A study in Poetry

Come Along With Me

Desolate.

Waves, clashing with the tides,

In and out, in and out, in and out,

Looking down to the warm sand between my toes,

A nest of baby turtles has just hatched,

They're off to the races.

Accept one. It's just sitting there, carelessly staring back at me.

I blink and it's gone.

Lost and confused,

Looking along the beach, 

Nothing changes accept the tides.

There's only one way to go.

A dark, steep hill. Rising up into the woods.

Branches tangled and complicated,

I begin to wonder if the trees might eat me themselves.

Wandering, further, further, further, and further.

It's not long but it feels like an eternity,

I finally see a glimmer of light.

It's not much but it's something.

Fighting myself to move forward, forward, forward, forward.

Then finally,

A clearing,

Revealing a wide and open pathway,

Lined with trees from forgotten fairy tales.

The longer I walked, walked, walked down this path,

The wider it grew,

Making way for the growing number of faceless women, wandering in the opposite direction.

They eventually amassed into a pointless ocean.

An ocean I felt myself drowning in,

Who am I? Where am I going?

I stop and wonder. Ruminating on the thought of the beaches I came from.

Time only gave me more questions I couldn't answer lost at sea.

So I carried on, wandering through the crowd,

Seeing all the hidden paths they came from branching off along the way.

Then I found my way own way, straight ahead into a clearing at the top.

Where sat a tree, a great oak tree. Tall and strong.

Smoother to the touch than anything I've ever known.

It even shinned in the sunlight, showing my own reflection.

Sitting under the tee, reading fairy tales,

Was my first love, a muse. Lost in her own story.

I begin to notice running water in the distance,

I look away for a moment and she's gone.

Frenzied. I lose my mind,

So I run to the water. Run, run, run to the water.

There it is, a river running downhill.

Looking for a lost soul, I followed the river,

Only to find myself slipping down a mudslide,

To a quiet lake the river runs into.

I stand up, feeling like I'm at the bottom again.

I'm ready to give up until I realize I haven't gone far.

Looking around myself now, it's actually a beautiful place.

The grass is green on both sides. The lake shinning with clear water.

I look and see my reflection staring right back at me, dressed in plaid, and not maintained in the slightest.

Full of wasted talent, dead dreams, useless, and apathetic. He was almost a zombie.

No wonder I lost my mind. I feel a fire growing within me,

Rage. I struck the reflection and ripples could be seen throughout the lake.

When the water calms, my reflection changes. I'm a little older, but well maintained, dressed ready to work, with a new love for words. Passion.

Climbing back up, up, up the hill, seeing things from a different angle.

 The tree's still the same, but children could be heard playing like monkeys in the tree.

There she was again too, only I can't tell if it's her or someone else yet.

Walking onward down the path,

In the same direction as the everyone else who walked their own paths.

I'm noticing more than just sirens now,

I'm walking through the woods, leaves falling, sun shinning, shoulder to shoulder with men and women just like me.

But not quite.

I look to the end of the trail,

There's an ambivalent light none of us can see through,

But I know where I'm going now.

It's a dream, realized.

When it's almost over.

When my work is done and all that's left is the last step,

I step to a bench alongside the pathway,

Realizing then how much I've grown.

I've climbed this steep, slippery slope so high,

So high up, I'm paralyzed.

People continue pass me by and I'm about to fall again,

Until my attention's brought back to the path.

Out of the crowd, there she is,

My muse.

On the same path as me,

She smiles, warming my soul. Reaches out,

Saying nothing more than,

"It's okay".