Edition #5
Growth and Power
Namal Siddiqui

Trying

I am trying to write but I keep erasing words,
dissatisfied with the way I tell the story 
after all this time. I hate that the story 
begins with the banal, the timeworn —
that anguished word 'trying'. 
 

I am trying to find my bearings. 
 

I am trying to hold myself again. 
 

I am trying to avoid relapse. 
 

Relapse is an unusual word to write
in a verse. It is so mechanical, so
terrible, so unexpected because you 
believe you’re fine, you are riding
the turf of life.
 

I am trying not to make the same mistakes. 
 

I am trying not to fall for the same traps. 
 

I am trying not to be so vehemently bitter again.
 

Vehemently. So poisonous a word. So
relentless. I am trying to be relentless. 
I am trying not to lose (it) and I am trying not
to let go. I am trying to make sense out of 
life as a human turned metamorph.
 

I am trying to unfold maybe like a petal.
 

I am trying God knows if a God exists. 
 

I am trying to be the bud that becomes the flower.