The brittle stillness and silence, the stars shine, and I’m currently sitting on a playset in an elementary school playground behind my house. The night sky stretches out for an eternity in each direction, it’s 1am, and I’m not sleeping. The wind blows gently out across the field and I can feel the Earth give a relieved sigh in the rising tumult.
If I were sad, I suppose that I would weep. If I were angry, I suppose I would scream. I’m not sure I feel anything, though. It’s late and I should be in bed. I should be sleeping and, ideally, dreaming. But instead I sit on a playground and write my heart out under the soft glow of street lights and stars.
I’ve written a dozen or so poems tonight, and they all seem pointless and trite. I’ve thrown them all away. The lines and stanzas are dreamt, written, recited, and discarded just as quickly. Nothing that I write will ever be perfect enough; I may tread the line in to mediocrity at one point or another, but I will never surpass that. I’m left without much more than a few paltry lines, and a sad smile to wear in the dark.
I once thrived on darkness. I once loved the idea of solitude; the thoughts of life and death and being. These days, I just wish I was better at being. I can’t seem to surpass myself any more, and I’m concerned that I can’t be any better. If this is all that I am, all that I will be, how do I make amends with the potential that has died within me? How do I pretend that it’s okay to be who I am if I see my own shortcomings and see the things that I want to change?
It’s late now. Much later.
Still, the wind blows, the moon shines, and no one is out to overhear the frantic scribbles in my journal. I should head home.