I have always revisted the past... I have always lived in the present... I have always looked forward to the future - and there are times when I experience the past, the present, and the future collide: as if something momentous has happened, something revelatory, something that reminds me, yet again, that life is, essentially, multidimensional verses of poetry, and I get to see and understand things that I could not and would not have been able to at any other time - because I was not ready. I remember so much... moments mean more to me than most... I keep touchstones of experiences that enable me to travel through time that can happen as slow and as subtle as a raindrop falling from above, or as fast and as forceful as a gust... I can still recall how people looked, how places were, what was said, what song was playing on the radio - in some cases more than others, over the timeline of my life - and when some moments, in particular, do resurface and come back into focus, it almost feels as if everything that has happened and will happen is all happening all at once. In some ways, sometimes, we all must change... in some ways, sometimes, we all must break the mould that we have been cast in... in some ways, sometimes, we all must act and not necessarily know what the next steps to take will be... in some ways, sometimes, it is better to not think too much about what has yet to happen - and sometimes it is good to have a goal in front of you to focus on. We are all pilots, as well as passengers, travelling through the vortex of time hoping that one day we will eventually land and find ourselves somewhere that will give us what we have been searching for, without even knowing it... we are all capable of extraordinary things and each of us can do something that uniquely defines us - and yet, one thing that life teaches all of us is that the moment that you think you know it all or have seen it all you will discover that you don't, you haven't, you won't, and you can't; and why? Because sometimes we are not meant to know everything - only what we need to know, but not always what we want to know; because everything is a matter of time.
hope
My Poem “Survivors”
I feel like I have been torn to pieces and put back together again... I feel like I have loved so hard, for so long, but now I am convinced that all the love that I once felt is gone. I have always been a dreamer and an unwavering optimist; but now I see only one path before me: the same one as that of the sun, and one day, too, I will have shined my last, and I will finally be free of all pain. I have felt many connections over my life, but almost all of the people with whom I have shared so much have long since gone their own way and anything once felt has been lost. This is what happens, this is what has happened, this is what I never anticipated, this is what I never could have predicted; but as times change so too are people remade - especially when they find themselves at a crossroads, scarred by life, and not willing to repeat the same cycle that they have been struggling to live through over and over, seemingly without end. What should we do, What would we do, What can we do to feel something, anything, like we once felt before? But there is no way back. There is no way to start anew. There is no way to know what would have happened if different choices had been made - especially when each and every day feels simultaneously like the first and the last. There is no way other than to reach for tomorrow, and hope that what we find will once again remind us of where we came from and why we are still alive. There is always a way forward, even after something akin to the "End of the World" - but, if you want to give the version of you who rises out of the ashes of what came before something that they will keep with them in the new world of the future that awaits them, you could do no better than to gift a thought of hope and a promise that everything will be OK as long as they choose to embrace, and do not fear, the burden that is sometimes felt by those of us who would class ourselves as survivors.
My Poem “No One Is Ever Alone”
It's scary how fast time goes by... It's scary how fast things can change... It's scary how many times in our lives we have to say goodbye... It's scary how many people have found themselves staring into space as they wonder what's next? Everybody has a dream that they hope and pray will become a reality someday... Everybody has a nightmare that they wish will never come to pass... Everybody has an ideal life that they always imagine, which within their mind can seem so real and so tangible that they can almost make themselves believe that all they have to do is simply to choose to get out of their own way... Everybody has lost someone who has meant something to them - and the best way to remember and to honour someone, in my experience, is to take the time to stop what you are doing and realise that every moment is like a page being turned in a book, which soon transitions from being the present into becoming the past, which leaves an impression but not always one that is meant to last. Life, like the universe, can seem so big for such a small word... Life, especially when we are young, can seem too incredible and sometimes too unfathomable for our minds to handle... Life is a question with an answer - but you have to stay until the end in order to find out... Life is complicated and emotional... Life is not always good and life is not always bad... Life is a riddle that some people work out slowly but surely, while others take a more direct approach and miss the point of why some things happen and why some things don't. A traveller of time and space once said that: "Fear can be a superpower" - and, if you think back over your life and everything that you have been through, you will realise that though things might not have gone how you might once have envisioned they would things happened the way that they had to, because life consists of each and every one of us making a difference and leaping into the unknown with a secret: that "No One Is Ever Alone."
Mark The Poet 