Ordinary Person

Remember when we used
to stand on the divider
at ten in the night and
watch the passing cars,
there was something about
the light they emitted:
broad beams
sweeping across the darkness
like an ethereal idea
blanketing the rough terrain
of a jaded mind,
a spark of blessedness,
simple and antithetical
to problem-solving after
hours of rumination,
the mellower orange splashes
from the street lamps
added to the allure,
saturating us with a feeling
that comes close to peace
but isn’t quite it,
the neon, boxed in glow
from the skyrises
added an iota of
nostalgia to the whole
affair because they
reminded us of little stars
praying to their scintillating
brethren in
the sky to set them free
until they harmonised
with them and the melody
of the heavens sounded
complete,
all this possessed us and
asked us to grasp something
that was beyond us then
because we were hammered,
clueless about
anything except eating
slices of experience
and not digesting what
went in.
Now, all these years later,
I believe that those lights,
though synthetic were
speaking to us about freedom,
not a respite from the 9 to 5
or a moment of serenity
when reality closes in,
but a freedom equivalent
to plugging into a machine
that takes away all our
morbid thoughts and
gives us the clarity of
nothingness, something
straight from Cyberpunk
worlds with their body
enhancements and actuality
distorting software,
a freedom that’s like drinking
from the waters of Lethe
in a CRPG where the
protagonist no longer
cares about the demons
or mages he’s battling or
about the effects of his choices
because he’s made the
ultimate choice that only those
who don’t cling to delusions of
grandeur with a messiah complex
would – a decision to forget,
a freedom that’s like light
itself, rushing from point A
to B faster than an idea,
oblivious to circumstance
and uninhibited
in its Epicureanism.