Lost In Life Poem by Justin Reamer

Lost In Life



The man in my room,
Whom I see sitting on his bed,
Sits there,
Studying intently.

He sits there,
His back hunched over,
Reading over his textbook
For biology,
Making sure everything makes
Sense to him,
All the more interesting.

Then I see his face,
And I take the closest
Look at my roommate
That I have ever taken
In a very long time.

His skin is dark,
Dark as mahogany,
And his hair is short and straight,
Like that of a freshly cut
Lawn in the summer time.
His face protrudes from his skull,
Giving him an Armenian physique,
Since he has Armenian blood,
Yet, he looks like a Grecian, an Albanian,
A Russian, a dark-skinned Romanian,
An Arab, a Palestinian, an Iranian,
An Iraqi, an Egyptian, and so much more.

His nose is long and rounded,
With flaring nostrils like
A horse’s nose does,
Whereupon he gets angry,
Smoke fumes from them.
His eyes are dark like ebony,
Deep set into his skull,
With dark circles under them
Like he has never slept a day of his life.

His arms are long and skinny,
Yet strong,
Lifting heavy boxes with ease,
And his hands are manly,
Big and meaty,
With a powerful grasp
Like a vice grip holding
Onto a bolt
Or a snapping turtle
That will never let go
Because of its begrudging vindication
Of your thoughtless actions toward it.

His legs are strong and powerful,
Pulling heavy carts like
A horse pulls heavy wagons
As they did in the end
Of the nineteenth century.
For he is strong as a rock is strong,
Immovable, solid, defiant.

Yet I look at him,
And he is not the rock today
Or the days to come.
I greet him,
And he looks at me,
Glumly,
His eyes welling with tears,
His mouth in either a grimace
Or a frown,
For he is depressed.

The man has great pain,
A pain he cannot describe
Since he despises talking about feelings,
For that is what girls talk about, he says.
His eyes reveal a broken heart,
A sense of haplessness,
Although he doesn’t want help,
Since he is too good for
A psychologist or
A psychiatrist,
And is totally against
Taking drugs or medication of any sort.
He says he will be fine,
And I let him be,
For I will not persist
And make him angry.

The man is lost in life;
He feels he lost all purpose.
He knows not whom to turn to,
And he feels nothing can help him.
As his atheism is dominant,
God knows He cannot help him
Unless the man submits himself to Him,
The Father in Heaven.
He begins to lose taste,
And he feels gone,
And he continues,
No matter what.

He lives in a fantasy with his friends,
Including Zach, Giuliano,
Chelsea, Nick, Spencer,
And so much more,
But they’re unaware of his impending unhappiness,
Continuous misery in his life,
For oblivious they are to his own feelings,
For a façade he builds,
Covered with a veneer,
A master of his fears,
Master of Deception,
Lord of the Lies,
Holding his own troubled emotions under layers
And layers of steel armour,
Keeping everyone out.

He feels nothing for his family,
For he never talks to them at all,
And upon talking to
His mother or his father,
Reticence and taciturnity
Get hold of him,
Preventing him from speaking.

He has a girlfriend,
A beautiful woman named Kelly,
But every time he sees her,
He is never open with her,
No candour from him,
No open honesty,
Yet his eyes are filled with pain,
For he wishes to tell her,
But cannot,
For the monsters remain in him.

His girlfriend remains oblivious
Because he is so stony around her,
And his jocularity and
His vulgarity
Are his defence mechanisms
To keep him in denial,
To hide the fear of abandonment and loneliness.
He hides as a kitten does
When it’s in trouble,
And he does not want
To lose anyone in the least.

This is what I see in the man
When I see him today,
A sense of desperation,
A feeling of pain,
Fear of abandonment,
A sense of longing and desire,
For he looks at me with
Those sad, solemn eyes
And his melancholy grimace,
And he turns away glumly and sighs.
He is depressed and utterly lost in life.

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Justin Reamer

Justin Reamer

Holland, Michigan
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