Lost Soul

By Sayesha Atolia

Maybe I live inside myself,

yet starved of me,

A spectrum, distraught,

shattered, split,

specks of flaws reflecting back,

from plains where peace should dwell.

The curve hides its point,

I look behind and stumble,

step forward and fall,

Still I remain in place,

while the clock ticks on

its hands relentless

But mine? motionless.

Lines etched in them, soiled,

with failure with hate,

There is beauty everywhere I look

but not in the diminished soul

that glares from the mirror

Is it me?

Or someone else,

a shadow I cannot become?

Where are the parts of me I long to hold?

Will they rise in devotion,

in labour,

or in silence where blurred reels of memory

unravel in my head?

The silence is too loud,

drumming through my ears,

My heart labours,

but suffers

just like me,

Struggling, drowning,

yet still breathing.

The source is lost,

the substance burned,

The smoke suffocates,

and I cannot move,

cannot reach,

Every day, a task

Every memory, a wound,

I long to fly, to soar

to touch the sky

but perhaps my wish

will only come true

when I die.

By Sayesha Atolia