the present is bleak, dying hope and emptiness sing a scornful melody. the fires around me screaming this is what you did to me.
people tell me my future is meek, sorrowful eyes retreating to their turned cheeks.
i take word of mouth on my finger tips and inquiringly rub the whispers of extinction between thumb and index as though they were a new texture to explore but others are telling me we've all heard this song before. destruction and death are knocking on our door and I can't seem to put name to the horrible taste that it leaves in my mouth so i search for something normal like blame
the weight of a past that isn't mine is making my back find it hard to sit straight: the slap of the cane telling me to sit up and take the pain is urging me to take on more than i can carry. despite a nation fighting todays burns and bruises i can feel myself anticipating each scar, each open wound. i am bleeding out but no blood has been drawn yet.
mistakes that weren't mine have knitted shame into a reality that i am reaching to find. people tell me a degree makes you worthy but i just want to save a life. people tell me my eyes are too tinted with rose gold lines as i write kindness and hope into each sentence twisted on my teeth, I use my jaws to fight for my moral compass even when yours is telling me to bite. why do people want me to chew their nonchalance: acceptance of the chaos around me.
we are standing in a pit of flames being flooded with hopelessness and hate, blaming a past generation that didn't know how to love themselves let alone the dirt at their feet; now we fight for our rights and we fight for our freedom to speak: we fight for things that should be as familiar to us as the air that we breathe. we lost track of what's humane while we were fighting for humanity.
the present is bleak; faint memories of colourful coral and inquisitive currents that made me feel like i could fly are now all i have, because when i dip my head under to escape the reality of what's ahead of me, i am faced with a future i do not want to see. we're eating our money like starving mongrels, rattered and tattered in the streets of a sinking city and now all our crops are dying. we're hungry for things that can't fulfil us hunting for fame and a fat wallet but we're shooting ourselves in the foot and grinning at the crowd for approval.
we're a globe swarming with critters, overcome with pressure and compact under the stress. we're a society that is full of themselves. but in all the years of human history: we have never been so empty. cultures are being shot down with guns of people that couldn't put name to the life they took. people are being killed because their guns stole lives of people they couldn't name. They may have been the first to shoot, but they were the last to live in peace.
my present is bleak.
i am making plans with your goals in my hand; find love and be rich while i dance with my naivety like a lover, our limbs intertwined while i make love with my false sense of security. i am running at full speed to chase after a future i can't reach because you told me what i need then threw away the key. now instead of finding peace in simplicity i am making goals to fight a cause much bigger than me. every day i fight with my rose tinted strings trying to tie a narrative together that will make people fight with me. but everyone keeps telling me that the cause i wear proudly on my sleeve isn't worthy. people don't want to lay with hope because they can't afford to cheat on naivety.
my present is bleak because i feel like i am trapped by the past and i have no guarantee of a future. my country is on fire and the rest of the world is threatening to shoot. i hear stories of kids that don't have any promise of food and i am here in my bubble safe and simple afraid to jump just in case it's a waste of time. because people tell me our future isn't promised.
but i would rather jump into the flames now and fight for whats right, then stay in my bubble and die without trying.
