This room is bright;
Magnolia and whitewash
And economy bulb-light
Illuminate paper and pens and calloused hands.
The idea that this is
Learning
Appears in my mind
With a sudden futility

I sit with my chin cradled in my palm
I do not know, I say.
I do not know what makes the world spin
Or the seasons change.
For none of it matters, in the end.
Seconds spill through the fingers of the universe's greatest thief.
He has stolen lives since the start of everything, they say.
They say that before his birth, there were no lives.
Or deaths, even.

I think of every second that I have lost
To childish existentialism;
Of the seconds lost since the start of this
Stupid
*******
Poem.
They say that I must bite my tongue and listen.
But time,
He bites it for me.

Your life is a lie.
The sweet whisperings of your mother
And the smoky crackle of the fire
Are but illusions;
Illusions of a high and ****** up child.
There is nothing but your own naked mind,
Your own dull eyes.
Nothing but your imperfect body and your raw tongue.
Do not fool yourself;
This is not a dream.

Do not get lost
In your metaphysical ramblings.
Do not allow your stars and galaxies to blind you.
Lovers fall like dynasties and last longer.
Their words and laughter and cheap smoke
Cling to the walls of forgotten tenement houses
Just as your tears and punished blood stain the pages of your notebooks.

I am a writer.
I have seen this poison drowning my mind
Since that first orange dusk.
I am lucky.
I am youthful and wide-eyed in my innocence.
But I watch my seconds bleed
Into the ***** glass beside my bed;
Seconds that lived for writing
Seconds that died for life.

I am nothing more than a young pretender.
Existentialism swims like a proud poison in my head.
In my eyes I can see nothing but juvenile metaphysics.
I tried to **** them, I really did.
But my darlings are my all, my everything, my universe.
They are my sun and my moon and my stars.
They make my emotions change like the fleeting seasons.
They make my head spin like the crooked earth.
They make my heart beat with the force of an imploding star.
These are darlings that I cannot ****.
I write poems that my idols would despise.
For this is not a New Vision that I am creating.
This is nothing at all.

Bite your tounge, kid.
Bite it hard and don't be so pathetic.
Yes, I know that you were young once.
I know your mother used to pick you up and kiss your head
And sing you to sleep.

But you're all grown up now.

You don't have the easy excuse of youth anymore.
You can no longer say it's because you're a child.
You're too old, too tired, too worn down.

Sleep is never enough.

Your tears are stupid now.
Tears won't get you anywhere in the Real World, they say.
In the Real World, your mother won't be there to hold your hand.
In the Real World, you're on your own.
But what They don't know
Is that you've been in the Real World all along.
You've known more pain than they think you have.
But obviously, none of that affects you.
Because you're only a kid, and you have it easy.

...Right?

The girl across the room is a stranger.
Her hair is familiar, her face is comfortingly reassuring,
But her eyes speak of trauma,
Of forgotten dreams and aspirations that shatter daily.
In the lines of her tired face I see a dreamer,
And in the pools of her eyes I see a perfect disaster.
Where there was once pure, undiluted hope and happiness,
there is now a dulled pretense.

She feels like a rich, red juice that has been drawn out too far
With tainted water,
Or like a piece of string, pulled taut for so long
that it cannot snap back into its original, unspoiled shape.

In her wearied sigh I hear all of her unspoken truths;
All of the things which she has never said but that need saying anyway.
The girl across the room is my friend.
Her voice is like a song I know all the words to,
Her face is as familiar to me as my own.

In the brightness of her smile I see a warrior,
And in the melody of her laughter I hear my imperfect saviour.
Where there was once desperation and despair,
There is now a golden spark of hope.
In my own tired sigh, I hear a future for the first time;
All of the dreams which I have never followed,
But that need following anyway.
The girl across the room is everything,
And I am nothing.

Breathe.

Look around you.

Take it in.

This is transient, fleeting, insignificant.

You can twist, pull, push, warp this reality as much as you want.

But you will never make any of it mean anything.

You like to lie awake at night and stare at your ceiling sometimes.

You like to pretend that you can see through the brick and slate

And paint and plaster

And all the way up to heaven, or to whatever else is up there.

But you can't.

Be wary, kid. This is not your daydream.

This is not the metaphysical realm of your juvenile imagination.

Look to the ground;

To the grass and the earth and the newly fallen leaves,

Look to the sea;

To the waves and the little fishing boats and the screech of the gulls at an orange dawn.

Look to the small things;

To the smell of clean sheets, to the feel of your lover's skin underneath your fingers,

To the sound of the rain as you drift off to sleep and dream of your juvenile metaphysics.

**** it all;

**** your dreams of stars and your visions of constellations.

**** your childish wonderment of the sky at midnight.

**** your existential ramblings and your formless morning murmurings.

**** your futile love, your darling, darling love,

Who looks like the sun and lives like a hurricane.

For this is not your daydream.


- K.L.L.N