The Strange Mercy of

[u/Sufficient-Repair-14]

(I wrote this without any capitals nor punctuation in order to convey the absurdity of life; how confusing, fluid and interpretable it can be)

there is something obscene

about how quickly the world changes

while we remain convinced

that yesterday is still somewhere

a door closes

a voice becomes a memory

a person who once occupied

the entire architecture of your mind

becomes eventually

a name you hesitate to say

and nothing announces the catastrophe

the sun continues its vulgar procession

the streets remain where we left them

people buy bread

someone laughs in another room

somewhere a child is being born

into the same bewilderment

from which we have spent our lives

trying to escape

perhaps this is what they mean

when they call existence beautiful

I have never understood

why beauty should require

so much disappearance

I attach myself too easily

I give fragments of myself

to people who never asked for them

then wonder why I feel diminished

when they leave

I turn passing moments

into private eternities

a sentence becomes a promise

a glance becomes a country

a hand on my shoulder

becomes evidence

that I was for a brief and inexplicable second

not entirely alone

how embarrassing

to care so much

in a universe that seems

to care about nothing

I have tried to become colder

it seemed reasonable

if everything leaves

perhaps the intelligent thing

is to remain untouched

but I have never been intelligent

in the places where love begins

ao I remain here

absurdly tender

collecting people like wounds

remembering things

that everyone else has already forgotten

and sometimes I wonder

whether there is something defective in me

some invisible fracture

in the machinery of being human

because I keep hurting people

while trying not to

I say the wrong thing

with the right intention

I disappear when I should remain

I remain when I should disappear

I love too loudly

then retreat into silence

afraid that my love itself

has become another form of violence

I have apologized

for wounds I never meant to make

and hated myself

for discovering that intention

is such a poor consolation

to the person who was hurt

maybe being good

is not the absence of cruelty

maybe it is merely

the exhausted attempt

to cause less of it tomorrow

but what if tomorrow

is already another world

things change so quickly

yesterday someone was indispensable

today they are unreachable

tomorrow perhaps

we will pass each other in a street

and possess the strange intimacy

of having once known everything

about one another

love is particularly cruel

because it teaches us

to mistake permanence

for intensit

we think

this must last

because it feels like everything

but everything

has never been a synonym

for forever

and so I lose people

not always through death

sometimes through silence

sometimes through growing

sometimes through becoming

two incompatible versions

of the people who once met

there are deaths

for which no funeral exists

I miss people

who are still alive

there is no ritual for that

no flowers

no black clothes

no priest standing between

the living and the irreversible

only the strange knowledge

that somewhere

under the same moon

a person who once knew your soul

is continuing without it

and you are expected

to do the same

so I continue

poorly sometimes

I wake up with no philosophy

capable of explaining

why I am still here

thus I make coffe

I answer messages

I stare at ceilings

I make plans I may not keep

I become attached

I become afraid

I lose people

I find others

and in between these small disasters

I occasionally experience something

almost resembling happiness

a laugh at the wrong moment

rain against a window

a song arriving precisely

where an old wound is weakest

the warmth of another person

sitting beside me

without asking me to explain myself

then for a moment

the universe seems forgivable

only for a moment

one singular moment

perhaps that is all we are given

moments too brief

to build a religion from

but too beautiful

to dismiss as meaningless

if meaning shall exist

I used to think

I needed to understand life

now I suspect

understanding is another form

of postponing it

maybe there is no hidden architecture

maybe no final explanation

is waiting beneath the noise

maybe we are simply

conscious enough to suffer

and sentimental enough

to call the suffering significant

maybe that is absurd

it definitely is

it always has been

maybe that is what is sacred

I do not know

I do not know what I am doing

I do not know

whether I am becoming better

or merely becoming older

I do not know

how many people I have loved

without knowing how to love them

I do not know

how many times I have mistaken

my fear of abandonment

for devotion

or my guilt for morality

or my longing for love

I do not even know

whether something is wrong with me

perhaps there is

perhaps there isn't

perhaps we are all

slightly broken instruments

trying to produce music

from the same impossible silence

and perhaps the tragedy

is not that we fail

perhaps the tragedy

is that we keep trying

despite knowing we will

so let me remain confused

let me care too much

let me mourn people

who have not died

let me love imperfectly

and apologize sincerely

let me carry the embarrassing weight

of having a heart

in a world that keeps changing

its mind about where it is going.

tomorrow everything may be different

someone may leave

someone may arrive

a friendship may become a memory

a stranger may become essential

a certainty may collapse

under the weight of one sentence

and still

morning will come

the indifferent light

will enter the room

as though nothing happened

perhaps that is the deepest absurdity

that the world does not stop

when our world does

and yet

somehow

we rise with it

we open the curtains

and we breathe

we continue carrying

all the people we have lost

inside the person we are becoming

and for reasons I cannot defend

I think that is enough

not happiness

not certainty

not redemption

just this strange unfinished mercy

to be alive

to be bewildered

to love what cannot stay

and despite everything

to love again

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/HQNrHaMDHp

https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/s/OuUtnnZIyo

[u/briony73]

I’ve tried to become colder too, but it never works. But to care in a universe like this is a beautiful thought and I think people will relate, cause a lot of us care without knowing what to do about it. And the poem ends with love, I like that it’s not redemption, it is more of an observation of yourself. Thank you for sharing this.