Your affection echoes like a song

Whose words I can’t quite yet remember

So, when you sing them, I hum along

But love can come without euphony

I’ve heard it drone and I’ve heard it shrill

Never thinking it was that off-key.

Some atonal ballads appeared nice

Till you changed what I deem quality

Now, less than you offer won’t suffice.

You are my bare minimum of good

The baseline I use to gauge enough:

A value often misunderstood.

Enough is your harmony by mine

And how we peal sweet, toll pure, croon true

Till my views of duets realign.

Our mixed vocals lilt simple ditties

And those melodies leave me at peace:

Not all blessings are grand symphonies.

This world is very vast

Full of firsts, few of which last

Full of trial and full of error

Full of uncertainty and terror

There’s no sure way for a person to grow

But this is nothing that you do not yet know.

You are just a small thing

Trying to make your voice ring

Hoping that if you can stand out

You won’t be trampled or pushed about.

Recall when all appears too huge to handle

No amount of darkness can dim a candle.

When you can’t hear yourself through the noise, you still sing

You shine, even without seeing the light you bring.

You thought I’d never fall so low, but here I stoop

Surprise! I’ve taken to my sickbed with a stupe.

My malady came sudden, you’ve no time to mourn

My candle’s light flickers – I will be dead by morn.

You plead that I not go, tell me I am your world

It’s amazing how quickly your opinion whirled.

I had told you that I was decreasing in might

Begged you to lower your expectations a mite

And oh, your fury at this ask! It left me pale.

I felt loved like water feels held by a pierced pail.

When I grew too ill to last and became death’s prey

Like anyone else, for salvation, I did pray.

Still, I ailed – but in doing so I came to know

That should I prove hurt enough, you would heed my no.

When my health began to unravel at the seams

You finally saw how needy I was, it seems.

Recalled how precious that it is, this bond of ours

And cut me some slack when I neared my final hours.

The pressure you bequeath me will, at last, lessen

It’s when I near perish that you learn a lesson.

I’ve wondered at the point of the efforts I make

It’s hard, exerting myself for exertion’s sake

I cannot lift great weights nor run any races

Per day, I scarcely cover five hundred paces

I am massive and I know it.

A stem overburdened by a blossom too large

My spine is wearied by the flesh it holds as charge

My back twinges and my back aches, a frequent cramp

Chronic pain has come to me and set up camp.

I’d lost grace and elegance, come to hate motion

Then I tried yoga as routine of devotion

Expecting no boons from ten minutes of patience

Doubting dedication would make a difference.

Then one day, I woke and tasted sweet relief!

The seizing had eased: the pain, when present, was brief

I cheered at my fortune and prescribed to good luck

Having in hand the fruit I’d tried so long to pluck.

But it’s not coincidence: labour yields reward

With each single warrior posed, I trained toward

Release from agony, liberty in body

And feeling at peace in the flesh that carries me.

I’ve wondered at the point of the efforts I make

Though small, they’re ones I learn to do for pleasure’s sake

The pleasure of walks, not winces, and restful sleep

The pleasure of slow-moving waters that run deep

My change is massive, I know it.

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.

Is someone in a hurry? I’m most certainly not.

Dancing for dancing’s sake, I’m lalalaing all day

You put pressure on me till my temper runs hot

And I hold my achievement hostage, calling to say

I’ll blow this thing and leave it an utter disaster.

Go ahead, keep treating me like a wordsmith robot

And I’ll show you I’m an excellent automaton

Just like a dolly, I’ll prolly make a pretty plot

Since I know you’d love to force my flow, wave your baton

But beware! I won’t follow you; I’m my own master.

My best speed? I move all at once like an avalanche

While my worst speed sneaks in bits and bobs like creeping sand

When I’m quick, it’s game over before you’ve time to blanch

And slow, I’ll sink you before I obey your command

My creativeness is a force when it does appear.

Generate activity! You would like a carte blanche

Have me scurry to please senses so that you can grandstand

Pressured to display beauty, I break my olive branch

My peace goes with it – you should prepare for a backhand

Here’s your pithy line: take a long walk of a short pier.

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.

I feel I’m adopted.

All I think about is

Reasons I was orphaned.

I feel recollected.

All I can wonder is

Why I was forgotten.

I feel like I’m chosen.

All I can recall is

Where I was not innate.

In truth, I feel token.

All I can wish for is

To have been treasured, prized.

A new song welcomes me

Its chords praise how I heal

I am its fosterling.

Of you, my origin

All I can say for sure

Is that I wasn’t kept.

But I’m receiving overtures from a planet

Of people who aren’t you, so I think I will grow

And stop seeking out your face from within the crowds.

I think I will just… go.

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.