventured to examine me for emotional ailment.

Do I look, by any chance, like a problem-free person ? A happy person that has the luxury of offering counsel to the unfortunate ? because that's the reverse vibe i get from people around me.
Doctors get sick too, haven't you heard ?

“To have compassion for those who suffer is a human quality which everyone should possess, especially those who have required comfort themselves in the past and have managed to find it in others. ”

Confound you, Bocaccio. You are a fool, and you don't know what you are talking about. It is those who did not find comfort in others that know how empty it feels, how light it feels, and make it their life's mission to be the balsam of the heartaches and the Atlas that shoulders everyone's weight.