Climbing higher still
it is necessary to pause
and think on the odd
or abstract steps along
the narrow staircase you are on,
as are all of us.
In them we'll find the answers
for which our longing grows
with every passing hour.
Until then we must continue to observe.
We haven't come so far
to tear ourselves apart
at seams that we have stitched
in otherwise perfect existences.
The difference between us and animals
is that we are cognitive enough to choose
to chew through instead of just doing
or otherwise dying.
Survival is no longer a priority
in the eyes of how it was originally defined.
Now, it is a mockery of its former self.
An apparition in the mirror's image:
still there but only semi-whole and floating along,
drifting in and out of conscious thought.
How the mighty have fallen down.
Tempting the hand of fate over and over
has only ever seemed to make us grow,
all while holding on to the lessons learned.
Thrown into colder exposures
we have always warmed our souls.
Like the match girl in the alcove,
sheltered from the snow,
we all want to be warm before we go.
One by one, the matches fall
with dwindling visions of a brighter future,
but the glow is finally found when the whole box burns.
As good may not exist
without its counterpart of evil,
such, I feel, is unity
without the notion of division.
Divided and crawling away from human nature,
we find ourselves trapped in the modern age
with a growing phobia of culture
in these United States.
How the mighty have fallen down.
Wrench yourself from your sweat-drenched stance
of envy and greed.
Stretch your hands in any direction you please,
but just don't sit there stagnating.
Hope is the filthiest four letter word
to the old and dying prisoner of war,
so use the tools at your disposal
to capture and to hold
what is most real in your soul
and never let it go.