Family paradox

Family Paradox 

There is a darkness in my family

 A form of sadness that only we can see 

It comes out when we get quiet 

or when the sun goes down

 It flows in our blood

 A melancholy that never goes away 

It’s embedded in us 

Like curses we never chose

 Our people drink a lot, some say to forget 

Our people also work from dusk till dawn, 

probably for the same reason

Our people don’t shed tears 

We don’t tolerate the weak they say

Our people never speak of the past 

Their past is dark and silent 

All they can think of is the day ahead.  

There is only the road ahead they say

To what though? I wonder if they remember 

They just want to keep going 

Outrun the demons of the past

 And we keep on running.

My people can also laugh and love 

We laugh like children playing under the rising sun 

We love our own more than we could ever love ourselves 

For our own we could sacrifice all that we have, all that we are… 

They carry our hopes and dreams 

Our blood is our oath and our future

They are the paradox that I can never comprehend

They carry pain and love in the exact same proportions 

Infinite amounts 

And I fall in the middle of this paradox 

Where does our destiny lie? 

Pain or love? 

They say pressure can either be

Creation or destruction   

And every once in a while,

I gaze at the dark and silent sky and wonder what will happen to me

What will happen when I reach my breaking point?   

When I’m forced to choose between pain and love 

I know they want me to solve the paradox 

To choose love and let go of the pain we carry 

Give them the peace we lost 

But what If I can’t?  

What if the answer to

The paradox is not in me? 

For All I hear is the silence of the past 

And the faint echoes of

The stories that demand to be told

Again, and again, I wonder  

What will I be?  

But until I can find the answer, I will do like they do 

Run in the dark night

And keep on running 

Forever running

~ Ryan