5. A Life for a Life
DoHH – Physical in Man
July 7th 2024
On the days that are hard to look in the mirror,
Those days spent curled up in the furthest corner of the bed,
Trying to disappear into the quiet,
In denial of the world and the cards it has dealt,
How much cruelty can one soul bear?
How could it be?
Eyes shut, I build an alternate reality,
A softer version of life—
One where the weight is less,
Where the past does not sink its teeth into my flesh.
On those days, push me.
Push me to the furthest corners of the Ecclesiastes of it all,
Into the meaninglessness of my self existence.
In the deep, reveal to me the ways of this fleeting reality,
A mere breath, a passing tide,
Yet a tide that carries seafarers toward something;
Something – Somewhere,
Where my being recedes in the higher things,
The human engulfed in battles with its own kin.
And from the deep arise in me anger –
A fury against what is not,
A thirst and hunger for what was, what is and what will always be.
Is this it?
Is this all there is?
Amidst the questions of existence,
Life’s relentless inquiries,
Of who, Where, Why, How, What—
Guide my fractured heart,
Hold me in the starkness of reality,
The is and the isn’t, the here and the gone.
I have been gone for too long,
My spirit will surrender,
My heart will break;
In the surrender and breaking, my body will fight.
Fight for what exactly?
It is cultured in truths of its own,
Conditioned in lies of self-preservation.
However, this breaking doesn’t care,
It is relentless,
It intends to take it all down.
A skyscraper to rubble,
A life for a life,
The cost of a rebirth.
The way of a stiff-necked body is to resist,
Slowly losing one part after another,
Until, in the end, it is forced to submit—
Not by will, but by paralysis.
It will be a long journey to acceptance.
But here’s to the first step.
Here, curled up in the farthest corner of the bed.
Deborah Nyamu,
DoHH, 2025.
