Mortality

Rollercoaster

When I was young
days clicked by
with anticipation
climbing slowly
to heights
unknown
the horizon
a crest waiting
for me to
reach it.

At some point
I did
though I
don't think
I realized
what a
frightening
descent
reaching the
crescendo
meant.

And now
with twists
and turns at
belly-lurching
speed
it's all
downhill
from here.

The Journey

In the beginning all is new,  
Our lives are filled with first events:  
The first snow, the first summer,  
The first maternal smile of boundless love.  
As we grow up, we see the start of things around us:  
A road built, a new hotel or store,  
A clever new device to enhance our lives,  
Which skip along, bright with novelty and innovation:  
New feelings, new success, and then: first love.    
   
But, cruelly, we start to see the ends of things:  
Love fades, our bright ambitions come to nought,  
What we saw built, we now see brought to dust.  
Our parents grow enfeebled, pass away,  
And then mortality taps us on the shoulder -    
A friend dies.  
So what to do? Take refuge in despair?  
Pursue the dress, the speech, the styles of youth  
In hopeless, sad and foolish self-deceit?  

No - look around, enjoy the time you have,  
And revel in the things you’ve seen along the way;  
Accept your age, it too is part of life.

###

Nicley written

I'm Human

I'm human,
I'm mortal,
I'm life,
I'm death,
I'm pain,
I'm love,
I'm work,
I'm gain,
I'm evil,
I'm good,
I'm black,
I'm white,
I'm wrong,
I'm right,
I'm something,
I'm nothing,
I'm yes,
I'm no,
I'm forgotten,
I'm here,
I'm weak,
I'm strong,
I'm human

Stars of heaven will cease to shine someday,
The fragrant flowers will wither away
House of glass will break someday,
Castle of sands will get washed away,
Candle of life will burnout someday,
Leaving behind, memories of us to stay,
Life is fragile and frail,
But we still hope and dream to be immortal,

As a young Christian I struggle alot with the concept of morality, and how the world isn't black and white but in fact over 51 shades of grey. I think my small poem series I wrote about being a young Christian called "Upbeat, The Islander" sums up my journey pretty well.

I'm a simple guy,
I like video games, music and succeeding without trying,
So when a man comes up to me and tell me he can save my life,
Who am I to turn down a free book from a generous passerby,
Strange how after hundreds of Reddit articles I find these red words the most astounding,
Each verse saturated with a truth beyond my understanding,
I embraced the scripture in my new-found belief,
Ditching skeptics and scientific contention for a biblical motif,
So with my newfangled faith I embarked on a holy endeavor,
To sift through a lifetime of personal uncertainty to uncover the answer,
I found myself under bottomless pizza boxes,
Buying time stocks from the evolutionary clock,
Discovering purpose through glimmering game discs,
Fashioning polygonal personalities into personable obelisks,
Uncovering the depths of my psyche excavating mountains of dirty laundry,
Rinse on, dry off, purging both physical filth and emotional quandaries,
Sharing walkways with speeding cars enslaved to a monetary duty I can't shirk
A journey of a thousand steps every pilgrimage to work,
My blood a bubbling brew of ambition and potential,
Yet required to surpass insurmountable credentials,
Ignoring the marked symbols in newspapers they seek to brand on my forehead,
Subjective opinions of civility and idealism dropped on me like warheads,
Cryptic predictions of personality and fate,
You think I need a dice roll to determine if I'm straight?
Countless evaluations to rationalize the psyche and soul combined,
What makes their opinion more viable than mine?
I'm taking buoyant steps upon the swamp to reach my destination,
Swapping carnality for divinity to achieve the ultimate self-preservation,
Cremating my mortality I seek to ascend,
Past primitive understanding of a purpose I cannot comprehend,
This road we walk is coated with trip-wire and paved with scorching coals,
Watch out for those flaming hours in your 5-day forecast so find the nearest foxhole,
The burden on our shoulders has already been lifted so there's no reason for us to be aching,
We're on the path to eternal salvation why aren't we skipping?
So why don't you tag along with me on this self-realization odyssey,
I can't promise explosions or tentacle-headed aliens but I know it'll at least be interesting,
Just you, yourself, me and I,
The most dynamic duo to ever breach the sky.

(Would've written something new but class in....2 minutes. bye!)

The Never Was

What is so frightening in eternal sleep?
A darkness with no outer rim...
Beginning and end have no meaning
Where dreams cease to be...

What stirs the heart at night?
Palpitations from the weight of thought...
The chest yields in physical form
A fear of sleep with no awakening...

Where was I a thousand years ago?
A not yet within a well of nothing...
A thousand years from now I fear
To be truly gone,

A never was...

Cold steel, a crisp edge
Yielding flesh and tattered dreams
Feeling again and finding my friend
Pain is my friend, Pain is my life
This is how I continue, this is how I survive
I dare not share this, my deep little secret
For fear that they may take away my friend
For fear that they remove my life's only pleasure
This pleasure is taboo, This pleasure is exquisite
The crisp edge, my yeilding flesh
This is how i cope, this is how i deal
This is my only way to truly feel

Love is a phantom, hate is a lie
why i ask can i not simply die
The reason is simple, to those who understand
Pain is my life, and Pain tells no lie

I have felt love, only a new form of pain
I have felt joy, but dissapears
I have felt all things, the only truth is pain
My dreams have all crumbled
My faith is gone
so how do I continue until the next dawn?

I take the steel, that wonderfully crisp edge
I accept this pain, I accept this edge
I know that this is real, I know I am alive
I know this is true feeling, As i wish that i would die

Joy does not exist
Love will simply crumble
So as ,through life, I stumble
I make my own joy
I make my own dark love
to the cold steel, with that wonderfully crisp edge

Red heat running down my face
Black pain emerging from my grace.
Crushing, breaking, snapping sounds,
My mind can not control the bounds.
Memory memory where'd you go?
Trying to prevent that one last blow!
Take me, take me, take me now!
I can not keep my solemn vow!
Anger ,anger fear in me,
Why does this evil have to be?
Help me! Help me! Won't you please?
This monster has me on my knees!
The cold metal to my head,
I wish today I would have fled!
Torment, torture, true despair,
Feel the bullet through the air!
Blackness, blackness all I see,
Did God come down and rescue me?

Mortality Bites

We are born with only one certainty,
That each one of us will die eventually.
We are reminded with every corner we turn,
That death lurks with every cut, scratch or burn.

Some take this and hide themselves away,
While some take risks and seize the day.
Does either option make you safer than the other,
Will it matter at all if your in the open or undercover.

In the end death will catch us all,
Each one of us will one day fall.
It is the burden of being flesh, blood and bone,
Mortality bites and one day the ground will be home.

I never knew you

I never knew you, my brother, Graeme.
You died before my birth.
Not even sure how to spell your name
So short was your time on this earth.

I know not why this prose formed now,
Some 40 years since you passed away,
But I hope, if soul persists somehow,
That we may catch up one distant day.

I'd like your innocent's take on things;
Was my existence up to scratch?
Did I make people happy, smile and sing?
Is life a game? Is there a prize? A catch?

But that knowledge would be for it's own sake,
As it could never be used or ever passed,
Except those whose life that death did take,
And returning from that crossing's no easy task.

We will meet too soon though, I have no doubt.
When my travels come to their end,
And then, my brother, we may let truths come out,
As my mortal shell joins the stars again.