I’ve tried to put out flames by feeding them hours 

Which I bail frantically, aiming to stay afloat. 

The more I labour, the more fire devours 

My time won’t smother the blazing won’t dry the boat.  

Though one should stop the other, you’d think 

This ship does burn, and this ship does sink 

Meanwhile, I am driven to the brink. 

Stood on the last planks before I drown or burn out 

I finally notice that something pierced my pail. 

It’s a strange relief to know beyond any doubt 

Diligence is not enough to prevent a fail.  

Yet shame speaks up, accusatory: 

“All those with virtue know victory 

Were you they, your toil would see glory.” 

True, it’s a poor worker indeed that blames their tool 

When results won’t appear, when deadlines are not met. 

It’s a poorer patron that hands out ridicule 

Not knowing the quality of tools workers get.

I can’t fill your shoes.

Unsurprising news

But who else to choose?

Fall, your burden’s mine to wear

Though too big for me to bear

When you’re woe, I am despair.

You trickle, I ooze

I’m noosed by your dues

Falter and I lose.

Here is a nest and it is good

Provides shelter, well-stocked with food.

Here is the sky and it is great

As, to most birds, the sky is fate.

There’s a difference twixt an albatross and a hen.

The latter can get respite anywhere, anywhen

Grounded, there’s no danger of exhaustion; one can rest

While the albatross coasts seas, puts endurance to test.

Though I wish to take to the air

I am scared of falling from there.

Flight brings me dreams of plummeting

Leaving the nest is suffering.

I’m still quite chickenish, clinging to familiar soil:

I’m baffled by notions of never-ending toil

How am I meant to take off, forever stay aloft

Soar decades till I’ve retired to a landing soft?

How do birds feel ready to fly

Knowing to falter is to die?

Crashed from having beat wings too young

Flight hums to me where it once sung.

From my perch, I cower, scared of inclement weather

Though my roost is unstable, how is the sky better?

I hop by reflex to higher branches of my tree

My wings mark me borne for open sea, not fenced-in lea.

An albatross is not a hen

What I can now, I couldn’t then.

Feathers fluffed full, I catch a breeze

Then, by instinct, I’m overseas.

Labour is not tiresome when it makes you feel free

Sans nest, delight lives in moving independently

We taste the sky each our way, be it a leap or shove

A different kind of safety is toil to rise above.

You’ve ground me up into pieces

Made me so small, I can’t see myself anymore

Continue to reduce me through your caprices

Make me so minute I fall through cracks in the floor.

In a minute or in a year

I’ve no doubt you’ll have belittled me to nothing

You’ll whittle me till I finally disappear

Too small to touch or torment, I’m atomizing.

Thus shrunk to my core potential

I grow in the corners I know you’ll leave unchecked

You’ve carved out chunks of me but missed the essential

Dust builds itself up, much like does my self-respect.

You left me grit and silica

Having swept all else that I had into the trash

But as mettle and flint are fire’s formula

I know I’m still equipped to birth embers from ash.

Sick of strife, I declare myself white flag

So, you come up to me with a tail wag

Dare me to prove to you my tenderness

Challenge me end our war with a caress.

I take your words to heart, hold out a hand

To be friends, a lick, I’ll gladly withstand

I rejoice that our fights will soon conclude

I offer amity but you see food.

I must commend you for being so shrewd

Pretending at peace so you’ll win the feud

‘Twas a mistake, you beg me understand

As if that will spare you my reprimand.

Now, I have learned not to extend sweetness

And greet bloodthirsty maws with bitterness

Then vindictively watch them choke and gag

Tasting the second chance for which they nag.

I have made what seems to be a mistake.

I know how to play dumb, stay and obey

I even know I should shake empty hands

And I am glad to hold them, make new friends

So long as I have not been left starving…

I am so good!

The last time an empty hand reached for me

I’m sad to say since there wasn’t food there

I did not give paw, just opened my maw

And took a bite of the hand that should feed.

It is quite an easy error to make…

I am still good!

I never said you were dead to me

When goodbye seems like more than enough

To make me become a medium.

You do not need to speak to be heard

When I’m so very full of your ghosts

That, in the absence of news of you

I find myself decrypting quiet.

The phantom pains of my shortcomings

Revenants wail I am grieving you

Shades brimming with recrimination.

I’m a worthless blight, just a burden

I’m a beloved soul missed each day

After seeing myself through your eyes

I’m full of spectres guessing your tone.

How can I move past this cruel haunting?

Where can I go to find my own voice?

We overlap like do broken shards:

I bleed out to know myself from you

For peace of mind, by strength of spirit

I dig graves for laters we won’t have

Funerals for distinct after lives.

There’s freedom in this exorcism

Finally laying our woes to rest

Is this the sepulchral forgiveness?

May your joys and sorrows ignore mine

My triumphs and troubles pass you by

I pray we’re freed from this enmeshed we

May we have separate paradises.

How I’ve thrived in this distance between us.

(Silence proves the fondest way to adore.)

You are an exotic repast and I’d like to partake

But each time I pull you close in order to taste your make

I find myself once again set on the path of collapse

Devastation, it awaits me for my gluttonous lapse.

Others swear you safe to sample

Yet when I heed their example

Tears well up and I cannot breathe

Your presence gives me cause to grieve.

Perhaps there is some raw emotion that I’ve ill prepared

But all of these repeated poisonings have left me scared.

So many love you, I cannot claim you to be toxic

However, I do believe that I might be allergic.

Sweet at distance, sour at lip

What a strange fruit your loving is.

Stanzas have lost literature’s respect 

Leaving it quite the act of sedition 

To keep honouring that old tradition. 

Poets take up words when they feel the urge 

With rapier wit, our dwindling army fights 

But those of my craft rarely know spotlights.

As recognition is hard to obtain 

Flowing lines lose in popularity 

Making mine courage or temerity.  

Perhaps that’s just the nature of the trade 

To dare greet those who don’t appreciate 

With faith in the worth of what I create. 

That art is how we decorate spaces 

And music is how we decorate time 

I have heard it be said, but what of rhyme? 

Verses do well to embellish the mind 

Take thoughts or emotions and leave them gilt

A sharp blade thus beckons for a fine hilt.