Existent

To exist

(Instagram Poetry page: Poetic_perception)

I haven't been alive long. No, not long at all. You probably counted that measurement in years, didn't you? She's just a teenager, so of course. But, in fact, most people haven't been alive long, some, haven't even lived yet. You'd associate that with a child, yes?

No.

I'd associate that with a man, with a woman, sitting at desk, in a bleak room with no windows, taking notes on astronomy, because that's what they love, but they live in London, and they've never really seen the stars. Oh, the stars, the moon, the solar system, the system of life and death, the supernova that is their existence, they don't even understand. They can't. They're eyes stare into the crisp white sheets of text book after text book, desperately trying to attain knowledge, but the bold print is tiring, it causes their eyes to blur, lose focus, forget meaning. And so, their once love for the universe, is now a chore, a 9-5 responsibility, a means to make a means. There was a whole world out there, and worlds after that, to see, and then to speculate, to journey to. There were infinite possibilities outside the tall, over shadowing doors that stood between him, or her, all they had to do, was open it, just, one light pull, one thug of ice cold metal. But they chose not to open it. They chose, to bolt that door, to lock it with not one but ten locks, and one key, that they, with little effort, threw into the deepest darkest ocean of their mind.

Why?

Because it wasn't safe. It wasn't guaranteed. Once they stepped out of the comfort that was routine, they were simply a maybe. So perhaps, inside the confine walls of their life, they would live, but they would never exist. They would never see things, in the way they were meant to be seen, only in the way they were. Holding up a plastic bottle to take a sip of water in the blazing heat, that's all it would be. But, if they had of knocked down the wall separating them from living and truly existing, they would have been able to see that, through that cheap, blue tinted plastic, the sun was streaming through, in a way that was enigmatic, the light was simply an illusion, the rays, a trick of the eye, but that would be irrelevant. For in that moment, they would have felt the beams like they were flames of fire, licking their fingers tips, curling around their palms. They would have seen how the sun reflected against the water droplets that had formed around the rim of a half empty bottle, how it made the elements come alive, flickering like a candle. How water was transparent and opaque all at once, and how that corresponded with the people all around them, laughter, like the sound of birds chirping, filling their ears as they would, close their eyes, head tilted back to an azure sky, clouds sprayed across as though someone had painted them, for only them to see, and yet, still see the stars, underneath all that light, see the black pour in, and notice, that maybe their bottle wasn't half empty.

Maybe it was half full.