(A lone voice whispers)
Tell me…
When the noise finally stops…
When the advertisements no longer speak…
When the glowing screens go black…
When the crowds disappear into their homes…
Who remains with you then?
Who are you…
Without performance?
Without your carefully arranged masks…
Your titles…
Your curated moralities?
For many walk this earth believing they are free…
Yet every movement…
Every opinion…
Every hunger…
Was quietly placed inside them…
By unseen hands.
Families.
Governments.
Religions.
Algorithms.
Tribes.
Invisible architects of the inner cathedral.
And so few ask themselves…
Which thoughts are truly theirs.
For self-knowledge is not comfort.
No…
It is excavation.
The sacred horror of pulling stone away from your own buried face.
To look inward long enough…
Is to eventually encounter contradiction?
Darkness beside light.
Mercy beside cruelty.
Desire beside holiness.
The wolf…
And the lamb…
Drinking from the same black river.
And still…
You continue.
Because somewhere deep within the human spirit…
There exists a longing not even modernity could extinguish.
A yearning for mystery.
For initiation.
For meaning.
For something greater than consumption.
This is why ruins fascinate you.
Why abandoned churches still feel sacred.
Why candlelight softens grief.
Why storms make poets of the lonely.
Why the sea reminds you of eternity.
You were never designed merely to produce…
Consume…
And vanish.
Your soul rejects such small prisons.
And perhaps that is why you are here now…
Listening from some quiet room…
Some sleepless bed…
Some moving train beneath a dying evening sky.
Searching.
Not for certainty…
But for recognition.
To feel seen…
By something unseen.
And maybe the abyss people fear…
Is not death at all.
Maybe it is silence.
For in silence…
There is nowhere left to run.
Only remembrance.
Remembrance of who you were…
Before the world told you who to become.
So light your candle carefully, traveller.
Guard your inner flame from false prophets…
False saviours…
And false selves.
For not every light leads upward.
Some merely illuminate the cage.
Nosce te ipsum.
Know thyself
And if your reflection trembles in the mirror tonight…
Do not be afraid.
Many things awaken…
Once truly observed.
Blessed be.
What will be…
Will be.
Velumbound.
(C)
Copyright John Duffy
Image shared under fair usage policy
No comments:
Post a Comment