Room
One hundred people in a room
Speak in a deafening drone
But all I can hear are my thoughts,
Vehemently fighting, crying, screaming
Seventy-five people in a room
Dance to the hypnotic rhythm
But my fleeting feet take me away
From the harrowing ringing in my ears
Fifty people in a room
With ninety-eight hands intertwined
But my trembling hands are alone,
Nervous fingers clinging to the hot air
Twenty-five people in a room
Breaths are dangerously soft, even
But my throat closes and I choke,
My lungs close their creaky gates
Ten people in a room
Glance, see, observe
But I see white blots amidst nihility
Though those stars die and I am blind
One person in a room
Merely existing, alive without life
But exhalations are ragged and tears flow,
Cries are hoarse and muscles convulse
Not one person in a room
Nothing but the hollow air to fill it
Not a soul in sight, not even I
Though perhaps I was never there before
What is happiness?
There are questions as old as time
Ones we always ask but never answer
We often inquire: what is happiness?
More often, we scramble for a response
We say we are happy, to a world
That is impartial and conceited
We attempt to convince anyone
That has the misfortune to listen
It may be that we are shallow,
Attributing anything that sparks joy
Just for a minute or a second
To our eternal and total happiness
We attach people to our happiness
We connect it to objects or events,
To a fictional world that we know not of
To animals that we speak not to
We create excuses to feel something
Call it happiness when we tell ourselves
We feel more alive than yesterday,
Say: “so this must be happiness”
We look for happiness in every crevice
In all the places that are absurd
And are surprised when hearts are broken,
Minds are confused and souls are wrecked
And it may be that we do not know where to look
We look everywhere but ourselves,
What has been there all along and even then
We overlook the right and find the wrong
We always seem to look but forget to see
We seem to both be able to seem
And simultaneously be utterly blind
When looking for our own happiness
We are lost in a world constantly seeking
Sailing in a lonely boat on a rocky sea
Thrashing back and forth on rough waves
Rocking from one conclusion to another
We look for a sign, an x on a map
But in this futile pursuit we forget:
Happiness is not concrete nor absolute
It warps every minute of our lives
We may never find it nor understand
The map may never lead us anywhere
But perhaps our happiness will find us
And maybe, just maybe, we may know
Haunting
Our dreams can be beautiful
An ethereal mosaic of vivid colors,
Providing our dormant souls with
Tender love and earnest hope
Still our dreams can haunt,
Canvases for terror and gloom
That loom over our minds,
And puncture our hearts
Many are afraid of the imaginary:
The monsters and the ghosts,
Or of the twisted reality:
The clowns and the spiders
But what truly haunts
Is what we can never evade,
An unwanted, uninvited guest
That never leaves before taking
The agonizing shrieks of insanity
Plague as they hysterically beg
And he is the thief, his cruel hands
Stealing the unarmed mortal soul
The deafening silence of seclusion
Daunts as it asks to be left alone
Till the greedy fingers slowly strangle
And leave their polluted mark
The warm bloodshed of cold murder
Unnerves as humanity betrays itself,
With him maniacally puppeteering
Observing consciousness melt with pain
And so I do not fear a spider nor a ghost
I fear the one dealing our cards,
The eternal opponent of life,
For he knows the game all too well
Well done, Antonia!
LikeLike