Horrors Of The Free Will

How horrible is it to live in a world where love feels like a disease; cruel and incurable with mediocre distractions in attempts of forgetting that you’re sick.

It consumes you, it drives you to oblivion, it drags you to places where you never thought you’d end up, and then it leaves you there to fester and rot upon your infection, rendering you too weak until it eventually subsides. Once it does you’re left to deal with its remnants; that deception growing in your chest, hardening your very heart little by little until it slows down and starts to beat at a slow odd pace, chilling every one of your vessels until they’re ice; forcing you to promise yourself that you shall never expose yourself to such a pathogen again.

How sad is it to be forced to stuff down your emotions, having to store them deeply until they eventually die and poison you. In a world where nonchalance is praised people hold themselves back from expressing themselves; the passions once declared so dramatically by our ancestors are now just considered ridiculous.

This is the reason we live in a graying world; our art no longer stands for the only emotion that transcends time and worlds; we now settle for cheap depictions of our flawed world with no basis or morals which make them as temporary as the fleeting feeling of lust. They crumble with the passing of time until they are left in the gray heap that constitutes our very existence today; so now we live surrounded by the failed attempts of showing emotion, making it so every which way we turn, we are reminded of what we’ve lost as a society.

So now we are forced to reap wilted flowers from seeds that have been nourished by conflicting nutrients, setting their growth up for failure. That is why we now carry bouquets of dead flowers and offer them in reconciliation as the ghost of what they could’ve been. Their bright colors and unique shapes live only in our imagination as we are reminded of the fields described in literary works written back in the days where people still allowed the substance of their very souls to flow freely.

We are now haunted by our dead flowers, so much so that as we’re walking through our paths in life and we encounter the rarity of a luscious living flower, we will turn away from it, deluded by the mirage of being able to find a field overflowing with them. However, the further we walk, we are able to witness that those fields we encounter have been murdered by that same disease that has infected our own systems, leaving us disoriented in a dry field deprived of all color and scent. People no longer appreciate quality over quantity, therefore we are stuck in our delirium and are unable to strip ourselves from the cruel facade we’ve imposed in our imaginations.

This is the reason we’ve been unable to find the antidote to that poison that infiltrates our very lives. Once we are cut with the dull knife of unrequited love, we are consumed by the storm within us, destroying all our fields with the illness that consumes us. We become obstinate and unwilling to be the living flower in somebody else’s path, for we consider it useless being the only living flower in a barren field piled with dead leaves; ignorant to the fact that only the living petals are able to soothe the aches.

I’d been sitting on the bench for ages;

the leaves were beginning to fall —

the same leaves I had once watched green

as they were blooming,

now crisp and burnt orange.

The air was getting chilly.

I didn’t bring my coat;

I thought I’d be waiting

for far less than the time that’s passed.

The sky was like a painting

that signaled yet another day,

but eventually it started blending —

a palette overused and washed away.

I forgot my destination,

or the reason I was there,

but I had been there so long

that standing up and leaving

would just make me feel like I’d failed.

So I stay at the bench,

waiting for the bus.

I knew it wasn’t coming,

but I just had to make sure.

Out of habit?

Out of hope?

Or maybe because

I had nowhere else to go.

How come days are so long without you,
As if the clocks have forgotten to tick?
The world holds its breath,
Afraid to let out a gurgling scream.

So here I stand — curious,
Wandering through the memories we made,
Tracing the paths we walked together,
And everything we could have been.

How could we have been saved?
It felt like water slipping through my hands.
Maybe it was meant to happen —
To strengthen what was already there.

You’re always in my thoughts,
A permanent resident in my mind.
It almost feels like I’m holding you hostage
In a prison without bars.

There, we live in harmony.
Everything is bliss —
Until the darkness reaches out its hands
And knocks down what we’ve built.

How did we let it happen?
Let doubt prick us with its thorns?
Maybe we should just light them on fire
And pray they never regrow.

Because how could I let the gashes rule me
After you’ve jumpstarted my heart?
You’ve done the impossible —
Recovered parts of me I thought were forever lost.

Now, the piece of coal within my chest
Has turned to flesh and blood again.
From it is born the impulse to be enough,
To be there for you — even when you’re at war.

For you I’d dive to the depths of Mariana’s trench without a second thought.

I love you; words that turn to dirt in my mouth, choking me with their bitterness and asphyxiating me with their dust. My heart is sore from beating, I need to put it to rest, but my stubborn ribs prevent me from pulling out of my chest. I have the perfect box, made of gold and lined with velvet; maybe that will keep it safe the way my past lovers haven’t protected it. I’ve always been made to think that I am hard to love, everyone just leaves me without a second thought; but why is it that love is bursting out of my chest; maybe I wasn’t meant to receive it but to share with others than myself. Is this why I always pour myself out to fill somebody else’s cup? Maybe there’s a reason, and maybe there is not.

For years I’ve had to pretend that I am made of stone; a statue that can’t be bothered; never hurt and never cast down. But the truth is that I’ve been living without knowing the feeling of a fresh breath; always waiting for the ending of the beginnings, like the shores wait for boats to sail.

So here I stand in my pier, as always, all alone. Surrounded by the sea of tears that I’ve spilled for lack of words. The sun shines overhead, the water blinds my eyes; the tide is currently higher, for many tears have been spilled around this time.

I wish to go back to the season with low shores, maybe someday when I’m not bothered by my melancholic prose.