Ghosts
For the recently self aware
What do you do when the walls of your life
Come tumbling down around you
Like castles of sand
Crumbling in the wind?
What do you do when the clocks
Start ticking backwards
Creating a melody that takes you back
To moments you have hidden from?
What do you do when the night noises
That have always sounded so friendly
Become strange voices
Planting doubts in your dreams?
What do you do when arms you have always held
Suddenly let go,
Or a gaze that has never abandoned you
Suddenly leaves you behind?
What do you do when you feel your life
Turn to water in your hands
As you first try to hold onto it
And then become drowned in it?
What do you do when you can’t find
The mate to your soul,
The one you’ve been waiting for,
Because you lost her forever?
What do you do when the phone rings
And a sad voice
Filled with quiet desperation
Sings a song of death?
What do you do when your body,
Always so strong, so trustworthy,
Finally fails you
When you needed it most?
What do you do when you watch your heart,
Once so innocent, so whole,
Ripped from your chest
And shattered upon the floor?
What do you do when a small voice
Seeking reassurance
Finds out her stalwart guardian
Is never coming back?
What do you do when you look all around you,
You wander through an empty house in silence,
When you walk unnoticed through the streets,
And you realize that you have always been alone?
What do you do then?
(2013)
Life is so funny, and we as a people are funnier still. We have this ridiculous sense of self importance, where we think that the universe operates in such a way that rewards and punishments are given and taken away to "good" or "bad" people, or that some of us "deserve" or are "entitled" to those rewards or punishments depending on who we are as people. But there is such a random indifference to the universe that we don't like to think about. We want to be rewarded for being good people, for doing good deeds. We want evil doers to be punished. That is part of being human, to personalize and relate to things that have nothing to do with anyone. Because we crave organization, we demand control over our own lives, even when, at the end of the day, almost every aspect of our lives depends on chance and chance alone. Like I said, we don't want to think about that sort of thing. We fear a lack of control. But it only takes one iota of chance to take a life away, to make you lose your livelihood, to cause permanently damaging inconveniences that you care so much about but the universe cares nothing about.
