I feel I am the living dead,
A staggering soul wandering
Across brittle, rocky, dark terrain,
Which has still more life than I.

Through lifeless eyes I still can see
That I am but a stranger here -
An undeterred tourist
With no purpose
And no path,
Merely here
To enjoy the scenery.


All those
Who I once knew
Are still the same,
Have never changed,
But it is instead
Me
Who has changed,
And so it might as well
Have been
That they did, too.

For we no longer
Share a home,
No.

Home?

Do I have one?

I used to think so.

But life's incessant patterns
Continuing
With a brutal
And mocking
Repetition,
Drove me out of that land.

I needed change.

A change, yes!
Why, of course!

A shocking concept
So common
So simple
I wondered why
I had only thought of it now.

So it was over
My weary shoulder
I slung my tiny pack
Of simple things -
Hope,
Determination,
And strength,
And from no
Particular direction,
Headed in the very same,
I left.

And lost myself
Along a dirt road,
A beaten path,
Traveled by so many others
Whom no one hears from now.

They are, like me,
The living dead.
The silent travelers
Who still exist
But in a different place
From what we see.

A quiet place
Behind an invisible wall,
Which is to say
They are among us,
And we could,
Should,
See them,
If only we would look.

I am sure
So many think
That I know some of them.
I do not.
Why?
Because we
Are not a people,
Not a group
Which joins together.
Instead, we wander alone,
Looking in from the outside.

It is not our desire
To find others like us,
To exist on our own
Where no one knows we are.


It is not that we have died,
No,
We are very much alive.

But we have moved on.

We are the living dead.

We have let go of
Everything
That made us,
That once composed
Our beings
And our lives.

That pattern that I spoke of -
It is tiring, you know.
You realize that
The same routine,
The same places,
The same ways of life,
Become a rather daunting,
Exhausting task,
As opposed to being
The joy of living.

There are those
Who had no choice,
Who existed as
Limp puppets,
Having their every move
Controlled
By hands they could not see or feel,
But knew quite well were there.

I, too, have been there.

But!

Even dictating
My own rules
Was not enough.
Still the patterns
Followed me,
And with frightening fervor
Attempted to define me.

But in a moment of clarity,
A glimpse of sunlight
Through a crack
In the prison wall,
I summoned a strength
And energy
I knew not
That I possessed.

And so,
Without ever meeting them,
Speaking to them,
Or truly knowing they existed,
I joined them,
The living dead.

What it was
That we lived for,
That we strove for,
That we laughed,
Cried,
And sacrificed for,
Slowly,
Slowly,
Passed on.

With the chains
That had bound us,
All of those things
Passed away.

Dissolved into a sweet
Yet bitter smoke -
A gracious,
Graceful wisp
From a gentle power
I cannot see.

To lose your life
Is not so tragic
As they tell you.
It is but
An unreal relief
That no drug
Can provide,
Only available
To those who
Truly desire it.

To lose your life is,
In fact,
To realize that you
Were never alive
Before that moment.
You only dreamt
The things you did,
Words you said,
Faces you saw,
Hands you held,
Bonds you formed,
Steps you took...
None of it was real.

Some take longer
To leave that
Dreamland,
A place where they feel safe,
Where they believe
That everything,
Including themselves,
Is in place.

Others do not leave at all,
And so they do not exist.
They immerse themselves
In a place
Where we cannot find them,
Where they cannot be rescued.

They remain among
The common living.

But I,
I,
Through clouds
Of silver smoke
And painless fire,
Through blinding
starry nights
And endless days,
Through gentle forests
And lethal gardens,
Found my way.


It does not hurt,
No.

It is but a surreal
And binding release
Of all that you knew,
And all that you were,
Into the depths of space
From which no man,
No machine,
No lifeform
Unknown to us,
May retrieve it
In even the greatest attempts
To bring back
Into the present
What is now cemented
In the past.


I walk among the
Common living
Each day,
Wandering,
Wondering,
Watching.

Their lives
Are not so different from mine.
They only lead them
In a different world.


I feel I am the living dead.
A steady soul limbering
Across a paradisiacal plain.
Which, as you well know,
Could have no more life than I.