Poems are like tears. Not to be forced. Not to be stopped. Just… To let be.

Sometimes I write, because I cry too much and poem is the last tear I cry, the one that calms me, because finally all is out.

Sometimes I write, because I cannot cry and poem is the first tear that opens the path to others.

Alenka H., 2021

“Do you want to hear the answer?” I asked Her. “No, not really,” She answered.

The questions we ask to show we care… If only. Too often just said, not really meant, just given because it’s polite, it’s right, it’s supposed to be, it’s a sign of good upbringing, it’s what people expect. And it’s expected to be answered the same way: politely, nicely, not really honestly.

“How are?” I’m in pain. “How do you feel?” Awful. “What can I do?” Hold me and listen and just let me speak. “Did I offend you?” Yes, you did. It hurts. “What do you want to say to me?” The truth. “Reach out for me, when you need me, ok?” I need you now.

Can you imagine this? No, rather not. It’s not nice. It’s not polite. It’s not by social standards. And no, nobody really cares.

How wonderful it would be, if people would be honest not only when answering, but also when asking.

Alenka H., 2021

I’m getting weaker again. I feel it. I knew it before, I know it now.

Illness is lonely thing, even when there are people around. Every step in my life cost me friends, until nobody was left. Still, I have family. He doesn’t care. She does, but it hurts Her too much and I can’t do that anymore.

Maybe… Maybe the reason I give is to forget I myself need it. Or maybe the reason is hoping it might return to me. Either way, it seems I am selfish. I give, because I need.

In reality, I know it won’t change anything. I still remain alone with my pain.

How can I convince my heart to stop wanting, needing, craving?

Alenka H., 2021

The nation I was born to is, statistically, one of most suicidal in the world. It is quite inevitable that growing up I either knew or knew of people who took their own life. I never condemned them, even when religious education taught it. It wasn’t part of my upbringing to do so, and it definitely wasn’t in my heart and soul. But, on the other hand, I never really understood them either.

It’s not that I was always happy. Objectively, my childhood and youth were ok. Subjectively, I was unhappy a lot, but then again, I’d now say, nothing out of the ordinary. I was told I’m too sensitive (or sensible) and I hurt too quickly. (That’s a story for another time and place.) Whatever the cause, noone would describe me as joyful all the time. Still, I could not apprehend the feelings of depression and suicidal thoughts.

Until my daughter was born. A child wished for, wanted, expected with joy, our little miracle. It wasn’t easy, those nine months of pregnancy, and it wasn’t without complications, her birth. But I’d never imagine that it would be the beginning of … Well, hell.

Yes, now I know, when I cried every day at the hospital, they should have know, should have seen, should have helped me. Now I know postpartum depression is not so uncommon. Now I know how easier it can be if a mother gets help in the start. (Yes, another story for another place and time.) None of that matters. Because it took two years of pain and hurt, two years, until my mother took me to the doctor’s and said to him that it cannot go on like this. And I knew I could not go on for a long time before that.

I now know how blissfully ignorant I was, not knowing the hollows of depression. How it is when, at the same time, you feel too much, mostly pain, and nothing at all, because all the pain made you numb. When you don’t want to die but you don’t want to live anymore. When every breath hurts. When you cry so much, and yet not enough, because no tears can wash away the sorrow. When you feel weak, because you cannot go on.

Maybe it all began long before that. Maybe I really was sensitive from day one. I think of that day, one of the luckiest days of my life, when my Light came into the world, as also the day when I started seeing the darkest shadows of life.

Because in the years that came, I started healing, but I never really healed. And in just a few years I experienced so many pains on physical and emotional level… It’s more that a decade of my life with depression, and almost a decade of my life with constant pain in my body, a result of serious illness. I’ve faced the news that I never wish anyone would have to, and at age of 30 my body was so ill I could not take care of my children or myself. Sometimes my pains are so bad I think I’m losing my mind. It’s just a fact for me: I do know pain.

And knowing it, I say without a doubt: there is no greater pain than the pain of the soul, of the heart. No worse condition than depression. Because no matter how hard it is, how damaged the body is, if you have the will, you can live days that are given to you. Depression takes exactly that away. The ability to live life.

Many illness can end life. Depression makes you dead when you’re still alive. And that, that is what hell looks like.

Alenka H., 2021

I know you don’t need me, said her lover to the heroine of the book I’ve been reading. I know you don’t need me, but you choose me, because you want me. There is nothing more appealing to a gentleman that to be wanted, not needed, he told her.

It is not just gentleman, is it? It’s human. The longing for to be wanted, not just needed.

And there is this song… About being wanted, needed, but not loved. Two out of three ain’t bad, it says. Maybe… What would one choose, when given those options?

Being needed can give your life a meaning, a purpose. Being wanted can keep you warm inside, appreciated and special. Being loved… How can one describe the feeling of being really loved? The gentle force that transforms.

We need to be needed. We want to be wanted. And we love to be loved.

It can be so confusing sometimes. We think we want, when in reality we just need, but don’t want to admit it. We think we love, when we want to be wanted, needed and loved. It takes us a lifetime or more to admit, yes, there is difference, and no, we don’t always see it.

Yet our hearts know it. It feels different, smells different. Being needed, wanted and loved.

Alenka H., 2021

Words…

They are a weapon. A cure. Poison. Aid. Magic wand. A tool of creation and destruction. They hurt. They caress. Make you feel whole, or make you feel empty.

Some of the most hurtful are those never spoken – wanted, anticipated, wished for, but never given. The absence itself is what hurts.

Actions are the loudest words. And actions that never take place are as words that are not spoken, when they should be. Swords of ignorance. Assassins that leave a trail of heartbreaks behind.

Alenka H., 2021

Life is unpredictable. Totally.

I once read that the worst regrets are not about what we have done, but about what we have not.

When I was much much younger, I imagined how my life will be, in detail. As years passed, I learned that you can never control everything and I left those details out, but I still had some general idea of what will be, what I’ll be.

Then… Life happened. Every single time I thought I have it under control, ever time I pictured the future, an earthquake came and destroyed it all.

I thought I knew some things. I should be honest – when I was young, too young, I thought I knew it all, or at least most of it. I’m humbled now, and I admit, I actually know nothing. Whatever I thought I knew, life taught me otherwise. It showed me nothing is as it seems, nothing is fixed, nothing in the world outside me can be really controlled.

I still worry. I still think through, calculate my options… But I’m aware that even if I try to imagine every single scenario, life can show me the one I never imagined.

I can never really know what the outcome will be. I’m still not brave enough to act accordingly. I still don’t do what my heart wants.

But the only thing I now know is that that would be the best way of acting. The best way of living. All you carefully plan can be shattered to dust in a moment. And you are left with the knowledge and feeling – did you give your hear what it wanted, what it needed, for at least a heartbeat?

Or are you left with regret, empty, wondering forever, what if?

Alenka H., 2021