I did not know it then
how much of my life I spent
in pursuit of people
who stood behind curtains,
who spoke in half-gestures,
who never saw me at all.
And I
I mistook their silence for grace,
their distance for depth,
wasted hours praising shadows,
thinking they were saints.
Age crept in like a quiet thief
while I argued with the wind,
burning every bridge behind me
not for revenge,
but for honesty
because I couldn’t keep pretending
the path was paved with purpose
when all I saw were stones
and no clear road ahead.
I wandered through philosophies
like a drunk through alleys,
looking for the one window
still lit at 3 a.m.
some voice to say:
you were right to doubt,
you were right to bleed.
But every answer I found
sounded too rehearsed,
too clean,
like the kind of lie
taught in churches and schools
by those who never questioned
the god they worshipped.
I used to think there was something
waiting on the other side of pain
a reward, a reckoning,
a soft hand or a white gate
but the more I lived,
the more I saw how many men
broke themselves
waiting for something
that never came.
What if this is it?
What if all we ever had
was the breath between two silences,
the taste of wine on a Sunday night,
the brief flicker of touch
before sleep swallows us whole?
The world has always belonged
to those who claimed certainty.
They built empires on our questions,
wrote sacred texts from our fear,
used our doubt
as currency
to buy power,
to sell guilt.
And we—we folded our hands,
pretended to be holy,
afraid to ask:
what if no one is watching?
what if no one ever was?
Still, I don't mind now.
Whether the end is fire,
or dust,
or just a deep forgetting,
I find peace in knowing
that my suffering
was not for applause,
that no angel tallied my failures,
no devil stoked the furnace
for my crimes.
I live now
not because I believe,
but because I breathe.
I wake not with purpose,
but with hunger
to feel, to see, to ruin, to rise.
Let the priests whisper,
let the mystics dream.
I will walk this road barefoot,
bloody if I must,
toward the same silence
that swallows kings and beggars alike.
Because in the end,
there is only one truth worth knowing
that none of us knows
and that this
is the only freedom
we were ever given.
-
Author:
MalcolmG (Pseudonym) (
Offline) - Published: July 29th, 2025 02:07
- Category: Unclassified
- Views: 8
- Users favorite of this poem: sorenbarrett, Poetic Licence
Offline)
Comments3
Here reflected in poetic form are the thoughts that all have, and if they say no it is because fear has left them cowering behind needed beliefs to quell those fears. A lovely write. and a fave
Sometimes I find peace in nothing
Oh, how I did not see
the errors of my ways
how I spent time and favor
on shadows standing far behind,
silent figures in my past.
I aged faster
than I learned the lessons
life was whispering into my bones.
Each bridge I burned
out of need,
out of truth,
out of something raw or real.
I’ve sat
outside of thought,
inside doubt,
on top of dreams,
beneath the weight of wondering:
why?
where?
and to what end?
Floods of questions
drown the noise inside me
as I try to make peace
with all I’ve endured,
and yet
still feel broken
by this strange, winding road
that, in the end,
I believe,
leads to nothing.
But maybe
in the nothing,
there is peace.
I wonder
how many fools will gather
at the final hour,
those who lived restrained,
humble, waiting
for the next
the next life,
the next world,
the next promise
a promise
that never existed
outside the cradle of hope
we stitched into our minds.
They knew.
They knew
we did not know
and they took this ignorance
like a gift to be stolen,
turned it into gain—
into wealth,
into leashes for the mind,
chains for the soul.
But if we knew,
if we truly knew
there was nothing after death—
no heaven,
no judgment,
no eternal eye
what then?
Would we still walk straight
and slow
and silent?
Would we still call sin
a burden?
Or would we grab each day
like fire in our hands,
burning time with purpose,
making meaning
of this one life
instead of sacrificing it
to a dream
that might be
only silence?
I do not care anymore
what’s right or wrong.
Whether something waits
or nothing looms
both are only echoes
of thought,
shaped by fear
and passed down
like lullabies
to scared children
grown old.
No one has gone
to that Netherworld
and returned
with more than riddles.
Visions, yes
but dreams are part
of the nothing, too.
Just soft stories
spun from the dark.
Dreaming
our way
into the void.
Oh, what we might have done
if we’d known the truth.
All the chances lost,
all the years stolen
by belief
by upbringing
built on fantasy,
stitched together by trembling minds
too afraid to live
today.
Afraid of the watcher.
Afraid of the sky.
But I find comfort
in this final whisper:
One day,
I will dissolve
into the nothing.
And when that happens,
the weight I carry,
these wounds,
this sorrow
will no longer
be mine to bear.
In the nothing,
I will find
my peace.
And so,
I live now
fully,
madly,
brightly
because no one,
not one soul,
knows what comes next.
And belief…
is just
another name
for the unknown.
A wonderful write of the thoughts and fears if they are honest we all have at sometime, nicely expressed and written
Thank you for reading and commenting
You are very welcome
Really enjoyed it
Thank you for reading
You're welcome
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