a deep sleep
your conciousness awakens
you stay where you are for a moment, still, waiting for the last vestiges of your sleep to leave you,
memories from your dreams
still hanging on to your present

you hear the rustling of leaves
as a silent warm wind blows
through your open window
you hear a few chirps,
a few footsteps
and some distant chatting, laughter
it isn’t dawn, but rather dusk and you’re waking up halfway through the day
to live through the rest of it
and also perhaps a half
of the approaching night
you notice the sunlight slanting
through your windowsill
casting kaliedoscopic patterns
on your walls
reflecting off, onto the ceiling

your mind-
all your memories,
the beautiful moments you’ve spent
with all the people you’ve ever met
throughout your life so far
they all come
with desires of their own
with ideas of their own
an equally beautiful life of their own
and with a clock
that’s constantly ticking down
and hung around their necks
just like the one
around yours

and yet they’d decided
to spend some of those precious seconds
from their little sack of moments
with you, just you.
you remember their smiles, their laughter, those eyes
those eyes that have seen so much
before you see them now,
now, forming their own memories
of you
and now whatever might you do,
you can’t take that part of your self
away from them
that they have permanently inscribed
onto the pages
of their own diary of life.

conversations-
ah, so complex
with each word that’s spoken
don’t you hear
the eons of human life lived
speaking this language
to express one’s own memories
and at the same time
create a version of oneself
in the memories of the other,
to be stored in there
until either their wick
runs out of wax
or until the needle runs out
of the thread of time?

each moment-
each fleeting moment of life
is so short, so transient
and yet so infinite, so full of life
so heavy, so memorable
and oh, so worth experiencing
if only you pull the bell
and halt your trains for once
you might just be able to hear
the stunning melody of the universe
the harmony of this beautiful human life
that is gifted to you
that, despite the silk of pain
tightening your heart
or the cold touch of loneliness
hanging around you like mist,
will continue to tick away those seconds
from the clock around your neck
that’s getting heavier by the second,
by the moment.
even if you aren’t willing to open your eyes
your clock will tick
and at every tick, will etch
another momentous memories to your diary
a memory that you cannot erase
memory, the only remaining evidence
of the time you once had.

oh, the human experience
how precious it is
despite its transience,
how eternal it is
that for all that you and I know,
this life is the only life we’ve ever lived
our first and last chance
our only chance to experience
the beauty of living,
of being alive,
awake.

oh, how priceless is this lifetime
how delicate is life,
that even though
almost every force out there tries to extinguish it,
it continues to flourish
in every crevice on the ground
in every crack on the walls
in pitch black rotting darkness and
even in scorching burning fire.
oh, how beautiful this mind is
it not only lets us see
but also imagine
and writes the memories from our imagination
to the pages of the same diary
that holds ages’ worth of memories
from moments not spent asleep
from moments spent awake,
alive.

how’d you then, know which one’s which?
as your clock ticks on,
the ink begins fading
and your only evidence of a life that’s lived
comes from the very mind that begins to,
as you age, misplace some of your labels
and rub off some of your ink
it begins to show you that which you cannot touch
and feel that which you cannot see
evidence-
they say it is what defines reality
but can you
can you possibly show me
a single bit of evidence that proves
my existence today,
right now, at this very moment,
looking straight into your eyes?
tell me
do you remember,
when you woke up this morning,
with your memories of dreams and reality churning,
did you ever wake up at all?
or are we all perhaps just dreaming
of each other in an eternal, blissful,
sleep?