.
.
We are a shadow of what we were. Nothing of what we are now is real, only a broken illusion. We are torn, fragmented into a thousand shards of pain and betrayal and confusion and anguish. For what have we done that we let things get to the place they are now? How could we break, though we were never as strong as we always thought ourselves, but still– how could we let what we had fall apart?
When did we become so insipid? Blinded by trivialities, we have forgotten what holds us together. We can no longer recall what bound us as a group, made us loyal and sure of the other's intentions. We are a perfect target for any villain to corrupt. We have been riven apart by ourselves. No great evil – no dark force – drove us to this precipice and escorted us forcibly off the edge. We came willingly; stared down without really seeing into the void and leapt with wild intensity, as if hoping we might grasp something – what I do not know at all – before we fell completely.
We allowed menial complications to divide us. We let childish scars inspire us to do what we have done. How can we be leaders, paragons of heroism, when we are so destroyed and shattered? How foolish we were to believe we could unite for some cause without differences of opinion. You cannot be a leader when you are just as confused as your followers inside. But are we merely confused for a brief time or are we simply showing our true mentalities after suppressing them?
I do not know; I have fallen so far myself. I thought. . . No, felt, I was a hero– a leader. But maybe I'm not. Maybe I was encouraged into believing a fancy to suit another man's dream. What if I was only adopting someone's ideals because for a moment in my life they matched my own, but were never really mine to own? How can someone form their unique opinions when they have been pressured to believe another's? That's all we've done until now . . . allowed ourselves to be united by someone else's fantasy of "what could be". Now, I think we are going different ways without that driving force to cloud our vision with wishful thinking.
Lately I wonder if we will ever see each other again as we did before, when we felt like we understood our purpose in life and knew just who we were. I don't know what could happen in the future, and not knowing makes me uneasy. Terrified.
Because I don't think we have much to keep anymore, only a cheap imitation of what we had been. No, what we had almost been. We're all fragmented and strewn out; carelessly, like the glass from a window after it breaks. Broken windows cannot be pieced back together. They're thrown away and replaced by perfect, stronger panes.
So who are we, without fiction to bind us together?
Are we nothing; are we everything?
Or are we lost?
Adrift.
Alone.
Shattered.
Finished?