Inkling

Listen

I am young but once.

I am not thoughtless, reckless.

I will not regret,

So I cannot leave this unsaid.

***

Time has me on a leash:

He leads me in circles,

Hoping I'll become dizzy,

Believing I am in charge.

***

What does it look like?

Feel like?

Why do you need me

To tell you about your world?

Are you so impressionable,

Swayed by my words?

If I told you it was the ocean–

The desert–

Would you see waves and sandy dunes,

Instead of the curl of the paper's edge?

***

Real innocence,

Shared laughter,

Happy dreams:

You speak of these things

As if they are gone,

Fled from your life and your thoughts,

Only to return

When memories are dredged . . .

Are you so far gone

That you only sometimes

Recall the good of the past?

Have you none to expect,

To greet in the present?

***

Is this real to you

Or is it rehearsed, constant

Till you believe it?

***

You have so many words to say–

Wanting so desperately to be heard,

You drown yourself in nonsense.

Don't you realize the power in silence?

The eloquence of brevity?

The cosmos was sculpted–

Breathed into existence–

In mere sentences.

***

It's like giving up:

Betraying the magic,

That unassuming sparkle,

Which you once found

Glimmering

Deep within the mundane.

***

Regret–

Comprised of pride,

Drenched in control,

Stinking of fear . . .

Utterly lacking in

Self-awareness.

***

Thoughts become actions–

Follow through from the feelings–

So what is the point,

Really?

***

Life is for the longest haul,

Our futures must be built.

Yet a day full up of choices

Can lead to virtues spilt.

It's hardly named as rashness

When the actions that are made

Are daily picked and used again,

Despite the shining's fade.

And yet, even so, you know

There's something to be said

About the way we rush and run

To put each day to bed.

Our decisions do ever linger on,

Though night is close at hand.

The years are too unkind to those

Who'd make their lives as bland.

To live underwhelmed is truly that:

A reckless waste of time.

Why even now, my day's half spent,

In writing this worthless rhyme.

***

Who says our firsts are always

Lovely, lucky, light?

Can't we wallow in our darkness–

Lonely, lazy, listless . . .

Can't we be real?

***

We fill sinks with galaxies,

Send them swirling

Down the drain,

And in moments we dispose of it–

Our so-called magic.

All whilst ignoring

The ever fading beauty

That can be gained with a single step:

Out of doors and under the heavens,

Made especially for our wonder.

We trivialize and attempt to compress

What was created to be vast,

Limitless.

And we do the same to our stars.