I sit in my bed, not knowing what words to type. What lines to scribble on the page. My ink runs dry.
My heart feels heavy. I’m tense. I want to cry but at the same time I’m feeling hopeful and there’s an underlying sense of peace.
This one is different. It’s about the pain and suffering in the world and everything we put ourselves through.
You would never imagine some of the things people have to go through and yet we’re surviving every day.
I’ve never felt like my life was in danger but I fight a battle too. Internally. These people are fighting an external battle.
I wonder if we could all put our weapons down one day. If we could all surrender. Raise that white flag…
Let’s give up on trying to punish each other. Let’s give up on being judge, jury, and executioner to our fellow man.
I’ve been thinking, and that thinking is that if we do anything important in this life it’s that we love one another.
I know it sounds like something on a Hallmark card but it really is the antidote to the poison that has so infected this world we live in every day.
I don’t know if it’s a good thing or not that I feel so heavily for other people. Maybe it’s a burden and maybe life would be easier if I just didn’t care what happened one way or the other. But I do. I care what happens. Give me the chance to do the right thing and not just for goodness’ sake but because I want to do the right thing.
Allow me to choose between love and hate and I will choose love every time. Allow me to choose the path of animosity or forgiveness and I rather live and let die.
Again, my heart is sore and I don’t quite know where that leaves me. Without love, none of us can keep on living. We may think we’re living but really, we’re dead inside.
A friend of mine told me to write freely tonight so here I am.
I hope my words can carry me farther than my imagination can. I hope that these words are like a song that my trapped cage bird soul sings. This is my gospel and its only mine.
Sometimes it’s hard to believe that I am really a somebody.
A flesh and blood human with a heart that palpitates and a mind that observes and analyzes. A soul that craves real experiences and fulfillment.
I guess I just so often feel disconnected from myself it’s hard to realize it.
I’m often escaping through something and hardly do I take the time to just focus on something I really wanna do, not for anybody else but just for me.
I’m also often left feeling rather irrelevant as it seems nobody makes me an important part of their lives.
I’m told not to wait on people or to make people the center of my world but how much alone time is too much alone time?
I want to share real experiences with people and for them to see a side of me I don’t often get to show and I guess that leads to me trying too hard sometimes.
So sometimes I feel all I have are my dreams. But even that is scary because I don’t know what lies ahead. I want to know every step I need to take, what lies in wait around the corner, any surprises etc. But I can’t possibly know that.
All day every day I think that maybe one day I’ll make something of myself. But I’m sick of maybes.
There once was a boy who lived with his mother and two half siblings in a place known as The Land of Broken Glass. This dystopian land was riddled with heaps of garbage as big as some mountains and waste laid as far as the eye could see.
The family scoured the land for edibles or even something useful for their survival. The one thing they never had was a mirror. One day the boy asked his mother why he’d never seen his reflection.
“I want to see my reflection mother, please show me my reflection,” he said.
“You want to see your reflection?”
She picked up a piece of broken glass and showed it to the boy but he had none!
“See, you are so ugly that the mirror won’t even show your reflection,” she laughed.
The boy grew sour inside when she said this. Days passed of them wandering the land, making contact with absolutely no one when the boy stood up.
“Mother, all we do is worry about surviving. We never have any fun. We never enjoy ourselves. And if I’m so ugly like you say maybe you are all better off without me!”
“Good luck out there then, you’re gonna need it!” She laughed.
The boy walked off into the unknown. He wandered for miles and miles. There came a point where he was really tired and so he collapsed on the ground.
When he woke up he was inside a building but the sun shone through a hole in the ceiling.
“Oh, you’re awake,” he heard a voice coming from inside the building.
He propped himself up to see who was speaking to him and it was a girl. She wore rags and she was barefoot.
“W-who are you? And why aren’t you wearing any shoes? You’ll cut yourself!” The boy exclaimed.
“Because I don’t have any,” she retorted.
“Who are you?” He asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t have a name.”
The girl had no identity and neither did the boy. Neither of them had a name. After that the boy and the girl spent days scouring the earth together for bits of food or shiny objects and bringing it back to their habitat.
Without the girl knowing the boy nabbed a book and a piece of glass. At times when she was asleep the boy would look into the glass but not see his reflection and other times he would engross himself in the book.
The next day when the boy woke he saw the girl tending to a wound.
“When did you do that to yourself?”
She turned innocently towards him.
“While we were out in the fields…”
“I’ve been reading this book and there’s a character in there. Her name is Ellen and she’s a lot like you. So I think your name should be Ellen.”
The girl blushed and tried to contain her smile.
“Ellen?”
The boy just nodded.
“Okay.”
“Well now you have a name but I still don’t have a reflection. How can others see who I am if I can’t see myself?”
The girl merely sympathized with him.
Some time passed and the girl told the boy she had a surprise for him. The boy was much curious. When he came to find out, the girl had assembled an old broken mirror from parts she found out in the heaps.
“I think your mother put a curse on you. There’s an old myth that if someone can’t see their reflection that a loved one can restore them back to normal. Here, look inside the mirror.”
The boy peeked inside the mirror and indeed he saw his reflection. He passed his hands through his hair and touched on his face.
“That’s me?” He asked.
The girl nodded. After that he just sat there staring at it.
“Not what you expected?”
“It’s just my mother always said I was ugly. I think she was right.”
The girl grabbed his hand with one swoop and looked into his eyes.
“Don’t you ever say that. I’d been on my own days on days and something told me one day to walk your way and I found you lying in the sun. So I carried you back here. I think you were the sign I’d been looking for and when you gave me my name and told me about your situation, I couldn’t help but think this was meant to be… I love you.”
“I just met you not too long ago.”
“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “You are my blessing.”
She hugged the boy and the boy began to tear until he just wept and the girl pulled away from him.
“Don’t cry. For better or for worse you have a home now.”
The two lived together from then on happily despite having very little, eventually even having children. Who would also scour the earth and their children and so on.
“Dear Wildflower, how are you? I hope this letter finds you in good standing. Today I sat atop the tower and I looked over at the sea. I thought ‘wow, I’m so blessed. I have all these things.’ Still I did not feel like it was enough. I’ve been like this for quite some time. Please, write to me soon. Your friend, your correspondent.”
“Dear Correspondent, I am good. Today I went to the market and sold well. I love this little town no matter how quaint. I watch the same vendors bicker all day and I never grow tired of it… About your situation, I’m sorry to hear that. Maybe you need to leave that tower and explore the world like me. It will broaden your mind.”
“Dear Wildflower, I’m glad to see you are doing well. Your town sounds a lot better than this tower. I think I’ve made my mind up. I’m going to leave the comfort zone of my precious tower and travel the world. I have the funds to do it after all.”
“Dear Correspondent, I’m happy for you. I think you will come to realize something special out on the road. This town is nice, but I feel I may outgrow it soon. Maybe I’ll see you out there?
Your friend, Wildflower.”
“Dear Wildflower, I found a seaside town called Port Augustus. I’ve been here for several weeks. Something begs me to stay but at the same time my spirit calls for me to continue my journey. How are things? Are you still at the same address? I hope everything works out for you.”
“Dear Correspondent, I am well again. I’m going to be moving soon. I will send you postage from my new residence when I settle in. That is, if you are still at the same address.”
“Dear Wildflower, I’m leaving this town. I’m not sure if you are still at this address. Maybe they will forward it to you. You never told me where you were moving to. If I never hear from you again, I wish you a well life. Thank you, again.”
Artistic Apathy 