DECEMBER COMPILATION (29 / 12 / 25 )

POST PREVIEW:

•  INSATIABLE HUNGER.
• Self-Gaslight.
• Chess.
• Parental Ineptitude.
• Tengu Princess.
• Alraune. 
• Foresight.
• Watchful Dragon.
• Nothing (left) to Say. 

INSATIABLE HUNGER

Chastity, Lust, like feudal lords, fight within me,
Both my Heart and Soul serving them as battlefields,
The Longing rising, Loneliness consuming all I see,
The Hunger begins—growls, fights, and never yields.

A side desires the innocent embrace of another,
The opposition, the bare softness of her body.
My Consciousness fights to smother this conflict,
With Morality slaying Whispers like an antibody.

The alliance of Chastity, Morality, and Consciousness
Face Lust, Whispers, and Longing with mighty guns,
And mountain-sharp swords forged by her—Loneliness,
The cruel mistress of ice-cold and a thousand suns.

She freezes my domain every night, ever merciless,
Burns my Heart and makes my eyes spill boiled tears.
Lust calls to action, Longing hosts the unholy mess,
Leaving Regret to deal with my Brain’s repairs.

Each day is a conflict; the Whispers remind me of it.
I twist in pain from the wish to be held, comforted,
Maybe just heard, loved, and in Chastity still fit.
One day I’ll be freed—when I’m finally dead.

Self-Gaslight

If only I could gaslight us into being just friends,
Instead of allowing myself to try stealing her heart;
It’s as if I haven’t learned from those dead-ends
That my heart got stuck in, for love’s deceitful art.

Even if I’d love and cherish her as she deserves,
I’ll never be handsome, strong, smart—perfection.
I confess that this truth does get on my nerves;
She shouldn’t be with someone with my complexion.

Can I just willingly chain myself to chastity?
I deserve not to reproduce, be loved, be wanted.
Being an ugly fatso is the summary of my identity;
It’s the sole gift and curse I have been granted.

Maybe if I act neutral and hold my words back,
Maybe I’ll kill off my desire to make her happy.
I must defend my whims instead of looking to attack,
Even if it means writing poems unbelievably crappy.

Chess

My pieces become the Western Army when I play;
My foe’s the Eastern Army by consequence.
Each major and minor piece a commander to slay
To establish strategically ultimate dominance.

The board feels like Sekigahara—smells like it;
Gunpowder and blood reek of the wood it’s made of.
The battle can only be won if I fully commit,
Like Ishida did before meeting Hideyoshi above.

I start with my pawns setting up shields cautiously,
Then my rooks, swiftly rushing with their matchlocks;
My horses ride toward the farther ends vigorously—
The only thing heard is the ticking of nearby clocks.

The moment our warriors engage in battle, I think:
What’d Kanbei do? What’d Zhuge Liang suggest I do?
Till it clicks: “Deceive, don’t chase, don’t shrink.”
I feel a surge of wisdom from my inner Sun Tzu.

And yet nothing guarantees I’ll win—as should be.
I’m no warlord; this ain’t no war. I’m but a pawn.
Perhaps if I studied the game, beyond I’d see,
For I know no more of it than would a wild fawn. 

Parental Ineptitude

Your constant arguments loosen my sanity;
My desire to live ever dropping dramatically.
Shut up instead of spitting words of profanity,
For I’m unable to see it through pragmatically.

You insult each other like you’re strangers,
Treat each other with contempt and superiority,
Whilst your children see you two as dangers
And develop anger under a sense of inferiority.

I know so, for I’ve grown to hate you genuinely.
Why don’t you think of the damage you do to us all?
Can’t you see how our home breaks simultaneously?
The day I leave, I won’t return, even if I crawl.

Each day I wonder, is murder the solution to it?
Is suicide the key to escape you two?
Does the answer lie in this hell pit?
How can I know what is and isn’t true?

By the end of the day, I see I alone am sane
Amidst the storm of bullshit you put me through.
May chastity never lead me to relive this pain
In the same miserable relationship as you two. 

Tengu Princess

Dazzling purple eyes, smooth, flowing mane,
Moonlight-fair skin, and a voluptuous shape—
Where is such beauty found in our mortal plane?
That I know not, for her kind descended from no ape.

Her body keeps vestiges of supernatural heritage,
Such as big jet-black wings, superhuman strength,
And the skill to manipulate wind to cause damage
By means of an aralia fan of considerable length.

The tengu princess, whose naughtiness is unbound,
Has been witness to mankind’s limited rule on Earth,
But her residential land nobody has ever found.
Be as it may, many are the secrets we have yet to unearth.

Her nature is a mystery to all, though endless records do,
In fact, talk about her as a maiden of incommensurable beauty.
Those who ever had the chance to fight her say so is true,
Agreeing too that she’s a fierce fiend not worth reducing to a cutie.

Worse would it be if she were a Moh Shuvuu, I dare say,
But who am I to underestimate an ancient deity like her?
Maybe I’ll get to share a cup of tea with her someday,
As I listen to her speak like an unmatched connoisseur.

Alraune

From the seed of the hanged was born long ago
A breathtaking plant-woman as pale as snow,
Whose undeniable allure led many to death
By means of her dangerous looks and breath.

Should one reap her from the ground she’s in,
Then doom will mark the man and his closest kin,
For the neglect of the poor Alraune may lead
To the misery of many, by one’s selfish greed.

She may bring fortune, luck, love, whatever—
But one must love and attend to her whims forever;
It’s a deal with the devil in the simplest of terms
That brings to one’s life more than risky turns.

Regardless of the intent of her bold keeper,
She’ll play her part as death’s little harbinger;
She’s a mandrake root, the kind we all heard of,
Uncannily human-looking, soulless like clouds above. 

The gallows or trees she was born under know well
That she exists for nothing more than raising hell,
And we know by whisper of the wind that it’s true:
Such fiends are better left alone and out of view.

Foresight

Is the love of today the curse of tomorrow?
I’ve always believed so, deeply, for I’ve seen it.
To many adults I know, it brought nothing but sorrow
And consumed their souls and bodies, bit by bit.

The choices of today—do they hold weight in the future?
I worry that if I love, I’ll love no more in twenty years.
What if I wake up one future day and start feeling unsure?
What if I no longer wish to love but be free from my fears?

Once the hearth is lit, fire and ashes come to be simultaneously,
And I fear love turns to corruption and misery—a mirage solely.
So is the reason I choose to stay away from love, deliriously,
Longing but hoping I get to die unshackled, even if lonely.

 Watchful Dragon (Hayabusa)

No enemy of his has ever been shown mercy,
For his cause is greater than any ever given.
In his eyes lie a reflection of all he had to see,
And all he had to face to stand above all men.

Even with discipline and kindness as his core,
He'd rip apart whoever threatens the balance.
For his duty comes first, calling blood to pour,
As his blade rids the world of evil's pestilence.

The dragon ninja soars ever free and fearless,
Relying solely on his unbreakable determination,
With his clan's black falcon as his sacred aegis,
Bound to chase doomsday to its own obliteration.

Hayabusa Ryu, the mightiest amongst all warriors,
Is not just a human, but one of draconic ancestry—
A hybrid whose fate foretold him many barriers
On his road to fulfill his duty to the best of his ability.

His road is paved by sorrow, revengeance, acceptance;

For a Ninja's path is not a smooth one with fancy moves,
But a roller-coaster where Death becomes acquaintance—
An endless test to see whose horse has the hardest hooves.

Many fiends he'd sliced to bits, giants he forced to kneel,

And none survived to see the sun rise again another day.
A curse weighing his clan's sins once tried him to conceal,
But he kept on fighting fiercely to end a little girl's dismay.

In the end, as always, he vanishes—letting peace reign,

Until the world cries out for his aid against the shadows.

The dragon never sleeps; he just watches from his domain
And trains diligently so that his inhumane power grows.

 

Nothing (left) to Say

What am I to write about with a mind devoid of ideas,
And a heart devoid of feelings or current passions?
Sometimes the soul I own lacks its own full pieces,
And is sleep-bound to one or many distractions.

The words I write are rendered thus meaningless,
And the intention stays bland, almost fragile too.
No poem gets to be read with due cohesiveness,
As if so depended on some environmental cue.

Some days, regardless of whether I want to write or not,
The flame doesn’t lit; the moon doesn’t shine either,
And I struggle to structure carefully once solid plot
For what’s gonna be my spirit’s newest breather.

I can express myself solely when the time is right,
But I can’t know when that is going to be exactly.
Inspiration may come in the middle of day or night,
And only then everything begins to flow out, aptly.

I am by no means a poet, let alone a writer at least,
So I wonder—do actual artists struggle like this too?
Do they also leave projects lying around incomplete?
Oh dear, if only I had somebody to ask these things to.