“Dust”

by Elise Noelle

I am from pain and dust. I am from poor decisions, cruel men, and trapped women. Is it no wonder then, that though my passion burns, it is me being burned with it. I am a tinder box, ready to implode – I’m falling in on myself, a supernova folding into a blackhole, gaping and screaming into the silent oblivion. 

People like to say that we are born from stardust, but that sounds like a rather poor, poetic attempt for meaning. But that’s something we want, isn’t it? Meaning. We live, we die, and we like to hope it all matters, but the truth of it all is, no one will know your name. We seek meaning in our generations, in the cycles of pain, we yearn to form stories of our past, but what if it is all senseless? Stardust. No, we’re none of that, at least not the whole of it. We’re dust, nothing more, nothing less. 

And our ancestors that bore us? We like to think they matter, that they give us significance. Or perhaps you shudder from your past. You cut ties and refuse to believe where you’re from shaped you – and yet even in that defiance, you’ve been moulded. We like to think we have our independence, the captain of our own ship and destiny. Yet, regardless of our own musings and wants, from the moment of our bloody birth, our paths dwindle, our opportunities narrow. Maybe it’s all predetermined. Maybe it’s poor luck. Whatever it is, we’re not in control.

So where are you from? I’d like to say it doesn’t matter, yet it is woven in my bones. My mind is unsteady, a gruelling landscape torn between excitement and pain. I believe I am a fire that has been lit, but whether it will be a spark or simply my own funeral pyre is yet to be known. I am the last of line. I am a legacy, but all I see is a disappointment. I too, yearn to be more, captain of my life – control freak – I want to be the potter; I want to shape the life and turn it to my command. I have seen too many times how life and men have tightened their hold in my family lines – choked the life out, left pain and buried memories. And yet I lose my grasp. My hands slip in the clay and all I am holding is dust.