Something Better
A Poem
I wish that I could make something better to express the stress I feel inside because my heart is a cannonball and my soul is an ocean. I sink deeper, down through the abyss and my eyes burst from the pressure and the sun is drowned and I am blind.
I wish I could make something better.
I don't want pity I don't want you to see who I truly am. A cliche but its true. If you see what can you do? If you see how can you help? Just be.
There in the abyss I walk the bottom of the trench and search for a light that I can see without the gift of sight. It's not a gift it's a curse, because when you can see you can know and when you know the magic is gone, the fire is burned out, the metaphors all break.
I am not a creator I am a charlatan a wizard a conjurer an illusionist. I weave these words and hypnotize you to pay for something I could give should give for free but I have no other skills I like and I wish I could make something better.
But I never will because what is better? Views clicks likes revenue? These are words not numbers. Words with weight, words with melody, words with imagery. Words that I can string together to make impressive sentences that will make you think that I am something but all I am really saying is that it is far too easy to say nothing and far too hard to say something better but the better you get the worse you feel and the worse you feel—
Better is not a measure easily measured.
Pressure flattens me to the floor of the abyss and I cease to struggle and let the darkness in. After over under within without the blackness seeps but it is not darkness it is water and the only thing missing is light. Not just any light because I know the ones swimming around my heart are bait and I've been bitten before. But I bite anyway and my heart is consumed piece by piece. I need a new one.
I walk heartless across the bottom of the ocean floor looking. Look to others, look to plans, to rules, religions and comforts – but none of them have my heart. They offer substitutes but all they do is pump once and die. I need a new heart that won't die.
I wish I could write something better. Something with a plot, because things without plots don't sell. Plotting, scheming about how to trick you into thinking it is better and I am better because it is better but we are all broken.
But keep walking.
Past the plots and substitutes.
Through the black water.
To the end.
Of your line.
I walk into the cliff wall of the trench and stare up without sight. The wall is as high as my ocean is deep and the light is at the top. A hand reaches down.
I wish I could write something—
The hand is trailing blood and I am pulled from the trench and I am given a new heart and new eyes that cannot be crushed and cannot be consumed and I am—
—better.
Listen to this poem set to music: Soundcloud
About Me
First, thank you for reading! To echo a sentiment from Thomas Hardy, I greatly regret that I will never be able to meet many of you in person and shake your hands, but perhaps we can virtually shake hands. It is a poor substitute, but it will have to do in this strange world. If you subscribe I promise I will not gum up your inbox.
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