Grab the paper and let it bear the burden
Of the ticking clock looking at your life:
The pendulum swings,
The occasional rings.
Pencil and eraser like a butcher’s knife

Open up your soul as the paper groans
Where is joy? The clock ticks sadly away
But nothing smiles.
Just broken whiles
Laid on the page in slow sullen sway.

The luggage says “Life once was worth it”
Your selection of instances led to hell
And the pendulum swings
To painful mourning.
Erase those parts? How to? Pray tell!

Can the burdened soaked page give answer?
Who cares! Tell me where else I must seek
As all is laid bare.
The page’s blank stare
Neither tells nor hides my failure’s peaks!

Burn! Let the heat steam away the pain
Till the ashes wash away all feeling here
I quit! I quit!
No restart! This is it!
End it all as the ash cracks and smoke’s clear

Master, the tempest is raging?
He’ll master the endless derailment!

When storms come, in silence turn to the Lord
There’s no page too sordid, no moment too bored
No pain he can’t erase
No low he can’t raise
No matter the cost He’ll make sure you’re re-moored

To the purpose that rejoiced at your conception .
Not in wind, nor fire, nor Earth’s contractions
But in the still candle flame
Knees, if they can handle pain,
Whisper: “Lord, give my dark chronicles a new mission:
To serve you alone, till the ticking clock’s cessation.

(c) nyonglema