Young Man, Rise | Varun Sam

Broken, disheartened, desolate,

Up, down, rocking side to side,

Aimlessly adrift in the ether of despair,

The shadow; warm, the body; cold.

I am not dead but, I am alive no longer.

Consumption, the sole recourse to ablate

The pain and suffering of existence.

Bouts of mindless consumption spaced

by pain-laden moments of insurmountable unrest.

The shadow; warm, the body; cold.

I am not dead but, I am alive no longer.

Deep in the trenches of my own sanity,

I question the bounds of vanity unfettered,

Drenched in sin a broken soul,

Dearth of hope for weeping kin.

The shadow; warm, the body; cold.

I am not dead but, I am alive no longer.

Life has become a meaningless endurance,

Days spent yearning for this pain to subside,

Each night grows darker than the night before,

Darker grows the abyss that sunders my will from my endeavours

The shadow; warm, the body; cold.

I am not dead but, I am alive no longer.

Blinded by the woes of this merciless world,

Upon the canvas of this broken conscience I am,

Ready to splash my crimson paint,

The shadow; warm, the body; cold.

I am not dead but, I am alive no longer.

Panting as I lay contemplating the deed,

I heard the gentle whisper of his voice in my heart:

"I have called you by your name, you are mine, you are precious"

The shadow; cold, the body; warm.

I am alive, I am dead no longer.

I was dead for I had forgotten him who breathed life into me.

In my darkest hour he said,

"Young man, rise"

And I was aware of the purpose of my existence.

The shadow cold, the body; warm.

I am alive, I am dead no longer.