i remember going north in the winter one year, visiting family and everything else that comes naturally with a vacation. it was that time of the year where bright festivities ran throughout the town, much like the children in their little red and white hats running and laughing in the streets, throwing snowballs at each other and building snowmen to be their best friends. i remember, wearing my mother’s grey winter coat and my white beanie with a snowball pom. i remember, holding my mother’s hand and trying not to trip over my slightly too-big snow boots. i remember, staring with wide eyes at my brother with a snowball in his hand and a big grin on his face. i remember, hearing but not really acknowledging, the cautions of my dad telling us to stay warm. i remember, from the apartment window where we stayed, watching from two-stories above, the children in the snow. (i remember, i was just a child too.)
there is something lying here with me like an angel in the snow. it stares not at me, but at the dark blue sky, while all i stare at is it. it is waiting for the time to leave when i look away. (it is yearning to return to the heavens, the place up above the world so high.)
i don’t want it to leave me, i don’t want to let go (because without it, i don’t know where i would be.)
i want to stay with it forever (but something tells me that it and i are destined to part.)
(i tell it to stay,)
(but it wants to leave.)
and it’s times like these where i wonder what it is.
as a child, i would call it a bat, a teatray, a diamond— but it is none of those things. for if it were a bat, here would not be where it is at (it would return to the heavens when the night is out). for if it were a teatray, it would not be playing here with me every single day. for if it were a diamond, it surely would not spend its days with a child donning a snowman with a fake garland.
reminiscing on it now, i remember that it is something that you can’t help but notice, something that you can’t help but stare at—can’t help but make sure it doesn’t leave you.
it is something so white and pure and beautifully good and you can’t help but wonder and want and all i am is a follower, a mere worshipper of a god so great and humble.
it is something like a memory, the nostalgia of simpler and easier times when your friends were still careless and running down the streets after school was dismissed, when your parents were still able to travel the world and do the things they loved, when you were still young and stupid and emotional (the old you).
it is something like growing up; it is changing, it is becoming (someone to leave you, someone you want to come back to one day).
it is something you can’t hold back any more because if you do nothing good will happen and if you do you will end up in a world of hate and hurt and you’ll regret it (i always do).
there’s something nice about becoming something (someone); something nice about having somewhere to belong, having a goal, having someone to return to at the end of the day (who am i really?).
there’s always a sense of nothingness and confusion, and there is uniqueness in the complexities that line the darkness in the mind (who will i become?).
and when you come to terms with this fact you’ll find that maybe dreams are meant to end, meant to grow up (and that maybe they are just like us).
(i don’t want it to leave me,)
(but it needs to leave.)
i was a mere traveler walking in the dark, and it was the one guiding me along with its spark.
it is times like these where i realize that the world keeps turning, ever so slowly, regardless of how we are feeling, how depressed, how ecstatic. if you want the moment to end faster, want time to speed up, the world will keep turning, ever so slightly. if you want the moment to stay forever, the world will keep turning, and the moment has passed.
so i wonder what it is.
it is something that is constant, something different, something tangible but at the same time i don’t have any clue as to what you are.
it is something that lies with you in your childhood, and the outline that’s left behind in the snow is something that lingers with you in memory.
it is something that brought me here, to where i stand in an empty plains of nothing but white snow and black skies and bright stars with their halos of yellow light like a diamond in the sky, it is bright like a blazing sun, except now i see, it is grounded, right here next to me. it is a friend, and from up here i can see now, it is a child—two children lying in the snow.
(i want you to stay,)
(but you leave.)
and though i know not what you are, it may be that dreams are children too.
Comments