Sing For The Lost

Your voice. I heard your voice from my window. It was melodious, making me think of dreams I'd forgotten long ago. I understand your surprise upon seeing me here, and I take into account that you, like any rational person, will not immediately believe me when I say I mean no harm. But I do not. I'm not the violent type. Confused, yes. But never violent. Then again, I frequently find myself acting out the life of another instead of myself. Perhaps trapped in another life or world. Like an actor, only I have no choice in the matter and I rarely know when and where I must begin. Why am I telling you all this? Of course it doesn't make sense to you; you're sane.

Anyway, I was sitting at home, occupying myself with my own thoughts, which were surprisingly intriguing for my own. I was miserable, as usual, and also remarkably lucid. An oft-occurring combination in my head; my "lucid" days often tend to be my miserable ones. I tend to be melancholy, angry, arrogant. And I was all of these things, really. I was reading a book, I don't recall what...why are you looking at me like that? Oh, I was getting off-topic. But, as I was attempting to fixate myself on the pseudointerests that surrounded me...your singing wafted through the window.

I was entranced. I've never believed in love at first sight. It's bunk when you really sit down and analyze it, which I do frequently with virtually everything. In fact, I'm not certain I've really been in love before, come to think of it. Unless you count the obligatory love I have for my family. But that's a different kettle of fish. Yet, when I heard your voice...it seemed to develop a life of its own. Yes, I know that makes no sense, but it did. I felt all this truth, and sorrow, and jealousy and hurt. At first I thought this came solely from your voice.

But I then realized it was mine.

My fury, sorrow, what-have-you was not so much amplified by your voice, although that's what I originally guessed. It was more like channeled into it. I felt it leaving me, abandoning my cold mind and tired chest and sore limbs, flying away into nothingness. Except it wasn't nothingness. It was a somethingness, which as far as I know isn't a word, but it'll have to do, a tangible thing. A thing that matters. That means. That lives. A seemingly inanimate object which somehow or other manages to exemplify the raw, human emotions that can't normally be found there.

The feeling was so achingly familiar, I was entirely ruled by my own longing for more of it and it came close to bringing me to tears. You see, I was an artist once--emphasis on 'once'--and I used to get that feeling all the time. I took it completely for granted, like I did everything else. I took it in stride, as utterly ordinary, such an insignificant facet of my daily life that, not only didn't it need mentioning, it didn't even require thinking.

That was then, though, and it soon came to pass that I didn't get that feeling anymore. For a time I grew more and more inclined to write, like it was all that made life worth living for, and before long I didn't even like it. In fact, I began to hate it. I started to question what had made me want to do it in the first place. But for whatever reason, when I was writing this random rhyming nonsense that I hated and everyone else hated but that didn't matter because I'd never show this to everyone else anyway, it took things away. The unbearable things, things you can't control, things you can't even bear to think about for too long because, if you do, you'll come full-circle and realize it's already going to destroy you, it's just a matter of time, and all you can do is sit and stare and wait for the death to come.

It was like a drug. One of the really destructive drugs. The kind that takes your every sense far, far away from this world when you down a pill or smoke a puff or whatever the hell, lets you abandon this world and enter the next, one you've got full control over, one that can't hurt you. And the moment it leaves you, takes you back from heaven and into hell, you're left with an overpowering desire--no, a compulsion--to take more. And more. And more. It was a textbook example of addiction, frankly. I suppose I'm lucky in the respect that it was writing instead of something else; if my addiction were to, say, alcohol or cocaine, I'd be as good as dead. Fortunately, it wasn't and I'm not, I'm just cold and alone. And alone. All day. No one hearing me. No one to tell me to shut up. Because I like that far better than not hearing anything at all.

So, when that long-forgotten emotion swept me down, I just had to come down here and find the source, see. I didn't have a choice. I had never been so scared and so euphoric at the same time. Ever. Except perhaps when...but there's no need to mention that now.

What's that? Yes, of course. I climbed out of my own window instead of using the door...yes, I know it's weird, thank you for pointing that out...and ran across the wet grass in the middle of the night, barefoot. You're cold. I can tell because you're shivering. No, I'm not asking you to come inside with me. We can go someplace public if you'd like. I understand it must be odd when a stranger just runs up to you out of the blue and launches into a tirade about how much you mean to them when they haven't so much as spoken one word to you.

I can't remember the last time I cried happy tears. But I did, just five minutes ago, all because of you. All because of your crimson voice in the midnight air. That's all I wanted to say to you. I guess there's nothing left to explain. That's all I'm going to say for tonight. Maybe we'll meet again someday.

But please keep singing. Not just for me, I wouldn't ask you to do that just for me. For everybody. Because I have a feeling there are others like me, who feel just as pointless and lost as I am—was--people who would benefit from your singing. You must travel the world, make yourself known. Save them. Save all of them. You can be the messiah, and I'll be in the background, affirming you the whole time. I know you can change the world.