"When I am writing, I am trying to find out who I am…" –Maya Angelou
I’ve been dreaming of you again:
My bloodless sister, my long-lost friend.
We used to be as thick as thieves,
Until stealing away became my trend.
I’d caught anger and fallen ill;
And thinking quarantine was best,
I shut you out until you caught a chill
And decided to leave me to my rest.
But now I see you in my dreams
And in them, we are friends again;
But in waking up, I recall the years,
And I only want to sleep again.
It’ll change when I change it
It won’t change before
I can blame them forever
But it’ll only hurt more
I can watch and can wait
And can slip in that way
Where the harder you grip
You fall further away
I can call out the kettle
Or I can be my own pot
But in the end I must choose,
Whether I want to or not.
I feel like I’m perpetually living
On the wrong side of the world
On the dark side of the moon
On the inside of a cave
Shared with blind things blinking,
Straining for a light that won’t come soon.
And even if it came, how would we all handle
The world of light colliding with our world of gloom?
I feel like I’m an outsider
A strange creature of the dark
A forgotten exile who in turn forgot
There was such a thing as home
And if I saw now a hearth fire
Would it still be what I sought
Or is that other world now the foreign thing
And darkness, more my home than not?
I feel like there’s a question
One I haven’t asked just yet
One I’m thinking that I might
Because the answer might be worth it.
So at last I’ll ask myself this one:
If time can teach me even to be a thing of night,
Then what the devil is to stop me
From relearning to walk in the light?
You’re two sides of the same coin:
If you could only see,
If you could only know,
Would this tale then have a happy ending?
Or does it take more than that to go
Beyond just being the other side?
Every decision is repealable;
Nothing ever stays.
Sometimes I think it’s for the best;
Sometimes I choose to change my ways.
But that choice is repealable;
That decision never stays.
I find I don’t know how to make the choice
To choose to change my ways.
It will not come easy;
No, it never does.
But you know it won’t come easy;
Because the right path rarely does.
I’m so sorry… Of all the things I could have been, I became this. I could’ve been like my brother and reached out and made a life for myself where I could.
But instead I’m here. Still just sitting here. Waiting for something to befall me, be it destiny or accident.
Probably accident. Screech, crash, bang, and then I’m gone, in all likelihood. It would be just like me to not be paying any attention and accidentally step in front of a car. It wouldn’t be on purpose, of course. But it wouldn’t be exactly unwelcome.
I sometimes like to pretend that I can see the future. The prediction is always the same: I’m going to die alone. It’s not even a future anymore, it’s a fact. I’m going to die alone. So what’s it matter if it’s distant or soon?
I’ve lived nineteen years, going on twenty. So young, and often much younger than I should be. And yet those years, these days, they crawl by like an eternity, and they’ve never changed in form, not really. The world is still a distant thing, and I am still… what I am: The person who walks on the path before me. And it’s still a circular one.
My brother sees this. He sees us all going in circles, ducking our heads, diving into whatever we can to hide. He wants it to change. He wants it to change — but he doesn’t want to change it. None of us do. It would be like organizing a junkyard… while being attacked by a pack of wild dogs. Nobody wants to take that on. Especially when the thing we’re taking on, is the nothingness of never taking anything on. Someone has to start. But each of us vows, it won’t be us.
Why do I grasp
Harder onto what kills me?
Why do I hold
Tight when I should let go?
What if I ask
For and receive mercy?
But what if all’s told,
And the answer is no?
I sometimes long for older times,
Where it’s not the norm to be insane;
Where we still strive for something more
And our problems have not yet been embraced.
I suppose exaggeration in some form
Is mine — in this, and everything
But our years seem so dull and worn
And if our lot is to cast blame,
I name these years the culprit king.
Whether a want of love —
Or a want of pain —
Or just a want of anything,
Somehow these days don’t seem the same
As the tameless time of which we dream.
So still I wish for older times;
For challenges I can face.
Perhaps to fail, at least to try —
But something different than this place.
I have no dearest friends;
I’ve got no darling love.
Oh I was sent from somewhere,
But I don’t think it was above.
See, I know my only future;
And I am my only seer.
You might tell me I can change me,
But that means nothing here.
All I know is silence;
All I know is endless time.
If the only change is violence,
Then I guess the violence will be mine.
