Darkness Of My Heart

• Joses Tirtabudi
• Poetry
• 2010

Quaint little house, oh, so spotless white,
So innocent, clean and pure, bathed in light.
Inside this house, so cosy and fine,
This house is my heart — this house is mine.
Wherever the sunlight touches, quite clean,
But in the dark shadows, demons unseen.
In here lives a tortured man — the real me.
Every day I fight myself — fight to be free.
In here are my thoughts, the gross and vile,
Things that make me sick, and hate bitter as bile.
I may seem alive, but I feel mostly dead;
I’m living in an atmosphere of pure lead.
A whited sepulchre, tomb for men deceased,
Filled with rotting bones on which worms feast.
Every second I’m waging a ruthless war,
A war unlike any war, a war not bound by law.
Tortured soul of mine, trapped in this abode,
Crushed and weighed down with a heavy load.
The darkness presses so hard around —
I scream yet no help seems to be found.
God, help me please, I’m stuck. I need You.
Come and do whatever it is that You must do.
Come and save me, make my sick heart whole.
Darkness of my heart! God! Save my soul!