So much of our life is a reaction. As if it is determined by someone else’s priorities and emotions and needs, and we become byproducts of their ambitions and needs.
It could be anybody - a father for whom we become the fulfillment of failed dreams, a lover whose hauntings of failed relationships find shelter in our quiet nooks, a brother who leans on us when he needs validation or unquestioning support. The list goes on.
And we act as obedient support systems - loyal, available, eager to help. Even when we know we are asking for trouble, even when we know it is not in our best interest, even when we know life has something else in store for us.
But we still become someone else’s agenda.
And we suffer for it. Because we get sucked into universes we did not want to be part of, but of which we become reluctant denizens. And our lives change.
And instead of making our own lives, with our own mistakes and compulsions and realisations and hurts and sinews and wounds, we become carriers of other people’s needs, bridges to other needs, derivatives of others dreams.
Till we build the courage to look inside ourselves and force ourselves to learn to say - no, no longer, no more.
I sometimes feel my life is for rent.
People come in, they know I’m theirs,
and make me fall in love with them -
as mother, father, lover, friend -
and then they find purpose bigger than me,
and make me a footnote of living,
as if I would always be there.
.
Sometimes they die on me.
.
I can’t but take it personally,
and I don’t take it well.
Everything inside me wells over.
Why am I always the person left behind?
Used.
I feel emptied down to the lees of my heart.
Is it that I lean more, and stand vulnerable,
because I love till it’s like a disease.
.
Maybe I should have learnt
the lessons of life better,
known sorrow
as the only permanent resident.
.
I could have been more passionate of life,
and less of people, knowing
that presence is a pause in passing,
like a cascade of jasmine, fragrant,
but forever transient, here,
but soon gone,
soon gone.
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems which talk of the strange dilemmas of life -
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Wow! Love it. You know our mind is like a radio... it tunes in to the frequency we are vibrating moment to moment. I was feeling the same way and you gave such beautiful expression to it. This is how the poem becomes alive and stays with you for the longest time. Love the way you ended "till we take the courage to look inside.....".
This is so negative! You need to take a deep breath and ... go forward.