In another life

                In  another life you could be whatever you wanted to  be.   No responsibility, no law to hold you down, no moral code if you so wished.  You could go wherever you wished, do whatever you wanted, you could be whoever you wanted to be.  You could be a youthful heir to a multibillion dollar empire.  The world at your feet, every whim served to you on a silver platter.  You could be a honest labor, working the day away, the power of creation and destruction found in the palm of your hand.  Only the people you answer to will have any control of the fate of your designs.  You could be an artist, molding, painting and shaping the world around you.  No one understands your inner turmoil, only the vague interpretations they offer with the criticism of your work.  You could be the preacher, spreading messages of faith and guidance to the confused masses, or a homeless man pushing your cart around and wondering where your next meal will come from, how will you survive just one more day?  The world is full of endless possibilities.

                For a man like me though, it seems like everything runs on a single track.  No room for manoeuvrability.  Even the most rigidly scheduled train has room to move from one track to another.   The days to me seem measured and paced, an internal fire blazing along a ditch of containment to the sea so it doesn't burn the surrounding forest.  Every day it seems harder to tell if I am moving forward, backwards, or just plain standing still.  I whittle my day away in my favorite hangout, smoking my thoughts away, rarely putting them on paper to contemplate them  in the future...and I call myself a writer.   I feel trapped in this place, my creative juices, my verve, stifled.  It's been like that for a year now.  Writers block like a mother fucker.  The loss of what I considered love may have something to do with it.  I let it walk away though... it was unhealthy.  The heat of it would have burnt me up in the long run.  With this new person I feel at ease but not the burning passion that I did before.  I don't even think I am capable of that feeling much anymore.  Only time will tell.  The loss of the place I considered my place of freedom, like a new car with an open road in front of me or the feeling of flying to a new place at a moment's whim, has run its course.  A year has come and gone. Like everything else in the last few years, it all went by too quickly.  I feel restless again, unsure of what I really want and need. 

For now I'll make do, and turn to the golden caress of the sun like a sunflower eager to grow.  My birthday is coming up, and another year has come and gone, once again with a feeling like I have nothing to show for it.  Still life is optimistic, just confusing.  Almost 23 years old and yet I don't feel the freedom, though everything is of my own choosing.  In another life, in another me I could be whatever I wish.  In this life, I feel like my greatness to be is something just always around the corner, but so far it remains just a wish.