Getting Back On Track

Closed up for too long perhaps.
In a comfortable sanctuary.
The deliberate attempt to limit what I see.
So that I may have the clarity and capacity to think.
But it cannot go on indefinitely.
It comes to a point when it starts to collapse on itself.
How long is enough?

The greatest question was, how to step out, after so long?
How to face the fears present at every corner?
Am I asking for too much?
I do not have the courage or face to do it alone.
Who are my friends?
What are friends?
That much has always been unclear.

After so long in the desert,
Even a little something means a lot.
Being in near nothing has taught me how to appreciate something.
Anything.
That even the smallest thing we have has its own intrinsic value.
How small things are part of a larger system.

Perhaps in the past I have thought of friends as something so distant.
The idea seem so high and wholesome that no one can reach it.
Looking back, I've had many friends in the past.
I just did not recognize them in the right way.

Met up with friends over the weekend.
An old, interesting friend on Saturday.
It all ends with the realization that less my family, I am not alone.

It seems almost vital that I step out.
Listening to new ideas, or just letting myself be laid back.
Looking at people getting on with their stuff.
The city skyline I used to love.
The buzz of a people alive.
Most of all, keeping friends in touch.

I have veered very far off track these months.
One huge detour into the very past I should forget.
But I felt there was something I have not yet understood.
To understand it, I must set up myself for hurt.
Along with all the costs and incoherence that comes along with it.
But I think I've done enough.
Back on track to move on again.

And all these months, it had been empty optimism keeping me up.
I must smile, no matter what.
It is like buying on credit.
There is nothing to back up that smile.
But I must not falter.
No matter now empty the smile.

It seems we all have a fool living in ourselves.
A part of each of us which rationale cannot explain.
It is part of us, our beautiful self.
And as we contend with ours, we should contend with others' too.
Who was I to judge?
All the lofty ideals so foolish.
In the end all I am criticizing is myself.

And so it the first real hope I see in a long time.
Not from within me, as I have expected.
It has not come from a self-directed effort of solving problems within.
But the realization and appreciation of what friendship is.
And of learning to accept myself and others

I have always thought hope is a choice.
That by rearranging the necessary components,
One is able to derive hope even alone.
But I have missed out the other half of the equation.
All these while I've got that half wrong.

Slowly waking up to a future without fear.
Slowly getting back the confidence.
My only hope is that the confidence does not shatter what is right.