You Once Asked Me: Be Joy for a Moment

Life needs to feel real —
as real as these thoughts of fear.
And the only way I know
is if it carries the same weight as time itself —
unimaginative, uninspired,
making the earth we live in feel foreign, unwelcoming,
and Mother Nature like an isolated wonder
we can only observe, never truly feel.

I have been the Earth I see and feel every day,
with time as my only compass.
I try to be sincere —
like an arrow pointing forward in a single day.

The air is thick —
overcrowded with ideas, theories, goals.
And just like the others, I grip
whatever feels like the dust and dirt beneath my feet —
rational in a world overrun by imagination,
where everything I hear feels unattended, almost deceitful.

But little did I know,
I had become a representative
of the very fear I was measuring others against —
a sentry guarding what is “normal,” “sensible,” “earned.”
I signed myself into a world
where we glare, shadow,
and hunt each other like prey.

And like the others I see,
I hold to roots we may not even deeply believe in —
for a life that feels real, a weight to carry,
just to believe we exist,
to prove we belong,
to last as long as the dirt and dust beneath our feet.

Except that — just as with Earth —
across from it, there is also the sun.
And as I try to be Earth,
the sun is never still.
Shadows keep shifting,
revealing new surfaces —
as if chasing the presence of light,
each hour slipping in
from a different edge of the sky.
Its light — uncertain,
even as I know
it is always rising, somewhere.

You once asked me:

“Be joy for a moment.
Trace its path as if it were yours —
Tell me, what do you see?”

And I saw more darkness on those —
endless walls of history,
showing me everything,
convincing me joy was make-believe.
So many tales asking me to give up,
reminding me of what I’ve lost.

Here, in the murmur of the underworld,
where everything throughout time floats —
in a vast sea of all it has embraced —
I stand.
I stand in creation,
married to emotion.
Dwelling in this sea of creation,
where others’ perceptions are the creation.

Where your name is shared in pieces,
and held by others telling —
with a fused self, I stand
in this vast sea of amalgamation
and soft edges to mold —
I gaze from the sun.
Where the Earth is just an instance,
never attached to the mood it’s carrying —
Where perceptions gather —
not mine, not others — just currents,
impressions folding into one another.
As if water and sky had never been divided.

I swim, I fly.
And emotion follows.

My prayer now is one within reach —
whatever it is I am to say,
to say it in the same light and conviction,
as if I were to say to you —
“I love you.”

– Olivia Hadjiioannou