Shadows Poem by fyrn vosshall

we're all shadows, though, aren't we?
we're all just flickering glimpses that cross
sometimes a little sometimes a lot
into other people's lives
and we ache and we burn but at the end of the day
we're all cars in slow traffic
stripped of personality
metal and oil
engine and wheel
and no one knows anything about us.
god humanity is so strange what were we thinking
coming into this world so full of everything
how bold of us how
how bold of us to assume we meant anything at all.
because childhood doesn't last forever someday we'll be
that car in front of you with the chandelier in the trunk
and there's a thousand stories i can make up for how it got there
but i'll never know.
and isn't that easy to believe isn't that hard to realize
isn't that something that we are so
singular so
individual so
wholly broken and
go ahead.
try to describe this experience.
nothing good stays, said someone once or a thousand times
and they were right.
we are and everything about us is
so so fleeting
and i know that hurts.
and i know why we're so greedy
all of us
i know why we want it all
because life is such an acid trip of a fever dream
and it's addictive and it's the win you can't stop trying for
so we spend our days ripping ourselves apart
heaving breath after heaving breath
filling our lungs with the carbon monoxide of our pasts
and the fossils of our futures
and it doesn't really matter if that's all mixed up
no one's going to rearrange it anyway
but we soak in every ounce of life because it's the mystery the story the hope
that never ends.
and are you going somewhere special with that chandelier?
are you moving somewhere new
and the memory of your parents wouldn't let you leave it there
all alone in your childhood home?
are you on your third date with her and you really like how it's going
but the sky's going to be murky tonight
but you think you might just be tall enough to hang these artificial stars from the clouds?
or
are you taking it away
to the junkyard or somewhere you'll never go again
because you bought it for the house that he left you alone in and now it hurts too much?
i wonder if people ask about these sorts of intricacies. but i can
stop wondering i know they don't.
i know no one has asked me why i do anything
they just ask how or something and i guess the way i handle words
is something to remark on in the right circumstances
because i really do treat them the way they deserve to be
handpicked flowers homemade bouquets
or they ask who and i could give too many responses for that
are you asking who made me this way or who got me here
and there are different answers there do you know
do you know?