Sometimes you have to take yourself out of reality to be able to see it. And so, thousands of miles from home, I finally let myself reflect. Looking back at words I penned a few years ago is painful. As if I was warning myself of what I was to become. Apathetic. Pathetic.

I spoke of escape, ‘awaiting exodus’. Painting images in my mind of a freedom I needed. I wonder now if I found anything more than a different place.

As though I could see, I spoke of a path upon which I fancied myself to tread:
“The guidance is here but people are weak.”

Today I revise the poem. Now it ends:
“And I am people – just look at me.”

The seeds of an activist are painted in words. What use is a metaphor? My words were for me: “Nothing you can do to stop their passing away.”

And so nothing did I do.

I spoke of ‘my answer‘ falling on deaf ears. I’ve never been so hard of hearing.

I see her in my words. That’s why I’m scared:
“Striving for a balance of fear and hope
The middle path of peace and justice we promote.”

There is an irony in all of this. For the same poem ends with an order.
“Take a step back and question, what about you?”

And so I spent my time asking everyone who they were. Questioning their actions and deeds. All along justifying it to myself under a pretence I couldn’t be further from. What about me?

Looking to the open book helped me to see my flaws. So I closed it.

One of the last poems I wrote described what I had then become:
“I left to get closer to the man that I am
Now I wonder if really I can.”

The answer materialised in the consequence. I stopped writing.

So looking back I see something that was never apparent at the time. All along my words were just a message to myself. I wasn’t writing to share. I didn’t write because I ‘needed to’. I wrote to warn myself of what I soon was to become.

And then became it.

The mistake I’ve made in the past I could easily repeat. But this is my life, and I refuse to end it there. If my words were a warning to myself, then perhaps within there exists an answer to escape this eventuality. I find it in a poem I wrote (over a year ago) which was incidentally for someone else:

“You gaze into the distance
wonder who you are
Those eyes tell me victim
looking to a land afar

Running is not the answer
you decide to stay
A heart that has no master
also has no way

These trials will truly end
last for but a day
And so you turn from men
fall to your knees
and pray”

No explanation is required.
The tears in my eyes say it all.