To lose it all.

Friendship

The path ahead is blurred by shifting gray,
Two hands outstretched, both offering a ghost.
To risk the sum of all I’ve built today,
Or lean toward the choice that costs the most—
To trade the harvest for a hollow peace,
And yield the labor that I called my own,
To watch the fruit of all my toil decrease
While standing in a field I’ve barely sown.

 

The compass spins within a steady gale,
No map exists to chart this split terrain.
If I should lunge, I fear the sudden fail;
If I should stay, I fear the phantom drain.
There is no ink upon the empty page
To show the price of courage or of thrift,
Only the silence of a restless stage
And the cold weight of every shifting drift.

 

I seek a sign where only shadows play,
A needle pointing through the jagged dark.
But wisdom finds no comfort in the fray,
No holy fire to light the vital spark.
To lose it all, or lose a half in blood?
The scale is balanced by a blind design,
And I am tethered to the rising flood,
Waiting for a sun that will not shine.

Comments +

Comments5

  • Tristan Robert Lange

    My friend, this really hit me. The uncertainty woven through every stanza is deeply human, and the emotional weight never lets up. Powerful write, Friendship. 🌹🖤🙏🕯️🐦‍⬛

  • sorenbarrett

    Very well composed with great poetic style it raises the issue of forging forward under risk or retreating and loosing all. It is in this indecision that battles are won or lost and the decision not an easy one. Well written my friend and a fave

    • Friendship

      Thank you, my friend

      • sorenbarrett

        You are most welcome my friend

      • soheil khodaparasti

        Dear poet, I greatly enjoyed reading your poem.

        What impressed me most was your careful authorial control. Rather than stating the speaker's anxiety outright, you allow it to unfold through a succession of sustained metaphors—the blurred path, the spinning compass, the absent map, the empty page, and the rising flood. Each image broadens the emotional landscape while remaining firmly connected to the central theme of uncertainty. The result is a poem that invites readers not merely to observe the speaker's dilemma but to inhabit it.

        I would also like to consider the closing line: “Waiting for a sun that will not shine.” To me, it suggests a profound sense of resignation. The speaker recognizes that the clarity they long for may never arrive, yet remains unable to move forward without it. What makes the ending especially poignant is that it is psychological rather than factual. I wonder whether the choice of “a sun” rather than “the sun” subtly reinforces that sense of subjective experience, reflecting the speaker's state of mind rather than asserting an objective truth.

        • Friendship

          I sincerely thank you for taking the time to read my poem and for your kind comment. It truly means a great deal to me that you understood the core of what I wrote.

        • soheil khodaparasti

          You are most welcome. It was a pleasure to read your poem, and I am delighted that my comment resonated with you. Wishing you continued success in your writing.

        • Soman Ragavan

          30.6.2026

          A poem that paints despondency but this is in the nature of poetry. “blurred path, hollow peace…” etc. The greatest poetry stems from sadness and disillusion. The restless stage happens mostly with advancing age. We know the days are numbered and we wonder what we will leave back. “No holy fire to light the vital spark...” Hoping to succeed somehow, to find happiness. “And I am tethered to the rising flood...” : the feeling that we are bogged down, a feeling of helplessness. This is a compact poem but one that transmits the thoughts and feelings that many poets experience.
          “That beautiful sentiment echoes the famous line, "Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought," penned by the English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley in his poem To a Skylark. It perfectly captures why deeply emotional art, poetry, and music resonate with us so profoundly” ---From the Internet.
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