Poetry Garden

The Net

It must be fate—there’s no escape.
Heaven has woven its snares, inescapable and vast.
I am fated to struggle free from one boundless darkness,
only to flee, in anguish, into another.

In youth, I always yearned to escape the places of sorrow,
never imagining
that drifting to a strange land
would only create another place of heartache.

We humans always want to keep fleeing.
Now I finally understand why some people
are so often gripped by despair—
because no matter how they flee, darkness remains;
no matter how they search, it’s all in vain.

The fate of a lifetime—
impossible to cut loose, impossible to sort out.
In the end, we become alone and helpless.

How I wish
to quietly, quietly
stay here in the dark.
Had I never sunk so deep into darkness,
I might have grown used to the light.
Perhaps.

​

Pathfinder, legal name: Ren Junli, female, from Shangqiu, Henan. Currently works at Avary Holding (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. Works have been published in Philosophical Thinking, Conduct and Life, and Youth Digest Mobile News, and reprinted in Chinese and Foreign Digest.