Life in Poetry

Broken Wings

I was once a bird in my lonely memory.

With my wings, I soared the clouds above.

I barely heard others chirping like me.

It was a day once again with little love.

The heat and cold; the wind and skyscrapers,

They kept me challenged throughout our course.

The wings I'm proud of are real lifesavers.

They helped me sweep through without remorse.

But each day, the current kept getting rougher.

The wings I'm proud of can now only help a little.

So I was thrown off-course and I had to suffer.

Accepting that my wings were, in fact, brittle.

The wind was still furious as I tried to recover.

The other birds took shelter until the calm.

After days and nights, it was finally over.

But I am still broken, in a state of qualm.

They could not wait longer so again, they flew.

They headed to the sky without my presence.

They left me just a message to not feel blue.

How could I not be blue when feeling absence?

Thinking I'd heal faster, I wrapped myself up.

More bandages, more gauzes, more medications,

I easily forgot these things were just cover-up.

And then I looked back, spurred were my emotions.

In my haste and suffering, both my legs burned.

An idea came to mind to jumpstart my freedom.

To touch the clouds is a feeling I yearned,

A feeling I had when the sky was my kingdom.

My legs dashed to a place nearest to the sky

thinking that I already healed my broken wings.

Wrapped in these bandages, I tried to cry,

"The pain hurts! The pain stings!"

The burden I hid kept me out of motion.

I longed to run from all which I considered a lie.

And when it came to me that flight was an option,

I flew, and in that instant, I ceased to fly.

~

What happened recently is not something to joke about. We all have our own battles to deal with, each of their own level of difficulty. We also have our own ways of dealing with it as well as different levels of resilience against it. There are some fighting these battles and winning; some are on the verge of losing. Pain and depression can be a lot to deal with especially if one feels alone in his/her battles. Let us try to be more sensitive and bury our ignorance of this matter. We could start by checking out on each other and listening to the stories each of us may have been hiding, burdening us this whole time. And remember always to choose your words carefully. Even a simple act of lending them a listening ear helps a lot already. By doing so, who knows, maybe you're saving someone already from being chased into emptiness.

Rest in peace to the dear girl who suffered one last time yesterday. I offer my condolences to your family. I hope and pray that your story would remind people, especially the youth, that there are wounds that hurt more than the ones that bleed. I do hope also that your story would move our hearts to do something better for the people who are challenged emotionally as it has inspired me to write this.