THE BALANCE ‘s HEAVY TOLL

The world keeps quiet accounts,

not in numbers, but in breaths and broken branches.

For every bloom, a wither; for every sunrise, a debt unpaid.

We take warmth and return shadows,

give laughter and inherit silence,

as if some unseen law whispers, nothing is gained without surrender.

Love follows the same quiet arithmetic.

Kind hands find thorns, soft hearts meet storms,

the purest souls drift toward those who bruise them most.

A smile is traded for sleepless nights and tears

loved because of pity and fear,

and still, we call it beautiful, even as it ruins us.

To attain something, something of more value is lost, ain’t balance nor reciprocation, your happiness costs someone’s happiness.

Life leaves us with a question,

If every step forward is a step toward ending,

then what is living but a slow agreement to disappear?

Are we moments pretending to be meaning,

or meaning trapped inside moments too small to hold it?