nothing else but my heart's desire [COLLECTION] | FINISHED

1999 - ORIGINAL PROSE

I were born as winter had come to end, when nights slowly turned to days and life were to blossom once again, as flowers bloom and animals emerge from the months' long slumber. Long ago now, I still remain though not quite as naive as I once was, the age of experience and terrible knowledge weighing on my mind as each birthday passes, for I wait quietly until the clock ticks on from one day to the next, making myself smaller, smaller still until nothing remains, so their eyes do not linger and they do not know, they cannot know, they could never know why, though they think of it still. That's it, isn't it? The time came and went for pleasantries, I only wish to curl into a ball and cry, why am I crying? Years pass by, its all the same, and as the hour marks a decade of more terrible things, I can only wonder what could've been and what might've been had I only allow for smiles and sleepless nights in the company of like-minded people, in the best of ways. Years pass me by, only this decade feels more like a century, until I reach three decades living and wonder where all the time went, passing by in a blink of an eye. My heart beats fast and I'm scared briefly, I only wish such fear lingered once more until the end of time, for such little care passes over my mind, jaded as my eyes as they appear glassy, cloudy, unfocused on all before me this day, wishing to escape these greetings I dreaded this year more than all years which have come to pass. Hearts race still and I can't sit still, I remembered a time which feels so much closer than it had been before, where I sat and sat, I looked and appeared to take in so much, though little remained then and now of knowledge passed onto me by those who trained themselves to not suffer under the weight of life, their choices and the passage of time before their eyes, as I feel now, so acutely, so painfully, so heavily upon my chest. I recalled the hope of then, of days lost to time, as I now sit and wait still for my next paycheck, to live through a month of worry and little food in my belly, as the world felt so new then, as though it were mine to control, to conquer, to seize by the reins and guide to the future - ambitious, unknowing, without the feeling of the grave approaching with each passing day. 1999, until some unknown day, except for fleeting months known then and now only with the benefit of hindsight, and the surrounding years, come back to me and remain frozen in time, a piece of me alive in each era, of the young girl in the few, rare moments of peace offered to her, as yet not knowing what waits for her, as with the girl much older, who knew then better than she had known before, who hid behind jokes of a broken heart and a fragile spirit, of the few moments she felt one with her mind and body, and then an older, wiser yet not-wise adult who had grown up unsure of her place in the world. She goes back to her life of leisure once more, and wonders where the wide-eyed youngster went, and realises later than she'd like that she does not belong anywhere, not in the places she once called home, nor in the places she has found home in, as much as she loves them. Good times, come back to me and allow me my life of fantasy, recorded in poetry and prose, living out my stories inside my head while the world burns around me to the tune of 'happy birthday.'