Under My Sofa

Mind

I once walked alone, along a path I'd always called my own
A sprawling world of devastation where I built my home
No one was there, it was a desolate place
But a stranger walked in and I knew her face
She said 'hey now don't lie, you need the company inside your mind'
And I said 'sorry, but goodbye, the ground beneath my feet will get me by'
She gripped my hand goodbye, and faded off away into the night
And something didn't feel exactly right
But that was what I liked
So I walked the lonely world
Then a shadow of a face, slipped through my mind
Looking for a wish she'd never find, but tried
I cried
At the lies
Let's surmise
The ground beneath my feet, collapsed and fell
The shadow emerged and I knew it well
It set me on my feet, and by then the spell was through
She said, 'where you goin' to, I could walk a path that I once knew'
I politely informed her, 'I'm on my way to hell, what a laugh, has this path served you well?'
But she gripped my hand hello and walked with me into the fires below
And we went along our way, across the molten orange skies
I held her hand tightly and we had no demise
And she said, 'hey now don't lie, I'm not really enough to keep you high'
And I said, 'don't worry it's fine, we're both occupying the space inside my mind'

***

So... Poetry.

This poetry.

Um. Basically an extended metaphor for the peace of mind and values that somehow wind up being discovered by people who honestly don't seem to have the situational factors required to achieve inner calmness.

Like me! *jazz hands*

As an incredibly decisive person who changes their decisions very quickly, goes about matters of both emotion and academia in a strange manner, and had/has (?) a pretty effed up (?) childhood (?) I'm not the sort you'd deem to have a very stable mind.

However I like to believe that I do, at least to an extent. And while this was a conscious change that came about with relative recency (a few years ago) I feel that the option for this was always there, but I pushed it away.

I thought that I was too 'special' to need optimism and peace, that I had the right to do badly in school and look on the world negatively, like the things I went through outside of school excused rudeness to the hardworking teachers within it. If anyone challenged me, my internal dialogue was taken up with, you don't know what it's like, if you had to do what I have to do, and so on.

But like, no. That way of thinking was simply me being entitled, because at least some of those people were probably going through shit too.

No one really has the right to think themselves worse off than other. At least I had an education, a home of sorts, siblings, myself.

Basically once I had tried every negative and self-destructive behaviour there is, I fell to optimism as my final option.

And it's surprisingly effective.

(Also, this is technically a song I wrote to my friend's music, so I don't know how well it reads as poetry)

Alex xxx