Negativa

I don’t want to fail
and fail to recover from my fumbles.
I don’t want to misunderstand
or let my best judgment crumble.

I don’t want to peer in the mirror
and frown at my face,
or flinch at the look of my skin
when I twist my body for inspection.

I don’t want my self
to be a shell for my shortcomings.

I don’t want to fall in love
and discover that I’m drowning,
‘cos I embraced a stony soul,
which I once thought was a life-ring.

I don’t want to be too nostalgic,
like a scavenger
scrabbling in the scrapheap
of rusted opportunities.

I don’t want my parents to go
before they can teach me
almost everything
I need to know.

I don’t want to be manipulated
and have my emotions toggled like a console,
or sacrifice my will
to the whims of other people.

I don’t want to be reckless with my beliefs
and scar the freedoms
of the vulnerable.

I don’t want to work in a profession
that corrodes my optimism,
or follow a career path
that is not aligned with my ambitions.

I don’t want to be so bold
that I can’t see dignity in humility,
or be so dull
that I can read a forest’s worth of books
yet be incapable of talking
to the person next to me.

I don’t want my independence
to be confused for loneliness,
but I don’t want to bear the sadness
of having no prospect of companions.

I don’t want to strangle words
when I wrestle them
to pin down their meaning.

I don’t want to draw a blank page
then realise I have more to say,
but I don’t want to say too much
and obscure the picture I’d like to portray.

I don’t want to be forgotten
by those who knew me,
but I don’t want to be remembered
as a nondescript personality.

I don’t want to be mired in melancholy,
and miss out
on the shimmering crimson horizon
we may call dusk after the toughest day,
or dawn after the most awful night.

I don’t want to be weak;
not so weak
that I can’t shift the sturdiest rock,
fight off the mightiest opponent
or chat to the prettiest lady,
but so weak
that I didn’t even believe that I deserved to try.

I don’t want to feel helpless,
lapse into complacency,
and persuade myself that
every variable is unchangeable.

I don’t want to complain about
the world’s injustice without sincerity,
or fuel my outrage
into rhetoric only.

I don’t want to be so scared
that I can’t drag up dissent from my guts,
though fear is a silent alarm wailing
in the hearts of those who’d rather not
lose more than they’ve gained,

and I don’t want to lose more than I have;

not my friends to constant bickering,
nor my health to careless living.

I don’t even want to be the guy
who never wanted to be anything else
but the guy he never wanted to be.

I want to be the man
apart from these denials.

I want to reach the truth
tucked under
the surplus features of me.

So I cut away the inessentials
like an artisan creating a sculpture,
and what remains should illuminate
the shape of one’s character.

Still,
I’m not a sculpture,
and I’d rather not push my
mind to inertia.

So,

as long as there are beats
left behind my chest,
I’ll dance off the rhythm
of the flesh we live in.

Even if I don’t want to stop,
the moment will come when I must,
and I don’t want to lose hope
in all of us
before this earth burns to dust.

A version of this poem was first published in Millenialogy (2013).