If

If I had only been enough;

If only my actions hadn't been frail,

With all the darkness that seemed to prevail.

My wings sliced to bits,

My life jaded in regret;

Emotions murdered by expectations

I couldn't fulfil.

If I had only aimed at reality;

If only I had let myself fly,

Amidst all the ideality that was a lie.

My soul dwelled in what 'could be.

My tears dried up in what is.

Agony screamed in the 'ifs' of my existence.

If I could be this, if I could be that;

If only I could have lived,

Without regretting what I didn't have.

Feelings sunk in the vortex of sorrow,

All the health sucked out of me,

By the gloom of not living with the gift I had.

If only I had explored my gift

Of never looking back,

My gift of finding solace in the present

Instead of repenting the 'what ifs' in the same.

If only I had known I was always enough,

If I had only seen the colours I was blind to.

If I had not cried over my deceased deeds,

My soul wouldn't have succumbed to failure.

My failure lies in the belief that success had ceased,

When what it truly meant was incurable optimism;

When what it inevitably bent was my mirthful prism

Of emotions caught in the spectrum of overthinking.

My captivated heart couldn't convince my bleeding brain,

As the blood gushed through my existence.

My 'ifs' and 'buts' left beauty in pain,

As I woke up into the dimmed light of the depression.

My lungs inflated with the breath of agony,

As I breathed my last into salvation.

Here does my soul stand before you,

With the question that pierces human notions.

Do you wish to live in the surrealism of 'ifs',

Or the mirth of what is?

Do you wish to find salvation in your strife,

Or search for it on the other side of life?

Here do I lie before you wondering:

IF there were no 'ifs'.