Searching, Still

I am searching. For things I’m afraid cannot be found. That may not even be there. And yet I look. Under throw pillows as I grab them to place on my stomach, and grasp round’ at friend’s houses. Trying to feel more comfortable in a place where I’ve looked before; It may still be here. Whatever it is. I look in the eyes of strangers and in the photos of loved ones lost. The odometer reading on my car is ever growing as I drive aimlessly in the dark- blaring music. Hoping it will give me clues as to what it is exactly I should be expecting to find. It’s not that I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for. I have an idea. But, I don’t even know if I’ll know it when I see it. Or if it will be within my grasp or my means to hold it. To keep it. To deserve it. And yet, I continue on. Ever searching. Hoping to fill the holes inside of me. Some made by this very same, desperate attempt to understand why I’m here. Why I can’t be happy when it’s so easy for others. Why when I feel I’m getting close, I often recoil. Is this the curse of the “Tortured Artist”? The label I vainly inscribe upon myself as if my pained words have any sort of eternal reach. Or is it simply the human experience? I don’t have any answers. Only dead men know what lies beneath the veil. And only people who have truly loved know how it feels to be found. I have so many questions. Questions that life often deny an answer to. Yet my stubborn heart pushes my fingers onto plastic keys, on another long night. Doing its best to search. For the sake of, life. It has to have meaning. I have to write it down. -James Kelley 2018