A poem that applies to all the creative dreamers that feel stifled by reality.
Sometimes I find myself grasping the air before me
My hands are chapped, and thin. The air is cold.
What I don’t realize is that I am attempting to grasp onto my
Own sense of wonder—my sense that my mind could truly create…
Something.
Something that I would release into the atmosphere, for all to take in.
But. As my soul swirls before the people I encounter, and a simple gasp elapses from their lips,
I see that…
That Filter.
I can feel it running down into their lungs…
It sits there for a few seconds, as does most other, simple, nothing breaths.
They blink. They exhale. And I am paralyzed.
I find them turning, my chapped, now bloody hands shaking.
Helpless. Filtered. Nothing.
I watch them leave.
And I realize that my soul is nothing but another thing the world will take in for a second, and filter out the next. I am a miniscule, dimming flame placed under the Earth’s largest water fall.
I am nothing.
And I decide to stop breathing…
For a moment. Because hope can be crushed, but a fluttering heart can build up that dwindling, vulnerable flame again.
It was once roaring, after all. The coals are still hot. They have to be.
So I begin again.
I run this time, my body propelling me forward towards the one that turned from me.
I can feel every muscle in my body vibrate, warning me of their deteriorating condition.
In each moment passing, the light continues to fade, and I can feel my wailing heart begin to cower, the pumping of the muscle skipping, shrinking, suffering.
I implore the one I follow to wait and they turn, their eyebrows furrowed.
They straighten their back with their head plenty too high on their shoulders. They can’t even see that I am sinking, already waist deep in the quick sand I call rationalization. I force a smile, trying to hide my desperation. My heart wails again.
Regardless of my dwindling state, the filterer remains agitated, their eyes averting to the clock, and then back to me, as if they had somewhere to be, as they always, always did.
Even as I die in front of them, they cannot be bothered.
But I will stay, because it isn’t only my life that I am saving, but the lives of those whose souls are painted every single shade of every single color.
I stand in front of a colorless soul.
They are colorless because they allow the world to take their shades and muddle them all together in what becomes a bleak, and lifeless blend of black. But they only allow it because it is easy. Even a drop of black in a soul’s whose light puts shame to the suns rays can dull, and dull, and dull, until that spirit is as colorless and as muddled as the others that surround them.
Following suit would be easier, wouldn’t it?
But I never asked for easy. Neither did many of us.
I hold my trembling hands out to theirs and can feel the veins in my wrists begin to dry up, my life blood vanishing.
I gasp as I grip them now, feeling the warmth of their hands against the coldness of mine.
“Am I just another drop of red in a bucket of blackness?” I ask and the filterer hesitates.
“Am I just another dying flame under the Earth’s greatest waterfall?” My gibberish confuses them. They try to pull their hands away, but I grip them tighter, my arms all of a sudden weak. I sink to my knees.
“Am I just another soul that is destined to be colorless, because that is the only thing I can be? The only, if not certain, way to live? As that one drop of red, will I just sink to the bottom of society’s canister, and fade…into black?”
A small spark flashes behind the filterers dark eyes and my lips begin tremble.
I don’t even have the opportunity to cry, as my tears are all dried up, just like my insides.
“It’s only practical.” They say. My hands stop shaking.
Practical? Who ever said I had to be practical? Whoever said sucking all the color from the world was practical? Whoever said being practical, was practical for Gods sakes because I’ve never felt so distant from myself when using practicality as an excuse for sewing up my insides so I don’t disrupt, disturb, or destroy the innocent minds of the colorless.
My fury fuels the last ounce of strength I have and I throw their hands down.
As that fury turns to fire, I feel the coals ignite again, and I find myself withstanding the fall of the rain above me.
I am a burning, scarlet soul surrounded by blackness. And now, if not soon, the colorless will take me, and pour me into their canister, and lock me away with all the others.
Why do we take one breath of another’s spirit and exhale, as if it is nothing when it is
Everything.