What Do I Deserve?

Enough

Squeeze the world, both for me and you.

Your skies are dark, and mine, determined blue.

Wake up to sirens and ceiling fans;

The world falls apart in a single span.

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What do I deserve?

For warm meals that fill

Born to a land by mere luck, not skill.

Where bomb clouds don't rise to obscure views,

And silence won't haunt through a hundred rooms.

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Yet still I ache, I have troubles too.

My wounds aren't fake. I break just like you.

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What do I deserve?

To flinch at sharp tones not shrapnel.

My skin's not been peppered by gravel.

We are all hurt, but not quite the same.

Your scars laid bare, but mine’s hidden in shame.

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I fight shadows to keep my mind’s drive;

You've fought harder, just so you survive.

And through silence, tried to grow from pain

While I've known clean water that comes with rain.

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But some...

Their gardens run dry from birth.

And who plants these seeds on a scorched earth?

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What do I deserve?

Who can answer this question?

I sit in my room with my reflection.

On my worst days, there's a bed for my head,

And I dream of better than the fallen dead.

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And yet—

This isn't guilt wrapped in my folds,

But it's a truth that I will to be told.

The weight I bear, it's no contest.

I squirm and I shake, yet you've known unrest.

If gratitude is to be scaled, I guess

It's a property that I must invest.

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So I ask nothing to shame these hands,

But to consider what it means to stand.

I'll lift what I can for those that crawl.

I'll steady your gait so you won't fall.

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What do I deserve?

More moments of this:

To think of my life and not harbor a hiss,

To see privilege in not using my fists,

To know if I vanish, I'll surely be missed.

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What do you deserve?

Surely more than this:

For all of your troubles,

A moment of bliss.

A hand that enfolds you,

A mouth that will kiss.

To wake in the morning with nothing amiss,

To know that you lived—escaped the abyss.

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I started writing this yesterday, laying on my bed with the AC blowing. I was thinking of the many mountains ahead that I have to climb and a thought came to me: what a thing to have this view. The distance and journey might seem great but be thankful that you at least start here.

Being human means we all have our personal hardships and wounds but there's some certain grace and inherited comfort we have just by virtue of being born somewhere else than another. In my lifetime I've not known war, famine, or displacement, yet I still have my own struggles. The poem is an attempt to balance empathy with self-reflection, to say: “My pain is real, but so is yours. And I will not pretend we suffer the same.”

I hope to move closer to gratitude & compassion.

Romans 13:9-10

[9]The commandments, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet (have an evil desire), and any other commandment, are summed up in the single command, You shall love your neighbor as [you do] yourself. [Exod. 20:13-17; Lev. 19:18.]

[10]Love does no wrong to one's neighbor [it never hurts anybody]. Therefore love meets all the requirements and is the fulfilling of the Law.