A Fool's Cry
Chinglemba Yumnam *
Maybe I was a fool.
Such a fool — oh fool.
Maybe I was a liar,
And even that lie was not worth believing.
Everything I did was a performance I didn’t know I was in.
My truth was rehearsed, my smile — borrowed.
Is this a curse, or just life being itself —
indifferent, endless, quietly cruel?
I don’t know where to find happiness.
Maybe it doesn’t exist for everyone.
Maybe it skips some of us.
I shouldn’t have been born —sometimes I think that.
Then hate myself for thinking that.
Oh life, why do you breathe so heavily?
Should I cry like a child?
Would that make it easier to be forgiven?
But I care too much about what others think.
They’d call me weak — and they’d be right.
Poetry is my only witness.
It listens when I speak to no one.
Oh me, pathetic me.
Stay away —
I’m not ready to be seen.
And how long will this life last?
* Poem written by Chinglemba Yumnam for e-pao.net
This poem was webcasted on 07 July 2026 .
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