The Way I Lie

For the hopeless days to pass quicker. They silently whiz by. These lies are not alien or torturing. They are not evil and are not born out of vicious intent. These lies are soothing and comforting. They are hopes so distorted. These lies curl up to me, shiver at the cold and become giggling children in the warmth. With storm, rain, snow outside, they find shelter in winding around the hot radiator, the pipes zigzagging through the apartment. They find home in a place I have invited them to live in. We have been friends, they have been my confidantes. But not without price does this friendship come, this kinship in hardship. Not without the loss of innocence do these lies stay comforting the soul. They demand a part of me, leeching onto the susceptible bits, the parts of life I want different, long for to be changed. The power I have given up. I have placed it in the hands of these lies I choose to believe in. There are cold winter days when I feel like a shell, a puppet held by strings. My lies command my each and every move until they know me safe back within the four walls we have made our lives in. We have built our world in. Hanging between my darkest fears and dearest hopes.

Alone is easiest to lie. This is when the lies most confidently appear, manifest themselves in the full light. Unafraid of the crippling blow of reality or the outside world. Teasing they show their snow white teeth as they rip the pink skin off my heart. Watch it beat until I kill it with lies. Watch me lie until I leave a void behind. But they whisper. They murmur in a constant hush. They grow in confidence each and every passing day. Venture outside, on the other side of the front door. Down the corridor. Sliding down the flight of stairs until they reach the street. Nobody stops them. They are invisible to everyone else but my hands are bound by the sweet illusion, my own lies, my own confidantes and assassins. I depend on them just as much as they depend on me. I long for the still warmness of my apartment. I long for the solitude I broke by embracing these wretched lies.

I know how it ends, I even know what comes next. I still saw you there with me. There we were, a happy two. No lies, nothing but me and you. I saw our future, the mundane, expectable life. The two that would multiply. Then the lies could be stopped, could be contained and banished back into the pipes they so adore, purr when they wrap themselves around. You could help me. Or is that a lie? That I could love you well? Not with anger or revenge would I depart with the lies but with a rapid, almost astronautic speed I would forget. Forget the existence of, forget the choking grip of, forget the burning clench of, my lies.

Who created you? Was it I? Why do you fight so hard the real emptiness? Why does it hurt you? Just stay for now. Expect no threat from the outside, all is calm on the other side. Stay and enjoy the warmth, the company I can offer. Stay and make me believe that when the time comes I will be able to forget you with an astronautic speed. Promise you won’t outstay your welcome. Promise you won’t break that precious part of me. Promise you will leave the heart intact. Then I might call you again, my lie. My life.

Singer songwriters always wear chequered shirts

Because it’s homely and comfortable. Because it’s soft and comforting. Because the truth that leaves their lips pierces their own and their listeners hearts, so the clothing must remain comfortable. The songs hurt when they are born and hurt throughout their lives. Each time they are re-sung there is blood dripping on the inside. The words enslave their creator and the notes bind the hands of the master who conjures them. Just as the poor troubadour would learn to make peace with the pain of the song, a sudden wave of hurtful memories arrive on a freshly tuned guitar string. And then the chequered shirt remains the only comfort, a piece of home far away from home. For the job must be done, the songs must be written and sung. They must find the ears of those who will heal from them, even if they slowly kill the one who made them, who sings them. Night after night, the worn out soul, the one who rips old wounds open, deserves at least a comfortable shirt on his back. On her back.

Then there is the void. The companion who travels with the lonesome artist. Only in darkness, only in solitude will the murmurs be heard and the soul filled, the hands in motion, the instrument in full bloom, the words in ecstasy, dancing around the notes. Only then will the songs be born. And with the painful birth will the void disappear. Then they get ready, the artist and the words, the notes and the memories, the feelings and longing, to show others of their existence. To show that never are they alone. Only the creation desires solitude, then the beast becomes hungry for fame, light, audience and applause. The beast mars the soul of the artist from the inside, but wants to be let go, to swim in the joy of attention. And with that duality does a singer songwriter choose a chequered shirt for his back. For her back.

These boys and girls, with hearts full of love and songs full of forgiveness embark on journeys each performing night. Very few I take with them, but mostly it’s their songs, their instruments and their shirts who know exactly how one night is different from the other. They are the ones who are there when the new adventures take place. They are there to accompany and witness, to then demand a new addition to the gang. They are there to love and to hurt. And each coming night, with these shirts, these boys and girls make the burden of the world a little lighter. That’s why a singer songwriter always wears a chequered shirt, it reminds them of the responsibility and the weight to the word home.

Shortcomings.

Mankind, riddled with unmerciful flaws, dents in the human spirit which cannot be mended or healed. Carrying forever the burden of this, our imperfect souls. Realising that goodness is only an intention. Bowing with humility before the uncorrupted spirit of the newborn child. Yearning to go back to where we all started from. All life long, working to shed the paralysing flaws, to return to that instant, a mere moment, at birth, when our souls were in fact, intact. Before the first cry was heard, the first breath was taken, the first innate thought entered our hearts. That single moment when from a wish a creature emerged.

But I am not selfless. I am not faithful. I am not patient. I am not forgiving. I am not loving. Enough. I am not humble. Enough. I am not sincere. Enough.

I forget to be grateful. Have I told you how nice it was to see you? And that those days will forever stay engraved? But then a moment comes and I am again reminded that only the moment is an accurate unit of measurement of life. That moment when I was happy. That moment when you were pleased. That moment when we were content with all that we had. That moment when we realised that we had everything. That moment all other moments are measured by.

If I am unable to relinquish the memory, could I at least get a moment of your sweet love? Half way through, I feel new and also trapped. Freed but irreversibly stuck. Left behind. I stand on the island where the boat has sailed a long time ago. I cannot catch sight even of its ant sized sail. My island’s comfortable and silent. With wise discretion stays mute during the doubtful and dark moments. And then they pass. Did we leave anyone behind? They’ve set sail, with only the traces of happiness to remember them by. Moments that are my life. Are your life.

I am not selfless and beg you to please remember me. Make note of the words I use and tell others to read, to listen, to mark these inconsequential ideas. Make up stories where happiness lingers and isn’t confined to just a moment. Tell tales of sorrow where a black crow lifts even the direst moment into a minute Armageddon.

I am not faithful and fall into the burning pit of doubt. Take all your strength and all your hope to run screaming from that place where the moment lingers for an eternity. Tell them that faith brings with it love and that love sees no difference between you and me. Tell them of the times you have loved and how it has made you better. Love filled the holes in your soul.

I am not patient and scurry towards a mirage. If I ask, why can you not give? If I stay, why do you go? Tell lies of the times you waited and received. Tell them your ideas of time so when I hurry, it seems normal.

I am not forgiving and throw all your faults at you, your fragile soul. I expect you to never break, to never cry. What if your faults are only flaws to me? Could it be that I can’t even see you? Holding a grudge and wanting to be loved completely cannot exist in the same moment. How can I separate the moments so that I have you and that I have love? Then it becomes apparent, blindingly obvious that:

I am not loving. Enough. I am not humble. Enough. I am not sincere. Enough.

The Rock and The Tide

Gently, like a velvet drape, comes the water

Covers the motionless back.

Foamy and mysterious, bubbles that play on the rough surface

Of the rock.

The moon is master of all living at sea.

Curious though the eyes may be

Never can they fully see the impeccable beauty

Of the tide.

I am the rock and the tide.

I cannot leave now

I move back and forth between that which I know

The sand and the moon.

They have made friends,

This rock and this tide.

Distant lovers even, hungry for a forbidden sight.

Now hoping for water, for life.

Endless my love, my fear.

Colourless in a world underwater.

Washing the rock smooth, each echoing sound

Rings the distant bellows of the tide.

The lonesome rock awaits its tide.

Patient and pleading, the water arrives.

Gently it covers the rugged back

Of the lovely rock, this, your lovely tide.

Always in motion,

No rest, not even for an instant.

Always accepting the pull of time

Away from the lingering life.

The rock leaps in dreams.

The tide stays staring at the moon for hours.

In each others’ arms is where they fall.

Fall into love of the unmovable kind.

All choked up, empty to go

There are days of importance. There are days which have to bear the unbelievable weight of expectation. These days either bend or break, become steel enforced concrete or crumble at the pressure exerted. Some days disappear and some stay forever engraved. Monumental twenty four hours.

We met our day in the evening sun. One careless spring evening, our day was about to bend or break. We had the choice to make it slip or stay. As cautiously as we could, we took the fragile end of an exhausting day and held it close to our hearts and hands. To examine, to see clearly after the many many days that have stood between the last time and now. None of the other days ever recognised either you or me. But here it was, this shy but hopeful little day, almost at its last breath, waiting to see if we would bend or break. If we remembered, or forgot in all entirety, how to love. To love each other.

It was supposed to feel familiar, but never really did. Not for the time we had to try and find a path back to where we once stood together. I had lost sight completely of the road, of you. Dear stranger I am crushed to pieces if I have disappointed you. Dear stranger you’ve crushed me completely by being a disappointment. I could only retreat, confide in the new day that was nearing, whispering as I lay silent words of despair and sorrow. Why has time done this to you and me?

I longed for our time together to be perfect. I turned to every god I know, every sorcerer, every wizardry, and every trick in the big book of magic to make the days bear the force with which I supposed you and I would collide again. I prepared my heart for the biggest bang in theory. The poor little heart was going to be able to take even the loss of its home, loss of everything it knew to be true. I planned for our fateful collision to be exceptional and tenderly humble. Perfect in all of its imperfections. I was met with the harshness of a cool heart. I was met with the truth of time. I was met with a memory that could not be brought back to life. We both tried. Tried to massage its heart at first, then murmured sweet words into its longing ears, held it gently in our arms, even made new memories to save the old one, but lifeless all that we had remained.

I left running. I escaped and freed you. Now nothing holds us together. The memories of love have been tarnished. I know not how to make it better, turn it back to how it was. I left crying, aching from the void that I found where once our hearts were. We were bound endlessly in my mind but with your face and ways I found two hearts and two souls dancing to different beats and singing different tunes. The part of me you had has been lost. The part of you I held has been given back. You were unfamiliar, you were far.

Now we have an end. Now I can say I loved you only then.

Here is the heart.

A thousand times I think about the perils that I swerve my heart towards. The direction we should both steer clear of. The end that will see the heart grow hard and shrink in its loveless state. The end that will see the self turn into someone unrecognisable. But the path is oh so tempting and its perils though visible seem trivial from afar. Only on closer encounter will it become apparent that we have been moving in the wrong direction, me and my heart. Before it is too late I should halt all efforts to proceed. Before it is too late I should reason with the heart and obey the head. While there is still love left in my heart I should treasure it and not keep it for someone else, for some other time.

If I am not to hope and see my heart grow cold and hard, then I would rather have my pulsing bundle of muscle go down with a tragic ending. Never allowing it to stop beating with hopeful pride. I am terrified of even the slightest chance that because my heart thinks it will never be loved, it will start to retreat. Retreat and hide, grow thick skin, impenetrable armour. And one day, it will simply not care. If I have any control over my heart, then it is my sole duty, calling, to make sure that this fragile and determined deity never loses hope. That no matter how hopeless and loveless the days may really be, my heart can go on parading its lovely frocks and laced dresses of hope. Never fan its insecurities, never give in to the luring darkness that reality or disappointment may pose.

One moment is all. One moment I dread. One moment in the future will determine how badly my heart will be crushed, how high it will be lifted. I have to prepare it to hope, but hope with caution. I have to keep it safe so that when the blow comes it can withstand the quake in one piece. My heart is full and honest, scarred in places but intact in its optimism. To shield it from that moment seems impossible. That moment will crush us both. That moment will leave a bearing on all future endeavours of me and my heart.

There is after all. I cannot tell what the future holds. I can only hope. I hope my heart will be wiser, braver, stronger more beautiful and honest than I ever knew it could. I hope you will treasure it. I hope I can entrust it in your care. I know that when that moment comes, your heart will be just as crushed as mine. There we will stand, two crushed hearts, hidden from each other, tangled in lies that will sound something like “I’m fine, and you?”.

This Too Shall Pass

I feel empty, nervous, unmoved.
You are careless with your words.
There is a distance of space and time.
Hope has caught Chance by the hair,
It waits for you and I.

I feel distant and cold.
I fear every day that comes between then and now.
My proficiency at being alone does no credit to you.
Will you take the broken me?
Will we be you and me?

There used to be faith in the future,
I used to praise each passing day.
Faith is slipping through my fingers.
I am nothing if I cannot believe
In you and me.

My aching heart will have to bear
Silence and piercing echoes as well.
The faith I once had will have to stay
Unquestioning.
My love, I know not where you are,
I know not of You and I.

This is when…

When love is not enough. When knowing the imminent end does not scare away the hopeful hearted. When against all reason and better judgement, the burden is carried further with a companion who has outstayed the welcome. This is when the mind controls and unflinchingly witnesses the soul’s inner battle, the heart’s aching desire. When it is cruel to be alive and softly murderous to be resisting. This is when with mustered faith we must let go and fall into the unknown with will and compassion, hope for something better to come.

For the heart here cannot alter the parting facts. I regrettably know the weakness that lies in believing the mesmerizing ways of the heart in love. The tricks it pulls up its sleeves, the illusion it creates. In truth, the heart has the least to contribute. Its deception may only surface with the passing of years, decades, a lifetime. But before the end, its true colours will become apparent. The disappointment will reign on the deceived; and confused looks will throw even those that specialise in knowing the heart’s desire. This is when love is not enough. This is when the heart can no longer be enough to know. To show.

No matter how clearly I foresee each and every way the future will turn out, I allow the heart to trick me. I know that I will stand in front of you and think myself in love. I know that I will leave to never see you again, place my broken heart in your hand. I know that you will hurt. You will want to punish your heart. You will search high and low to know the end. But our hearts will not be the keepers of our love. They have never been. They have tied us together, but have never been the reason we have loved this long. The heart is a lifeless being without the soul. When we allowed our souls to fuse is when we secured our hearts’ right for each other. Made a pendant broken in two. It is up to our hearts to forgive. It is up to our souls to make one of two.

This is when I dream. This is when you ache. This is when we both realise that love is not enough. This is when I curse the day my heart learnt to love. And you, you turn to another and find solace in the arms of someone who does not carry the burdens of a prolonged love. I walk down the path that leads me towards a treacherous end. I will always think you to be the one. At an uncertain point you will offer your all to me. I will accept. We will live in love until we realise that the bond we so praised had loosened and our souls were not tied tightly enough. We fall separately to the ground. Then our hearts will beat with the same vigour they do now. Then we will say in unison again, after decades of forgetfulness, that this is when love is not enough. Not enough to weather life.

I would break for you. You would give your life for me. Never will I survive seeing your face again. My love, you say, never can I be the man that I wish for you to have.

Writer’s block unblocked

I don’t believe in writer’s block. If the words seem to not obey is because they know that for whatever they would be used would be worthless babble about unimportant or self important matters of subject. And to that, they do not want to be subjected. There is always a reason for silence. Those moments that appear tranquil, that beg for no sound, no word, no motion from anyone, arrive for a reason. To hush the urgency. To show how soothing time aimlessly passing can be. Silently seeing one’s soul crushed on a grey Sunday morning without the words to make sense. But there is a moment of stillness and without that moment, all words would lose their power. There is no such thing as a writer unable to write. That writer simply has nothing to say. Oftentimes the inability to create curls back to an unfounded notion of talentless-ness, but far from this being the case, I believe that there is much more talent in staying silent than there is in writing endlessly. Sentences that run on, chasing their own tails and in turn each other. Making sense to nobody, only being tiny bricks of a masterfully thought out building of cacophony. Then the words are overused and abused and become strangers to themselves. And this is why the writer must sometimes remain silent.

If there was no need for immediacy, then all writers would gladly succumb to the occasional silence of their souls. If only we were a little more patient, letting our hearts grow hungry and heavy, then the words to surface would be that of worth and value. With each sentence having the life span of a match, the flames flicker for a while, but then the light dies. With that the frail little bodies of the sweetly short, middle sized or lengthily run-on sentences collapse into oblivion. An abyss they surely will never have the strength to leave. Their creator now says there’s a block, but taking better care of the words that were set loose would have resulted in no blockage, just a fearless flight. Each writer tries to quench the urgency of productivity, creativity, the need to be seen now, heard now, read now, listened to now. Now is urgently screaming for now.

If there was no sadness in silence, then no cathartic eruption could result in words flowing again. Disappointment and desperation show the way to silence, who in turn shows the way to light. But there has to be a wait. The heart should not be forced to break and heal in one day. The torn soul should not be stretched between the ebb and flow.

Patiently I wait with time. I wait for the words and the words for me. Nothing blocks all what isn’t there. If my heart wants more than it can have, if my soul thinks love has been found, if my crying eyes miss the strangers from my life, then the stillness of the moment comes to hush all sounds and ground my wandering words to anchor on my soul’s infinite sea. I do them justice by letting them use me. I bend to give them way. I bow before their grace. I stay like the sparrow, kind and faithful and loving. Free to roam the lands and come back with words that make me brave to see the brokenness, make me strong and bold, unafraid to love. Because I do, still, love.