Alone in the Dark

Alone in the Dark.

The phrase has been bouncing around in my head for weeks.  I saw it on a sign and it just stuck in my head.  It seems especially appropriate right now as I stand on my porch smoking my favorite; Romeo y Julieta.  Alone.  Dark.  A bolt of lightning suddenly lights up the night and for a second it’s almost like daylight.  So it’s not completely dark.  I take another drag and pull my leather jacket close.  It’s starting to get cold but I don’t want to go inside.  Another flash of lightning lights up the world and I can see the shape of the clouds as they roll across the sky.  The storms here are different from what I’m used to, there’s no wind, no rain, just lightning and thunder.  And even though it feels chilly to me I know the temperature is pushing 70, 75 degrees Fahrenheit.  Still, I’ve managed to fall in love with this place.  It has a certain charm, the baked brown earth, the tall cacti, the lizards, spiders, scorpions and birds.  I moved here for school, to get an art degree, the ultimate “what-are-you-going-to-do-with-that?” degree.  The saguaros captured my artist’s heart, the rest of the place took the rest of me captive.  Now I’m here, alone in the dark.  No friends or lovers to speak of, at least not human ones, for the desert has become my lover, the flora and fauna, my friends.  Another serpentine stream of lightning separates the sky for a moment and the thunder growls along after it.  In that instant I can see some of the native inhabitants scurrying for cover in fear of the rain that will never come.  In many ways they are as alone as I am and as much in the dark.  One of my old friends used to joke that she always expected that some day I’d mysteriously disappear and become a wolf or a saguaro or something like that.  I’ve always thought it would be more likely for one of those things to become human because they seem so much more alive than some people I know.  And when I’m out in the middle of the desert I can feel a pulse thrumming through everything, a heartbeat of existence.   There is so much life out here.  I’m amazed by how much is out here and thriving in the seemingly dead desert.  I take another drag.  The lightning brings another flash of daylight and an empty threat of rain.

Alone.  But satisfied.  In the not-quite Dark.

I speak empty…

…pretty words.

Everything I say isn’t for me.

I talk brave and true,

but to do what I say?

Well that’s for you.

I can convince you of anything,

but will try nothing myself.

All of it is empty.

The pretty words.

The brave words.

I mean none of it.

I can wax eloquent on love, life and dreams

but at the core of me

I am terrified and would rather sit inside

and watch you do it all.

I speak empty pretty words.

I’ll never accomplish what I say,

I suppose I could be called a hypocrite.

I say one thing but do another.

I go on about how you shouldn’t be afraid,

how life and love are an adventure,

how you should always chase your dreams

and then I express amazement when someone asks me,

“Are you doing it?  Are you living the words you speak so well?”

*Gasp*

Never.

I speak empty pretty words.

So go ahead listen to what I say,

you are braver than me so you’ll probably do it.

Tell me what it’s like.

But remember,

I don’t really mean any of it.

I speak empty pretty words.