Hunger

Have you ever been so hungry, 
that you were excited to finish your food just so you could come back for seconds?

Have you ever had so many songs to hear,
that you secretly wanted one to end so you could move on to the next?

Sometimes,
in a destructive combination of ignorance and delusion,
I don’t realize how beautiful the music is,
until it has just barely slipped from my grasp.

I can try to play it again, 
but why should I even bother?

When it’s gone,
it’s gone.

For so many years I was excited to see what was next,
always more eager for the next bite than the one I was chewing at the moment.

But the music is never so powerful,
the food never so fulfilling as I had hoped.

I walked steadily my entire life,
eyes and nose blind to the roses beside me,
all senses focused only on my unknown destination. 

After waiting, and waiting, and waiting,
I looked back and realized that I had made it.
And although a part of me always knew this was coming,
it’s a sad realization that I don’t want to be here.

I wish that I had never tried to grow so fast,
I wish that somehow I could’ve seen how little it was worth it.

But after the song is always silence,
and the quiet is sometimes almost unbearable.

Nevertheless, we bear it.

We joke about our ignorance,
because we know that everyone who will come after us is cursed with it as well,

and this knowledge,
though ultimately meaningless,
gives us a false sense of superiority and security.

This feeling we cling to,
desperately,
whispering to ourselves:
“It’s ok. Eventually, the song had to end.”

 

iyukica

VT

17 years old

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