"Here I'll stand"

I've been fixed here for hours

Days, maybe months

I can't recall the number of violently brilliant sunsets

And soft morning dawns

Or blinking twilight stars

That my probing green eyes—skylights to my thoughts and vulnerabilities—

Have witnessed

This same spot

Upon which I am rooted to

Chained to

Under the trance of unknowing ambiguity

And my voice, hoarse from the plead, the question that I need

To hear the answer to

To gain the proof so that I am not blind or misguided

And you—just you

Can answer—probably in a word

Maybe two

A sentence at worse to satisfy

And yet, I receive omnipresent silence

While begging for sound

The moral castles that I have built

Disintegrate without solid foundation

Taken over by vines; disregarded

Because perhaps it doesn't matter

Or perhaps it's not worth the effort to clip

Or perhaps it is none of those

Perhaps they are simply not worth the upkeep of honesty.

I gather the strength one last time

Pray for the answer

I'm weary from the journey, when living in an illusion is finally

Blurred together with the truth

I long for the distinct line—the line that there should be

The one that parts fiction from reality

Is it all make-believe?

Is there even such a thing as 'real'?

But there is only one question I can ask

I push all others away and sum it all up into one:

"Is anyone genuine here?"

And does this mean nothing to everyone?

Doesn't anyone else care?

And finally, clutching to the back of whispering wind, there is an answer

On wings that have carried legitimacy far from here

The one which catches my breath in my throat

The one answer that causes all other questions to die on my lips

With the tone, the melancholy hurt juxtaposed against the slow current of hope--held all in one reciprocal:

"That's the question, isn't it?"

And I know—aware this time on my own accord—

This isn't an inquiry, but the answer I searched for

And I can't help but think

Wonder…

Contemplate…

Imagine in a moment of blind conformity, even…

Why this hasn't been asked before.

And here I'll stand

Despite the encroaching tide

And watch the outcome

For the current to either save or erode the dilapidated castle

For the reply to my musings

For the proof that it is not all the same

Not all imaginary

For the proof that the invented

Could produce truth