Jacob Arasim is a young writer and a student at the Boise State University. Arasim believes poetry is especially important as a medium to elevate experiences, an art form to expand on self-growth, nature, and storytelling. His sources of inspiration reflect his own life as a young, thriving college student. He draws from his existential crises of the twenties and all those relatable moments that challenge and sometimes boost his journey as a young writer.
THE BURDEN
Remembering the first and the last
Of overbearing affection, now the past
The tulips parted with uneasy drear
And over the horizon, the sun delivered fear.
Like quicksand my qualms anticipated
To drag me under, how I’ve miscalculated;
With every phantom of every nightmare
I slipped and fell, pursuing without care.
Flowers, music, love, it all sat bountiful
Inside a bed now a molded coffin horrible.
Twice upon this same established love
The other so flew away my gorgeous dove;
Now eternal Winter wakes, a drought of misery
To sleep alone and live a frosty travesty.
Just as Hamlet dealt a poisonous wound
From a blade of black deceit consumed.
Even so a kingdom, Denmark, still saved
And another wall my gentle heart it paved.
“When I woke up to you sleeping”
It was the start of a new ending
Another morning, the tedious daily grind
But a discovery I’ve yet to find
With milk white skin so smooth
And long, red hair that hindered truth.
I was awake but disparage was on par
Blood-ridden tissue and decay, like a dying star
However a relationship sought so close
And yet so far, it was an act to pose.
“Betrayal” they say, “a demon with looks”
With a piece of that organ she took.
Although Joel, she “drowns in good intentions”
I’ve exposed my cries, my fury, my confusions
We were annihilated by a barrel of fire;
A tinder box of irrational tact, wrought evil transpire.
In our worst we still strove as the best
Despite our lies, silence, a calamity jest.
Now trapped in this void of collapsing skies
Where scrapers of memories and happiness dies
Hence, call forth the Burden, a creature astronomical
Slender, a silent fellow, and his height so comical
Wreckless in nature with black, glistening eyes sunken
Although slow in approach, always trudgin’.
Destroying what was real and hopeless fantasy
Filtering with mindless anger and sadness, it took fancy
To bring back its home of a cracked and dry eternity
By raising internal destruction equivalent to Trinity.
Soaking up this poison and this rage flowed
Inside the soul that felt what the Burden showed.
Isolated in a never-ending loophole of purgatory
Suicide would make a better ending to this story.
It’s a place we call home but never wish to return
Albeit a visit required, lest the lot of heartburn.
We must face the Burden and its self-harm
And encounter it with a strong, tender arm,
With forgiveness to eradicate the blaze
Only to turn to Paradise without a hint of faze.
Over dry, brown grass of corpse soil
Smothered in ice, slowly melting away the toil
Subdued by barricading, warm sheltering rays
The clear, liquefied sublimity, of remedying ways;
Sprout forth a field of jade, as if never touched
Providing cushion for these broken joints crutched.
Here I awake in the warmth of my bed forlorn
Alone, stranded on a boat in this gorgeous morn’.
Will I extend and test another dip so daring?
No rush, all the time in the world, no one’s glaring.
Now the sea remains calm, a rippling, tranquil masseuse
The long, bearable wait begins, for my singing muse.
**
Photos by @shainadaina
