Not To Be

Emptiness can only exist
In the sea surrounded by despair
And you swallow each minute whole
When the seconds drown as they burn by

You offer no regret
In the demise of all consciousness
But your Soul quakes from within
And the ashes dissolve once more

Darkness is your strong point
For only you can gauge it's depth
Living in it for so long
You have forgotten how life looks

Breathing not, stirring not
You dream an endless dream
Swirling in the well of illusion
You see no truth, you feel no light

You seem to exist, but only just so
Through methods of wrong doing and mis-thought
It matters to you not if you will ever be Right
You will only channel that path which tramples all else

You are not meant to overcome your life, you should know
But join the dance of this world
Yet you chose not to blow with the breeze
And puncture the hearts of all you meet

You should be condemned, here & now
For you burned, hurt, stabbed and forsaked
You bear no guilt, nor responsibility nor feeling
Your heart is so cold, it's hard to conceive the thought

You need to know what destruction you caused
Had you been the receiver, you would be different
You would have seen the illogical, the ridiculous and unfair
And realized, other people do feel

You showed me the evil of anger
How 'normal' becomes suspended
But I saw the after-effects too
Where only remorse, sorrow and loss remain

You made everyday painful
And feel like everything I did was a sin
But you showed me that not even trying to understand another
Only leaves you surrounded by animosity, alone

You believed cheating others would enrich you
And in pilfering, each moment you got
But you lived in fear of being caught at all times
And it was always visible in your every move

You thought you always deserved respect
And demanded it with full measure
But one can never demand, only command respect
And you can never receive it, if you cant learn to give it

You never showed Love, even when you wanted to
You felt ashamed to the very core
You never let what's pure embrace you
And I learnt I should express it every chance I get

You proved by example, with your misdeeds and your wrath
Through selfishness and disregard for all
What not to imbibe in order to evolve
For you were stationary with no love or happiness

Forgiveness is difficult with the amount of suffering you caused
So is understanding, compassion and a prayer
Even though you still feel you did nothing wrong
I will still find the strength to exonerate

Now I am free of your chains
And the mental and emotional war with myself
I still hurt because of what you did
But I thank you for helping me learn how not to be.

Red Rose

Quietly the moon rays touched the Earth in a cool embrace
Seeping through the tree leaves
All was still
Even the water of the lake
The lake at the center of this Paradise
The surface was as though frozen
But within the soul of this water body
Was churning, thrashing, screaming
As if one was was trying to escape
Trying to look for a way out
In the still of the night.
There was the silence of a graveyard here
But the silence was filled with the pain of all suffering
The trees and the lake knew the joy of the sunshine
But come the night, and the dark drinks its way in
Seeping through their every pore
To fill them with an emptiness
No one hears their screams
As they never escape them
A stony presence encompasses the vicinity
Like an erie light within the moonlight
The trees lose their sanity in their fear
The lake pulls herself in, as if to protect herself
The stillness of the night slowly strangles them
How they wish to move, to scream, to escape
But fear engulfs them
And they shiver not
Nor utter a whisper
They become paranoid in their gloom
But there's an answer
To their black and white story
Where the Red Rose
The mellow and sliken Red Rose
Whose subtle bloom one night
Spreads her fragrance throughout
The trees and the lake allow it to sheathe them
And breathe like they never did before
Smiling, happy
Content
They realize the false life in their dread
And emerge in the scent of the Red Rose
Stronger and alive
And they denounce their trepidation as they would a pest
And learn to live through the incorruptible beauty of their life
As does the tender Red Rose
In all its magnificent glory.

[Written: 1:10 am, 20th June 2006]