Ghosts Lost & Winter Found

26 // the fate of humanity has always been distant

THE FATE OF HUMANITY HAS ALWAYS BEEN DISTANT
//

There are too many kinds of distant.
You can be distant in space,

on the other side of the globe --
vast shifting continents

and seas so deep
all of humanity's tears couldn't fill them --
carving a gap between us.

You can be distant in years,

too far in the future
I can't see you even if I squint;

too far in the past
my memory has decayed like old film
and left us record-less, unwatchable;
another ruin lost to history.

You can be distant in mind,
a day-dreamer dreaming of that elusive else;

or distant in heart,
like you once dug a grave for your emotions
and now they only haunt you as ghosts,
half-things that flicker and fade, wax and wane

and vanish.

zeus once, in fear of humanity,
split us all in half.

And he left us like that,
lonely and afraid and with too much emptiness;
or not enough.

Because the most terrifying sort of distance

is distance of the soul,

when two people no longer align,

and they are left reeling, wandering, detached.

Half-people with no way to

cross the gap.