Cycles

By Gautam Raman

I pick up the pen.

In front, the blank canvas beckons

Mockingly, knowingly.

How long has it been now? How long have I,

Sat still, terrified of moving, thinking, 

Ruining this pristine page

With my failings? No, I must not stain it!

So, hoping, praying that time will give me the courage

To try again, 

I give myself in to the quiet of the night

Blank mind, blank canvas, blank life.

Time must have passed when I woke up

Though I know it not, and it matters not.

Indeed, a blank life makes time stand still,

A luxury unique to one in my position.

These four walls, this flickering light is all I know,

This plane to me sacrosanct, 

None may enter to make my time move.

I sleep and stare, sleep and stare,

Exploiting the stillness,

Swearing that I will stain that canvas

Eventually. 

Sleep, stare, sleep, stare, sleep, stare,

This is how I live. 

A life of no consequence, no relevance, no legacy.

Is that all that is to me? To my essence? To my being?

I, who struggled, raged, against endless waves of insignificance 

To claim my sentience, cannot wither away here,

In this prison of my own creation. Something must give.

Time must move again, marked by the stains on that damn canvas.

To move away from this frozen world of blankness and light,

Into a dark, black realm of uncertainty, unease, and unlimited possibility,

I pick up the pen.

By Gautam Raman