When I was young, my life was like music that was always getting louder
Everything moved me
A mother with her child
That made me feel so much
A homeless person sitting on the sidewalk holding out a ***** cup for some spare change
I could have cried over it
I did
A calendar that displayed the wrong month
The way the moon followed me everywhere I went
How an unmade bed looked like home
Where the smoke coming from the house across the street disappeared into the sky
Frost on the window of my mother's car
How the earth tirelessly orbited around the sun
The way the city lights looked from afar
I have spent my entire life learning to feel less
Every single day I feel less
Is that growing old?
Or something worse?
I suppose you cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness
But how do you balance yourself between the two without forgetting how to feel altogether?

Chances I was given
in advance by the stance and at a glance
you'd guess I'm ******* in my pants
Because
I'm anxious shaking hands, my girl made other plans; how I'm handed an eviction to your acres, my land
not to mention I'm getting canned
an outlier under fire
cause a liar hit and ran
drove me off a cliff mentally
freedom hypothetically,
isn't tangible in the world of the meek
*******

Something about the way she sighs
Always taking those long, drawn-out breaths
Because she once grew so accustomed to taking such long, drown-out drags from her cigarette
Though she broke the habit of smoking
She could never break the habit of breathing so deeply
But you like small sounds

Something about the way she laughs quietly
Like her voice is shy and timid of being acknowledged
But you like small sounds
So you notice

Something about the way she mumbles
In bed, she once whispered, "I'll never leave you"
And you weren't sure if she was awake or asleep
But it didn't matter, you believed her anyway
Because you like small sounds
And you love her quiet way

Is there no ounce of passion left within me?
Was it accidentally drained out of me when all of the emptiness was unmistakably filled up?
I don't feel it as deeply and as excruciatingly as I did before
I almost don't feel it at all
It feels absent
Lacking
W  a  n  i  n  g

During the days of the horrid drought
When the pain and the loneliness were so
Heavy, endless, and dry
It was my passion alone that kept me holding on
It was the only thing that forced me to keep living
The one and only good thing that was static in my life

I don't feel that anymore
All I feel is apathy
******* apathy

Was I stronger then,
Than I am now?
Or is it the contrary?

I feel less fragile, less breakable
There's no more sign taped blatantly to my forehead
Screaming, "VERY FRAGILE: HANDLE WITH CARE"
And there's no more drought

But did the passion get lost along with all of the emptiness?
How do I know?
Where is it hidden?
*And where can I find it again?