{"sf1_id":1635708,"sf2_id":"pnGqgK6e","title":"Looking Up","author":"Velisren","words":351,"posted_at":"2020-10-05T03:23:00.000Z","tags":["Poetry","SFW"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1635708-looking-up","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/pnGqgK6e","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/45/ec/45ec4e0a-5a45-4291-9c99-edca7be4c933","description":"#1 of Poetry\n\nThis poem has actually been published in a university's annual book publication. And to top it all of, it won second place for poetry in said book. I'm quite proud of it.","content":"Looking Up\n\nThey walk with downcast eyes, unfocused\n\nUnsure of what the world looks like\n\nTruly, but the weight has pressed\n\nOn hunched shoulders and slouched backs.\n\nThere are memories in their eyes\n\nMemories of hurts and pits\n\nOf black; cast aside,\n\nSpit out, unwanted, unfit.\n\nThey dare not look up, focused\n\nFor fear of what they might see:\n\nSomething better than they. They trust\n\nThat the path below will give them comforting consistency.\n\nThey walk with downcast eyes, unfocused\n\nUnaware of the others around them.\n\nFor their world remains encased\n\nIn a prison of walls dark and numb.\n\nThe walls are suffocating.\n\nWhispers of pain echo,\n\nRicocheting off, cutting deep sufferings\n\nThat ring mournfully within, and it's all they know.\n\nThey dare not look up, focused\n\nFor fear of what they might see.\n\nThe dark walls that encased\n\nStretched higher than they thought would be.\n\nThey walk with downcast eyes, unfocused\n\nBlindly turning in circles,\n\nPerhaps sitting in the corner of their high walls, convinced\n\nThat the dark will remain comforting, unchanging, endless.\n\nNo light reaches them, no arm outstretched\n\nTo caress their troubled soul.\n\nSoulless and hopeless, they remain\n\nBound by the laws that have them hold.\n\nThey dare not look up, focused\n\nFor fear that what they might see\n\nWill cause the pain to flow in the form of tears shed\n\nMixed with the blood of a broken despondency.\n\nThey walk with downcast eyes, unfocused,\n\nNot realizing: the walls are thin\n\nLike paper. And if hewn down the mid\n\nWould quietly crumble, as loud as a dropped pin.\n\nFreedom rushes into their lungs\n\nAs they take unrestricted gasps,\n\nPanting, for the wall had grabbed them, and wrung.\n\nYet they sing. \"Welcome home.\" The world shouts.\n\nThey now dare to look up and focus\n\nOn the things of the universe that are queer:\n\nArt in the teardrops and wrist cuts;\n\nBeauty in the trials they surpass, conquer, shear.\n\nThough the ebb and flow of time\u0026nbsp;\n\nTears and throws, drowns in a bitter cup,\n\nThere is hope, help, indeed a mise en abyme,\n\nBut only if we start looking up.\n\n  \n  \n\n"}