The world destroys itself,
and I am fading,
far away, until silence falls
upon a familiar absence of belonging.
For shreds and pieces I give my heart away.
Long days give way to longer nights.
Breath escapes my struggling lungs.
As young hearts mend and stay I am fading away.
The sight of hope dances on the moonlit horizon,
Yet degeneration clouds my mind.
To whom do the sparrows fly?
So as it is unknown, my heart cries alone.
As powerful as the promise of rebirth
a longing for the grave, smirking and chiding it mocks.
An emptiness as deep as the sky crashes on my soul
boasting that worth is never to be found.
A few days ago I picked up an old journal/composition notebook, one in which I have not written for some time now. This poem (excepting a few changes), if it can even be called a poem, was the first entry on the first page. I was rather intrigued at the intensity to which these words and phrases reached. As I sat there reading, I wondered at what it meant and how I had come to write it. Well, it didn't take long, I only needed to read a few more pages in my journal to understand that I was indeed going through a significantly dark time in my life. I can't speak much of it now as most of it has passed. Yet I know it was written at a time when I had little care for the meaning and existence of life. Significant issues are addressed: belonging, loneliness, self-worth, hope, etc. These periods of life are somewhat normal, I suppose, especially in our American culture where we have all for which we could ask --- all except for what's really necessary in our lives. What disturbs me most is the fact that I can at one point in time experience such a low point and two years later not even remember the actuality of the events. The power of our minds to selectively recall past events remains a mystery. Maybe that fact points to much of our romanticism of the past. We only want to remember the good, the happy, the full, the right. Memories are made and memories are forgotten on purpose, but I think its healthy to do our best to recall the despair, the ugly, the miserable, the lonely, etc, in order that we might strengthen our views of the present and future. Not that it is a coping mechanism, but that it brings reality into a life where it seems that reality has gone from us, not because it has, but because we have created a picture of future reality that only includes the same optimism as the selective memory of the past.