All that Remains

Of Yearning and Youth

I silently look out to the city skyline

Staring, as an angel would

Wings folded back and dormant

The one time I can step away and just breathe

And though my lungs fill with fumes, I do not choke

As the suffocating is what I am used to

The city glows; dots of yellow and white scatter 'cross the horizon

Each a reminder of another life, another dream

A reminder of those who can't afford to dream

A hand that I delicately reach out to prick on the shadows

The sharp needle pointed towards the dream of space

That we are so famous for

The red that gathers on the tip of my finger

As is the color that I wish to be

Colors that I smear over my skin

In hopes that it will stain

To make myself unrecognizable

To be a colored blotch in this world

Alas, they see through my illusion

With words like 'what do you know'

And write off my youth and immediately see it as naivety

Yet I am unable to convince myself that they are wrong

I write off my own thoughts as pure stupidity

After all, what do I know? Nothing. That's what.

I still yearn for the day that I will suddenly be enough

Even as I know that day will never come

I will never have gotten far enough, I will never reach the end

For I know there is none

Life begins, and it goes, and it stops. But it never closes.

There is no prize to those who end in any state

Death is only the suffering of those around you

And those around me

But I trust that the colors of my culture

Will celebrate the life I lived

Than the death I've left them with

And then the world will go on with no change