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“The Wasteland”
The wasteland of youth is ever growing
Expanding, swelling on its very borders
Trying to flood the rats abandoning the ship
The rats who have hope
Hope that the wasteland is not the universe
Is not infinite
Cannot keep you trapped until the sweet release of death
It is this hope that we use to fill sandbags
To set levees up to keep our distance
But the sandbags are not enough to stop the ebb and flow
So we must keep on running
Looking back to see no progress made, but running anyway
Not for exercise, not out of boredom
But of necessity, the need to leave the past in the dust
To dirty and mildew and rot under the weight of the smog from the overworked minds that keep the wasteland in business
The fatigue builds and settles in the muscles
Weighing them down, causing the expense of energy you no longer have
Cramping with every motion
Your ankles being submerged, gripping your feet
Dragging on the dusty ground as a tantrum prone child
Keeping you within range, never letting you dry yourself
Demanding your loyalty in exchange for ignorance
Because ignorance is bliss, or so says the knowing
Maybe only to keep everyone else in the wasteland
To horde the riches for themselves
Making us more determined to emerge from under the surface
To reach for the sparkling light that looks so tantalizing
But having it pulled away when our fingertips make contact
Only managing to infuriate us even more
Minute by minute the wasteland creeps further and further
Into our healthy existence
Cutting through our dreams with the power of a serrated blade
Filleting open the petty forms that we give to our ideals
Exposing their foolishness and drawing us back into the comfort
The familiar feeling that we know
The one we can live with
The one we shouldn’t have to
The feeling we were born with
The pupil stage, an active one
One that destroys any potential cocoon, giving itself renewed life
That is the wasteland of youth
An entity that possessed a death grip
A tool of those who have escaped
Used to keep those who haven’t in the darkness
It is this that we find ourselves mired in
Running against the current, being carried farther out to sea
Aware of the promise, of the hope that rests outside
But never being able to reach it
For it is being pulled away with every breath taken
Being relegated to only an idea, a dream, a fantasy
Until one day it is no longer remembered
And people will laugh if the idea is ever mentioned
So is life in the wasteland of youth
A juvenile, malformed, cancerous form of life
The knowledge of the antidote free for all
But unwanted by all but a few
The few who understand that the wasteland is merely a sinkhole
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