You Of All People, a poem by Abhinav Aradhi

 

You Of All People

All I’ve ever wanted is to be beloved.

To feel like my place in this wicked world

Is finite.

To feel like a cog in a seamless machine.

 

To feel the tremors of my impact.

To feel the grateful subjects,

Of my divine influence.

To be the largest gear.

 

To fit into merciless murals,

Painted by all those with purpose.

No color of paint defines me.

I am toneless.

 

Robotic in my motion,

Traipsing through every cruel day.

I feel the glare of the sun on my hair,

Unruly as always.

 

Who to talk to, besides the air?

Who to blame,

For the still silence of my social grace?

My mother, my father, or me, the fool?

 

Or is it the terrible truth of the ground,

That some of us were destined to die,

Before we had clawed our way out of youth?

That we were muted before we had a voice?

 

That, with every moment,

Another nerve snaps,

And all the horror in the world impounds?

All we are is Atlas, upholding our failures.

 

We watch with envy the gleaming ones.

The ones who Fate decided

Were worthy.

I hate you all.

 

Call me juvenile,

I know I am.

I’m such a child.
A child with an overwhelming id.

 

And all I’ve ever wanted is to be beloved.

To feel the warmth of someone’s sun.

To feel the words slip out my mouth.

To feel the utter grace of confidence.

 

Primal rage over spilled milk,

Milk I’d never gotten to taste.

I let it all flow by me into the hourglass,

Then lament the loss after.

 

I’ve only ever wanted to be beloved.