I started telling myself, “God is able.” Believing that very soon, He will grant me my wish. I then started praying harder for death, but it did not happen. Then came the sudden change of heart. Not that I didn’t want to die anymore but I thought I was praying in a wrong way. I was surrounded by people yet I felt so alone.

I was vacuumed in a very dark world alone and all I could see was people silent when I was dying. I wished so badly that at least one of them could ask me what was wrong. But hey, it was that time where everybody was totally concerned with what was happening in their own lives. I remember I expressed my feelings in a poem that went like this:

I’m lonely
I’m lonely in a way that I find myself searching
I search
I search soul deep within me and all I can feel is the heartbeat
I search and find nothing but a hole
I search and find nothing but a void
I search and find loneliness all over like a dark cloud

Loneliness
Loneliness is taking away the joy
Loneliness is taking away the happiness
Loneliness is taking away with him, the smile

The smile I used to wear is gone
The joy and happiness that filled my heart is gone
I am fagged of his diabolical acts
He emerged and was egregious
I tried to elude him but I couldn’t
I thought he was exiguous

But he exacerbated
I searched within me to elucidate
But the elation and equanimity vanished
Now I feel like the days of my life are fading
Are fading away like footsteps washed away by wind on shore
As I search for a way to emancipate from him

For I am lonely and it hurts
But one thing for sure is that I’m not going to be lonely forever

I released my emotions and frustrations with a pen and a paper. I thought to myself, rather a pen than a sword. That was how I felt. I wanted people to read the words I was saying in silence and none of them opened the eyes of their heart to see what I was saying while my mouth was shut. My life was as cold as the grave. I was dead yet alive, at least that’s how I felt and how I perceived myself and my life. It was like I was in a pit faced with silent walls. Let me use a pen that is mightier than a sword once more to try and put how I felt artistically in words.

In a pit faced with walls silent I am
I am in a pit with nobody to talk to
But walls staring at me with their mouths shut
And the silence is killing me

I am in a pit so dark in silence
With pain and sorrow reigning and no beauty to behold
In a pit where pain and sorrow is reigning making life worthless
Because the heart is forever heavy with no soul to confide in

In the darkest pit I am
With rivers of tears running over my face
And a sea of blood gushing out of a heart torn into pieces
By pain and sorrow more than I can bear

In the darkest pit I am
But light will eventually come
so rest assured, I am a prophet in training

At least after writing this poem I no longer felt like I was in pit, but in the wilderness. I started believing that I was really a prophet in training. That I was in the wilderness which is a varsity for the spirit. That the muscles of my spirit were and are being strengthened through it all. But though I was taught and my spiritual muscles were strengthened, I was torn apart.

I cried every day, trying to unburden myself. Though I had Jesus as the Sabbath, still I cried because the pain took over. The pain became unbearable. I perceived my life as worthless. Nothing brought a smile to my face. To smile, I smiled because I could not cry. I smiled because I had no choice. I could really feel the days of my life fading away.

I even began thinking maybe people like me deserved no joy. That’s how I felt because nothing in my life seemed to be going right. All areas of my life were messy.
Then I no longer knew what to say to God. Not because I was out of words, but because He was not granting me what I asked for. I started praying for two minutes…simply saying, “Lord, let your perfect will happen in my life and in the lives of your people.”

***

Tell us: What do you think about the poems in this chapter?