“pondering” by Alyssa Pilecki

by Alyssa Pilecki ’20

A cold almost winter night,

mid-November.

Looking out a dirty old window,

I don’t know what I’m feeling.

I don’t know what I’m feeling,

so I do the only thing I can:

I sit here alone,

and I think.

I think that life is cruel, 

I think that life is never kind.

You know, it seems to me

that I just can’t say where exactly I’ll be in a year

I can’t tell you what’s wrong, 

I can’t tell you what’s right,

I can’t tell you any of that,

because I can’t even tell it to myself.

Before I know it,

One Year Passes.

I still sit here alone

Looking out this dirty old window.

I wonder

why

I can’t figure it out.

Everyone and everything’s moving,

moving so fast

I can’t keep up with them 

The young ones are growing,

The old ones are going,

And I still don’t know how I’m feeling

so I do the only thing I can:

I sit here alone,

and I think.

Everyone tells me

“It’s a nice day to start again.”

But what they don’t know is I’m only falling apart,

I’m only falling behind.

I have nothing left to do now but

Look out this dirty old window

With a million thoughts in my head,

There’s really nothing else I can do.

So I think.

I sit here all alone and I think.

And then,

I hear the sound of music.

It comes at me slowly,

gradually,

suddenly hitting me all at once

like the sunlight does

when that big blood orange in the sky finally

crosses the horizon at the brink of dawn

showering the Earth with warmth and light.

I hear the sound of music 

ever so clearly in my head,

That Bon Jovi

That David Bowie

That John Lennon

That Frank Ocean

That Eminem

I am inspired by the music.

Day by day,

I look through that dirty old window

Less and less

Until

I no longer sit here alone, 

no longer think,

no longer suffer.

I am inspired by all the music,

I now dance

the dance of life.