By Mehar Malik
I can feel the stare
of all these weapons.
I can feel their desire
of wanting to be touched,
by hands painted red,
by a mind aching for closure,
by a body drowning in despair,
by a soul in lament,
a soul like mine.
I can feel the knife's eyes
lingering on the wrinkles of my brows
that furrow in perplexity,
of whether to fulfill their desires,
surrender to the ruthless draw of silence,
and extinguish my existence.
I can sense the greed
of the gun's trigger
craving to be pulled
once and for all,
and stain these walls
for the final time.
I can feel the blade awaken,
its thin sharpness peeking out
from its slender plastic bed,
hungry today;
risen from hibernation,
shining for too long
under the bathroom light.
Because I was momentarily enthralled by its peers;
these pills with a thirst just as grave,
not detrimentally violent
but numbingly silent and sedating.
I can see them lie spilled
beside a small puddle on the bathroom floor,
trickling past the threshold of the door.
I can feel it, the puddle.
I can feel it creeping toward me
through the cracked glass,
carrying my crooked reflection,
like a mirror to my morose deeds,
luring me into ceasing the guilt, forever.
But I resist the urge this time,
and pause to ask myself what I'm doing to suppress the same.
And for a fleeting moment,
a long awaited one at that,
I breathe the air, not remorse,
and refuse to feel ashamed
of the lines I dreadfully drew in red ink
and the dullness I caused to the scintillation of the blade,
or the fingerprints I left on the trigger,
or the nail imprints I pressed into the rubber grip,
or the scars, often mistaken for stretch marks
on these wrinkled arms.
"What is it you're doing, after all?" asks the bloodlust of these arms (weapons).
At that, I show them what I choose without hesitation,
what looks at me not with death
but with welcome.
The one that meets
my ineloquence with a cheer to speak,
my torment with a comfort so sweet,
my guilt with grace,
my perturbed mind and its chaos with quiet.
As I glance back at them,
their stare intensifies,
the weapons known to man
that help him take his life.
However, the one I'm holding,
this grasp reminds me of
the strongest weapon, unknown to many.
In my hands, as I jot this down,
a simple piece of plastic and ink,
beholds the power to outplay the trigger.
This pen,
my beloved weapon,
helps me bring closure to my thoughts.