Life as Postmodernism

Life, when taken for granted, breaks
Into millions of pieces. The pieces are picked up,
One by one, by the passers-by,
To be nurtured, taken care of, so it may grow once again.
Life, when taken for granted, breaks
And when it is shattered, there is no way
Of putting it back together as it was.
Instead it is reconstructed, the cracks a reminder
of the adversity it had to suffer to become
The broken masterpiece it turns into.
There is the concept of postmodernism:
You take something apart. You put it back together.
It is never the same afterwards -
Then, all of life is a postmodernist chain:
Take a pristine life and drop it on the floor.
Listen to it break into many different pieces.
Let the pieces affect the lives surrounding it, and,
When it is ready,
Let it try and remake itself into a masterpiece,
Cracks, pieces, and all.
It could be the same person, but the thinking
is forever changed by the experience of breaking.
Life, when taken for granted, breaks
and regroups into its old shape with a new face.

Voices, or Three Perspectives on Life

There is never a day when I do not think of what is to come,
For I see things, and yet hear another, and yet again,
speak of another.
There are three perspectives: the first, an optimistic voice,
Cries out, “Change! Change must take place!”
She is the voice of youthful idealism, in all her glory
and her uncorrupted values - she lives on in spite of
The evils of the world today.
The second perspective, the pessimist, says
“This life - it is not worth living:
Put an end to the sorrow and move on to the next!”
This is the voice of desperation personified:
A voice that lies deep within each living being,
One that only few heed, and some hear clearly,
because of its dangerous power to end a life.
The third perspective is the most powerful of all,
The most dangerous, and yet the easiest to heed:
“Stop caring.”
Two words could not get more powerful -
You do not move forward, and yet
You do not move back as well:
You just stay put, not caring for the world,
Not living a life but not ending it either.
It is a limbo within the world - a means of being stuck
Where you should not be.
Each of the two voices is a destination, and yet
With this one, you only stay lost,
Never to be found unless you want to be.
There is never a day when I do not hear these three
arguing amongst each other -
I say the first, hear the second, and see the third,
And I know not which one to heed.
For the first, while it is positive, is idealistic:
There is no room for idealism in the real world.
The second is cynical, and pessimistic,
And I wish to be neither.
The third, the most tempting, and the easiest to heed,
I recognize the danger: life should move,
One way or another, and not stop where it is.
People say the trick to the voices
Is to find a balance between the three,
and yet I find these words lost in translation
For the balance is yet to be reached
without damaging consequences to follow.

Affair

‘Twas an affair like no other -
He, with his penetrating eyes,
Gazed upon her, unknowing that

In her mind was a dream, a fiend:
A fantasy where he puts his arms on her skin,
Pulls her close, and begins to lead her
Into a rare dance with fate.

She gazes upon him in return,
Careful as not to give away
The secret she so holds inside her -

She wanted him to want her badly enough
that he would feel the ache in his muscles,
That he would whimper and sigh at the sound
of her sweet, mellow voice.

 Yet he would not let her know
Of such things. He was a private man -
He did not make such things known.

And so the affair in her mind goes,
Beautiful, and sweet. And real,
If only for a moment, in her subconscious.
He knows nothing, the object of her affection.

One’s Shadows

No day is easy with a shadow following you around,
And no weight is lifted when the past is close behind.
To face it would be jumping off a cliff with a solid bottom,
And to run from it would be running in place.
You close your eyes in hopes that it will dissipate,
Yet when you open them once more, you find yourself
Face to face with it, unable to hide any longer,
For it is persistent: it will find your spirit and wake it.
Conscience, after all, is both a burden and a gift -
The guilt of yesterday’s mistakes eat you up alive,
And yet this very same guilt feeds your inner strength.
No day is easy with a shadow following you around,
Yet at the end of the day, you find yourself yearning,
Wanting it to follow you, so you may never forget…
So you may, from your past,  always and forever learn.

Insomnia

The silence comes suddenly and all is still.
Not a drop of a feather, nor another’s breath can be heard
Except my own. I see the bodies lying there,
Breathing, unconscious, yet silent and still.

I am deprived of this luxury -

My body calls out for it, yearns to have a taste of it:
That which they call the window to another realm.
Yet I fear I am not meant for that world - I cannot dream
In my conscious state, therefore I have none.

I am deprived of this luxury -

And I hear of the tranquiity that washes over
When one closes his eyes and leaves this world
Even just for a moment, to visit another.
I am deprived of this gift, one often taken for granted.

I am deprived of this luxury -

It is the only way to see what is beyond:
To, once again, hold that one I have loved and lost,
To create the illusion that life is perfect -
I am deprived of this luxury.