::12:02:07::

::: Where are You? :::

I don’t know why things happen the way they do. I don’t know why I behaved the way they did. I guess it was the wrong kind of dream. It’s where I lost myself. I looked around and saw that which I was most afraid of. Me.

Enemies are created, I’ve always believed, not from encounters within the moment, but encounters within ourselves in the moment.

If he is his own worst enemy, he won’t attack his self. But if he waits long enough, he’ll find a way. He’ll attack what he sees in the those he passes by along the city sidewalks, on the way to work, in the line at the bakery, on the bus, at the grocery store, over the fence that divides his house from his neighbors, at the dinner table on Thanksgiving Day, on the basketball court, on the playground, at the corner of an intersection, the fight goes on and is passed along to the next city dweller until it ultimately shuts down the light within the wakeless mind. He fights and he doesn’t understand why but he knows the face of the man that he knows he has to kill.

From delivery room to graveyard, the footsteps we take we can never undo. Do you need to know why? Do you want to know why? Then go inside. Don’t go backwards. Stay still. Don’t go forward. Not just yet. Just sit in it. Remember how it was. Go and look at the images that were imprinted there with each step you took in what seemed like the wrong direction. It shaped your future. It wasn’t sporadically mistaken or misunderstood directions that you followed. It was him you followed and it was him that lured you into a state of mind that made you feel the way you did.

If you lift your head up towards the sky, you’ll find that the clouds keep moving. They were only passing through. You held on too long to the pictures deep in your pockets. They were shots of moments that no longer look like where you hang your head now. We’ll only be together a short while. When you lay down, if the life has been taken from you that you might have wasted responding with your animal instincts it’s because you wanted to drink it away. Shoot it up. Inhale deeply and hold it. But please don’t choke the life out of it with your insidious thinking. There might have been beautiful ideas and thoughts in a mind that wanted to reap what the kid in you planted. But how could it when you walked all over them. So resentful towards those that only were passing by. The smiles were to let you know that you were good. You thought they were laughing at you. He lied to you. Why did you believe him? Had he ever told you the truth before?

Did you have your chance? Did you miss it? If you did, take a breath and try again. Never give up what is yours to keep. In his mind you were a hero. Someone who was unstoppable. But those who came before and after me knew otherwise. They lied to you and it was your fault for buying what they had to sell. Empty bottles of spirits with fancy labels on them. Your wakeless mind stirs thoughts that blend well with the darkness. You have starved your soul with the fruitless thoughts of wrath that eroded your gifts. Its hard to carry what you don’t need to as you trudge through your life, your head bowed to the ground in hopes of finding one who wants to know what your face has become. For so long you walked this way when all you had to do was look up and look around. The clouds were only passing through. They were only passing over your head. Ride it out. There’s not much further to go now. Just a little further and the collapse will bring you back to where you started out from.

Written by: ~ Kevin C. Kent