Poetry

The Question that Festers

"Darling your eyes are so still when you speak" -Keaton Henson

Everyone around me wants to be big. Huge arguments and large amounts of pretentiousness. It may be just me, but it seems like people like poison others with their own being. Small doses of someone else's mindset to make you think you have less than you do. People want to be examined to their cores by billions of eyes.

Everything you need is with you right now, and you are the greatest version of yourself today. That's the truth that the world shields you from, fills you with insecurities and unreachable levels of perfection.

You are perfect today. Your "flaws" are the unique parts of you that the world doesn't want to accept. Your shortcomings only exist because you let the world set the bars for you and tell you what level you were at.

That's why I choose not to look or hear. Maybe I'm wrong for blocking the horrible waste out. But I like listening to my music at the highest volume I can reach without going deaf. Why?

Because someday, someone is going to tell me something beautiful. Not today or tomorrow, but eventually. It would be nice to know when, so I wouldn't have to fear the unknowable number of days I will sit in silence or in thunderous sound, just hoping that one drowns out the other.

It's hard to make sense when I barely know what's going on or why, but I can try. I don't want to kill the meaning. I don't want to pretend to know the answers when all I have is questions that may very well never be answered.

But I know that I don't need some grand gesture or giant event to be happy. It's a bit cliche to be swept off your feet by life. It's the tiniest things that end up being the most valuable- the little feelings like a warm hand in the middle of the snow, to pass unsaid words through myself to another.

It's the knowing smiles that hold no malice and the singing and dancing without judgement. I don't want to be admired by the entire world. I don't want to be admired by a selection of strangers for pointless validity. It's strange, but it's something I've realized. I just want to be connected- not to a large group where I can get lost or see my own irrelevance.

I only wonder what it's like to like someone as much as they like you. To sleep and look forward to the next morning instead of hoping for dreams that have no meaning to me, so I won't feel the connections to the frustration and misunderstanding.

Of course, things get better and constant unhappiness becomes a memory that we avoid or come to terms with. The question that festers within me is not when, but how.

All I want to do is find the smallest part of me possible, in the tiniest place that I can be, and share that with someone who will share with me. I want to be small, quiet, and safe.