Poems and Poetry Weekly Newsletter: 26/01/2025
A soulful contribution by Oganga Mangiti.
THOSE DAYS
Those Days
Those days were some of my worst in recent memory;
And I could always closely feel the depression kicking in;
Nights were spent awake,
Doubting the life decisions that had gotten us to this point in time;
And even more,
For the times we doubted our faith and journey;
We couldn't help but feel,
Like we were God's forgotten children;
The ones He forgot about,
Or had wronged Him;
It was both pain and heartache;
And the fear that our best days were long behind us.
© Oganga Mangiti
WOULD I?
Would I?
Would I have been happier;
Should I have chosen a different life?
Would I have found more purpose from this life;
Had I explored a different life?
A lot of what was now, was a lot of pain;
And out of it carried a lot of regret from the life we currently lived;
This in a way,
Will always carry with it regret;
Regret of all that we could have been and were not.
© Oganga Mangiti
THE L.A WILDFIRES OF 2025
"Watching the news on the L.A Wildfires over the last couple of weeks and days has been nothing but gut-wrenching, because of all the loss that has been experienced.
And once you put beings and faces to those losses, it hurts even more, because you begin to empathize and feel their pain; and it further coming with a level of familiarity, because you somehow relate.
This piece is about that pain, the pain of loss that breaks you in ways that you might never recover from. It is also somehow a bit about hope and camaraderie; that reminder that our hearts and prayers are with them, and that they are not alone."
The L.A Wildfires of 2025
Our hearts and prayers,
Will always go out to the millions of people,
Directly and indirectly;
Affected by the L.A wildfires of 2025,
To imagine their losses, pain and heartache;
Seeing all that you have come to know as life,
Burnt to the ground,
With no form of recourse;
To see the life you made,
The memories you carry, and have carried;
The significance of each piece lost, and how priceless it was;
And not be able to have any of it back;
To cry, mourn and ask God why?
To see dreams shattered,
To shake uncontrollably through nights,
Knowing you are living through nightmares,
And to empathize with them and their communities as an individual;
Because you somehow know what if feels like;
To lose everything you have come to know as life;
And how broken it feels like; and how the nights of anguish never end,
This pain,
It never leaves you,
Because each memory from that life,
Whether good or bad, is a trigger to all that you have lost,
But our hearts and prayers,
Will always be with you,
The city of angels,
Where dreams are chased and come true.
© Oganga Mangiti
GIVING UP WILL ALWAYS BE AN OPTION
Giving Up Will Always Be An Option
Giving up will never not be an option;
Losing all hope and letting the chips fall where they may,
Will always be a possible and deliberate decision;
It was never the lack of resilience,
That would ultimately lead to this decision;
But the acceptance that we were maybe always meant to be a statistic;
Every loss after trying to pick up the pieces;
Every time that misfortune would come and make a home of us;
That pain and despair would ultimately push us to the edge;
This will never ideally be the life we wanted to live;
But how much can a being take without ultimately giving up?
How much can a soft soul take before they finally accept the life they live?
I wish I could be able to take all the lemons that this life brings,
But ultimately the lemonade runs out and the lemons overwhelm us;
And this is a fact of life I am begrudgingly accepting.
© Oganga Mangiti
HOW YOU CHOOSE TO REMEMBER ME
How You Choose To Remember Me
When you somehow remember me,
I hope you know that I tried my best,
I took every loss and pain in stride,
I tried to remain strong for as long as I possibly could;
And if somehow the pain does me in;
I want you to know that I was more than my last years;
I was more than the pain I left you with;
I was love and more, but the pain ultimately became more than I could handle.
© Oganga Mangiti
PAIN, LOSS, LIFE AND MOURNING
Pain, Loss, Life and Mourning
That's what pain does,
It breaks the best of us;
That's what loss feels like,
You feel like you will never recover;
And at times, that's how life manifests;
It leaves you longing for a time when things were better;
And I never stopped longing;
I now lived my life mourning for a time when we once thrived.
© Oganga Mangiti
LETTERS TO OLUDHE
Letters To Oludhe
In the months, weeks and days I didn't write to you,
We experienced a life that we thought we could make beautiful;
But eventually loss came and the pain from it made a home of us;
And now we live a life filled with mourning;
Mourning for the loss we have experienced and continue to experience,
And even now, it seems like this pain will never end;
But maybe the only hope that now remains,
Is that you will always be here,
And we will always wallow in this mess that we call life together,
As long as we live and breathe;
But I did miss you;
I missed you deeply, and not being able to write to you broke me;
You were the only one who could ever save me from myself;
You were and are, a manifestation of thoughts I once fought with in my head.
© Oganga Mangiti
“This has been my solemn contribution to you this week. I hope these words have rang true to you, as they have for me. This has been my saving grace and show of love to you, my beloved.”
I constantly appreciate the love and support.
Get a copy of my latest poetry and short story anthology, To Heal A Broken Heart, here, and you can learn more about it here.
You can also get a copy of my very first poetry anthology, Love & Pain, here, and you can learn more about the journey thus far here.
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May your days be gradually filled with more and more light. May your aperture be wide enough to notice.
Always with love,
Oganga Mangiti.