Butterflies and Hurricanes

It’s not the meaninglessness that haunts me.

It’s the emptiness.

 

It’s the hours and hours of mindless, seamless, boundless

searching, worrying, scratching, weeping, struggling.

 

It’s watching the sun go down every day,

It’s watching the seasons change the trees,

Watching buildings rise and then wither away,

Watching people I love slowly decay,

Knowing the planet is turning and spinning,

And I’m here. I’m here. I’m here.

 

It’s all the weight.

All the weight I lug around every day.

Sometimes forgetting it’s there,

Sometimes floating away

Other times perched on a cloud,

 

But the anchor.

The anchor always pulls me back to the docks.

The diving bell always sinks me back to the sea bed.

The storm always knocks me windless.

 

And then like a dried leaf, I’m swept away by the wind again.

Adrift, and lost and directionless.

 

It’s not the lack of emotion that haunts me.

It’s the abundance of it.

The “too muchness” of it.

Too much love, too much pain, too much anger.

Too much hate, too much greed, too much apathy.

 

Too much, too little, too soon, too late.

 

You tell me I should look around and not let it

Wear me down.

But do you feel right about walking through life

With a blindfold and your imaginary crown?

 

Does it not hurt you when we turn our backs against others,

And ourselves.

When we drown all the misery of the world with the noise

Of our own happy, colourful, distracted lives?

 

I can’t do it.

I want the world to hit me right in the face,

If it means that maybe I can help. Maybe,

letting it wear me down would be less hurtful.

 

Maybe it will rile me up enough to change me.

Change us.

Shake something in us. Maybe just…. Wake us up.

 

It’s not our mortality that haunts me,

It’s the absence of life.

It’s days melting into days and not forming

A cohesive shape.

It’s the everyday battle.

The stigma, the sorrow, the guilt, the shame.

While others like us are butchered outside,

I smile through it all,

I live. I live. I live.

 

Telling myself and believing it too,

That even though we’re all made of the

Same stardust, we’re still living separate lives

In separate worlds,

Divided by invisible walls and unseen spells.

 

Telling myself that I can steer my rudderless boat into

Another direction, once I plug in all the holes.

Once I grab the oars again.

Once I am whole again.

Until then,

I breathe. I breathe. I breathe.