Malcolm Gladwin

This Winding Road

This ever winding road, the smell of uncertainty and despair 

Thoughts buzz like little insects in my mind, mosquitoes 

Days flash like lights or a candle flickering in the wind

Time passing like sand through the hourglass—so are the days of our lives.

Laughter as this thought passes my mind, but true

Screaming at silence I wonder what is it all worth, this life of decline

Moments and people, our relationships build but only to break

These are the thoughts that stick to my skin

That burn without a flame.

 

The end seems so empty at times

Strange how days and moments last when you\'re young but pass you by ever more quickly with age.

Life is like a roll of toilet paper, an old man once told me

“What do you mean?” I said.

“Well, the closer to the end you get, the quicker it goes.”

Didn\'t make sense at first

I thought life would stay like those long days of May

Or the running through summer or spring

Autumn—oh those red skies of shepherd’s delight, those rolling hills of forever more

Those golden sunrises of I miss you more

Left with only grey as days pass away

 

You only realize you\'re getting older when you start going to fewer birthdays with cake and candles

and more funerals with sandwiches and tears,

more memories than wishes

Trading tears of joy for those of loss and

“I’m sorry you\'re feeling this way, but it too will pass.”

The inevitable is—we all end up on the shelf,

scattered to the wind and the ocean or eaten by the worms

as we lay forevermore in the stone garden, a reminder that we were here,

Birds will shit, fly over, and if you\'re lucky, pass a plopping poop on you

to say you still were part of something, even in absence.

 

I remember looking to the sea once and thinking I own this life

only to revisit that same space years later asking why.

I asked the ocean,

Why do we grow old too soon and learn so late?

Why do the hands of time keep moving?

The reflection in the mirror no longer recognizes me,

or is it that I don\'t remember the reflections?

Those that I have loved—all things come to pass,

probably the most cruel reality,

and everything I thought mattered once

 

well look now that I\'ve walked the path of the unknown,

upon the days and nights of yonder wide,

I\'ve come to realize—well, these things don\'t matter much anymore.

 

Oh cruel life, what is this terrible game you play

of moth to flame, knowing it will always end in death?

In life subtly burning its wings off,

you knew all along—little children reach to touch the sky

but instead touch the sun and burn our fingers, one by one.

 

I know my time comes,

creeping at first it seems, but these days—

it\'s almost like they run, and I\'m trying to catch up.

I know my time is coming, and even if I don\'t like this concept

it\'s how it is.

I know that time comes for me, and it will carry me forward in its wings

until the day comes where I no longer can fly with it like a dove.

 

And that\'s okay

because I know my words will scatter the earth

and find refuge in new minds, in open hearts,

and the distance of the souls.

 

As I walk this path, mornings come and days go,

night consumes and flowers bloom,

birds do sing and rain does fall

and this is what happens to us all.