Should I Stay, Or Should I Go?

By Navni Patni

oh how I saw

visions of triumph,

visions of pain,

through my eyes.

I’m reliving a loop, over and over and over-

thinking, anything and everything,

hoping tomorrow would be better,

and maybe it will,

but it probably won’t.

the anticipation clashes with reality,

thinking the “one day I will” but I don’t.

I never could.

I never would.

I never stood,

long enough to feel my knees crumble.

I never put,

enough of me out there to fumble.

I never looked,

for another way to escape my lane,

to find another path instead of more pain.

But what’s the point in discovering something new,

something different,

something for me,

if I never drive the steering wheel at the crossroad?

stuck with the same, old, twisted ways,

but with new, different, tragic odes.

stuck in the same route,

the same bus,

the same air as yesterday,

and the day before,

and the day before,

and the day-

after isn’t going to be anything more adventurous,

if i'm still stuck here, plugging in my earplugs,

listening and listening and listening,

but never speaking, never doing, never showing.

maybe yesterday wasn’t,

maybe tomorrow won’t be,

but maybe today will.

hoping tomorrow will be,

if today is,

maybe all I have to do is change,

my ways, my paths, my thoughts,

change me.

By Navni Patni