Hello wayfaring readers who wander here. I know I link this blog to a lot of places with public access but rarely ever update it. Legal life does that to you. You write so much at work you have little willpower to string more than two words into a sentence once you leave the office.
This is a bit of a cop-out, but it's better than nothing: I wrote this piece a long time ago and found it lying in one of my desktop folders a few days back. Rather tellingly it was my office desktop (I rarely use my home laptop anymore).
It’s date mark is 29th November 2013 but I am fairly sure it was written sometime before and just edited in November.
It is obvious I was not in a good place. I’m not there anymore. I may not be on cloud nine right now but I'm glad I’m not there. That’s not to say I won’t end up there again. In fact sometime in the future I'm sure I will.
Reading it again, I find the piece (somewhat embarassingly) overworked and heavy handed, but I know that when you feel your body ache both literally and figuratively, when you struggle to find hope, you aren’t entirely sensitive to subtlety—you just want to pour it out rather than worry about poetic merit or quality.
I hope this helps someone out there who may feel the weight of the world on his/her shoulders. You are not alone. We all go through this. And for instant comfort, read the beautiful Psalm 121.
Calcium
by Joshua WK Chong
My bones are caving in
Sunken in morning drudgery
Sun oppressed
Trembling
Even under moonlight
Invisible burdens
Weigh my frame
Sag my shoulders
Hidden fractures
Corrupt my composure
Silent aches drain
Just as palpably
But where is the respite
To heal unseen cracks?
Will I withstand crumbling –
Not sudden demolition –
But fine dust ground daily
Gnawed away bit by bit?
Will the cage
Turn so brittle
It heaves under
A fearful whisper?
Who knows?
Who knows?
Who knows?
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