‘til there never really was at all

These last few days, the last few chances, the remorseful but unapologetic ending. Here I am, unable to resist and in deep mourning for all that I am about to let go. Longing eyes looking back, searching ahead. There were times of great achievement and moments of grandeur. There were days and months dipped in sorrow, rightful breaking of spirit and heart. Nothing compared to the loneliness, that elevating freedom of my untamed soul. Gulping in chunks the unmelted injustices stirred my way. Each and every moment of repression lead to fearless liberation. Like in history countless times, in quotes taken from men and women of power, the spirit shall never and can never be caged. Not through hardship of the body or torment of the mind. Nothing of the sort befell me, just some self imposed shackles, murderous chains to cut the warm blood bringing life to my fragile heart. I alone survived. Look, I have survived!

Some nights I feel hollow. Empty and meaningless, insignificant and useless, important to too few. At times I want to bring an abrupt end, see how that would play out. Then I quickly dream of a prolonged showing of this wondrous story. The constant push and pull, the cold and warm, summer and winter, the icicles and the scorching heat, they all teach me patience. Agreeable as the morning landscape appears to me, the smiling faces of familiarity, the soothing sounds or the balmy early air, I still often wish it away. Wish to change it for something new. Unseen and unrecognised, my restless soul would like to wonder, roam the vast lands of nothing, the arid deserts of lovelessness. I could lose myself. Lose the burden of mediocrity.

The change must come from within. I think I have known that all along. These words were just feigning to create an illusion. How long before it gets easier I wonder. I have waited far too long, wasted much too much time. It seems I am still not ready, there is still some waiting to be done. Knowledge to master, experiences to fill my young heart. Sadness has not been able to grow strong its roots in my soul. Sorrow has not had the chance to fully unpack its grey canopy over all I know to be true. Then come and conquer, I have never resisted much, just enough to learn the tricks then stepped aside. I have made a good home for the bitter winds and torturing loneliness, the sharp instruments that sometimes were called hurtful words. I used them like an apprentice tries the tools of his trade. Used them and made cuts, wounds on some innocent bystanders, friends, familiar lovers. Now I beg for forgiveness. How I hope you will find it in your heart to forgive.

I am yet to make sense of everything around me. I know parts of my soul, but not the whole. I know how sadness feels. Know how deeply it can cut, how silently it penetrates skin, tissue, sinew, muscle, bone. I know how comforting lonely seems, how invisibly it settles to choke one capillary at a time. I know my place between sorrow and alone, fight to portray them lovely and friendly, but know that they are killing the most precious gift: hope. Still I turn a blind eye, embrace these cloaked enemies for they help to conjure the words late at night. For as long as I can, as long as it can continue I try to waltz toward the unseen, all the while chained to the known evil. I go on, there is nothing else I know to do. I continue into the early hours, with tears streaming down my cheeks, blood gushing from my heart, aches and pains in my fingers. In the hope of a promise, in the faint hope that one day all this will change. In the hope that I can be better, that my words will have power, that I will overcome the sadness. I continue but secretly know that most efforts are in vain, are nothing but hollow tries at changing the set ways of destiny. I know that to walk this path means marching endlessly. Marching towards that which never really was at all.