I am but a selfish child

Teach me Patience

for I am my own downfall

Always holding on too tight

Trying to grasp onto life

Leaving bruises with my clawed fingers

Unable to accept

the ethereal, the abstract

The need to see everything

and understand everything

and hold everything 

Infinitely drawn to the mysterious

Yet unable to handle mystery

It drives me insane

I am intensity 

I am a volcano 

Ready to move the earth itself

when I’m awoken

I am beautiful

I am terrifying 

I have too much to give

How do I teach my hands to be gentle?

Teach my thoughts to be patient?

When it is against my nature to be restrained

I am my own downfall

Running headfirst into chaos

Without any regrets

I want all the beauty 

and all the pain

Staring into the face of all horror 

I would rather feel every bit of heartbreak

Than feel nothing at all 

The more I try to be patient

The more impatient I become 

My mind a cacophony of all the thoughts and words left unsaid

I love so much that it hurts

Yet I would rather love and lose 

and be a martyr

than be anything less than what I am 

My love is not pure

I am but a selfish child 

Angry at the world

That no one else can give as much as I

That no one else would suffer as much as I

I am not for the lighthearted 

I am not for the reserved 

Unapologetically crass

Brutal in my fight for justice

in my fight for what is real

I have all the answers

I hold the key to happiness

in my blood stained hands

But in my stubborn nature

My temptation is strong

to throw it all away

To succumb to the force of gravity

Pulling me once more into my orbit

Forever wishing to be free

yet unable to let go

© 2024 Marieke de Koker Artwork © 2014 Marieke de Koker monoprint on ink & digital art