Touch the Sky

The blistering sun overhead casting

Shadows over outreached hands--

The hands of small children

Longing for the next taste of

Glistening, frozen deliciousness or

To be elevated into the sky by

Their mother’s tranquil grasp.

The children slumber away,

But the shadows never sleep.

They merely grow with

Each passing day, diving

Deeper into the pits of our minds--

Lost and forgotten but never ending

Even in death.  

We spend an eternity looking

Towards the sky, lost

Without a purpose and left

With unrequited longing,

But those shadows seeping

Below our feet swell up--

For these shadows have walked beside us,

Saw us at our depths--

Submerged so deeply in our

Own minds we drown

In the very heights of our

Greatest achievements.

Why do we fear the shadows?

Is it because of what they are?

The shattered remains

Of our childish dream

To be a bird, flying so

High in the sky above the planes?

Or the aspirations that

Once consumed us as we

Trudged through the mud,

But we sunk so deep that we

Threw off the shackles

That once were our

Guiding light to lighten

The load, to gain

A few more breaths of air--

Was the air worth it

As our cast off dreams,

Aspirations swallowed all

Of the momentary pain?

These shadows felt that pain and lose,

Know the journeys we have walked.

They don’t judge us for they are us.

They long to be free like we do, but

They are merely another part of us--

Drifting upwards, towards the sky.