When I Looked Out

We boarded a taxi at 3:30 am, dazed and scared of the way ahead,

It wasn’t so safe but we went; Seriously, were you out of your head?

Darkness everywhere, you couldn’t see a single soul,

Oh, look there’s the taxi, it’s waiting by that pole.

Roll down the windows, the wind is so chilly,

Don’t come so close, it’s not so safe, silly;

The buildings and the lights ran by so fast,

So many people at 3:30 am, oh boy, is the world really that vast?

The trucks, the honking, I imagine sleepy souls awake in the night,

This ride, the sounds, these smiles, aren’t they better than a fight?

There was a song playing somewhere, but we were listening to the wind,

Flying through us and in us, your heart it was trying to find.

I could see the closed factories and the sleepy homes,

Ready to smoke again in the morning to eat up those sleepy homes,

Once or twice, I saw a beggar sleeping on the road,

Half- naked, half-dead, Is this our moral code?

I clutched at your arm for love and support ,

And thought about the ones who crave for a drop of water to go down their throat,

I saw your face, deepened with lines of sorrow, 

I remembered the lives who saw no tomorrow.

Inside and out, I realized something,

All those philosophers were nothing but fools,

Talking about life and calling it nothing,

All those scientists, what do they know?

Talking about living and giving you a set of rules.

If they could bear to see the truth they’ve spoken,

In the hungry eyes and the dead smiles of the poor,

If they could hear what I have to say to them

Of the misery of an unborn girl or a piece of poetry thrown away.

Honey, I promise you,

If they could, I will start believing in them,

But till then, hold me close and let me live in delusion,

Because I can only live if I pretend this reality is nothing but an illusion.