...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Izi7h9WA6P8

It all feels so insignificant now -

All of my prized moments, 

All of the little charities,

The small consolations.

They used to be my bedrock;

I used to remember those times

As reconciliation for the utmost dire -

The days of bleak, or of dread, or of the terrible.

Little synapses of an ocean breeze,

Colored hair and the warmest of smiles,

A blizzard's howl against siding and drywall

From within the confines of warmth and family -

Odd commodities of heat and lineage translated into luxury,

They used to mean everything to me.

I used to cherish those memories as the light in a beaten lantern.

I used to tow my longing against the possibility of feeling them again.

But now I'm not so certain.

They seem too small against the weight of the world,

The ineffable scale of all things wrong.

They feel instead, like a cave in the mountainside,

One little cave where the light still flickers.

But beside every cave, 

Beside the height-less-ness of the mountain,

Of the killing cold that smothers glimmer after glimmer,

My little nook feels more and more

Like a sanctuary for nothing.

And yet despite myself I know,

Despite the inclination to believe that,

Despite the overbearing gravity threatening to engulf,

Threatening to disavow, consume and forget -

I'd never allow such a powerful thing to fade.

I'd never allow, 

Despite the chill of winter's entry across the threshold of my cave,

A thing so valuable, so inexpressible and of such potential,

To lay unnoticed at the peak of a premature grave.

It is our responsibility to transform those lanterns into safe-havens,

It is our onus to protect that which makes us who we are.

And in the moments where they might lose significance,

When they feel less like lamplight and more a burning of brackish tar,

It's on us to remember all the turmoil,

All the pain that the promise makes,

When transforming candles into stars.