Unsettled Poem by Lily Ives

That dreadful feeling of turmoil
seeps through my arteries;
I scream to cry but don't make a sound.
The pain is deep, and its source is a mystery.

Have you ever felt that something was missing?

I walked for hours anywhere and
nowhere just to escape the empty void.
I scanned the faces of strangers lost
in the crowd searching for meaning.
Hours, days and months morphed into smoke
as they disappeared into history, and yet,
I found myself inching back to that familiar place that hurts.

I want to move, to dance, to be anywhere,
but here in the still of the night.
I sit with my eyes closed, dissolving inwards, and ask:
Who is watching these thoughts?
Who am I?
Why is there a dichotomy between my soul, mind, and heart?

I hear random voices nitpicking my darkness.
Life feels like a battlefield
between morality and wickedness.
Can I say I love an animal when I eat its flesh?

It's human to be a hypocrite,
but I am tired of lies.
The lies we tell ourselves and others to murder truth
because evolution favours lies.

For centuries the battle between good and evil
endures in our perverse hearts.
But I don't want to be good;
I want to interweave darkness into my light.

So I sit here and suffer in silence
the inexplicable tug of change.
My roots seek to settle on new land
as the soil slowly drains away,
loosening the bonds of shame,
as I find my place among humans.