Wall with Hole, Micagoto
As if we have forgotten why we built those walls
How could we? Under fire from their scathing words, burning, scalding.
Enforcing expectations exceeding our mortal limitations,
We put up those stone constructions, to prevent our own destruction.
For fear of our self degradation, we force ourselves into isolation, a lonely existence, yes but a safe one, free from a perceived desolation.
Why the walls, well, what else was there to do?
The world we were taught, now fraught with anger,
The sun’s a stranger, its warmth seemingly cold,
While the moon brings danger, and under its pale light, children like you, and once us, grow old.
When every second is a brawl for survival, is there a time for a tradition impractical?
In a world where people fight hook and claw, tooth and nail to see another day,
Look me in the eye, don’t flinch, and tell me if there is another way
In such a situation, does one have time for a childhood?
While I don’t mean to be misunderstood, there’s only a small likelihood.
What good does it make?
Existing, living, loving, dying, how far will we be pushed, what will it take, until we break?
Out of fashion? More like out of sight, and out of mind.
We live and die in a world, unjust and blind.
So we stare into the water, if we can bear the sight.
What is reflected? Broken dreams? A face ingrained with regret? An image of our whole life dissected?
Truth be told, all I see is me, distorted, the mirror shattered and broken, choices and mistakes
Fueled by reckless abandon.
Gone are the heroes and monsters, hiding in the clouds.
And with them, we lay to rest our childlike wonder on a funeral shroud.
Maybe, once, we watched those leaves on the stream, dancing, lilting.
But the winter has frozen the current, swirling leaves fading and wilting.
Time is of the essence, and there are things to be done, battles to be won.
But at what cost? What price? What then? What now?
But what if this caged bird were to be set free?
Would it take to the sky, and, like the free bird, soar as high as the eye could perceive?
Experience once again the clouds it used to soar in between, from it's prison, a reprieve?
Or would it crash and burn, plummet back to the ground,
wings inexplicably bound,
left to suffer a cruel, unfair fate, with nary a sound?
A sun-stricken Icarus in flight, alight, alone,
to fall into the sea, with nary a place to call home?
Injustice against one is not so easily forgot'
and to forgive one's captors is a whole other battle to be fought.
Conflict leaves wounds, that fade into scars,
with every glance at them resurfacing memories that bombard,
assaulting a mind with images of repression,
casting one into the deepest, darkest depressions.
So while that bird is free to soar to the sky,
it's clipped wings and distrust renders it unable to defy.
What's been engraved in its mind, time after time.
Though free of the shackles, of a cage with bars of rage,
the sky that it glances is not a breathtaking orange,
but a dull, muted beige.
For how can one enjoy the splendor of the air,
Soar in its currents, cruise upon updrafts so fair,
While they still remember vividly,
The feeling of captivity?
The free bird, once caged calls out in the night,
because despite it's deepest desires,
it cannot take flight.
The prison door may be open, but its inmate's mind will never leave,
so all that there is left,
for the free bird, once caged, is to grieve.
Bird in a Cage, K Yuushi
The cherished air beckons to the bird below, but it cannot fly. Years of hate have withered its wings, and the sky no longer feels like home. Longing is strong, but hate and fear are often stronger. One never truly forgets the transgressions they are forced to suffer, only suppressing it until it consumes both them and those around.
Clip a bird’s wings, and it will always fear the day they grow back. After all, is it truly better to have flown and become grounded, or to have ever flown at all?
Time heals all wounds, but scars only fade. Memories can be forgotten, irretrievably broken, but their imprints are not so easily erased, the truth going unspoken.
…Hey. It’s been a while, and I was hoping that we could, you know, talk. What, with all the things going on and changing, we might as well. So what do you say? Great. So…how have things been? Me, I’ve been doing fine, I guess. I’m tired; exhausted, even, but that’s nothing new. Still get those dizzy spells every now and then, but they aren’t that hard to manage. I still do wonder if they’re ever going to go away. I mean, I’ve had them for about a year, but I still can’t look up without getting bombarded by a wave of nausea. I guess that’s just how it is.
You, however, how have things been for you? The last time we talked, things were, well, things were a lot different; a lot less confusing. But now…yikes. Everything everywhere is complicated all the time; the sky seems grayer, the nights are darker, and time seems to disappear to wherever time seems to slip off to when we’re not looking. How long has it been since we’ve talked? One year? Two? It’s kind of funny because it seems like only yesterday, but at the same time, an entire decade.
Still though, while some things inevitably change, there are still some constants. Crazy how that works, huh? Things that never seem to change no matter how much effort you put into doing something different. Time always seems to march forward, relentlessly, and we all have that hourglass, forever ticking down the days we have left.
Since we’re talking now, I’d like to ask you a question. Yeah? Okay then. Well, I was just wondering if…well, if life is worth living. Somewhat nihilistic? Maybe. Depressing? I mean, if you choose to see it that way, but I just started thinking about it, and, well, I wanted to see what you thought about it. And I don’t mean ‘it is inevitable that I am going to die, therefore, I will do nothing.’ No. While that’s part of it, I think it’s only a small portion. It only encompasses a beginning and an end. But that’s the thing, isn’t it? Life is so much more than that; there’s the beginning and an end, but…what of that weird in-between portion?
When you think of how life works, how do you, you know, view it? Do you see the world for what it could be, or what it really is? Not that there’s anything wrong with one or the other. I don’t know about you, but it’s quite interesting to see how different people choose to live. You know, the last time we talked, you struck me as sort of a star-struck idealist, always looking for the bright side of everything, that good side of everyone. It’s been a while though, and life changes people. So the question is: have you? Have you given up on chasing that perfect life, or do you still cling to it like you used to, clutching to it like a piece of wood, trying to stay afloat in an ocean of darkness?
Water Surface Textured, Public Domain. Honestly, it’s getting harder to swim, but all your hounding isn’t going to get me to stop. Call me a fool if you will, but I still think that happy endings exist somewhere out there. Besides, I’m not the only starstruck idealist here. Last I remembered, you were almost the exact same.
I’ve sort of discovered that I’m a little bit of both; always wishing, hoping for the best, but all the while remembering that life just doesn’t work like that. I don’t know. I guess that I’ve found it easier to be mildly surprised than extremely disappointed. I mean, the higher that you hope, the more that you wish for, the more it’ll hurt when that perfect dream that you’ve envisioned in your mind goes up in flames and turns out to be, well, just that; a dream.
You know, this reminds me of that one saying. What was it again? Oh right! Norman Vincent Peale. ” Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” Inspiring words, don’t you think? The idealist in me thinks so too. After all, even if you fail to achieve your goal, you’ll still be close to it. And look, even if you don’t reach the moon, you can still glance down and see how much progress you’ve made. Surely that’s worth something, right? All that effort, the blood, sweat, and tears? Those countless days and nights you’ve slaved away, reaching towards the distant moon and stars in a starless midnight sky?
But both of us know all too well that it doesn’t work like that, right? That pessimistic realist in me does too.
Did you know that, in space, it’s hard to see the stars with the naked eye? The light they give off is eclipsed by the light of brighter objects, and in comparison to them, they seem to almost disappear. Quite sad, isn’t it? What once illuminated the night sky down below has left you behind. They grow dimmer the closer you get, and the brighter things seem.
The stars do not wait for you. They pause for no one but the sky and disappear in the light.
When there’s such a huge risk of that happening, why even bother in the first place? Should you succeed, well, you’re on the moon! But if you don’t, well…why even risk it? Do the possible rewards outweigh the probable fate? Why should I even dare to dream when reality will only be a cruel mockery of it? What is there left to do when even the stars themselves turn their back on you?
Or have they? You see, there’s something that’s been nagging at me, something that I, for the life of me, can’t figure out. Just because they’re gone doesn’t mean they’ve abandoned us, right? Why did both you and I look up to them, I wonder? They always seemed so nice from down below.
Maybe we’re looking at all of this wrong. Maybe it’s not them that have left us behind, but the other way around. After all, you can only go so far with the guidance that they give you; there’ll come a time and place where we have to figure things out for ourselves. The stars haven’t abandoned us, rather, we’ve outpaced them, moving at a pace what their light can’t keep up with. Did you know that one of the only ways for us to see stars in space is with a low-exposure camera? They don’t just appear, no. You need to wait for the light to, in lack of a better way to put it, catch up.
Back to the previous question, why did we decide that we wanted to reach those stars? Is it because it was just something to reach towards? When you think of stars, what comes to mind? Just a ball of gas, hundreds and thousands of lightyears away? Heroes and monsters of old, immortalized and remembered through the shapes in the distant night? Me, well I think To the Moon’s River summed it up pretty well.
“I’ve never told anyone, but…I’ve always thought they were lighthouses. Billions of lighthouses, stuck at the far end of the sky.”
Maybe the stars won’t wait for us, but they’ll guide us where we need to go. Lighthouses, huh? It sounds a bit foolish and definitely childish, but also in many ways, beautiful. We shoot for the moon and become the stars that surround it, guiding those down below that dare to dream, giving them the courage and resolve to achieve what they, and once we, thought impossible.
Anyways, I’m heading off now, but…it was nice catching up with you. The next time we meet, I wonder how the both of us will have changed. I mean, look, it’s only been a short eternity, and we’ve both changed this much to the point of almost unfamiliarity. Give it a few years, and there’s no telling what’s to come; time truly works in mysterious ways, but now I don’t fear it as much. Besides, even if we get separated, as River put it, ” Then we can always regroup on the moon, silly!”
¨When an individual experiencing mental turmoil is unable to deal with the inevitability of death, they may become fixated on their mortality, resulting in them losing focus on life itself.¨
Death will come to all eventually, whether it be a person, object, or even an idea. From dust, we came from, and to it, we will return.
Like it or not, it is one of the universal truths of this world.
Nothing is permanent. Things die, ideas fade, and memories are forgotten. Everything will, at some point, disappear, swallowed up by the mists of time.
…so what now? I mean, if everything I hold dear will disappear eventually, then what’s the point of even getting out of bed today? If each step I take brings me towards an open, empty, waiting grave, then should I just stop walking? Step back through that front door, and return to the solace of my room?
No.
I can’t just stay in my room all day, because lying in bed with too much time, and not enough to do, that’s when one is most prone to those types of thoughts.
You know the ones; no matter how loudly you play the music, or how dark the room is, like well-trained bloodhounds, they always seem to find their way into your mind. At times, their arrival is seemingly random, spawned from various thoughts; mundane thoughts about the miscellaneous that somehow wandered to the passage of time. Other times, they’ll come crashing in like a monstrous tsunami; submerging every waking thought in ice-cold dread, and settling into the deepest recesses of one’s mind, never fully evaporating. Always there, lurking in the back of your mind, stealing the air from your lungs until each breath is a desperate battle for a slight reprieve; a Herculean labor.
Outside it is, then.
Once I step through that door, I’ll be subject to a world where nothing is for certain.
Where each step, each thought, each word, each breath, could be my last.
But even if I don’t step out of that door, each second, minute, day, year that passes by could be my final, so I ask again; what now? What answer is there to this rhetorical question? Do I leave my fate up to chance? Seclude myself from the world, desperately hoping to prolong this tortured existence?
Or maybe…I could just live my life.
I don’t mean just existing, no. I mean living; living my life to the fullest despite the knowledge that one day, I’ll run out of sand. Who knows when my time will come? It could very well be the next second, minute, day, year; or maybe I already forfeited my life a long time ago. Riddle me this: What kind of life is that? One where every shadow or second leaves one shaking in their boots? How am I supposed to enjoy life, live it, if every second is spent miserably waiting for its end? If you ask me, it’s no life at all; it’s a pale imitation of what it could be.
Every journey has an ending, doesn’t it? Every well-worn path, open road, book, movie, series; they all have that final destination, that final curtain before the screen fades black, and all is silent. And in that quiet tranquility, all that lingers is a feeling, one almost indescribable.
Is it joy?
Regret?
Sorrow?
Melancholy?
Why do we feel like this? Because the journey has reached its conclusion?
Do we laugh?
Cry?
Applaud?
Celebrate?
Mourn?
About what?
The beginning,
or the end?
We’ve made it to the end, so why does it feel so empty?
Could it be something else? Maybe we don’t mourn the end; rather, we mourn the loss, the absence. We grieve for the fragility of those moments that we will never truly experience again. Once that final chord leaves the air, when the blooming brilliance of the flower finally wilts, we mourn their disappearance. After all, is it not the fragility of things that make them all the more beautiful? Is it not death that gives life meaning? That everything has an end helps us to appreciate them even more, be it the flowers in the ground, the clouds in the sky, or life itself. Everything exists in a delicate balance, almost as if by magic.
I don’t know what comes next, nor do I know what will happen in the next second, day, year, or century. But I do know that I’m going to use what I have left. Have you ever seen a glass sculpture? What a sight they are, so fragile, so delicate, that it seems like a single breath could cause it to crack. Do you know how they’re made? First, sand is taken, and it’s melted down. No longer can one tell one grain of sand from the other; instead, they’re one big, formless mass, waiting to be shaped, and given both life and purpose. Though the process is quite strenuous, it is worth every second.
Instead of counting the time I have left, mourning as the sand pools around me, I’ll make a glass sculpture.
I’ll exist in those brief moments of stillness and fragile beauty,
waltzing to the pulse of my heartbeat, as notes thread through the air, and flowers bloom.
And when my time comes, when my waltz stops, and the stillness shatters; when the air goes silent, and the last flower wilts,
I’ll face the final curtain, bow to the crowd, and take my leave.
