"When I am writing, I am trying to find out who I am…" –Maya Angelou
I am still uncertain
If you can do what must be done
Or if it must be done at all
Maybe I have it all wrong
I have always gone around
Stepping past all others’ shadows
You are one who stands your ground
I hope that what’s beneath your feet still grows
I have things to dread today,
And I don’t even know why.
He’s said, and she’ll say;
At this point, my eyes are dry.
All the connections that I took for granted,
All the wrongs that were someone else’s right…
Now maybe that’s just a seed I planted
That only blooms at night.
Anything and everything;
I don’t know where to start
To lay down logically
What ends in the heart,
And begins in some shallow
Place inside my brain,
Whispering to me
Things I can’t begin to name.
I always figured that you noticed
Or maybe I just never thought
But now I can’t unknow this
It’s a problem that we’ve got
I took it for granted
That you thought about it straight
I didn’t like much where you landed
But I prefer friendly debate
But you, you’re only angry
And now you’ve given a good look
At the skew you call responsibility
When it’s the one thing you never took.
Out there in the world is where learning is done,
But I’ve learned an important thing:
I don’t want to know that I should’ve run;
To know nothing is so much more freeing.
I’m not sure what changed
Was it the lack of happy endings
Of which I was suddenly aware
Or the constant choice of indolence
When I know that I should care?
Was it memories invented
Or dreams left unmade
Or the horde of unhappy endings
That left everything so changed?
Is there anything that I can trust
When I am the one person I know I can’t
My beliefs topple over with the slightest gust
My good intentions become the room’s greatest elephant
The only people I’ve met and felt close to
Are the demons of somebody else
How can I know what I’m supposed to do
When all I’m supposed to goes against my self?
God save me from such distortion
To be so blind to what is clearly seen
Dealing out blame in unequal portions
While nursing a healed, self-broken wing
I don’t have the words for what I’m feeling
Or a point to putting it down
Just the tears that drive me
With them towards the ground
There is anger still inside me
That nobody believes
I bite my tongue
I smile when I hate
Nobody ever sees
Is it grief for what I’ve never known
Made easier to carry?
Places I don’t think I’ll ever go
People I should be glad to see
But only make me wary?
Easy to blame it on example
And point the anger towards a witch to burn
But what I’m taught is all irrelevant
I choose what to learn
So I try to take my ugliness
And keep it to myself
But does it really work if it still hurts
While all I trust myself to do
Is absolutely nothing else?
I place myself in happy endings
And realize it could never be
Every step there taken
Is not a step taken by me
So I see the way to happy endings
Can’t be achieved all by myself
Happiness is realized
Just by being someone else
Writer In Retrospect 