photo credit: Sreejit Poole

It wasn’t so much
that nothing was right
with her life
as it was
that she knew
she walked it
totally uselessly.
She used to call it,
“carefree.”
Now, she knew
that this name
was too easy.
Now, she knew
that she was free
from anyone who cared.
Now, she knew
that no one even
noticed she was there.
She was depressed
and it was enough
if she just put
one foot in front of the other.
That’s what her
therapist said
anyways.
Just trying to keep
her alive
another day.
Her therapist
told her
about the vision board.
She looked it up
on Oprah.com.
An article
by Martha Beck taught,
“Step One:
Cut out pictures
of
things you love.
Step Two:
Paste
them onto paper.
Step Three:
Realize
your life’s ambition?”
Ambition?
In a vision?
For her
Step One
was just getting out of bed.
Step Two
turn on Tupac
and proceed to bob the head
and
if she got
that
far in her day
then
she would let
herself
celebrate
with
Step Three
light one up and forget her cares away.
She knew Tupac’s
vision
when he said,
“I can picture you
in heaven
with a blunt
and a brew.”
For she knew
this too
that forgetting
was the only way
to stop the pain.
Don’t need
any vision board
nor any ambition
when I got a 40 oz,
now
I can put down that kinda wisdom.
She ripped out
the umbilical cord
connecting herself
to her ancestors
and let the
pain and despair
be her
new
masters.
Now she was
living like
that father in Lil’ Frank’s Poem
seeing herself
“only in the background,
out of focus.”
Now she
damages lives
like fields are
damaged by locusts.
As she lit one up
she started
philosophizing within herself.
Why does my
hi-road
always turn bitter
as if
I had forced it there.
Why do thoughts
in silence
ruin everything I hold dear.
Why is my first
impulse
to do the right thing
so weak
and
why does the
slow and steady work
of negativity cause its retreat.

The company we keep
is so important it seems
as we either rise or fall
depending on
to what it is we cling.
Breathlessly waiting
for a
savior to guide us
when
truly
every choice we make
starts from deep inside us.
Thoughts
leading us
on a downward spiral
consuming all good in the world
sometimes can be
chased away
by simple things
like two lips curled
or
idle chit chat
that lets us know
that we are not alone
or
simply listening
to the breath
of a loved one on the phone.
We never know
if the person before us
is living on the edge.
We could be
the one to
push them over
or
to pull them back
instead.
Lack of vision
can be the difference
between life and death sometimes.
Though this world
may not be
paradise
it is yours
and it is mine.
What we do with it?
Now, that is the question.

ForThePromptless – S. 2, Ep. 2 – Vision Board

This week’s prompt was vision boards… For lack of vision, I decided to discuss lack of vision.