literature

Carpe Diem

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stargirl2791's avatar
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Literature Text

I fell in love with mornings
but had a love affair with midnight;

It's easier to slip
into the soporific grip
of the nether regions of the night,
to wrestle and grapple and entwine yourself
with the moonlight on your bed,
to succumb to the frivolity that only the screech owls and katydids see,
to delude yourself into believing
that you can stretch time with a rolling pin

Than to rise with the shine
of sunrise through the curtains
and breathe in the sound
of a million things waking
in a cycle a million years old.

There is a ritual to the daylight
that resuscitates the spirit
in ancient instinctual tradition.

There is an unparalleled sense
of intimacy
in the dawn
and in the drowsing cafés and sleep-walking streets,
the sense that the world is calling out in the fog that's still melting into dew
and touching your heart  to bid you good day.

But to attempt
to give your body to both
is to stretch yourself
too thin.
17 minutes.  Inspired by waking up late and bemoaning the fact that the city just gets more crowded the later I go into work.  Also inspired by a recent struggle between doing what is right and what is easy, which is something I have always failed to grasp in the academic world, and it keeps getting me into trouble.  This also took on a little meaning as a slight prod at society; we face the struggle of instant gratification versus what is better for us in the long run and it's permeated everything from finance to material goods to marriage and relationships.  And it's also mildly influenced by the prompt "fading potential" from SeptemberSkies2298's prompt tag game: septemberskies2298.deviantart.… I may write something else that more closely follows it but the prompt is very apropos for the inspiration.

In school recently I've been more or less forced into taking the more difficult path.  This second chance isn't going as perfectly as I'd intended and it's my instinct to back out and start over until it is.  But in this case, I think I need to grit my teeth and plow through to prove to myself and the world that I can overcome difficulties instead of running away.

I think part of that is that I need to get a hold of my actual lifestyle and flip it on its head.  As of today, June 30th at 10:52am, I vow to get up earlier and give up the love affair with the burned-out neon of the night.
© 2014 - 2024 stargirl2791
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hopeburnsblue's avatar
Reading again, and I so agree with this. I've been both a night and a morning person ...