Tenuous is our grasp on reality,
For reality and the things which we desire
So often fall on opposite sides of the line
That divides objectivity from perception,
And tears us between our dreams
And the fears within our minds.
What we see is an artist's rendition
Of another's design, and so we critique wrongly
What we think is happening, but isn't.
Dreams are an impulse of the heart;
Fears are the armor of the mind,
Wrapped around youth's vulnerability
To make it age's impregnability.
This is our death before death:
The imprisonment of perception (and therefore hope)
Behind the bars of soul-sucking
Realism: the devil's weed has overtaken
The garden and choked out the flowers.
Lo! the bowed heads of a generation
Trapped with dreams of freedom
From a slavery self-imposed in fear.
Lo! the raised hands of a generation
Benevolently laying on our necks
The yoke they long to escape,
And asking us why our necks chafe
Beneath inhuman realism, too-human realism,
So we shut our mouths and strengthen our necks.
Life is cruel, and people are cruel,
But none so cruel as we to ourselves.
We gouge out our eyes and call ourselves wise
For calling what we can see "darkness,"
When light falls on faces we cannot see
And illuminates dreams we can no longer dream
Because we told ourselves enough times
That dreams are dandelion seeds that
Blow away in the breeze of reality.
But dandelions die to send out seeds
That die to send down roots
That take hold and grow into more
Until a field is filled, by one flower's death.
We might be blind, but even the blind
Can pick a flower and smell its fragrance.
They say the dandelion is a weed,
But a weed so lovely is a flower worth picking,
And a dream so tender is worth cultivating.
A generation stands at the crossroad
Between death's resignation and hope's life.
The light fades from our eyes;
We walk in darkness, our hands outstretched
To pluck the flowers we now call weeds.
Is this the darkness of blindness
Or is it the darkness of night?
The flower dies in our hands,
And its seeds fall into the quiet wind.
Forever is a long time, but forever is not now.
Now, time is short, and seasons change,
And flowers die to be born again,
And hearts are broken to beat anew,
And blindness comes so we can love our sight.
Darkness falls, but the sun also rises.
This yoke is heavy, another is light,
And we have hope: we are not happy now,
But one day we will be happy.
