A Despondent Soul
In the pit of despair
Death calls out to my soul
Dark like midnight
Lonely and icy
My soul is cold
Fear has never been so chilly
My spirit is frozen in motion as death whispers
‘What if you ended it right here and now?
Fear sits in my heart
And I’m gripped by my vulnerability to the unknown
Like burnt summer leaves, my tongue is dry
My spirit is desperate for an oasis
Despair has never been closer
Much closer than family
No matter how hard I try to hide
It finds every corner of my spirit and soul to nag, tug and taunt
Hopelessness takes me by the hand and leads me to my bed
Lying down and starring into thin space with no way out
Not even a chance or route of escape
A prisoner of my mind, with my soul and spirit trapped beyond reach
I’m being strangled by the despondency of life
Just then, Like a flashing light
In a dark tunnel, never to be seen again
I see one single image, just the one and no other
My unborn child smiling at me
And I find the courage to speak
I tell death, not yet, my time is not up.
Oct 2009
We are orphans
The circumstances of my birth
Defines my space within the space of human existence
You ask why your parents, the ones who screwed each other
So your father could pop a sperm into your mum had to leave so early
We agree that they were of no use to us anyway
Maybe life knew they would play a cruel joke on us
So it helped us and got rid of them
I have asked my Ma and Pa why they adopted me
With a lying smile, they say their heart instantaneously fell in love with me
But I know that’s not the entire truth
I know my Ma could not and cannot have children
I know she still longs to have a child of her own
Shit is, she can’t
Her eggs are dried up
Life is cruel
You asked your aunt, why your adopted parents took you in
She said it was so they could extend their love to a child
And they did extend their love
Shit is, they too died in a car accident and so you were orphaned twice
You talk about your mum with joy
And though our stories are different
Our identity is the same
We are tied and bound to each other by the chord of identity
I’m an orphan
You’re an orphan
We’re orphans
© January 2010
Belinda Otas is a journalist, writer and blogger. She blogs at Belinda Otas Telling it as it is.
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