The Death of Literature

This was not my intention
To fall before I flew
And as such
I feel shame at my preparations
My aspirations
You will disapprove
You’ll think I’ve given up
You’ll be unsure what all your help has meant
If in the end I did not finish
But where would I be
To what point would I have made it
If you had offered nothing

And now
Months after I have begun this undertaking
I continue to fall
Twice again the depth of the earth
I continue to fall
And remain ashamed to talk

I curl, simply wrapping in a protective shell
Listening
As debris cuts deep scars
As shrapnel buries
With jagged metal teeth
Into the core of my existence
I pretend it does not happen
For if I don’t admit
Then reality can surely not exist

So I cower
From all the things I could be
I hunker
And pull the covers over my head
I do not fear that I will never succeed
For I know that I should
I fear that I will never finish
And miss out on my chance

I lose focus
Even when I write these words
I lose hope
Because I’ve written so many
I am headed full tilt toward a meeting with disaster
So my paranoia tells me
And I can’t find the logic to say that it is wrong

I fear the completion of the journey
And I fear that it will not come

I fear my metal horse
And that perhaps it is white under its pale blue skin

I fear the future that I am not even capable of seeing
And I fear that it is all a dream

And if it is not real
Than I will never be a failure
I will never fall
Nor succeed
I will simply subsist as I always have
In self-enforced oblivion

For in the world
I can pretend it isn’t real
I can control what I’ve become
Even though I lose control of what I was born as
Watching the world from only my point of view
And begging for the chance to change
If only I could see that another thinks the things I know
Then maybe it wouldn’t hurt quite so much

It all builds to a decision that I keep postponing
Like a wedding I don’t really want
A husband I refuse to take
A path deep in snow that I need to break
But I wait
I give no explanation
No one knows the choice exists

I have too much to say
Despite that I deeply fear I never will
Despite the desire to move
I hold
And hold
And form a canyon with my pacing

But Failure or Success
An Attempt must be made
The Story needs to be told
I cannot help but feel someone is destined to hear it
Perhaps it is you
Perhaps it is me
But Words that must be spoken always seem to come out
Forcing through thin and bitten lips
Buried in hillsides
Covered by sands of time and carved in ancient languages
All the things you need to hear
Will one day all be said
Perhaps it will be too soon
Perhaps it will come too late
And maybe you don’t need me at all

Hope has risen from the depths
From a canyon beneath the sea
From a place I knew existed
But hoped I’d never see
It was an option I wished to keep open
Though a path I never wished to take

But now that I’ve chosen to accept it
The Dark Tide will wash over
In a place it doesn’t belong

I fear the impact it will have
But I am a failure and can last no longer

I wish…
I wish many things.
But this is the choice I’ve made

I’m sorry it will hurt you
But my Story hurts too much for me to speak another word.