Our Beating Hearts are the Only Time Keepers: A Poem by Juveria

                   
                       
                      In Search of the Authentic Self

I have never connected with a book quite in the way that I did with Orhan Pamuk's 'The Black Book'.  One question that keeps popping up throughout is, "Can a person ever be his/her own self?"  

The book also says that "the life we live, is someone else's dream." That line resonated with me just as much as the original question.

This poem was written at a time when my mind was riddled with thoughts on whether I'll ever get to live the life I want to live. I started to write this poem in order to figure this out,  instead, it took its own path, and  ended up trying to convince me that whether or not we are being our own selves, we certainly are living lives that were probably yearned for by other people. And, even now, I do not have the answer to those questions. My interpretation changes with every reading of the book, and, for some reason I still find a certain solace in it. 

Our beating hearts are the only time keepers

Call me out from the dungeons I’ve created

The walls do not have space left anymore.

Every micromile is covered in ink

And I think I’m starting to repeat

Yes, I just invented a scale of measurement

I’ve lost track of those you gave to me

Lost between all the words on these walls.

“Time flies,” they say, “and, life- it keeps moving”

Our beating hearts are the only time keepers

Not the sun, not the clocks, not the smiles

On people who matter most.

Everything has been recycled.

And offered at our faces

Every sunrise takes us back

To some other sunrise in the past,

All clouds and pink skies

And air so fresh, it cuts our lungs.

Or, for someone else, down someplace else,

It takes them back to the first light

After a  night of a memory stained…

With blood and broken dreams.

And when you see those smiles,

Time stops still, like its giving you a moment

To admire this love that you feel.

Everything has patterns.

Everything stays true to maps and directions

Every moment you live

Has been prized out from someone else’s memory.

Live it gently.

Save it, yet, for some other deluded human being.