Kash Baloch — Poetry on Identity, Love, and Survival

Convinced he was the sculptor, as he chipped at me with a chisel. Petrified, every time he beckoned me, like canines called by whistle. Rusty hangers hid the skeletons, and all the corpses in his closet. How desperate for love, was I,  to ignore the red flags and gossip. First, I forewent my own happiness in exchange for demonic demands, my religion relied on empty promises, that I ate directly from his hands. Then, he moulded me like I was clay, and cleansed me of my former self, performed open-heart surgery  while assuring me he was my health. Soon, I was frail as decrepit trees, my nerves wouldn't survive the winter, I was infected by his insecurity, should've removed him when  he was just a splinter.

Vulnerable as a viper  without its venom,  I might seem weaker than ever  but I'm more poisonous than pythons.  Your assets no match  for the asp I really am,  my bark is only small  because my bite belittles many men.  I might appear to be a lamb  when you see me in the streets,   but better believe I am the boa,  who constricts before he eats.  The scent of your fear awakens the anaconda within,  before you even know it,  my fangs pierce your skin. 

As each new day brings me dangerously close to dirty thirty, I can't help but reflect on how different my life was supposed to be.  Expectation is truly the root of all heartache, with every failed expectation, our hearts weaken, and become more susceptible to breaking.   I could have been a doctor, traveling the world whilst spreading smiles & cures. Maybe even a lawyer using logic to defend morality and human rights. A tenacious tongue run by resilient mind the greatest weapons in my fight.  I cringe now as I think of the prestige of it all.  Instead, I am simply a contender—my heart & head stronger than the muscles that line the bodies of any flamenco dancer or professional wrestler.   My confidence perpetually propels me to new heights, but only on some nights. These evenings paint themselves inside my head, for when I sink down to the depths of the Marianas Trench and I need a reminder that sometimes I'm also blessed.  ...