There is only little boxes
And one big grave
I can use the little boxes
Little things to save
But big things are left out in the sun
To fester and turn rotten
I can choke on things left in the sun
Or have them buried and forgotten
"When I am writing, I am trying to find out who I am…" –Maya Angelou
There is only little boxes
And one big grave
I can use the little boxes
Little things to save
But big things are left out in the sun
To fester and turn rotten
I can choke on things left in the sun
Or have them buried and forgotten
I thought this world would be a symphony
Not a battle of violin bows
But the discordance of our thoughts
Every day, it shows.
It’s in the screaming sound of mistreated strings
The silence of unearned laurels
And whoever our conductor be
Somewhere, he scowls.
How can I complain about an unlife
When I know that it is my life,
And whatever goes unchanging,
It’s my fault that it’s so?
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?