No.87: Sometimes I Wonder.

Sometimes I feel like
a man--a boy--of too many words
and not enough poems. 
Sometimes I feel like
a last-minute collage of big dreams
glued together with uncertain prayers.
I look into the mirror
and expect to see no one,
just fragments trying too hard
to look like they're not trying at all,
when all they've ever been
is trying. 

Sometimes I feel like dying--
not the suicidal kind of death,
but the Lazarus/Jesus kind
(minus the physical pain),
‘Cause maybe then, 
I'll feel the proof of resurrection in my palms.
Maybe then, I'll believe in it
and not just think my way to the pearly gates
when I say the name of God.
Maybe then, the disappointment will stop.

I've always wondered which is worse:
to have lived in a dying world
or to have never lived at all, 
to never taste joy
or to taste too little of it,

or to taste so much
you forget how to live when it leaves.

Sometimes I feel like there's a welt and a knot where my praise should be, 
somewhere in my throat where victory used to scream with glee and hip-hop melodies.
Sometimes I feel like life is more ebb and flow of chaos than common sense.
Sometimes it's like the answers just pretend
to be there.
Instead, they leave behind fakes
and observe how hard you squirm and struggle
just for a chance to hold the truth--
what if the pursuit is useless?

Sometimes I feel like wisdom took a shit,
and I am what came out,
dark-skinned, proud, and too loud for books.
Sometimes I think if life had a blooper reel,
I'd be top three on the list--
the little engine that thought he could.
Sometimes I know there is God, 
but I wonder if there is good.
Sometimes I expect too much of you
and too little of myself,
and sometimes I just wonder
how this world hasn't returned to dust yet.
 

Sometimes I ponder like this and find the answers
unsatisfying,
and I decide that pleasure is the only thing left to live for.
But that too is meaningless.
How did Solomon live with this,
what are my accomplishments, 
where is my confidence, 
who took the air from my chest,
when will my trauma stop announcing itself,
why was my body born broken,
who is responsible for my pain,
will it ever go away?

Is that not all we care to know,
at the end of the day?

Sometimes I wonder.

Cover Photo by Marc-Olivier Jodoin on Unsplash