I've always been in between life.
It's always somewhere over being
uncertain and certain,
optimistic and pessimistic,
and introverted or extroverted.

Despite all that,
there's one thing I'm sure of.
It is holding on to dear life,
going along through it.

I am nothing more than human,
but I am my own future.

All this time
we have been given,
I will not waste it.
I will not give up
on us.
I will keep on
trying.

The tears I shed
Have now dried upon my cheeks
The river now has no source
A river brought forth by betrayal and loneliness

Time is flying like a butterfly,
While my mind soars like a vulture
Broad, starving, and searching
A desert of what life was lies beneath me

Every creature, every semblance of what was
Has hidden away. Even the night owls
Are forced to scavenge close to home

Wind trembles under my wings
I command where I want to be taken but
Everything is empty

The watering hole is a mirage
The trees have forsaken their leaves
The carcasses that would have fed me
Have been picked over by rabbits and mice
Before the coyote or eagles
Could have even smelt it

And what is left for me?
I hope for a bone, gristle, maybe even fur
Something to put away the gnawing hunger
That echoes fervently inside my head

And yet
Even the starving wind has eaten away
The fur and crushed bones
Which the sun had also devoured into dust

Shall I land? Allow my feet to once again
Touch the sands that I've refused to acknowledge
And, somehow, truly begin to feel the fire
Of the sky beating down on me
As it has with every other creature...

Or shall I fly on?
Slowly, hopeful of the next scape
Being led by a careless butterfly
Which ***** it's wings as an infant walks
Only resting for food and drink

But... aren't I also as that?
A being that soars, not caring to see
What is below or around me
As my goal is not the frog
Not the eagle
Not even the wolf

My goal is me, tomorrow
As each flap of the butterfly's wings
Is valued at less than a drop of morning dew
The relentless need to push on
Is in symmetry between it and I
So, I must fly on.

Above the wasted desert
Beyond the wind of bones
Beside the sun that drinks us away
And behind the butterfly
Which never, once, thought of me

If I were on it, I'd align and live
a day worth the dent,

But if it's obvious or not I sense
created consent.

I try to fabricate a way in which
to break from the grip,

But it's appalling how inactive wings
will stay in the crib.

I see a season peeking in and out of clouds,
twiddle thumbs at my reflection
waiting numb at the direction of the wind

Brittle lungs hope to wrestle the distention
My complexion shows the symptoms
My assumptions were it's manifesting sin

It's the stagnant pool of water
It's a faltering foundation
guiding hands to feed the slaughter
Drawing lines to frame them in.

I make my mirror into butcher,
draw conclusions from the surface,
tunnel deep into the portrait,
judge the avatar as worthless.

We're just lonely little boxes,
on the surface,
if we only see the surface,
but the ocean drowns the treasure
for the divers to uncover

Will the tyrant butcher keep us boxed in cages
dancing superficial cadence
here to languish
never speaking to each other

Or can we assume the seasons feed the roots,
beneath the surface,
seed resurgence of connection,
see a new escape begin.

Hang onto your hope-
a sunflower in this gloomy world.
Remember the brightness
of past times.
Have a little faith,
that this too shall pass
as we plant the seeds
of more hope.