Poetry Reading: Crisis of the Self, by Ryan Rahman

Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

I am a lost soul,
Blighted, bruised,
Condemned to wait
For what will never come.

But still, I am not idle;
I drift, aimless, through desolation—
A desert, cold and cracked,
A barren land devoid of life.

Here, hope is an illusion.
Time—wasted and worn,
A currency that crumbles to dust,
With no worth,
No meaning.

I suffer in silence.
Success is a mirage,
Filling my head with visions,
Of outcomes unfulfilled.

And yet, I dread the moment
When minutes slow to molasses,
And hours stretch like shadows,
Days blurring, their edges softening—
Until months drown in the fog of madness.

But still, I walk this path,
Persisting through the void,
Remaining in the silence.

I wonder—
Am I damned by fate,
Or a fool at war with myself?