Draw your ‘ifs’ and your ‘would-be-s’
On the diary at your bedside,
Sing lullabies to the babies in your
House — East Coast side,
Wishing butterflies out of papers
That flew with new headlines,
In a world that keeps changing
Without moving your timelines.

When life becomes a series of
Heartbreaks — ten deadlines —
Of house rents and water bills,
And assignments and lunch times,
To live across the waters
But see one coastline,
Of never-ending sands
In the hourglass of lifetimes.

Is it dreary to be constant in a world
That keeps charging?
To hold your eyes to the moon
Hoping the tides still?
To plead for respite in the clamour
Of fighting for a place at the table —
Of honour, fame and writings,
In the halls of forever, where time lives unceasing?

Is ‘ordinary’ a lie spun by the legends,
And history the side born of the champions?
Would my dreams be the same
If I listened to the millions —
That never crossed the seas, or
Never lived to tell them?
What if my life needn’t be a heart-stopping fantasy,
A lost story filling pages of a little brown diary?

If reading it calmed the need for brilliance,
And the cacophony screaming for a stroke of extravagance —
If you lived between pages of the boring ordinary,
And never heard a whisper of
The ‘what ifs’ and ‘could-be-s’.