Two Songs

Try asking me what's on my mind, what's bothering me... I don't feel like I can accurately say. Give me a pen and paper... give me words to manipulate like pieces of a puzzle until they come together and look something like the image in my head. Maybe I can show you somehow.

It's not that anything is really wrong.

We are a song, all of us. We are dancing and humming along this path I've made and chosen. You helped me. You told me, "you're not alone, I'll be here". I felt that. I smiled. I decided to keep you close to me... I love all of you so much... and you're all here beside me (more or less), so why am I so lonely?

In a flowery field we danced and rolled around. Even pushing or pulling at each other, it's all love. The four of us... and the many that follow. We all make our homes here and try to settle a happiness that we all can share. We go out to the field at night and look at the stars together. You think that under these stars is all you'll ever need. You think that you belong in those stars, but you don't know if you'll ever reach. You don't care to reach them, if only you can continue to watch them shining beautifully. Looking up toward them, I felt at first a sense of peace... followed by inexplicable emptiness... what was it? In the silence and beauty of the scene, we each dozed off...

I was wandering through a haze... and I stumbled, over and over. Without being able to see anything clearly, things came at me from every which way, knocking me down. I shouted "STOP!" and the turmoil ceased... but as I tried to look through the fog, I was transported in a blur to a alley as clear as day. Signs were everywhere in sickeningly clear detail. Buzzing lights and people like a swarm quickly overtook me... Then, I saw it. I didn't quite know what it was exactly... but something compelled me, a pair of tiny smooth hands with cold piercing eyes for a brief moment, and I knew I must follow it.

Shifting through a merciless crowd, and struggling to keep it in my site, I followed that child through the darkest and grimiest corners of the city until everything was a blur of decay and shadow. But in an instant, shining neon cut through the bleakness of the alley and the child entered it. I stood in front of the door, hesitating for an instant... and finally pushing the door open... and finding myself blinded by a great light from within...

Before I could make out any details, I was laying beneath the stars and the three of you were quietly breathing beside me. My heart was beating rapidly... and I could remember the dream with such clarity. I woke each of you, blurting out what I had seen, what I had felt...

It's not that I am unhappy. I love each of you very much. It's not that I don't want what I already have. I don't know what it is... and I just want to find out.

From the scene and the details of the dream, I knew exactly where it was that I dreamed about... it was a place I had never been. It was a place that I had seen over and over again in brief glimmers. It was far away, and dangerous, and altogether a place that I had deigned as unrealistically out of reach. I knew, from within my very soul and from everything I had learned in my life about omens and clairvoyance... that this place was my destiny. I had to go.

You told me I could do it. You told me I had to do it, no matter what... But then You told me not to go... You told me, it would destroy everything we built here. It would make everything we had worked for and cherished meaningless... And I was afraid of such loss... I was torn between what I knew with all my being that I must do, and what I had worked all my life to create. On one hand was this mutual comfort and happiness... and on the other was a fulfillment I knew I would never have if I did not go... I could not wait... I had to choose. Now or never.

I'm afraid. I'm afraid that I will lose everything, that I will lose you and all I have.

I was not naive. I had experienced much in my short time on this Earth. And I knew, that the things that really matter, the things that are tied to you by fate and love and soul, could never be lost. So I took a leap of faith.

It may be that instantly everything turned against me, keeping me from go about my way as I had thought... seemingly keeping me from my destiny, but actually leading me there like the Alchemist... and perhaps as I achieved all that I had never dreamed of doing then I would also achieve everything that I had. Maybe I would find myself in that distant land... and maybe my journey would lead me back to that happy field under the stars where it all began.

I can't tell you what it means. I don't know. I can't tell you what I want, I don't know. All I know is that something is pulling a my heart and soul. Some emptiness within me is calling to be filled. But what if it makes you sad at me? What if it hurts? What if I lose everything and destroy all of our happiness and myself with one decision?

But... what if I never find the answer? What if I live with this vast emptiness... never fully loving this world or all that's in it... never understanding exactly what I lost. Always hungering to go back in time and undo my choice... What if I grow old, swimming in regret and wishing I had tried and failed rather than stay here where it's safe...

I feel so uneasy. I don't know what to do... it seems to me... like there is really only one thing to do... but there is always a choice.

There are the songs and the people I know.... but underneath and within and above everything there is another song... one where my emptiness is filled with light.

I can't tell you what's bothering me... I can only sing these two songs... wondering the same thing, myself.