To Be, Or Not To Be Poem by Mystic Qalandar

To be, or not to be—
Is that choice ever mine?
I stand, bewildered:
Should I mourn a fractured fate,
Or scorn the dust upon my crown?
Should I plead before the Scribe of Destiny,
Or wage war against the rebel self?

They say: Before I was,
I was the heir to Truth.
Then why, after summoning me here,
Am I sent to seek what I should own?
And when I find no trace of it—
Why must I still pay the tribute?

The compelled asked the compeller:
Why does this compulsion ruin me,
When you yourself forged every chain?
Yet you bind me to the laws
Meant for the free—
Why the reward, why the punishment?
Why this heaven, why this hell?

I am compelled
To sow the fields of my sorrow.
Compelled to love, compelled to hate—
Yet powerless to feel.
Compelled to plant the seed—
Though the seed is not mine;
Compelled to harvest the fruit—
Though I never planted the tree.

Compelled to bear the weight
Of my own devastation,
And compelled to dwell within it.
Compelled to chant the name of love,
And compelled to kneel
Before its certain defeat.
Compelled to die,
Compelled to live—
Yet free to neither vanish nor rise.

As free as a clown can be,
So free am I.

Tell me, you masters—
How do you muster laughter
When knowledge cracks—
to show your helplessness,
And faith withdraws its staff?

A clown,
A liar—
And every lie
Is bound to me.

A jester still, I wear the smile;
And in my helplessness, I yet proclaim
That I am free,
That I have will,
That I am sovereign—
Though the truth is something else.

Itself the puppet; itself the thread,
Itself the hand that pulls the thread—
What is this but a mad magician's play?
What but a masquerade of countless masks?
Though the truth is something else.

—December,8,2025