i. Duty: I know there is no Why

You have never felt these stirrings.
I do not dare to make humanity like myself.
You will never understand, but I forgive you,
If so small a thing begs forgiveness.

You see it at odds with my life,
Against my survival. Yet I see differently.
I recognize my only road to Salvation.
He who loves his life will lose it—
I think I remember that much.

I am taking steps on a road well trodden,
But I’m making my own trail, which I cannot see.
In this place, I feel strangely lonely, though
I know I am following so many.
I do not think I am worthy.

I have always done only what I must.


ii. Hiding: It’s hard to believe I’m really alone

You aren’t born understanding it—
That feeling of eyes peeling up your skin
Trying to Know you.
Through life, you begin to feel it less, and
After many years, it seems gone.
Yet I have gone away from that.
I have forgotten being Watched.
I replace it with being Looked For.
That is easier now.

I have tried to return to being seen,
To being so human as I am not.
I do not think I can.
This desire for seclusion in invisibility—
I want to vanish—
I am afraid of not being lonely.
I have been too long surrounded.
One day I will be Looked At.

I will only delay it.


iii. Rest: Quiet is never enough

I can feel a weariness cutting to my bones,
Passing through their centers and going out again,
Folding over on itself, becoming infinite.
I feel it in my bones, but this fatigue is in my eyes.

Time loses meaning in months, years, centuries.
I can only understand it in minutes and hours.
My life is too many minutes, so many more than I can understand,
Yet though they drift slowly, they inevitably draw close to an end.
I would welcome the end if it would stop all this waiting.

I want only a stretch of indefinition,
A gentle Until Further Notice
A place to waste away quietly, slowly killing my weariness.
I desire to be filled, but I am satisfied to not be drained.

I can trust stagnation.