Legacy

Melanie Faith

We are a Starbucks society—
All our dreams and hopes summed up
Into one frothy, whipped culture.
The white plastic an empty canvas,
The green emblem securing a legacy forgotten.
There’s got to be more.
Each cup a dream,
Each sip a forgotten memory.

I know there must be a place
Where passion is allowed to thrive—
Somewhere where we all amount to
More than we could ever see.
I do not long for anything that has not
Been revealed or given.
My cries reflect a home departed—
It’s not that the worlds are foreign or new,
But that I’ve forgotten how to get there.

Is it the continual longing for heaven
Which haunts me thus?
Its grip firm upon me—
Relentless, Powerful.
One Sun.

It’s all the same; it’s all recycled nonsense.
Passed-down epiphanies, hand-me-down prophesies—
What’s love that no man has yet felt?
Whose pain/torment/loss has not yet been grieved?
Your adulation and lament are characteristic of all
Yet none.
We’re all the same—we all are one.

Awake, awake, awake!
Time is brief, this world collapsing.
Conformity serves to silence dreams—
Those which yawn with new discovery,
Lands to be tasted and breathed;
Inhaled eternally.
Wake up, wake up!
This cannot be the end—
For we were not made for mediocrity,
Rather shaped circumstantially through it
To reflect the truth…

Yet how hard it is to watch those around you
Live your dreams—
Conquering the depths of Mind.
You sigh and grow bitter at the same time—
The constant reminder intangibly haunting
With more vengeance than any sword.
Grasping, clawing, searching in the dark like a Fool—
Yet you smile, you wave,
You try to behave
As those you worship and those you love
Pass into waters that once beckoned—
Now suffocating.
Distant, distant, distant
With every row.
Every breath, every goodbye
Launching further but never-moving.
Lands beyond, tales not had
Outnumbering the surplus of drudging
Mondays
Epitomeless noondays,
Monotonous monthdays.
Cyclical years coiling and feeding—
It’s all the same, same, same—
No matter how you wish otherwise.
No credibility for dreamers.
No escape from societal slavery.
All the same until you die—
And maybe even after.

How to keep a level head and not scream—
It’s not fair! like a pompous princess,
Fists clenched, tempered by pity and self-loathing.
They told me that age would bring limitless horizons—
Yet somewhere along the way that right was reserved
For those who could find it.
I lost that right.
Where did they look?
Those, the chosen ones,
Those who could find it, or find themselves found.
I was not chosen, but ostracized from their greatness;
Thus I create a new land where I shall rise,
Resurrected like the phoenix after so many deaths—
Without skills, without tools,
Without weapons.

Yes, it’s hard to watch others live out
Your dreams
In the middle of complacent misery,
Your Starbucks days
Sipping away, gulping down the brilliance
That never was,
Digesting a future now dissolved.
Gone now, you’ve blended—
Yet those outside—outside—
Haunting like misplaced icons,
Territorial ghosts to reflect your silent cries
Of escape.
The specters are true, not hollow—
They are real, ever passing through
One dream to the next in a haunt’s pleasure.
They are cruel—
But you love them just the same.