Between the Divide

This is not a toast, not a confession,

Of sorts, a blunt admission.

My 9-5 animals are rethinking their lives,

The clock’s tick-tock glides through my ears,

As I ruminate on a skill that I can’t use at will,

Tears often tank as I realise how difficult being simple is,

As I move mountains to get through a day as it is.

I am at the mercy of my patience,

At the mercy of my impulses.

Fear of little things is what I have known since time unknown,

Fear of losing out in school, fear of missing out in college,

Fear of staying behind in the market, fear of keeping up at work,

Is it foolish to fear what you know?

The paradox that fear is, I wonder,

As I fight it day in and day out,

A fight, out of the ordinary, but trivial,

The one of necessity, to let this piece of flesh be what it is,

The transcendence from ” I fear that this won't work” to “I know that this won't work”,

Is easier asserted than felt, easier mumbled than sung

The best I can do is pen them, put them old voices to songs

But of what good would it be,

If the ink drains faster than my sweat,

And the bass in my guitar dwindles for fun,

The different worlds outside are cold,

The reason why I am sticking to my pens within “a cherished circle”,

Is that I’d been swimming in the waters of my own fears for time unknown,

Content with content, latent without intent

I can write but I won’t, I would write but I can’t.

They are writing on a different paper, the one with numbers on it,

While I am looking to write on scrolls, and paperbacks, long lost in the oceans of time.

For someone who wants to suck at math,

This is a burden beyond bearing, a fodder too much for thought.

My attention span is now on a downward slope,

In a moment, work puts “a smile on my face”,

When the fruits start reaping, my brain’s in the drain,

My headphones are wired, four songs old,

My brain’s fine with the funk.

Moments later, I am Batman and the joke’s on me.

While the work is stripped of a meaning

Your thoughts play spoilsport, and the pain is when you know it. 

Like owning a bitter gourd farm, nice but never sweet

Ignorance is bliss they said, and how right were they

Selectivity is an art they said, and how right were they

And information is chaos they said, and how right were they

We diluted chaos atop a beautiful treehouse,

While I went old school with a school of the olds,

Them Geezers who showed time their fingers.

An old software deployed in a modern machine,

A broken bridge of sorts, with efforts to connect their indifferent world,

Like annoying seagulls, trying to be kings,

Of beaches whose tides are never ashore.

I escape reality, with a foot on it,

Another foot off it, with my hands, held to rock on land,

And my turtle feet flapping in the ocean of my dreams,

I stand blocking, fighting battles, to hold the door

Between the divide!