Vishal’s Poem – An Atheists Prayer

I’m gonna Mathew Maconnaisance tomorrow,

Tomorrow morning,

Wake up at 6 AM.

Go for a run, hit the gym,

Meditate, eat some fuckin Kale,

Avoid all social media, read some articles,

Learn, work, work on your passion,

Get one step closer to the top of the mountain.

Hit the ground running,

Productive as hell.

 

The morning of.

My brain spun the roulette wheel,

Bet on red,

Came up black and now I feel…

 

Now I feel scared.

I don’t know what of or why,

I guess I’m just scared of being alive?

I want to skip all the way back to night,

Pass the time like I’m in Skyrim,

Is that air I’m breathing?

I could really go for my own personal Morpheus,

There is no spoon, or in other words,

Getting out of bed should be no big deal,

But it feels like I just woke up in a warzone.

Even though the sky is blue.

In my fridge I’ve got food,

I got clean water, a hot shower,

I got a family too,

And you, you do this every day don’t you?

 

So why can’t I?

 

Balance the equation of depression:

On one side is misery and inaction:

On the other side must thus be that

I gotta be so pathetic that I can’t hack this.

 

What’s my excuse?

Someone wrapped chains around my bed,

Whilst I wasn’t looking, that’s gotta be it,

They came in at night, broke down the door, shot me with a tranquilliser dart,

Lingering after effects of a break in,

That invisible chain gang,

That’s why I’m scared of…

 

Nothing.

Like a child is scared of monsters under the bed.

I have food but I don’t want to eat,

And the not wanting,

It must all be my responsibility,

I stink but I don’t want to shower,

Because this stench is what I think,

I deserve to smell like, like I’m toxic,

Like I’m a vampire sucking the light out of everyone else’s eyes.

 

You can read the symptoms off in the DSM.

Or google it.

You can have a therapist tell you it’s your brain playing tricks.

You can be given pills and a diagnosis,

 

But you also suspect,

 

That there are people that love you,

That there are people you respect,

Who deep down or out loud say and think:

 

What’s wrong with him?

 

And the litany of isn’ts, if onlys, if he justs, buts, sneers and laughs

 

Like I’ve fallen off the ladder,

Somewhere in someone else’s mind,

A cautionary tale,

A joke without a punchline.

A failure.

 

And if the mind reigns supreme,

Or because genetics, nurture nature who gives a shit,

We’ll never really know,

But if the cards I’m dealt amount to a low blow,

That’s got other people rolling their eyes.

 

Well then I’m going to perform a magic trick.

 

If the mind reigns supreme.

Then I will meet my demons on that field.

And I will build a church.

 

Yes,

I’m an atheist, there are no gods,

When you die its game over,

Game over man,

The problem of evil has no solution,

 

But still on some field, in some mental space.

 

I lay the bricks of a church.

 

Okay,

That’s too much effort.

 

I mean shit, cathedrals are expensive.

 

So how about a shrine?

 

An altar?

 

I lay stones on the ground.

 

And I get on my knees

And I pray.

 

I know, even the voices are shocked,

They think it must be a joke.

But no,

 

In the face of all this horse shit,

I,

An atheist,

Prays:

 

And my prayer is:

 

That there will be days that come with a storm in tow,

And on those days my soul, will for reasons unknown be laid low,

 

But one day,

The sun will rise, with such glory,

Smog free, an orgasm in space,

And the clouds will shit rainbows out all over the place,

And the blue sky will be how I feel inside.

 

One day.

 

(It’s a weird prayer right)

 

But one day.

 

I will wake up without fear in my heart,

Instead, courage will rage through my blood,

With the drive of an army on the march,

To grab hold of every second of the day,

I will carpe the diem like nobody’s business,

I will conquer my todo list,

Like Alexander except I’ll actually be great.

 

One day.

 

There will be no chains upon my bed,

Gravity will reverse, I will grow wings,

And I will fly out into the day,

Grow my own organic kale,

Eat avocado toast like a good millennial,

And the minute hand will crawl,

But the hours will soar,

And I will smell the scent of my espresso,

Will taste the nutty notes,

Will take the cleanest poop,

Will feel so deeply alive,

Because the opposite of depression is not happiness,

It’s vitality,

And the opposite of darkness

Is light.

 

On that day,

One day,

I will strive.

 

There will be no task that I cannot overcome,

There will be no email that will go unanswered,

All efforts will be rewarded,

And all the work of all the years,

Will burst out from the ground like a garden,

Will rocket skywards like some kind of crypto scam,

All competitions won,

All lessons taught,

All promotions awarded,

All points scored,

 

One day,

Despite all the days that came before,

I will be standing,

Hands in the air,

Crying: ADRIENNE!

After decking Apollo Creed,

In a fucking movie that I wrote the screenplay for,

That I starred in,

That launched my career as an international action sensation ,

 

One day,

I will fly through the sky,

I will ride the new MTR line,

I will visit temples and learn truths,

All audiobooks will be listened to,

All Coursera courses finished,

I will build castles in the sky out of multi coloured lego bricks,

Piece by fucking piece.

 

And I will invite all my friends to see.

 

And they will look at me.

 

And they will not say, either with their words,

Or their eyes,

Or their silences in between.

That I am weak.

 

They will know,

That this day is a victory,

Not just for me,

But for every one of my brothers and sisters,

Chained to their beds every day.

 

This I pray,

 

In the altar of my mind.

 

These words I say,

 

In the midst of this depression,

 

In this land of unhope,

 

In this meagre punishment for a minor crime,

That no court sentenced me to.

 

In this quirk of a brain,

As the minutes of the day turns to sand,

And wash down the drain,

 

That one day,

 

I will breathe the free air.

 

And I will meet my own eyes in the mirror.

 

And I will assume that every man and woman who glances at me in the street,

 

Is checking my fine ass out.

 

To all the gods that are not,

This is what I pray.

 

And I have to be but one thing instead today:

 

And that is Brave.

 

For today I am scared of invisible thoughts.

 

And that’s okay.

 

My future self gives me permission to

Lie in bed,

Wait,

Nothing is lost,

Because of that soon to be day,

Instead

Play the Legend of Zelda again,

Eat an entire jar of Nutella,

Call and bitch and cry and scream,

Or just wait.

 

And pray to my future self,

My happiness yet

to be,

My victory’s yet

to come,

That though I walk through the valley in the shadow of death,

Depression, anxiety and delusion.

Thou art with me

 

My one day.