Here I am on the other side,

Looking ’cross this vast chasm in your direction,

My view clouded by darkness and dust.

I can’t see your face.

I can’t see whether you’re looking back at me

Or looking away, your back to my face.

And when you look this way,

I can’t tell whether you are pleased or disgusted,

Or whether you are indifferent.

Here I am standing alone

On the other side of this vast chasm

While you, for all I can see, are surrounded by a sea of joys

And maybe even bountiful reservoirs of slender fish.

Here I am alone and sinking in my own sea

While you – and this I was able to glimpse –

Are blazing heartily through and above the waters,

Without a thought of worry or doubt.

Here I am, watching your tracks

Which seem to push me away,

And I wonder whether you’re trying to

Or are merely compelled to.

And I wonder whether your side still has a heart for me

Or whether I am a pest in your eyes.

Yet here I am, still waiting.

Waiting for the day you might turn around and look at me

Waiting for the day when you might break through the gorge

And touch me.

Waiting for that promise that it seems may never come.

I look around me. Towering above are my "friends" of old, now content among themselves without me. I remember when we used to be equals, when I used to compete with them for the highest and used to shine above them.

Now I am with a herd not my own, whose statures were below mine and whose manes did not shine as bright as mine. But now I am just as tall as they. They have grown while I have not. My mane is dampened with clay so as not to shine at all. I am now one of them, though their hooves will never thud to the same rhythm as mine, and my colors will never truly match theirs.

I belong to the older herd, whose time on this earth have made them wiser and higher and made their manes shine brighter. I am one of them, yet I am not as tall as they. I have lost the spark that made me glow and lost the time that would have made me grow. I am not one of them. I am now an outcast.

A little more than a trifle

A sign of love and amor

A small token of thought

A fabricated show of life

A plastic toy

A sign of fake reality

A remembrance of our parting

A memory of what is gone

A symbol of what is lost

A memory of your infidelity

Of the day you turned away

And left me alone to weep

A token of that day

When you walked away

And closed the door in my face

I take it

But not from you

And keep it next to your memory

To remember always

What I may never have again

He just made his bubble nest, and now he waits for his girl to come. Little does he know, he is trapped in a closed tank without any females. He waits. He gets bored and swims around. He comes back to the nest and waits again. It is only a matter of time before his heart breaks and he gives up, abandoning the nest and returning to his daily routine of soulless solitude.

What is it like

To not have a soul?

To be devoid of not only sorrow,

But happiness?

Not only pain,

But love?

What is it like

To live without a friend?

To languish in your burdens alone,

To know that your thoughts are unseen,

That your cares are unheard?

What is it like not to care?

Would a friend heal your pain?

Would a friend know the answer?

Would a friend know you?

Would a friend care?

But what is a true friend?

And where can one be found?

The answer to this, I may never know.

To live in the shadows

Without consolation,

Unseen by the world,

And to struggle alone,

That is the curse that I may ever bear:

To live without a friend,

And die without love.

*Spoiler Warning: I wrote this poem for a videogame I am still currently making called "IRL" (by Gozar Productions LLC). If you are planning on playing this videogame and care about spoilers, please do not read this poem until the game is released. Thank you :)

What is the purpose

Of pushing the rock?

To wake, to work, to sleep

And every day repeat

And repeat again for a lifetime

Until you have no life to live?

Where is the joy in pushing the rock?

To toil, to labor, only to feed, to survive.

But what is the purpose of surviving?

Where is the joy found in a journey that doesn’t move?

A dead calm in the middle of the sea.

Can you get out of the water?

Can you reach land?

You row and row, but land never comes closer.

Will you remain when the land appears?

Or will you not be there to see it?

What is the land? Is it better than the sea?

Where can it be found?

Is land all that you expect?

Will it be different than the sea?

Or is it just another version of the sea

In a different environment?

Do those on land long for the sea,

As you long for the land?

Or does land even exist?

In that case, will you ever reach shore?

Will you continue to push the rock

With nothing at the top to reward you

And nothing on the other side

Except nothingness?

Is the toil worth it?

But what if you weren’t pushing alone?

What if we pushed together?

And rowed together?

And journeyed together?

What if we changed together?

And became better?

Then we would be moving.

Then the toil would be rewarding

And we wouldn’t need land.

But what if I said no?

Because I must push the rock

And continue to push the rock

Alone?

As though there is a reward at the top?

Or what if I said no

Because I already have a partner

To push the rock with?

Who I carry and who carries me

And I don’t want the extra weight.

What would you do then?

If land is in sight, but out of reach,

Because of my choices?

What would you do?

Is it worth it to be?

. . .

And so I wait.

Because no one will push the rock with me.

And I will continue to push the rock alone

Until there is no more me to push it with.

There exists an unsolvable problem.

A wound that cannot heal.

It numbs you up and destroys you with time.

You may try to escape the numbness

And ponder the riddle.

There will be no answer

But only the pain of its existence.

There exists a promise

To free you of this problem

Made by one who left long ago

But claims to be there.

A master of equations

But miscalculates

And so tries in vain.

But there exists a life outside of riddles and equations:

A life with no substance

Yet which can entertain

And blind you from the truth,

And you can dwell in shallow peace

Having forgotten the sting of the pain

And only knowing numbness.

And so I wait in ignorant bliss

Discontent, but alive

Until the promisor follows through

Or I am destroyed by time.

Discontentment (noun)

The outcome of a stagnant life,

As one which holds little to no change or excitement.

Disappointment (noun)

The feeling of a day's endeavor bearing little significance

And no reward.

Regret (noun)

The desperate desire to have chosen differently

And spent the time on things that mattered more.

Longing (noun)

The desire for meaning and purpose

When there currently is none.

Lost (adjective)

A state of hopelessness that occurs

When one fails to find the answers

And there is nowhere else to turn.

Resignation (noun)

The act of giving up

In the midst of desolation

When nothing seems to matter anymore.

Petrification (noun)

The phenomenon of one's soul hollowing from the inside out,

Turning its being into a husk of a person,

A shadow of who they once were.

Void (noun)

A state of nothingness.

I guess it's time for the waves to crash.

I cannot ask the moon to change the tides,

Nor the wind to divert the waves.

And although shadows come and go,

By every dusk, I sit alone

Beneath the barrage of waves.

Waiting for my soul to collapse beneath the weight.

The shadows offer solace.

I cannot feel their light, for I see only shadows.

But perhaps one day,

A figure will rise from the shadows

And offer the shade of an umbrella.

But I must see their light

Before I can feel their face.

I must awake from this dream

Before I can taste reality.

I must remember life

Before I can love.