Blinders

As I lie in bed
I could think of a million reasons
to sleep-
The escape.
The bliss.
The peacefulness.
A darkness that would
embrace me
rather than
engulf me.
But I couldn't sleep.
The thoughts in my head
ran like horses,
tripping over each other
and stripped of their blinders.
Blinders are magical really.
They keep you focusing on
one thing-
Forward.
No room to look upon
the passed.
No space to focus on what's going on
around you.
Forward.
Life would be easier with
blinders.
Guiding us in one direction
so people like me
couldn't think about the
horrifying past
or the
tangled present
or the many directions in which
everyone else's lives
were going.
Forward.
What is forward though?
For horses there is a
finish line.
A definite goal.
A finite destination.
A visual prize.
For people though there is no
guaranteed trophy.
No picture of perfection.
No promise of greatness.
But there is
Faith.
Destiny.
Hope.
But for people like me,
our blinders are tinted.
Allowing us to not see the path we take,
but a shred of our location.
Not to see the trophy we are to retrieve,
but a gleam from it's reflection.
And we think to ourselves,
'How?'
If we cannot see the path
how can we walk it?
If we cannot see the trophy
how can we want it?
If all we can see are the wisps of hair of those in front of us
how are we to know our place?
How far behind have we fallen?
And why
keep
running?
And when we do stop running,
when we finally realize that
running is pointless
for people like us
Everyone sees.
Everyone finally notices that
our blinders were different
than everyone else's.
That we never really had a chance.
That we were running as fast as everyone else
even though we had to work so much harder
and we couldn't even see
what we were running for.
They all say they were betting on us.
They thought we could do it.
They thought we could win.
They believed in us.
They laughed at us.
They laughed at how confused we looked
They laughed at how slow we ran
They laughed at us because we were losing
Then had the audacity to say
They cared about us.
They didn't care.
They don't care.
And I am tired of running.