Which Is Which?

The plain truth is, you no longer know the difference.
Are you better off than you were? It would be difficult to say so.
Are you simply yourself as such? Plainly, it's hard to say.
Is it all downhill from here? from affirmation
To total indifference? from one thing
To the next thing, with What's the difference
Being all you can say? You don't know.
You're no longer sure it even matters if you know.
The plain truth is, whether you know it or not.
Being the one you are, as a being from which you differ, as a simple case
Of what's been worded so often it's now
Just a worded case, it's hard to say which
Is which, and which is just words
For which no one could answer, but
Do you or do you not love the ones you call loved ones?
Do you or do you not think the things you call thoughts?
Is it or is it not your belief that the truth is
Never too much to ask, or too little to question, or have you found it
Somehow otherwise, as though you'd never have found it otherwise,
Like poverty among the poor, or birds being known as birds?
"I'm afraid" confessed the man being tortured to know his feelings.
"I have doubts" thought the heart trying to think of itself as hearts.
"I don't care" replied the case of an understandably mild indifference
To its being the case as such, as a slow descent
Toward its own condition, and just between you and me,
Within a speech self-addressed to the Other
Words are prone to, it's getting harder
To tell yourself
From what you are.
The plain truth is, you're no longer sure it matters.
Call it a case that matters. At best that would only be true.
Is it all downhill from here? It's hard to say what is meant by this.
Is it all downhill from here? It means less and less than it meant.
Is it all downhill from here? from the sky above
To the night inside you? from twilight
Into starlight, with Make a wish
Being more than you'd care to say? You won't say.
In a dream it came to matter what the dream refused to say.
And the plain truth is, whether you dreamed or not.