The other side of love
Years ago, he must have been in the prime of his youth
An undergraduate student with a promising future
The pride and joy of a mom’s heart
The apple in a dad’s watchful eyes
And some girl’s starry-eyed lover
The story sounds disconnected, impersonal and faceless
But I have no names but common nouns
To surmise and reconstruct it with.
The bits and pieces of his story
I have managed to collect
Barely form a whole;
It’s all an incomplete puzzle
A story without a clear beginning, middle or end.
Tall, black and bearded with hair unkempt
And covered in filth and smelly like hell
He, the protagonist, brandishes two umbrellas, unfurled
The bigger one his and the smaller one hers, perhaps
His eyes, mad like his brain
Searching and searching
Waiting and waiting
Registering nothing and everything
At the same time.
He has gone soft in the head
Many say, as she walked out on him
Whatever happened between them,
Life bolted him to that moment
That point in time when life changed forever for him.
Reason abandoned him
All meaning was drained out of his life.
I’m certain madness didn’t run him over
Like an overspeeding bus
Or infect him suddenly like a deadly virus or poison.
The brain’s decay from reason to unreason
Must have been so damn slow and gradual
Not less but more painful for that.
A fate sadder still than death.
It’s scary to see what lies at the other side of love;
What happens to the people
Who lose themselves in loving someone
When their lives are sucked into the blackhole of despair.
It’s scary to see how love ravages people
Leaving not even the faintest outward sign
Sometimes.
Not all can see the obvious
And come to grips with the reality
Blind love, blind faith can doom you
To a sad destiny, to a trance that hardens like concrete
Over time
Out of which there’s no escape.
If it’s too tough, forget it.
Not even love is worth
Losing yourself in.
Words - Jayashantha Jayawardhana
****
Ineluctable
“Bhikkhus, all is burning. And what is the all that is burning?...”
The Buddha in Adittapariyaya Sutta - The Fire Sermon
They didn’t know the Grim Reaper had laid a fiery siege for them
On the road.
As the bus sped along taking them,
The Uzbek migrant workers,
To the greener pastures (of bricks & concrete)
Where the modern-day slave drivers
Would put them to work.
It was the same road they’d travelled back and forth,
Thousand times over and again,
Familiar as the back of their hands,
And sans any foreboding.
The random rags to riches stories about migrants
Becoming millionaires once in a blue moon,
Must have inspired them to beaver away
At fleshing out the skeletons of skyscrapers,
Or maybe, they just wanted their families
To survive the morrow.
Or maybe they dreamt different dreams
That escape our flimsy surmises,
Posthumously made.
At the Grim Reaper’s bidding
The hellfire caught the bus by storm and engulfed it,
With them trapped inside,
Like the hapless fish being live grilled.
The heartless wind, like a cold and calculating criminal,
Fanned the mortal rage of the flames.
Even their calls for help were choked and burnt
In the infernal blaze.
Reportedly, five lucky people jumped out,
While the hapless fifty-two were barbecued to death
In a single pyre, on wheels, without ceremony.
It’s an unconscionable holocaust ordered perhaps
by Mother Nature herself
In one of her infamous moral perversions;
Or is it that the Mother Nature
Is but an obedient handmaiden to Karma
That stalks us everywhere
Like the cartwheel that hounds the bull
Without relenting
And then strikes us without mercy
In the nick of time?
It’s a madman’s clench
A stranglehold out of which
There’s no escape.
Words - Jayashantha Jayawardhana
****
Fear....
Fear is loud and bossy.
She can be vicious at times.
And the worst of it is that
she often mingles truth with fiction.
But you must learn to challenge
the stories she feeds you.
You get to be the boss of your thoughts.
You can learn to question
whether or not
everything she tells you
is truth,
whole truth,
and nothing but the truth.
Since you have done the work
to deepen self-awareness
and self-compassion,
when she throws all your past failings
in your face you won’t crumble
because you already know you are imperfect…
AND you are beautiful
and resilient
and worthy
of building a
thoughtfully crafted life.
Words — Krista O’Reilly Davi-Digui
****
Small means...
To live content with small means;
to seek elegance rather than luxury,
and refinement rather than fashion,
to be worthy, not respectable,
and wealthy, not rich;
to study hard, think quietly,
talk gently, act frankly,
to listen to stars and birds,
to babes and sages,
with open heart,
to bear all cheerfully,
to all bravely await occasions,
hurry never.
In a word, to let the spiritual unbidden
and unconsciously grow up through the common.
This is to be my symphony.
Words — William Henry Channing
****
Owning yourself....
And then I realized
that to be
more alive
I had to
be less
afraid
so
I did it…
I lost my
fear
and gained
my whole life.
Words — Author Unknown
****
Things you can control...
Your beliefs
Your attitude
Your thoughts
Your perspective
How honest you are
Who your friends are
What books you read
How often you exercise
The type of food you eat
How many risks you take
How you interpret the situation
How kind you are to others
How kind you are to yourself
How often you say “I love you.”
How often you say “thank you.”
How you express your feelings
Whether or not you ask for help
How often you practice gratitude
How many times
you smile today
The amount of effort you
put forth
How you spend / invest
your money
How much time you spend
worrying
How often you think about
your past
Whether or not you judge
other people
Whether or not you try
again after a setback
How much you appreciate
the things you have
Words — Caleb LP Gunner