A Tune For The Deaf

On most days, 
I am the silent spectator 
standing just behind the barricade,
always the front seat passenger in a moving car,
never the actual protagonist, 
but always a presence in the story 
the editor chose not to cut out.

Which is to say,
I am made up of almosts,
made up of goals and dreams 
that’ll never truly reach an end,
plights that’ll always fall short,
and stories that’ll never find closure.

Which is to say,
I am trapped on the horizon,
always at an end running towards the end.

These days, I spend my time telling myself it’s okay,
how watching is as important as actually doing,
because who will be left to applaud 
if everybody decides to run in the race.

Which is to say,
I am meant for a simpler greatness,
and maybe, somewhere, that’s okay.

I watch minutes roll into hours, 
days, weeks, months and years.
Time is a foreign concept for me,
always out of my grasp, almost within reach.
Isn’t it funny how we can watch reigns turn into ruins
in the same time it takes for a new life to be born?

I trivialize my past the same way I trivialize my present,
always with an air of romanticism.
Which is to say,
I am lost without a character to play in an untold story.

I like to tell myself that my words matter,
that for once, the doormat matters 
more than the actual house,
but nobody’s as interested 
in unsung symphonies as me.

Which might poetically mean,
that I play my flute for the deaf,
but let’s save that for later,
nobody has time for poetry anyway.