The Terms and Conditions of Being- A Poem

   i- Awareness

For the longest time

I didn’t think I’d be around for very long at all

Not really and maybe not ever,

At least not through the dreadful scope of the fall

It’s a strange thing to think about

Even stranger to put into words

Although I think if you know me even a little

That’s what I’ve always been doing

I’ve been screaming into the darkness for

The sake of a little boy who now might be heard

And that’s a strange concept

I know it even though I’ve committed to write

The idea that the things I create are little more

Than a useless attempt to reach myself

A part of me who can never hear me say

That it’s never going to get better

Not in the way you hope

It’s never going to get easier

Even though that’s how they all will say it goes

The clouds you used to love will hover

And the waters that you never swam will

Slowly drag you down

Until you drown

In the depths of who you’d always said you’d be

A child’s mind and a stupid wish

The ignorance that said that there’s no end

He couldn’t see

One where all wrong things for once went right

A world where he could just once look back

And see he’d lived a child’s life

Instead of always hoping

Instead of writing stories to both his older and younger self

Where things went right

Where he was happy

Somewhere other than the place that always

Was his lasting hell

Wouldn’t that be nice?

It would be, right?

How stellar would it be if after all of this

And where I’ve been

Just once I could be happy with my life.

And I know that it won’t happen

I know that even more than who I’ve been

Every step and every story told is just the empty man

A vacant space

Of who I’ve been and who I am

And the truth is that I never was a child

I was told great lies that I was an old soul

But I was just depressed

I was suicidal

And I didn’t know how to handle a single moment

Of who I am

So I was just a buffer, and that’s all

And I was a lost and flightless fly on every wall

Life spun on and formed false memories

That told me every bit of who I might still be

Something more than the tragic ending

And the sadness of it all.

I don’t wish that you could hear me.

I have no desire to ever cause you any pain

It’s just the simple child’s silent plea

That who I am is not just the simple fragment

Of something greater that you’ll never see.

It’s the crater

It’s the loss and it’s the void

It’s every little piece of me that I wrote about

In the hopes that this, my stupid dream

Would somehow bring me joy.

That of a child

That little dreaming thing I never was

I wish you knew how much it hurts

To be in every crowded room

And finite space

And just wish that I could be buried in my dirt

Right next to my memories

And every last false friend I had to make

And the simple truth that no matter what

After all these years

After all this pain

I was just a child who never once grew up

Someone who believed in monsters

Because then perhaps in the great night

He might find that there are angels too

And if they were there then so was he

And it would take the weight of the god damn world

To ever weigh him down

But it did.

It really did.

And isn’t that just the funniest thing

A simple dream my anxiety would never allow

Because I have lived every single moment

Every lasting second

Knowing who I am and who I’ve been

And that I’ll never make it out somehow.

I wish you could’ve seen me

I wish you could’ve seen me happy here.

But all of life is a child’s game

A broken board

And one I was too lost to ever learn to even play.

ii- Acceptance

I want you to understand

Perhaps more than anything else

That who I am and who I’ve been

Has never been anything other than

My understanding of my lacking self

I exist in a moment

A simple understanding of all that I have been

Something old and something past

Every last happiness and strangled grasp

Held tight to the fraying ropes of a story

That still just might begin

At the ending

At the fatal point where all things naturally end

I know that sounds repetitive

But there’s a more than equal chance that’s who I am

Someone in these empty pages

Just waiting to be filled in

With the thoughts and the moments

The likes and loves of a better man

And I know that might sound derogatory

And like a last insult

But I promise that it’s just the thought

Of a story at its end.

There is no part of me, not now, not again

That I do no longer know

I’m lost in a moment

A heartbeat that lasts forever now and then

I think that you might think of me

And every lasting moment that you’ve seen

But that doesn’t matter

Not really

Does it?

I hope that at this point, at this end,

I’m just a story

And I am the empty thing that’s always lost

In between this life and every simple hope

That never cared

Not once

About the finite of the human cost.

And see…I’m thinking about you as I write

You, the architect of every bit of our own risk

The pillar and the constant

Of this everything

And the everlasting of the lasting life.

It’s like you’re staring in silence

And every fading bit of who you are

Is showing as a moment

As one thing elating in a separate space

To differentiate you from the past you’ve been

And the man you were

To show you who you are

And what could be has been.

Again.

Repetition

Do you think any of these words have ever happened by mistake?

I think, in the end

That might be the funniest thing

This truth that you think that I am swimming in a puddle

And not drowning in a lake

Lost in a moment

Lost in every bit of who I am

And nothing more than a shadow

Nothing but the failure that

A failing life has been and will end before I go

Into the ether

Into some place where I can rest

So far away from the pain I follow and the fragile things

That told me who I am just wouldn’t last

Sometimes I wish they were right.

I really do, even if this is acceptance

It’s my poem and my terms, so if you don’t like them

You’re welcome to leave

This is all I can do to stay alive

And even though what will be will be

I’d be lying if I said I enjoyed the ride

When I’ve lived every moment on a rollercoaster

On broken rails

Through rusted halls

And I’m afraid of heights.

And none of this matters

In the end I am little more than words on a page

Something to last, as a fire burning low

Until I find the end of my fleeting hourglass days

I hope it’s in the mountains

I hope more than anything it’s someplace quiet and deep

With whispers of great life all around us

The rush of wind as it winds through stalwart trees

The sound of birds in flight and the falling of the desperate dying leaves

The beautiful world that has housed me here

And I hope it’s always been happier than I’ve managed

And even happier than I’ve ever gotten to be.

iii- Finality

I heard it in a song once

The way great instrumentation slowly fades

And all I never knew right then was

That I’m little more than one last final note

That will only go away.

It fades into the distance

Last chords drowned out by all that’s been

The history of a failure

One here just to watch all the good dreams die

So close to where they never left

Held fast by roots in a dying ground that has run dry

I know I should’ve watered

Or found something that might have saved the soil I cracked

But I never knew how to be the man

Who was only ever going to be the last one left

Standing in the silence

Staring at the dreams that might still grow

Wishing more than anything that who I was

Is some base knowledge I might still come to know

That would’ve been something

What a world in which to live

Still a pointless place in a pointless life

But somewhere happiness, for a little while,

Could be a song that still might begin.

I know that I’m an artist

And I don’t care if I chose it or it chose me

There’s just the simple truth of it all

That the best things in life are words

And people

And every love that might still leave

Because nothing is permanent

Nothing that has been will ever stay

It doesn’t matter if you thought it would

It’s an invention of a human mind that will only ever betray

You in a moment

It’ll tell you everything you’d like to hear

That who you are is still enough and even then

No matter what

And when you need it most

All you’ll know is what’s been lost and all that’s no longer near

And I wish you could’ve been here

Even if it’s just for a moment that has passed

I wish we could’ve watched my dreams

And smiled even as they only always left

To be lost in the distance

To be with that old self that might still be

And I know even then, it wouldn’t last and

All I’d have to do is blink

Even as you stared

And when I’m back, it’s like you were never even there.

Maybe that would’ve been better

Maybe the best times are the ones that we forget

Maybe if I woke up one day and blinked into the rising light

I’d find that in the truest sense

You were never there

And I’ll finally be alright.

But I know I wouldn’t be.

I knew that and I know that even now

All I am is whispering things in the hope I might convince

The sad thing that lives in me

The one that’s anchored in dry earth

With the weight of a child, that nothing youth,

And the one that has never left.

I think I’d rather be that nothing

The plants that grew if just to die

I think that now, despite who I am

I’d rather be something that began

Instead of this

Instead of me

Instead of just a constant lacking end.

But I am.

Don’t you see that I’ve always been.

And I’m just a comet that missed the earth

And the only song that has ever played

Is the one I’ve never heard.