"When I am writing, I am trying to find out who I am…" –Maya Angelou
Outside, the world is burning
And the moon has stopped its turning
And all that’s left of yearning
Is the hunger of the beasts
Outside, their moans defying
The sirens that now are dying;
Inside, the only thing that’s trying
Is why so much has ceased.
Oh, you’re such a silly man
Still with all those hopes and plans
Still thinking me unfriendly
Because I haven’t any friends
But I tell you, there are worse things to be
And if someone wanted to be friends with me
Do you think that I would stop them there?
I’m simply loathe to beg and plead
Too quick to think that life’s unfair
That there’s no place for me out there
And if I ever did believe
It would require that someone truly cared.
For many moments I sat waiting,
So adept at standing still;
So certain all worth chasing
Boiled down to just some time to kill.
But all I’ve lived was just prefacing,
Life a writer with a lethargic quill;
Maybe we’re on to demonstrating
That even characters can have a will.
A soul is such a funny thing,
Slipping further and further away
Every time that you choose not to cling
To every moment of today.
Another year, another world dies
As we put off possibilities
That now we’ll never see,
Unless this year we leave our fear
And be what we will be.
Six days out of seven
I wake not from my sleep
And of twelve months, I have eleven
Where time is easier not to keep.
My heart is hardened — is it beating? —
Is it deaf and dumb and dead?
It only beats when I tell it “no,”
Only speaks when “hush” is said.
It’s only living when in mortal fear,
It only answers between fight or fled;
But does it ever wake or wish or whimper,
Or has it merely watched as wounds have bled?
I thought they went without saying,
All those kind things I never said;
While all the while you’d be praying
That my kindness might not be dead.
The choice of no choices:
Surely I’ve said it here before,
Thinking that I’m thoughtless,
Faceless evermore;
That my voice becomes voiceless
The moment it is heard,
And everything I wish
Is best not pandered with a word;
And all my silly choices
Are no better than what’s gone before;
So what’s the point in raising voices?
It won’t help me be heard more.
I can call it, now, my family;
For poetry and I,
We’ve ceased communication —
Fallen back on “yep” and “fine,”
And all those little empty things
That govern familiarity
When it forgets to make an effort
Beyond signing on the dotted line.
