Prose Poetry on Lit Up
The Myriad Faces of Our Discontent
The journey is the destination
In the labyrinth of time, I wander — a lone echo in the cavernous hum of existence,
the streets of the city pulse with the heartbeat of humanity, each footstep a whisper of dreams, unspoken desires unmet, and in the flickering neon, the shadows of our discontent stretch long and unyielding.
I am the observer, the silent chronicler of our collective malaise, a pilgrim in the sacred temples of our anonymity, where faces blur into a mosaic of longing. Under the harsh fluorescence, eyes meet mine, brief and probing, each pair a universe of stories — fragmented, yet profound.
On the corner of Fifth and Forever, I stand, a monument to solitude, watching the procession of souls, each a testament to the ache of living. The homeless man, a prophet in tattered robes, mutters the gospel of the forsaken, while the suited executive ensnared in the golden cage of ambition, marches onward, blind to the poetry of the ordinary.
I trace the lines of my reflection in the window of a derelict café, each wrinkle, a stanza in the epic of my becoming, each scar, a punctuation mark in the lexicon of survival. I am the sum of all my yesterdays, the ghost of what could have been, carved from the stone of reality, polished by the winds of time.
Beneath the surface of our interactions, the currents of despair and hope intertwine, the silent dialogues of our hearts, spoken in the language of touch and glance. I see you; I want to say I know your pain, joy, and quiet resignation. In the cacophony of our shared silence, we find solace, the brief communion of our spirits, a balm to the wounds of isolation.
As twilight descends, the city breathes a sigh, a collective exhale of weary souls.
In the dimming light, the boundaries between us blur, and for a moment,
we are one — united in our imperfection, our humanity a fragile, beautiful thing.
I close my eyes and feel the pulse of the world, the rhythm of our existence, a symphony of chaos and order, dissonance and harmony.
In this moment, I understand we are the dreamers and the dreamed, the seekers and the found, the lost and the redeemed.
And as the stars awaken in the velvet sky, I whisper to the night, a prayer for the weary hearts that beat in time with mine.
Here, in the sanctuary of our shared existence, I find peace, a fleeting glimpse of the divine in the mundane, and I realize, with a clarity that cuts through the fog of doubt, that in our myriad faces, we are whole; we are one.
And thus, I stand, an eternal witness to the ebb and flow of humanity, knowing that within the tapestry of our lives, each thread, each strand, is essential, is sacred.
And in the end, it is not our triumphs, nor our failures, that define us, but the simple, profound truth of our being — beautiful, flawed, and undeniably human.
In the stillness, I hear it — a whispered promise carried on the wind: We are not alone, we are never alone, and in our togetherness, we find our strength.
So I walk on, a pilgrim of the night, with the knowledge that the journey is the destination, and with each step, I weave myself into the grand narrative, a single note in the eternal song of our humanity.
Ani Eldritch 2024
