Fading LIght

Over the horizon

Light spills

Patiently lapping at my heels

As I mount

The waiting train.

Fully submerged

I sit by the window

Watching as

The vibrant colors surge by

Like the hands on my watch converg-

ing time after time

Until I notice the world's not so bright

Anymore

I frantically crane my eyes

To the skies

Until I finally realize

My childhood has flown

Behnind me.

As orange light drapes

Over the jumbled landscape I

Feel a sudden longing for

The bright yellow light alighting

On my untouched, unharmed hands

For the way the warm air

Wrapped me in an aura of tranquility

Despite the speed at which I flew

For the way that light drew

Flowers from the soft

Welcoming dirt that bloomed

Like a colorful sea of miracles

I'll never be able to pick.

I look forward

Hoping for a break from nostalgic stress

And instead I am met with a wall of darkness

Almost as vast as the fear

It instills in my chest cause

I don't even know where these train tracks lead and

Having a destination is something I need but

How can I have that if I can't even see

All I got is this growing sense of foreboding

Floating on the breeze.

You see,

I remember the long summer nights when

I would knock on each neighbor's door

Asking if they could play and

They'd say sure

So we'd play cops and robbers

Shooting flashlights like mobsters

Til the calls of our mothers

Dragged us to bed.

Now

I don't even knock.

I long to sit around the dinner table

Laughing with my family but now I'm unable

My sports got too serious

Traffic making mom furious

Brother gotta keep that 4.0

Grade point average like a genius

So we each stop by the kitchen

Like it's a drive thru Checkers

Leaving me yearning for the time

When family meals were a given

Every weeknight

But maybe someday

The dinner table will turn

And my child won't feel

Like I do.

I'm already stressed

And I got high school next year

Not to mention college

Balancing

Expansion of knowledge

With athletics and a social life I need some leverage

Like gaining purchase on the black hole of my uncertain future but

There are no given's to be purchased

So I'm giving it my all to keep my head in the air

Before I drown in this fear

Of not succeeding despite 

All the opportunities I keep receiving

The water's steadily rising

The light's receding

It's getting harder and harder and harder to keep breathing.

And I gotta make a living

But got no ideas on how

My hope's beginning to Lil Wane cause

I'm trying to silently work my way

To his level but physics says that's not aloud

Maybe I could

Ball like The Brow or just

Work in a factory line but with these machines coming in now

They do those jobs even faster and better cause somehow

Their programming's too complex to be vexed by

Such simple human subjects

And I don't even know

What they're gonna learn next'

This uncertainty is killing me like not getting that reply text cause

If I cant prepare for the hurdles ahead

And I turn out a mislead

Unwed

Pointless pollutant of a pothead

I think the disappointment of my family

My self

And my friends

Would force me six feet under

Straight into my coffin.

See,

On one side lies the luminous light of my loving childhood

Slowly fading like the scars

On my half grown up knees

And on the other the darkness

Of a fear-filled future

Proliferating my day to day unease

So I'm using these ragged breaths

To push out this final cry

I hope you're hearing me just like the Warriors fans

In the Oracle

On game night

I wish

I could reverse

Time

But however I try

I can't contrive a way out of these skinny jean tight confines

Cause whichever way I align

These monsters inside me unwind me

But unlike Rihanna we are not friends

Cause their shouts drown out the voices of reason in my head

Growing louder

Monsters patiently waiting for my vision to turn a bloody red

Patiently waiting for me to stray too far

Into the dark

So they can sink their sharp talons

Into my weary brain

Patiently waiting for me to slip

From the light

Of my childhood home

So they can turn my train

Onto their tracks

Patiently waiting

For me

To grow up