WHAT HAPPENED TO US?

Searching for peace of mind among the fuss
Has left me asking, “What happened to us?”
The one question that occupies my mouth
In a bid to explain why our journey went south
From happy heights to freefalling flatly
Surreal how things suddenly soured so badly

What happened to us? Swore to “ride or die”
Then love burned and evaporated to the sky
Reminiscing to when we were inseparable
Before a sting in our tale ended this parable
Can’t help pondering if our door is fully closed
Hard to shut away all the promise it posed

K.G. says…

Many of us have had relationships and friendships where, at one point, we were certain would last forever – only for it come to an end somewhere down the line. It’s fairly straightforward to understand a bond being broken as a result of a fight, betrayal or irreconcilable differences. Those situations can be explained and eventually accepted.

This poem, however, explores the scenario where we can’t quite place a finger on exactly what went wrong or when it went wrong. It can be frustrating because closure becomes elusive. Lingering doubts or wishful thoughts may remain about whether things are truly over, making it difficult to move forward. Lastly, to clarify, I intentionally spelled “tale” this way (as opposed to “sting in the tail“) as a play on words in order to add another dimension in the context of line 10.

NOT EVERYONE IS ME

Not everyone is me and I’m certainly not everyone
They’re supposedly unique but I’m definitely unlike anyone
Compare myself with an animal, you insist?
Well, that creature simply does not exist
Used to want to bed in with all the others
To lay alongside them beneath the same covers
Grew up shy, feeling awkward and odd
Often left playing alone, just me on my tod
Whether to act like they did, sometimes I’d rehearse
How to make myself fit in and lift this weirdo’s curse

Not everyone is me; I eventually accepted
To stay true to myself and not to what they expected
Troubled childhood memories that long haunted me
Banished to the back of mind by a moment’s clarity
This weirdo’s curse may in fact be my blessing
Loving how my peculiar ways leave them guessing
Being all me, all the time remains a work in progress
Thankfully now, I no longer feel hopeless
Perhaps I’m special or maybe I’m just strange
Whichever way they see it, I refuse to change

K.G. says…

Not many of my poems convey my inner most thoughts and feelings from start to finish. In fact when writing, I’m often able to position myself in scenarios and empathise with emotions I haven’t experienced deeply. Don’t ask me how; it just happens somehow.

This piece, however, is different. It’s one of the sincerest expressions of my true feelings. The subject matter has long been a recurring thought in my mind, particularly when I was younger. It’s something I’ve learned to embrace and hopefully it can help others to accept themselves for how they are. It’s perfectly fine to have quirks and be different to everyone else. Being “normal” is so common.

TRIPLE H

An aspect of humanity that triggers my outrage
Is the millions wrestling to survive – the Triple H
The homeless, the hungry and the heartbroken
Burning in a hell on earth and left smoking

Saddening that some people live on the street
Pressed to the corners like the world’s trying to delete
Meanwhile vast wealth is stored by the elite
Yet poverty is nowhere near to being obsolete

Maddening that “third-world” children struggle to find food
As their lands are mined for minerals and drilled for crude
People dying from starvation with no crumbs on the plate
Elsewhere, fat cats undergo surgeries to lose weight

If justice was granted, the innocent wouldn’t be wronged
But they are forsaken to feel like they never belonged
Can society be deemed successful if so many are ailing?
Damning reality is that the whole world is failing

As mother nature is outgrown by her human seedlings
Some seedlings shoot at the expense of their siblings
A survival of the fittest unlike any other species
Sucking life and blood out of fellow humans like leeches

K.G. says…

There are too many injustices in the world with a lot of them being man-made. One of them is the degree of disparity in wealth and opportunity among classes and nations. The very essence of human nature [ambition, greed, laziness, selfishness, etc.] means there can never be a ideal world for all. No social or political system can be put in place which is perfect for every person’s needs but it’s still a damning reflection on society as a whole that some people have to endure the worst of conditions.

The evolutionary theory of “survival of the fittest” in the animal kingdom gives a disadvantage to those born physically weaker. However, for human beings, that seems to have transpired into “survival of the richest”, and that is even unfairer. Does that make us worse than the other animals?