Is life as easy as one thinks it is?

I’ve asked that countless times,
On a personal quest,
Like rubbing a crystal ball,
Expecting the future to be revealed,
Decoded with enough grandeur to stand on mountains.

It used to make sense to me,
Like a fantasy RPG game,
Pick a character, achieve goals,
Maybe find a lover to woo and melt
Into endless nights together forever.

But no, it is never that easy.

I know you may see this,
Or envision voiceless thoughts of mine
That have tucked and folded into my brain
Penned now on paper,
Maybe even say to yourself:

“No shit, Sherlock, it is not simple.”

Or after hearing my own voice,
Crying out,
Screaming out,
Doing everything possible to express,
Everything bottled up like a hot kettle exclaiming:

“What are you stupid?!”

I’m getting ahead of myself,
Hoping, and expecting too much,
Raising the bar,
On the sick, obsessed perfectionist,
Where if I assumed poetry to be instantaneous and easy?

Then I’m nothing more than a drunkard in a stuck mantra,
“Oh, woe is me, and life is hard.”
Like a preacher on a street corner,
Expecting an unanimous amen of God’s love,
Easy but not inclusive in hypocrisy to broken souls.

Maybe I’m missing the point,
Like a lover missing one’s touch and kiss,
Imagining their skin and embrace,
The feel and taste of their lips,
To the place of heartache and loneliness.

Maybe I’ve lost touch in the depths
Of my poetic heart and spirit,
Endlessly rambling on with religion,
Their metaphors and songs,
Caught in between preaching and loss of the soul.
In the sea of applause and expectations.

It may not be a deal with the devil,
Achieving rich and fame in exchange for my soul,
Derailing with a drug-laced needle,
Wanting to forget, to the point of losing my mind,
But in the high, I lost myself to my worst enemy:

Myself,
Myself,
Myself!

The point of all this?
I swear, this is it,
That despite myself giving
While taking back my essence,
From the darkest side of me?

I vowed that poetry is my calling,
I believe that poetry is my dream,
I know that poetry is a part of me,
It is as connected in a circle,
From a newborn crying to the last breath.

Intertwined like laughter and joy.

Because like the saying goes,
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder?”
It is only half of what poetry is,
It is my church,
It is my purpose,
It is where I belong,
In a gathering where expression breaks the silence.

To defy our prison cells,
Poetry being what you make of it,
Boundaries of hate and insecurity,
Being torn down with Samson strength,
Mutual understanding in sync with one another.

No matter the religion,
Background,
Skin color.

As for a brief moment,
Harmony, and our identity,
Is known and seen,
Is seen and is true,
In our core.

No matter our inward battle with monsters,
Our perfectionist judgements we give
To ourselves,
Poetry is where we can step back,
Admiring art and creation as stars in the sky.