Listen to poem:
Existential Uncertainty
Written: May 23, 2026, for a contest sponsored by Edward Ibeh
Quote: I have an existential map. It has 'You are here' written all over it. By Steven Wright
1st place contest winner
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Some mornings you wake
with a rumbustious ache
in the pith of your paradigm,
a sense that the cosmos
has quietly performed xenogenesis
while you slept—
and now the room,
the air,
even your own pulse
feels subtly estranged.
You rise,
wretchedly aware
of a moribund meander
between who you were
and who you are
feigning to be.
Your premonition prowl
as diligent acrobat ants
through a chiaroscuro
of callow certainties,
each one a conundrum
You cannot quite evanesce.
Outside,
the clouds cradle
a somber shimmer,
as if spume itself
is engaged in some
telluric palaver
with the sun.
You witness it,
weighed the whisper
of an inimical synchronicity—
the sense that the cosmos
is both ubiquitous
and utterly indifferent
to your private pandemonium
of phobias.
You wander,
Your footsteps are spasmodically guided
by a recalcitrant instinct
that refuses to liaise
with reason.
Each shade appears
an uncanny eidolon,
each melody
a malapropism
of obsolete phrases
from erstwhile selves
you forfeit
in the declivity
of eons.
A wilted wisp of wisteria
whispers on your skin,
its wondrous amaranthine hue
a brief, winsome reprieve
from the miasma
of your feelings.
But fascination feels
persnickety today--
oblation solace
you can't quite acquiesce to,
a meretricious minister.
You linger in a lull swale
where cowslips cascade
with soothing stillness.
Their translucent tulips
seem to mumble
a panegyric
to all that is transient,
and for a fleeting fraction
You feel the faintest
ataraxia—
a silence that is so tender
It could be crushed
by a single sigh.
But the moment melts away.
It always does.
Existence lingers
its obstreperous colloquy,
its relentless requests,
its doggedness
in reminding you
that certainty
It is a nugatory splendor.
And yet—
beneath the bitterness,
beneath the bristling skeptics,
beneath the ossified fears
that gnaw against your soul,
something stirs:
a selcouth shimmer,
a liminal sanctity,
a tellurian whisper
that perhaps
your mystery
It is not a mistake
but a threshold.
Maybe the cosmos
is not craving clarity
but your company—
for the spirit to simply
stay,
breath bursting,
beneath the burden
of your being,
and still whisper
yes
to the adjacent
untold instance.
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