A Douleur Exquise laden self
Has blurred my vision for some time now
On the beauty of the exterior world
Which I have always taken for granted
I didn't realize how physiology could affect psychology
Until I replaced shallow breaths for deeper ones
I didn't appreciate how essential water is to life
Until I swam in the Gulf Sea feeling like my throat might be slit from the burning brine
Ive always resented metropolitanism in the city
Until yesterday, when I strolled along the corniche, lecture notes in hand, marveling at how far Man has come
That these very edifices that we loathe for breeding consumerism
Are also the enduring symbol of unwavering drive and ambition mankind possesses
I didn't necessarily value modernity and how easy daily life has gotten
Until my grandmother told the story of how a midwife ripped open her cervix sans anesthesia
To make room for her first newborn
Then proceeded to pour hard liquor over her diffuse and vascular wound so it wouldn't fester
All of this, while she was fully conscious
And yet...
I greet each day the same
Dear Lord, thank you for blessing me with all the following that you defiantly condemn:
Thank You for bestowing upon me belief in Your omnipotence
Simultaneously coupled with a greater tendency to deviate from Your doctrine
Thank You for heightening my senses to such an acute degree
That the older I get, the more difficult it becomes to find a suitable mold
To accommodate my disproportionate pieces
Thank You for the ability to tell the good apart from the evil
Only to predispose me to the rolling dices of ill-intention and desire to harm another person
Thank You for the gift of autonomy and self-governance
Yet having every decision and every action devoid of Divine intervention
Thank You for the abundance of acquaintances and friends and family
With a cave's echo of resonant loneliness
Thank You for the overflowing capacity to love
With no one to love
Thank You for my somewhat physically attractive veneer
To repress all the insecurities, the batshit crazy, and most of all the hollow lack of self-dignity
Thank You for stealing my father away from me when I was 7
That in my frantic search for another man to take his place
I placed worthless pieces of shit on a paternal pedestal
So they had no choice but to look down on me
Lastly, thank You for laying me down to sleep every night
And making sure, that every damn day, I am still alive
Breathing
Waking up as the reflection of an infernal demoness
Donning a mask of cherubic innocence
Ashes to ashes
Dust to dust
This is how I was created
And this is how to Him I shall return.