Heartache

Dead Joy

~ Iyan Igma

Your eyes are as profound as lies
And just as hard to maintain.
Something within me surely dies;
We can never be the same.

Irresistible as mayo,
You’re as healthy for me, too,
In the realms of Galileo
A star now burns thanks to you,

For you took all the light from me
(Loving you was my worst gaffe)
When you coldly killed the only
Child that I was like to have.

Now you expect me to forgive
Murder done without consent
To half of me that now should live,
Being fully innocent?

What’s worse, you expect my love still,
Though you know how much I’ve longed
To have what you thoughtlessly killed;
Your heart has never belonged

To me, and neither will the child.
Go, leave me before I destroy
You, for my emotions run wild,
Seeking vengeance for dead joy.

When No One Can See

~ Iyan Igma

The lamps are out and your knock comes,
You stand with coat obscuring face.
I open the door; you glance ’round,
Hoping you weren’t seen in this place.

You tell me with the lights down low
That you love me with all your heart,
But leave me before the dawn comes
So that none would think you a tart.

You pass me by in the public,
Not even bothering to smile.
I know should I give affection,
That you would be moved with denial.

Later your knock would come again,
And you’d apologize to me,
Trying to explain how it is
You love me when no one can see.

Scorching Epiphanies

~ Iyan Igma

In the falling brimstone embers
Of the Sodom that is my heart,
My mind vividly remembers
How naïve I was at the start.

Memory sears more intensely
Than flesh and bone could ever stand,
For it sees me kneeling densely
At an altar taking your hand.

Mem’ry replays the tragedy
Neither Shakespeare nor Sophocles
Would durst have e’er written. Wryly,
I count scorching epiphanies

That tell me where I went astray,
And straight into my destruction.
My ideals all have melted away,
Destroyed by false love’s seduction.

My reputation and my friends
Were not so fortunate as Lot.
I claw at my eyes with my hands,
Wishing I and my mind were not.

Paradise Riven

~ Iyan Igma

We needed no heater
When our marriage was young,
For love was our warming fire,
And the air was sweeter
When it filled either lung.
Why did we let it expire?

They say that love is blind,
And truly I ne’er saw
Your many frailties. Instead,
All that my eyes could find
Was sweetness and pure awe.
Then, why should our love be dead?

I could almost eat off of love,
And it had the sweetest savour.
Love was such a glorious feast!
Fallen like fruit from high above,
It has the most rancid flavour;
You sup like a vulturous beast.

To love was to be in heaven,
And I worshipped you on your dais.
I was an Adam who ne’er fell.
But now paradise is riven,
And I have been exiled to lies.
Only Adam knows of my Hell!

The Sweetest Salve

~ Iyan Igma

I feel almost like your stalker;
I’m obsessed because I love you.
But there is one key difference,
I know that I can never have you,

Because I’m not worthy of you.
I sit imagining your voice,
Your foibles—the final details—
That God had crafted there by choice,

And I cry, knowing you’d have dragged
Me by my collar to heaven.
But I have naught to offer you,
And there’s naught that I have given

To merit you. What’s faithfulness
And cherishing eternally,
When compared to my horribly
Corroded mess spiritually?

And so, I’m hopelessly in love
With you for aye, though you’ll ne’er know,
Because I can never express
My true emotions for fear. So,

If the past years have been a clue,
I’ll languish, battling depression
That would have me do foolish things
With its powerful suggestion.

Though I’ll have not your heart, may it
Have all that I’d want you to have.
May it be spoiled in love alway,
And that would be the sweetest salve

For me, since that alone’d atone
For the suffering that I feel
Without you, but always with you,
And beside you each time you kneel.

Burning Beauty Across the Sky

~ Iyan Igma

O Love, you fickle meteor
Burning beauty across the sky,
Tempting my heart with amazement,
Though you know you’ll soon die!

I wish upon you to stay,
But in an instant you’re gone.
I see the remnants of your trail;
The night and I, we are alone.

I’m the one who’s consumed,
Though you have ceased to be.
Why wish upon another when
It won’t bring you back to me?

strangers as strange as me

~ Iyan Igma

my neighbors’ kids are home alone
the sweet one’s 5 the angel’s 3
i scolded them for opening the door
to strangers as strange as me

and as i walked across the street
to my dilapidated abode
a tiny thought entered my mind
which incessantly does goad

the scum of the earth worst parents
who beat their kids and scream
can still wind up with the best kids
while of kids i may only dream

so maybe if i weren’t such a nice guy
and merited no self-dignity
i might have great offspring
and therein lays the irony

Reprimand Sarcastic Pride

~ Iyan Igma

My teacher took me aside
After class in eleventh grade
To reprimand sarcastic pride
For the foolish comments I made.

She told me that I would do well
To be a little more sincere,
Or something more than school I’d fail,
Since I’d never learn to endear

Others and would lose my few friends.
My mouth’d get me in trouble, too,
Before my life reached its sad ends.
It got me married. It was true.

Bluebells on a Hill

~ Iyan Igma

A bunch of bluebells on a hill
Overlooks me where I walk
Listening to the birds and wind
As they chirp, tweet, squawk, and talk.

I fear that they once were daisies,
But I have made them depressed.
They’d curdle, were they buttercups;
Roses would bleed like my chest.

But no matter what breed they were,
They’ve taken part of my pain.
I once thought flowers were petty,
But ’tis I, not them, who’s vain.

‘Neath a Melancholy Moon

~ Iyan Igma

I never want to see the moon
As depressed as I am tonight,
For it would but add to my gloom
To be bathed in a blue moon’s light.

‘Tis better that it hides its face,
Since I could never bear to see
The only friend who can solace
Feeling lost and melancholy.

For it would remind me of the tears
That lunar rays have only known
And the confessions of my fears
I’ve given to the moon alone.

Its light to others may be pale,
But it enlightens me. It’s warm.
It’s the only friend, as well,
Who’s never done me any harm.