Somehow, Somehow Poem by RIC BASTASA

somehow i feel
cheated

like how fathers
should have
been a gentle hand
to their
sons

somehow i feel
too small to face the
door of the world
and the houses that i
see when
i go in
are too huge for
my
body

somehow i feel that
i cannot
reach the ceiling even if
i have to
use the family
ladder
to touch what
a cellar is
and feel
its
roughness

i have seen the worst
of people
and so i have nothing
but mistrust
and love has become too
nil
to touch and
then
make a belief about
its
soundness and
fragility

I'd like to change
like the way the heat of the sun
surrenders to
the mildness of
an afternoon light

and then bravely
shall i give in to coldness
where i see no one
trying
to love me again
like a
fallen nut

it will be dark and then
i would be
sleepy

and by then perhaps i
can forget
what unkindness was
and how it twisted
my views against the
world

I'd like to see beauty
in tomorrow's morning

perhaps i like getting old
and then
have this fading memory
so i can
start anew: innocent and
smiling again
like the way it was
when i
was once my
mother's child.