Power

Sometimes you think you've hit rock bottom, and that there is no where to go but up. And then you realize you were mistaken, it is a false bottom and you are still falling. How much farther can you go?

Ripped photographs. Frantic. Desperation. It is a time long gone. A time of beauty, of happiness. You swill that word around in your mouth. It feels weird, foreign, unfamiliar. Some people spend their whole lives searching for happiness. Some never have to look for it. You want to hate those people and pray for their downfall. But that makes you bitter and evil. And no one likes bitter people.

You look at the past and think, what happened? You remember the girl in the photograph. Was she happy? Is that a real smile? You'd like to think so, if only to give hope to the fact that there once was happiness and will be again. But what if that is a fake smile forever captured on glossy paper? What if happiness is an illusion, never to be owned, only borrowed?

What is happiness, and can true happiness ever be obtained?

You ponder this in the whee hours of the night. Puzzle, or sudoku? That is the ultimate choice right now.

You laugh at things like videoBB, and malawach, because they are inside jokes. But where are those people who you shared them with? Those times are gone, only the memory remains. It is still funny, but for a time. After awhile the laughter will fade away... and with it the memories. And then you cannot remember why you ever found it so funny in the first place.

Sometimes you want to take the ultimate deep breath and walk away. You want to breath so deeply and for so long that you forget how. That suffocating feeling comes creeping up on you, when you least expect it. It can hit you in middle of the street, on the subway, when you are sleeping. It makes you gasp for air like you are a drowning man. And in a way, you are.

You wonder what it would be like if you could be anyone else. If you were granted one wish, if you got to pick who you wanted to be, and one tool you'd take with you. Who would you choose? What would it be? Would you want to be anyone else, or would you recognize that you are you and no one would want to be you? Or more positively put, that you cannot be anyone else, for that is a fleeting fantasy. You will wake up one day, in your own bed, in your pajamas and realize, you lived your life as someone else, but it was a lie. You have work to do, and you have wasted years of your life. So why be wasteful?

When they say "in one ear and out the other", were they referring to you? Do you listen when people talk to you? Has the written word no power at all?

People get tattoos to remember things. Slogans, people. Words of empowerment. Why do they have to remember? Lest they forget?

Once upon a time, we were all the same. We started off the same. We were not made the same. Does that not make us all equals? We came into this world both naked and bare. Then you, you rose above this world and slime, you took what you believed to be owed to you, you used it to get what you wanted. Manipulative? Maybe. But it got you that much farther ahead, did it not?

While others, they sit, still naked and bare, nothing to show for their time here on earth. They seethe with anger, because they started out the same as you and yet now you are unrecognizable. You are clothed. Your hair grew long. You eat from a spoon of gold.

So what is the difference between you and them?

That is something which will take a lifetime to understand.

And in the meantime, you smile and exploit people and situations. Ah, but you have forgotten where you came from. Once upon a time, you were nothing. And you will go back to nothing.

One day, it'll all make sense.

But for now, I sit here and stare up at the gold moon, wondering how complex this life really is, and how much of it we, ourselves create.