for years i have quietly taught myself
to grow from my mistakes, to rebuild my broken soul;
i have sat in a corner, numb, and thought to myself:
"you must learn to move with chaos, lest it defeats you."
i have endeavoured, eternally,
to accept its place in me, and one day call it home;
call it home and have it whisper to my muse
like the trees of the forest or the stars in the night sky.
after all it is not atoms that build this universe
but chaos,
infinite and powerful and vast and impossibly,
small enough to seep
into every tiny fold of the fabric of life,
never sleeping,
even for a moment.
and what greater inspiration can there be
than that which moves the earth itself?
it seems that part in all of us,
the one which fears the dark,
has always been in love with it a little, too;
we know that silhouettes and shadows of us
hide there, waiting to be found,
or to be buried.
we know there is more than meets the eye.
well, then, chaos manifests itself in everything,
great and small and in between, but—
but never have i known it be so everywhere
at once. there are times in recent memory
i have gazed out of a window and wondered
how, how can it go on, how can birds still sing
and trees still sway in gentle breezes,
how can flowers bloom and wither in the sun
as though nothing has changed?
and the answer is elusive, unknowable.
except to know the past tense, changed, is wrong because
everything is always changing, constantly.
only now it is more visible than ever.
each day is an invitation to grief, fear,
fresh uncertainty, greater and more overwhelming
than that of yesterday;
now we yearn for that safely chaotic yesterday
when we thought we knew our limits.
but each day i fight a war with myself over
how to continue to exist; and i always win because
there is no other option.
none that i would choose.
not anymore.
parts of me long forgotten have risen from the dead,
parts of me i worked so hard to find have perished;
and yet i go on.
chaos reigns and i go on.
every day we do things we did not know we could
until we lost the power to choose;
and so we watch time pass, powerless,
and the word nothing rests heavy in our minds
as everything, everything, beats through our hearts,
unforgiving.
we must learn to forgive ourselves.
and slowly we come to terms with it;
we do not make a home for it,
but chaos makes a home in us.
and we go on.
my realisation, not too long ago, was something like this:
words cannot do chaos justice,
for there is no justice to be found there.
so much must be left unsaid
and it hurts.
but this is the most profoundly human thing
you will ever experience.
so keep showing up.
