a return to previous misgivings

There are moments that outlast all other moments. Instances that burn. There are words regretfully let loose, deeds unchangeable. There is sincere remorse and masked apology. There is revenge, hatred, an unending suffering caused out of carelessness. There is a limit to the cruelty with which we treat each other. There is the limit of time. Amidst the dark there is at times, light.

It is hardest to be visible, bare and unmasked. It is hardest to say the words and not write them. Yet the journey is ending and another bound to begin shortly. I have used you. Used you and your time alike. Much like a rambunctious child, I have needed your attention to sooth the worries and doubts, the aches of enduring the never apparent success. Faithful and loyal companion, you have done great service. Your sacrifice will not go unnoticed or unmentioned. Thank you.

In turn lean your weight, any time, lean so I can hold your worried soul. I would do that and much more. Like a stone firmly locked in sand, constantly ground to the bone, I am washed over and away, but steadily withstanding. Enduring web of interlocking crystals, ready to hold your lean body forever. In time, in history we will always remain. Stay a print between heavy armoured skeletons, pressing layers of endless rocks.

I will now take my words of sorrow and doom and turn them into glittering memories of silver and gold. I wrote as well as I could. I will continue but plan not to insist your assistance, I will not take your time or hope. If you wonder what previous writings were about, know this: I have not gained or lost love. I have not hurt or been hurt. I have not lost my way but stay constantly searching. I have been broken and often mended. I have been cast aside and walked the hellish path back to existence. I have experienced kindness and cruelness. I have given but taken far more. I overstayed my welcome and have given up on hope. I have not seen or done anything different to you. I have lived.  

‘til there never really was at all

These last few days, the last few chances, the remorseful but unapologetic ending. Here I am, unable to resist and in deep mourning for all that I am about to let go. Longing eyes looking back, searching ahead. There were times of great achievement and moments of grandeur. There were days and months dipped in sorrow, rightful breaking of spirit and heart. Nothing compared to the loneliness, that elevating freedom of my untamed soul. Gulping in chunks the unmelted injustices stirred my way. Each and every moment of repression lead to fearless liberation. Like in history countless times, in quotes taken from men and women of power, the spirit shall never and can never be caged. Not through hardship of the body or torment of the mind. Nothing of the sort befell me, just some self imposed shackles, murderous chains to cut the warm blood bringing life to my fragile heart. I alone survived. Look, I have survived!

Some nights I feel hollow. Empty and meaningless, insignificant and useless, important to too few. At times I want to bring an abrupt end, see how that would play out. Then I quickly dream of a prolonged showing of this wondrous story. The constant push and pull, the cold and warm, summer and winter, the icicles and the scorching heat, they all teach me patience. Agreeable as the morning landscape appears to me, the smiling faces of familiarity, the soothing sounds or the balmy early air, I still often wish it away. Wish to change it for something new. Unseen and unrecognised, my restless soul would like to wonder, roam the vast lands of nothing, the arid deserts of lovelessness. I could lose myself. Lose the burden of mediocrity.

The change must come from within. I think I have known that all along. These words were just feigning to create an illusion. How long before it gets easier I wonder. I have waited far too long, wasted much too much time. It seems I am still not ready, there is still some waiting to be done. Knowledge to master, experiences to fill my young heart. Sadness has not been able to grow strong its roots in my soul. Sorrow has not had the chance to fully unpack its grey canopy over all I know to be true. Then come and conquer, I have never resisted much, just enough to learn the tricks then stepped aside. I have made a good home for the bitter winds and torturing loneliness, the sharp instruments that sometimes were called hurtful words. I used them like an apprentice tries the tools of his trade. Used them and made cuts, wounds on some innocent bystanders, friends, familiar lovers. Now I beg for forgiveness. How I hope you will find it in your heart to forgive.

I am yet to make sense of everything around me. I know parts of my soul, but not the whole. I know how sadness feels. Know how deeply it can cut, how silently it penetrates skin, tissue, sinew, muscle, bone. I know how comforting lonely seems, how invisibly it settles to choke one capillary at a time. I know my place between sorrow and alone, fight to portray them lovely and friendly, but know that they are killing the most precious gift: hope. Still I turn a blind eye, embrace these cloaked enemies for they help to conjure the words late at night. For as long as I can, as long as it can continue I try to waltz toward the unseen, all the while chained to the known evil. I go on, there is nothing else I know to do. I continue into the early hours, with tears streaming down my cheeks, blood gushing from my heart, aches and pains in my fingers. In the hope of a promise, in the faint hope that one day all this will change. In the hope that I can be better, that my words will have power, that I will overcome the sadness. I continue but secretly know that most efforts are in vain, are nothing but hollow tries at changing the set ways of destiny. I know that to walk this path means marching endlessly. Marching towards that which never really was at all. 

This year's love

Is this. You are reading it. Or not. Makes little difference because it is not your love, it might not even be anything you like. It may make you feel uncomfortable, uneasy, confused by the senseless and orderless arrangement of words and sometimes emotions which are hard to decipher. When you feel adventurous you begin, mostly you never do. As abundant as my heart is, my words can only be my love. So complete. Grounding force which keeps me sane, which allows me to unmask. Completely. For you just a pastime, just something to do while the rain washes the trees outside. While the snowstorm subsides. But my soul moves with each letter typed. Stirs from its motionless sleep and looks forward to parading the beautiful creation, the curves and luscious harmonies of certain words leaning against the other. Like lovers hidden, like lustful glances across the room, like two people waiting to accidentally meet: be at the same place at the same time. These are my loves and I harbour no anger if you cannot join in. This for me is a lonely road, a solitary journey on which you can be company, but by no means are forced to take part.

This year’s love is unspoken, softly hanging in the shadows, gently rising to open the doors and windows. Then I see. Maybe only for a moment, but that decisive moment covers all doubt, rips the shaky esteem from the place of unsure and plants it straight in the middle of all that is visible. I become visible to those who choose to see. Bare but almost nonchalantly proud, I allude to my successes but only faintly. Only very quietly, most are unable to hear and therefore cannot judge. This is a fragile love, a fragile heart, not meant to stand the battering or praise. I am to grow on this journey. I alone have all the world to learn. You may know already the things I discover, may be bored by the things I decide to put on paper, but this is my path. My way of walking, of being.  My soul is young, forgive me if you already know the sentence that follows before I even think to continue the thought. You could never hurt me. These words live for me and they were chosen in this order to represent, help me with the treacherous road that I must walk in life to get to the end. This is how it is easier. This is how I will make it to the very end.

I want nothing more than for these words to have a chance to be free. I fear for their successes, their failures. We cover each other, shelter from the cold, be the fire that burns inside. With them at times I burn. Alone or not, heard or not, read or not leads to the same conclusion, the same end result, because nothing else separates me from you. Only these words, only these fleeting moments, these elusive and indifferent times that teach me all I need to know about myself. I am slowly saved. Saved from the savage reality forced upon my generation. Saved to become in wholeness all that I ever want to be. Saved to be free and content in this undertaking which will see me fail, see me hurt, see me turn from the single most fulfilling thing I know to exist in this life. This is why I write. This is why I try to write. 

This year’s love is this. You are reading it. You may like it, mostly you do not. I may need you to keep reading or I may let you go at the very top, give you permission to leave, allow you to fill the gaps on your own accord, how you wish it to continue. I will love you no matter how you choose, so will my words. We will love you in darkness and in pain. Secretly we know that what you decide to not read or read has resonated, dislodged the deeply buried, hurtfully hidden parts. Here is safe, you can run away or stay. Cry or stay solemn. Sturdy through the storm or broken by the wildly falling summer rain. This year’s love is this. You and me and these words. This year’s love will last until my heart is torn no more. 

These words. The same heart.

Nothing is as violent as the sadness inside your heart. The constant, irresolute, the nameless pain which takes all the empty space in your heart. Underneath the surface you are stone. The softness of the falling snow, the gentle words that fly towards you softly courting your ears are unable to move you. You cry. This is not how you wish to be. The icicles are unable to melt on your fingers, the cold air outside cannot send chills down your back. The silent sadness is how you breathe, it is what keeps you alive, it is what breeds inside and allows you to create, to be. You cannot part with it, you do not know how. You cannot stop its growth. Like a malignant tumour that destroys you, like a lifeline of a blood vessel that saves you: this sadness is rooted deeply in you. No surgeon could fix you, no words could unplant it from your fragile heart. It is you.

There is a knot in your stomach and the words are gathering. With each beat they become braver, almost fearless and demand to be released. Obnoxiously confident, they have arrived at the page, clad with bulging hopes and aspirations. Just for a moment, for only a fleeting moment, life quickly escapes them. Then fear is securely locked back where the words came from. Fear of failure. Fear of uselessness. Fear of mediocrity. The crippling sadness is never lifted from your heart, even in instances when it seems to burn. All too quickly the veil, the web-like structure of doubt comes back and like cataract spreads over the seemingly tireless organ. The best trick of your words, but the substance is absent. The meaning lost, important only to a select few.

Take these words, I do not want them. They have caused me false hope, they have fooled me too many times. Smirking they watch me struggle. One after the other, arriving at my fingertips only with laborious work. I do not deserve them, I cannot do justice to their beauty. My heart is hurt, it is incurably sad. Hoping to create substance has only made me turn away from my words. At times I have abandoned them. With each attempt, which each loosely knit kite, words hanging onto each other, they just become ridiculed by their creator. I do not deserve them, they are wasted on such questionable talent. I cry for them, for their successes and failures. I nurture them and fear for their sudden deaths. I bring each and every one of them to life and then proceed to meticulously end them. I have tried to be a better keeper, a less demanding master, a more clear headed creator. I come back to this: this is what I come back to.

If you had more time, maybe you could learn how to heal the heart. You could learn to soften the stone. But never do. Please never banish the sadness. This is what makes the words come to life. This pain sees the most beautiful combinations blossom. For a moment and that is all that life is. If the sadness was lost, the possibility for substance would be lost as well. In every second, in every letter put to a word, in every sentence brining an end to a thought, I want to feel the earth pull at my bones. Pull at them with force, such unashamed force. I want to see, not just feel the end. Know that there is reason and urgency in creation. That these words need to find the page now.

I will keep my sad heart, I will write for me, at times for you. I will eventually learn that we all have the same heart, but for now I revel in mine’s sadness. I will walk the streets and meet strangers, I will write about love lost and found. I will be moved by melody every single day. I will curse my words and bash my ambitions to write. They will never take me to places of contentment. I will learn to surrender, give up. I will let my heart be touched by wonders. I will write for the rain, I will write for the quiet snow falling. For a heart burdened with sadness rain is majestic, but snow is divine. This is how I will live: in treacherous doubt and exceeding worry, gripping fear and the faint hope that this ethereal sadness in my heart teaches and betters me. 

Softly unspoken

These things are better kept unsaid, locked away, erased so as to never cause hurt. Because they might. If they have to be kept with such effort at bay, if they bubble over with just the hint of release, then they will shoot out and cause minor cuts, deeper bruises to bystanders. Uncontrollably lash from their cage, reek havoc and chaos, dirty the carpet with blood stains. They cannot be tamed, were never laid to rest, never acquainted themselves with peace. You are the keeper, harbourer, breeding ground for their fury. You drag and pull, you labour over the motions, meticulously make sure never to leave anything behind. It weighs you down, almost unable to move. The blinding anger propels you further ahead, unaware of the burden you are carrying. Year after year. Your heart slowly weakens, your soul almost disappeared. Your yells are faint whispers, your words insincere, your future bleak if visible at all.  

The words themselves are not to blame. Neither is the force with which they leave your mouth. Forgiveness takes a trained soul to administer: I am not trained and not wise enough. Not accepting or gentle enough. Not caring or honed in my sensitivity towards you. We stand here, face to face, with warring words cutting into our souls. Nothing to sooth the pain, no second hand to turn faster, ease the burning, excruciating ache. The timing is unfortunate, the deed barely forgivable, yet you continue. Misconceptions cloud your judgement, the nights that you cry through are not silent at all. I am now motionless, soundless, waiting for your furious freedom to leave this room. Peace comes too slow.

Mind me not, I will disregard you from now on. My way is silent and still. My soul when hurt, heals slowly. I would rather stay unspoken, unseen. The echoes you hear are from the shrinking hearts of those you have hurt along the way. They send the words back to you, I hurt too. Because I do and because you do. We both do. We both hurt despite every effort to heal naturally. I will not survive another attack like this, you cannot win another battle waged against your crippled soul. We will both perish, clad in the black stench of death, unrecognisable to ourselves.

Here is where it ends, where it stops. I will turn to silence while you turn away, decorate the words that hurt with those that love. Maybe, just maybe there will come a moment when you can let go and I can finally forgive.

If I had a boat

Luring these murky waters still seem to be: endlessly patient, shorelessly unpredictable. One thing is for certain, these waters can hold, even hide every secret. They have and hold, they demand to possess all sacred, shameful or valiant traces of acts done to one another. Your shaky wooden boat rocks on the back of this merciful giant. Leaks appear, yet you stay calm. Drifting. No panicked haste trying to find dry land. You are drifting. In this blissful state, the state of helplessness there is only one way to survive: let go of everything connecting you to life. Forget that which once was important. Give in to the gentle rocking of the waves under your boat. This little wooden instrument, the sole keeper of your life, now in full control. You are fearless yet condemned, unsure of your soul’s power to steer you in the direction desired.

The journey is far from calm or easy. The encounters are rapidly over, yet leave rippling currents that shake this unstable wooden object. You navigate without a compass or a map. This is the way I shall travel, you say. This will be the way I learn my way around these stars, these planets. I will use the dimming lights of the crescent moon to guide me further. I will seek dry land only as a last resort. I will hunt the fish of the deep seas and carry ornaments, valuable spices to trade with bushmen of far away islands. My boat will be named sancta regina, queen amongst ships of grandeur. But you are still drifting. Your soul is hurting, your heart is heavy. You have been rejected, cast out from amongst those you thought cared. You are unsure what will happen, telling the future is harder in foggy circumstances. No need to rise yet, the winds are favourable now, you should be on the right path for a few more days. Say, does it get lonely out there? No, you reply. It is lonely only in company. This, this is redemption.

As for me, I am trying to find a little bit of rope. I might pull you out or pull myself in to join you. I have never felt this free, lifted off the ground. The pain leaves drops of blood on your shiny spirit, leaves holes in mine. Closer, pedalling closer, faster, further away from all binding, clearly misleading, rotting human emotion that aims to kill off the other. I want no part in this, would rather join you in your sinking wooden boat. My raft is made of paper, rapidly disappearing. I go down with grace and honour. There is nothing familiar here, only the aches that sent me rummaging for a boat made of paper, air, dust, sand, clouds. Oh but this is a magnificent sight. A decisive and definite moment that can hold all the empty, fill the voids with meaning and clarity. I can barely see but I will wait.

Now it is silent, clearly still. The winds howl no more, the sails are gone. We are lying still, each in their own boat. The skies are mercilessly apparent, sharply outlining the exact location of each star. They burn. We move further but only with a fraction of a knot. Nothing to see behind us, too dark to see in front. I am humming a tune, maybe one you have made for me. You are repeating words I have given to you, long ago. Like this, to the silent rhythm of drums sounding from shores which have been long gone, we lie motionless, free in spirit. We wait for the next wave to come and grasp our frail boats, toss us to the bellows of the hungry sea. But in these boats we are finally, finally free.

use these nights

This and these past nights, these days without rims, beginnings or end, this matter without substance or outline. Spills from one side to the other, overflowing and uncontrollable. The black smell of death that spreads over every inch of the present and past. Fear for the future as it may lose its palette of colours. Only those basic illusions, reflections of light will rule. Never to wake from night, never to know the evil that roams when the light is gone. Wedged between the decision, not knowing the outcome of either. Fear then handcuffs you to the opening door, unable to walk through or to close. Think those screams will bring a tear to anyone’s eyes? More like hollow wailing, muted gusts of frustrated lungs, of hearts that fill with darkness to the very brim. Nothing can relieve the pressure of the wrong place, at the wrong time.

Here is the truth: I am not real. These words are not truthful to how you feel. The nights are silent and calm. The days are kind and wondrous. The strangers are teachers, the lovers are believers. The brothers are all of blood, the camaraderie exists on each floor through those pre-manufactured thin walls of separation. The black only spreads until the light appears. And light appears at the top of every morning. Its arrival is worshipped, its leaving is celebrated in peaceful unison. Only the occasional thunder of mortars delicately landing. Short circuits of the heart, night after night. One less life, one less doubter.

This is my toast to you on this lovely Friday evening. You lovely fellow heathen. The usual pastime of placing blame will not do now. The history which you carry on your skin has taught you that already, yet you continue. With more determination and a twisted addiction to the desire to dominate. This is the way to force your untruths onto others. Hope you feel better now.

I never know how to use these nights. Wasted most of them to useless sleep. You want to hear that I accept your ways, I have come to believe your untruths and that I cannot hear the angels war any more. After all just one more lie is not much to ask. It is over quickly and has little consequence. So I do. I do believe your untruths to be truths. I accept your ways. I cannot hear much but the angelic choirs of this heavenly peace that descends each coming night. Then I see the land, with eyes closed I can smell the snow. Slowly it covers every bestial act you have left lying on the concrete floor. I paint my house white, you paint yours red. My soul is dying in your arms and I feel no pain. The darkness in you eats away, gnaws on the sinews of your soul. We die in each others arms, convinced of the heaven we have found after so much time longing, searching.

In the thick darkness, in the man made silence there is a faint whisper. Every night I wake to hear the murmur. Every night it is the same. Not louder, not softer, not clearer, not closer. I hear it, I feel it, I can never catch it. Drags me from meaningless dreams, from futile sleep, from the destruction your soul does to mine. I wait. Tonight I will wake again and I hope for as long as I live I will wake in the middle of the night to the whisper, the almost inaudible cry. This muffled sound, the far away songs or yells. Words of caution or the screeching inarticulate noise of worry. These final haunted manic screams of hallelujah.

These lovers of the light

The images are foggy, smudged by the uncertainty that is projected. This is my struggle: to stay lucid, to stay connected to the only roots that I know to hold. To run blindfolded, to stay motionless while there is an urgency to leave. To love.  When there are signposts that guide in a direction we never intended to travel, then I bear witness. I swear an oath of fidelity, an oath to never cheat on loyalty. So this binds me, forever secures an airtight lock on my empty shell. The substance lies somewhere else, a place I can never truly get to. Momentarily I may see, but never be part of. Being where I am supposed to. Knowing painfully too well that where I am supposed to be is not where I am.

Magically you have disappeared. Not a word, not a sound thrown my way. But I go on, dutifully fill my days, each passing hour, each minute to count. Find distractions from you, from the screaming facts that otherwise would propel me to those better lands. Temporary, I hear your soothing voice, but I know better, so much better. I no longer believe you. Over the years I have forgotten to plan, to free myself of your lies. I stayed in one place in case you wandered around these streets I habit. In case I catch a glimpse of you in a hidden alley, on a magnificent bridge, a quiet bench. With each winter silently arriving and glamorously parading, notoriously leaving, it becomes apparent that I have outstayed my due welcome. It becomes apparent that I do not have the power to unchain my weak knees, so I fall to the ground. The only one I know.

My spirit is captive but free to roam. In these streets, in this city, the places I know. In this sweet prison my soul dies a little more each day. Where else could I belong? But the soul understands not the reasons to stay, only the reason to leave. Before it is not too late, I may eventually leave. Find the place you have hidden to. Visit the places we knew together, discover each day something more than the day before. I can see it in their eyes, faintly wanting to convince me to stay. Only very faintly and I am not convinced. Even if it is night, even if I steer my ship through dense darkness, I want to arrive where the light is. That may never be where you are, it may only be where I am.

 

The warm pull of the light, the sweet honesty of its charity. The memory of its silky touch, the force with which it sucked me in. That was once, already forgotten. I am gathering an army. I am calling on each soul that still remembers the light. The delirious, the delicious, the mesmerizing, the eternal light. I am building an army of souls that can conquer the darkness and push for the light, break beyond the shields. We will taste victory, taste the salty price of teardrops of frustration.

The light will move me, it will save me.

I beg you to move me. To save me.

some seven years later

rescued by the rain

The loneliness can only be filled with these luscious drops of silvery rain. The void, this vacuum of feelings, this barren land, the vast desert of emotions left quenched for water, unloved, run for as long as the eye can see. Nothing to lock the mischievous dust from gathering force with each easternly wind that takes its fancy to dance. There are no plants, there is no life, the thoughts cannot be fixed with just sunlight and air. Somehow they get carried away, inconsequential and aimless. But these bitter days, these nights that lurk, they bring hope, the distinct possibility of rain. That which once was empty is filled, given substance, recognized as worthy of praise. The weight of each raindrop, like heavy armoury, strikes bold, nails the flaunting hopes and desires to the ground. Settles the disputes, settles the flaky and unsure steps. Steers the vessels, floods the doubts.

Here I am, rescued by the rain. The skies I cannot see, I imagine a blue beyond this endless grey. But this grey magically reflects the grey inside. Hushed, almost silent, they all retreat when the rain appears. Haunted. Run like hunted prey from these uncomfortable rains. Run to hide the things they do not want washed away or washed clean. In full glory I reign over the streets. But I am no ruler and become mesmerized by the falling drops of tiny refuge. Each cobble succumbs and so must I, for there is no greater power than that of rain. Cleansing, I forget who made me reigning queen.

The sun set so quietly, the gentle tapping of the rain melodiously lingers on. Inspiration slowly drowns out any light, any sound, just the rain, the smell of freshness, the darkening skies, the cooling night, the mist that covers all floating ideas, fragments of stories waiting to be captured. I give in completely, surrender to the helplessly falling skies. It is of no burden, it is a liberator, a cloaked stranger who brings relief, brings light through the thickening dark. I have never known a sweeter burden than these endless autumn rains. Not through helplessness but choice I chain myself to its boundless grace. 

Frightening how much I enjoy these rainy days. Locked in my mind, wandering through the empty streets, drenched in the heavenly gift of water. Fruitful aspirations, moods which nothing else can replace or replicate. This is how I come to create, this is what quietens me. Every season brings its rain and through these dirty but delicious, these essential drops of water I am softly rescued.

The mighty owl

Through masterful disguise these hearts are protected. The wind howls, the night air is quickly cooling, there is no shelter warm enough to keep from the prying eyes. Flashing in the dense dark, glowing like a fire through a small glazed window. Inside seems cozy and delicious, outside is cruel, but deceptive. Nothing is a better situation than that of the owl. Free. Not captured, not displayed, but in natural magnificence.

You and I are different, we have seldom been able to understand each other. When I pull you pull harder, when I settle you look for ways to keep roaming. There are instances when our paths cross, for brief moments, for just seconds at a time. This has been going on for far too long. I used to be good at it, you used to relish the moments. By now I have lost the ability to savor your flash like recurrences. Once it was easy, even your glittering white could be perfectly made out in winter’s deep snow. Not for all the others, just for me. I could always see. You had the talent of singling me out, showing your beauty only to me. It was pure beauty, inside and out. I still feel at times the breeze of possibility, the unfading hope that things can go back to how they were. That the road we have travelled has no end, never had an end and we can resume the lonely, sometimes tiresome, ultimately fateful journey that we once began. Began so reluctantly, so freely.

I have no way of telling what you cling to, how your desires match the actions of your life. If they match at all. Mine are lost, at times decipherable, mostly just curl to any lingering line that makes these knots of cacophony. Then the music carries me to safety. Music that is melodious and beatless, quiet and sorrowful in its entirety. If stillness meant happiness then I could keep it, really hold it down, nurture it, give my all and more. If in stillness you had the capacity to return, then I could have you, I could really hold you. I move no more. I am rooted not chained. In sadness and through fateful decisions I have been motionless to your roaming. I have a home to love but not you.

I wait. I wait for night to descend, for the stars to appear before I take flight. I am surprised how well I see in the dark. Every little detail, every nook of every stone unturned, every shy brook. Every den kept warm by the rhythmic breathing of beasts of all sizes. Through the haze I see tops of trees, leaves about to fall, mountains glowing silver from the beams of the moon. Then the waters, oceans that sway swiftly. Shining with careless assurance, knowing that no force can change the course of nature. I see the boundless opportunity in each growing bud, in each newly formed pond, in every being coming to existence. I see this all, but I cannot see you. Not even a flash, not even the sense of you. Not even the breeze of your hurried ways, nothing to say that I should search longer.

But I hold on, not to you any more, but to the me I have come to know since you have been gone. There were no promises except the ones that were dutifully kept. I cannot place blame when neither of us is to blame. We stay connected. Through threads underground, unseen. Through wires that are hidden, running above the skies, below the earth. Forever we are connected by these vessels, by those instances when the world burned for you and me. I walk alone, may always stay alone. You walk in a two and will always stay a two. The mighty owl sleeps through the horrors of the day and comes to life in darkness. Spreads its magnificent wings to cover the mistakes made by the sunlight, made by the day.

these precious gems below my feet

Every day counts. It always has. Every single day from the beginning. Not just the hours passing in vain, not just empty minutes or meaningless seconds. Every day has importance, significance, much more than is believed. The words muttered, the colours seen, the stillness of a Sunday afternoon. The busyness of each morning, the rituals performed on work days, then rest days. Each day the moon grows fatter. Then with clockwork precision looses all its weight to appear thin and frail. The sun migrates from one end of the day to the other. Each direction bears its beautiful light. Repetition heals the suspecting soul, heals each broken promise. Then start again.
 

At times I am tired, worn down by the weight of each passing moment. Some moments elevate, carry the spirit to higher ground: float weightlessly. The world seems bigger, no problem unconquerable. These moments build days, build memories, build on the notion that there is constant urgency in how life must be lived. There is no time to waste. No time to waste on lovers who do not love. There can never be time wasted on tasks that numb the spirit. It becomes sinful to stay bound to places where the imagination cannot soar. It will not go unpunished if desires remain bound in neat packaging, remain hidden in secret corners. There are deeds that must be done, there are places that must be seen, there is freedom that must be conquered. There is real urgency in the now.

See how perfect this moment is. There is me on one side, there is you on the other. Between us is the deep, dark, mesmerizing river. There are little lights that guide my heart home. This land keeps me true to all that I have imagined long ago. Sometimes I break, but I break only by the beauty that my heart cannot take. Then you show yourself in full light, then in heavy dark. Every time I fight to hold back the tears. No other has had me fall in love so deep.

We fight the roots, cut them mercilessly with well sharpened axes, with pocket knives we keep for any occasion. Never mind the roots that hug rocks, that fight to keep their trees upright in the most hostile environments. The roots you have grown are young, can easily be ripped from the soil. Mine are better formed, sturdy, accountable for the unreasonable amount of love carried to my heart. Vessels through which the past tries to stay the past. Then a great thunder reveals the power of destruction. With rain and lightning these tall ornaments of history are threatened, their stories possibly ending. The winds ripping through the leaves, the howling storm attacking its still targets. We are all unprotected, unsheltered from such evil, senseless battering. Lean left and right, tangle the bald branches, latch on, sway to keep straight. There is a faint murmur, quiet chanting. The voices slowly grow stronger, more confident. The winds are still too loud and the chorus of the unruffled victims are swallowed whole. There in no reason not to beat on. Rhythmic succession of the same words. It is cold, the rain is beating down hard, the winds are like glass walls: impenetrable. Hear this sound, yell these words, use your voice, use the power in your voice. Yell as loud as you can: keep the earth below my feet!

Each day counts, counts more than the one before. The things you see are precious; the ones you love are you. Your roots are to be planted, nurtured. Everything you do must echo urgency for there is little time to waste. I must continue for there is little of my time to waste.

Ramses and Prometheus

These rulers of forgotten lands. Universes above and below. These rulers of fictitious savagery, real beasts of flesh and blood. Held out power like a high wire. Waited for mortals to fall to their sudden deaths. In the dark. In the dark ages of blinding fear. In their palms no flower ever blossomed. Roaring giants moving earth and sky alike. One hiding behind a mask, glorified. One through sheer force capturing life, locking the secret, tight. The thunder shakes the memories, shakes the ancient from deep sleep. Once more we yell to the adhering power you held. Search the flame, search the sun. Bend endlessly, reach with exuberance.

Then came the never ending tears. Washed away the memory of your existence. Which god did you say you were? The clerics became the sceptics, those that once served became rulers themselves. This is how power migrates. From one tyrant to the other. Inside we are all the same. In our unappeasable hatred we yell obscenities, words that curse your existence, doubt your divine power. Casually that which you provide is thrown back at you. Stealing from the gods made easy with an unabashed conscience. We laugh at fear and hold our own thought to a mystical standard. Every man is a god, every thought a teaching. This is when we are equal. Fuck you, Prometheus. Fuck you, Ramses. No god of ancient Greece, no god of Egypt’s sun tells us what to do.

When will we ever learn? Have you felt it too? Felt that those who speak today have no words of truth? No kindness, no wisdom to guide the wandering spirits. Those who claim that they are the likes of graceful gods of the past, kind rulers of ancient worlds are nothing more but deceiving, shrivelled souls. Liars. They are not builders of monumental ornaments nor are they keepers of warming elixirs to sooth the bruises. In these times we must brace ourselves. The lights are dimming, the heat is slowly disappearing. Dress the soul with warmness, or else it will catch its death. Not in the unending desert. Not in the mountains that reach the sun itself. Not when we have a protector from sky to earth, sea to sand!

I cannot move you. You play with fire, you play with sand. Each god to its own. Each tyrant to its own methods of tyranny. I cannot erase the memory of Ramses, of Prometheus. There you were, holding the flame. Your magnificent torso glowing in an orange hue. The wind helping you keep the fire alive. Then the wink and I see you reach down to hand us the flame. It was that easy? Then the pain to endure. In the backdrop of the setting sun, with the Nile quietly flowing there appeared the familiar coloured scenery. Homogenously light. With one hand held out hundreds fell to their deaths or found themselves elevated. You were no just ruler, no accomplice to the greatness of the human spirit. You have moved me Prometheus. You have moved me Ramses.

Had we known the end, we would not have seen sense in the beginning. We no longer know how to move blocks of rock with our bare hands. We will never set the world on fire. In this fading light we now know what we have learnt from you. To endure. To question. To create. To find adventure in discovery. To never break under the weight of responsibility. To burn always Prometheus. To build always Ramses.

My love, the sea

There is a knot in my stomach. The words you say, the luminous way you enter and leave, the magical nonchalance with which you speak to me leaves me in despair. Wanting more, wishing for less. I hang on until I can bear. Could you continue until the night descends? Just until I am carried to peaceful sleep. Then stay. Stay to see the morning light.

I was drawn to you with such visceral force that left me unable to competently reason. Falling on soft autumn grass. You warned me and in turn I warned myself. The streets were empty, there was not a soul to bear witness to our beginning. A coincidence maybe, a planned meeting, the un-provable, the mesmerizing sky that hung unbelievably low that night. You offered to guide me. Blindfolded I jumped after you. Here is what we call the human heart. It beats relentlessly for years before one day it decides to stop. It has the capacity to pump blood and circulate it around the body. There are attributes the heart has which are hard to explain. It beats more per minute than you could imagine. It is a machine that requires no battery. Sometimes the heart learns to transcend the metaphysical realm and freely lets go. Never have I heard such a sweet voice, such seductive words. I did not know how to let go, did not how to control my heart. I wanted to rip it out of my chest and hand it to you, still warm, still beating. Then I felt a sharp pain and in all my flaws, I was see-through, I was yours.

The soul can seldom be tricked, yours never bowed to me. Time beat on mercilessly and slowly its pendulum swayed away from our unbreakable two. You were always wondrous, elusive, with an air of righteousness about you. I watched in amazement, likened myself to a chosen, a special stranger hanging by a moment with you. But then I was special no more and you were suddenly gone. Disappeared into the moment. I could no longer follow.

Now there is a knot in my stomach. I see you in the faces of strangers I have never seen before. Believe I see you walking far off in the distance, a faint wink, a blurry outline of a man that could be you. Could have been you. I see you in clear skies, in unending seas. I hear your love calling with each beat my heart beats. Then it whispers and grows silent. You no longer call, I have long ceased to heed.

If these nights cooling suit you, reverse your abrupt leave and wait for the morning light with me. If these nights suit you. Just until I am carried to sleep.

The Bearable Lightness

Somehow these streets welcomed me. After such a long time, after so many instances of disappointment, after betrayals and shameless lies, these streets could still forgive. They may be filthy, ugly, they may be nothing of importance. They may be insignificant in their position, they may be one way or not, cobbled or concrete, lined with trees, lovely or not. They may be the stuff of dreams, they may only be a means of getting to a brighter, bigger, prettier part of town, but they accept, know how to let go of a grudge. They sooth, offer comfort to brokenness. Gently I let go, timidly I surrender. Close my eyes and thank these holders of ancient monuments that I am allowed to roam freely. That I am given their blessing, that I can call this city my home. I will surely leave, but I am certain I will come back. Each time come back with more love.

In my own little quiet way I sing a eulogy. Salute the triumph of the average man. Pray for peace to grace the ways of the storming heart. I wish to be shown the parts that remain hidden so oft. Just for as long as I am still here. Just for now. The heavens ring loud of the plans which will see me leave. Silently slip, share a new place, learn to make peace with new faces, new streets. You feel secure, grounded where you are. In the process of leaving there are instances of stillness. An almost invisible movement steers you towards the end. Undenied, unseen, unending motion.

So come close. Touch these weary hands. Hold them so there is no reason to take flight. I wait patiently. I wait in anticipation, unable to bear the excitement much longer. Any word that you have tamed sounds true to me. Lie the stars off the sky, just lie. Yet you stay silent, hide the things that my heart needs to see. My steps become lighter, I am no longer chained. Starting to lose the burden. Starting to feel the weight of my footprints. I move away from you, I am leaving. The traces left behind will not represent who I was, who you were. They are records of moments that knew lighter times. Records of instances that burn.

In the instance of betrayal there are these kind streets, this kind city that holds me. This city that knows me. Knows me quiet, knows me absent, knows me burdened with sadness. Knows my worries and knows the fears I hold. Knows me bearing lightness, bearing weight. Knows me leaving but every time convinces me to stay. Every balmy summer night roots me further, every snow capped church steeple lets out a prayer for my wandering soul. I cannot stay forever, I cannot stay for long. This time I have now, I will give it to no one but my wonderful city of love. My wonderful carrier of lighter dreams, my one constant companion who makes being bearable. These songs fly, the lightness becomes desired, bearable. After the being we expect the lightness to fall to these bearable sounds.  

I Still Love You.

You think yourself not magnificent. Not magnificent enough. You measure yourself to illusions, mirages of what other people want you to see of them. Blind sighted by the sparkling lies that haunt your nights. Those nights that never leave. Never give and never leave. So you grow thin on reasons to continue. The most loyal companion ceases to nourish the unending appetite of the soul. Disappointment lingers, appears, refuses to leave. The reasons become foggy and the explanation holds only for fractions. Admittance breaks the heart of any creator who must face the reality of a dysfunctional muse. You must appear composed as the world around you rearranges into the most unbelievable shape. Here is how it is going to be. You will hold your feet on solid ground as we slip on the bare backs of endless sand dunes, you will watch as magnificence slowly reaches you once again. Somehow this is how you will survive. This is how parts of you will become scattered and grow thin, unassuming roots.   

The cost is too great to imagine. I cannot teach you to fathom the sacrifices, to appreciate the hardship, to empathize with the efforts. Know this, there is a cost. There is great cost in every achievement, may it be regarded as grand by many or may it be only appreciated by a handful. Greatness comes only with distance and time. Aging the idea or writing down the words in a place secluded from the eyes of the world. Do not mind the hurt, do not shun the loneliness. You must walk through fire to purify the soul. You must endure the most fearful highs and dizzying lows. You must bring that which is most precious to you to sacrifice. This is the altar on which you must place your sacrificial offering. Attempt to stay away and the gods of Olympus will keep the amazing nymphs far from the reach of any mortal. Fool yourself, but you may never fool those who sit higher than you. The rules are as such. The rules command you to forsake the comforting and comfortable. The happiness and the happy. The pain is inevitable and you must embrace the idea that it may come to stay. Contentment never propelled any lasting creative effort. It will not help you either.

Compose this letter. Compose it well. Write down the parts that are crucial to you. Do not omit the grievances, do not better the hurt which has befallen you. This is the moment that counts. Here is where we will listen and in the hope that someone will read, here is where we will gather the writings of all others to place upwards, hold in front of the one making decisions on our behalf. If you care to believe. If I care to make you believe. What does it matter? Now is not the time to appear complacent. To give into the shallow, self pitying mood of those around you. Do not doubt yourself. Not yet. At least not yet. This letter, this is what counts now. How horrific the aftermath, how painful the existence in this very moment is, will appear  - you will see – diminished to a mustard seed. For now, hold your weapon of choice and follow me on this journey we have vowed to take together. Those words should ring clear to you: please don’t leave me, please don’t keep me.

I Still Want You.

Through the turmoil and all the hardship. Through the fruitless attempts. Through the silent reception, the doubts born out of that terrifying silence, this is still what I want. Not to leave or give up. Not to give in our give up. Not to cramp my flaky soul into something insincere, but to give out that which needs letting go and to nurture that which needs to stay a little longer before taking flight. You should hold this out just as much. Wrap the talent in see-through tinfoil and offer it nicely to anyone who passes you by. The feeling will not ever change, the desire for want will not ever lessen, but the yearning to create will override the hunger for acceptance. Mark these words however unsuspecting; mark them so you are prepared. Mark them to keep you company tomorrow night when the darkness descends with immense loneliness, the unbearable kind. More often than not those nights appear and with them you slowly disappear.  

The extent of your talent, the measure that you have been rationed with, the level which moves with the apparent gravity of the rotating globe have been set. Unchangeable. But you fight it. Like a wrongly accused innocent man. Like a sane person admitted to a mental institution you resist the straight jacket, you pull away from the stethoscope probing. These are your rights and you must listen, sign, adhere to, abide by. While you try to shake the chains, protest against the boundaries of your creativity there are precious moments that leave you. The effort to be that which you are not takes as much out of you as if you were quietly creating. In the backdrop of the setting sun, calmly honing the craft. There are instances when you must learn to communicate the silence. Describe the dark and empty. The challenges lie not in loudly parading but moderately marching. Picking the fights that are worth fighting and accepting the limits that have been set.  

For we all fall short of the glory. Question every effort and demand each and every member of the audience to appraise. Yet we are quick to pass judgment when it presents itself. How hypocrisy breeds in places obvious and in people vain enough. You should see it coming. But hold on to your talent how very little or big it may be. There is no choice. There never was. The choice of doing or not, the choice of going or not, the choice of listening or not is not passed to those who create. Learn to receive just as well.  

We are all broken and mended by the possibility of making something bigger, more lasting, touching to someone who reads, hears, listens. As broken souls so often are, I am terrified of failure. Cut pieces of tape to stick to parts of me that are about to break off. Fall off. Those parts can only be saved by you. If you decide to read and read on. Read despite sussing out the very low levels of talent that embalms the page. Honesty never hid from these lines and in the grip of an intangible drive, I write to stay true to the only thing I know will lead me to what I need to find in life. You should follow that too. Somehow. Enter the maze for there must be a way out. There is because despite being lost, lonely and disappointed, despite setting myself up for hurt and pain, there is nothing I would rather do than night after night want to feel the want, the pull, the unending desire to write. I still want it. I still want you.

Please Don't Leave Me.

How could the constant fear not paralyse you? The tangled knot your soul is, constantly contracting, making the task of untangling impossible. Never have I heard you cry out, but the pain at times must be unbearable. I watch in amazement how you endure. For what? The glory of survival or the duty that is painstakingly completed? This is what has been set out, this is what I have achieved. Except that which is set out can seldom be achieved solely through strong will. And you know. You know so well and that is why you cripple your soul. Force it to churn out ideas from a dry well. Mostly they are ideas not worth sharing. And you know.

Like a lover desperate from the prospect of being left alone you plead so convincingly. At first just quietly repeating the words, calmly, sadly. Then you gain momentum, see the ineffectiveness of your strategy and raise your voice to a level that almost hurts the ears. This is what you want. Can’t anyone give you what you want? You shriek, scream, you shout. You throw a tantrum, you plead with you hands, you beg with your whole body. You are on the floor in an uncontrollable sob, your mouth foams from the desperation. The tears mix with the dirt on the ground and your face becomes smudged. Those around you cannot calm you, you are beyond yourself. Have a glass of water, freshen up, but you will not give anyone the satisfaction of seeing the stream of tears stop. This is your endless fight, you will use every tool you have. You tire, this has been a play. The sadness has been sincere so the tears will never stop. But you quiet, you have been hushed enough. You break under the injustice of randomness. As we all do. But you do not want to be left. No-one does.   

Once again it is quiet in here, still. The night brings surprises, treasures. I have befriended these invisible creatures, they will come back to me. But fear keeps me on the edge. The day will come when I will have nothing more to say, when I will have no more words to say the things I still want. Inevitably the day will come. No matter how studious I am about the task until then. The rigorous routine, the mental exercises, the belief that somehow this betters me. How will you let go? How will I leave? Forget that once I have been able to put to paper all that I feel, all that I fear. You seem to want different things and I appear stuck. I am merely holding on to that which I know will escape me soon. Or late. The prospect is daunting.

This I want inked into my heart: please don’t leave me.

Please Don't Keep Me.

These are my broken parts, this is my soul before you. You can accept, in understanding lean a kind hand and wipe the tear off my cheek. Find consoling words, find a cushioned corner of your hectic day and let me rest. Let me catch my breath after undertaking the almost impossible task over and over again. Fearless is what you have to be. Fearless of the fall, fearless of the reception. You could look me in the eye and find kind words to leave your mouth. You used to be like that, I used to run to you for cover. Times have changed and now I know how you will react. Do not worry, I am prepared. Unlike last time, I know that your vicious tongue will not spare me. Will not spare my words. I know that you lure me as close as the doorway then shut both wings firmly. I feel the air on my face, I mistake no breeze for that. My legs hold me up while my soul shatters. Gone. Lies in pieces on the ground.

I cannot have a master as unpredictable as you. Like a whirlwind you sweep through me. One day you give, the next you don’t. But I have vowed! Those words mean nothing to you? After all time has passed. I have been a fool. You have made me better, you have enriched me in ways I will never know to express. You have caused pain, you have encouraged expectations. I kept you at bay, but there were times when you have surfaced. You are still my master, I am still yours to have. From this bond it is impossible for me to break. It is through vanity that you hold me, pull me in further and I cannot but follow. This time there may be truth to what you had promised. This time it might be different. It never is. It never is.  

Keep me. Keep me so I have you to feed, so I have use for my words, so I have a place for these talentless lines. Will you keep me? I will continue because that is all I know to do. You should too. I will be your best audience if you promise you will be mine. I have no power to break free, I have no bravery. I cannot cross over as easy as you. This is my place, this is where I ought to stay. You sadden me, you show me just how worthless we  all are and I come to the conclusion that it is not through free will, but a cunning predisposition that I am destined to create. What about you? You can still argue, I won’t stand in the way.  

It is night again, I am ready to meet the beast. The journey has been greater than anything I could have ever imagined. As real as you all were along the way, I know that it has been my mind playing tricks on me. It is now back to the dark, the lonely, the depth of ambiguity and inconsequence. This has been an amazing experience, one I shall cherish for years to come. Now it is time for me to travel back to the place I know best. Leave you all in your honest or not so honest ways. Leave you to judge me through yourselves. Leave you to read into these lines whatever you felt free to read. They were written for you. They will continue to be written for you. Now I must go, please don’t keep me.  

We Are Travellers

This is where the heart stops. Halts in its ludicrous ways. For things greater than the power of forgiveness latch onto the inexperienced soul. The night lingers, lures, hatches venomous snakes in a nest of gloomy thought. I cannot keep track. Lose sight of things majestic. The man in the distance stoops, reveals a broken back from the road he has travelled on. My hands are tired, my legs weary. My eyes can hardly see, my heart has endured. I wish to no longer carry on. My life is a burden. I beg you kind stranger to end my suffering. How time has left, cruelly never announced its desire to change, threw the memory into a burning stack of irrelevancies. In this cloud of modern medicine we have forgotten how to treat the heart. Time reveals nothing new to my heart, to your heart. Nothing new. The same betrayal, the same disappointment, the same pains and aches.

With sticks vehemently touching I aim to thaw the icicles on your colourful spirit. Each time you move further from the smoke. The lovely smoke that would circle your every dream, that would tightly hold the ideas you release in utmost secrecy. Never let your heart surrender or be tamed by the necessary. Let the cold heal your sores if cold is what you need. All of a sudden you are released from this prison of the mundane. No breath leaves your mouth, but you emerge like a drowning man, gasping for air. This is your arrival, this is where you will start and without regrets carry on. No man has succeeded, no woman has been able to walk straight under such burden.

Then the night awaits. For we are travellers from another time. We walk with our legs, we see with our souls, we cry with our eyes, we judge with our hearts, we break our backs to arrive at the same gate which never opens. On its heavy belts reads truth. The truest heart opens every lock that has held it shut for centuries. To love these words, to create the meaning. Turning towards the hills, whishing for glacier waters to wash away the sins. The errors of my heart. Our intentions are repelled, there is no other way then back to where we came from. The journey must be taken over and over again. Each generation, each man, each woman must learn the steps by heart. Arrive at the end and hope to find a path beyond the visible road. Only hope.  

This is how we love: like children. Slowly and cautiously we unload but there is nobody to hold us when we collapse from the lightness. Only the weight of the years have kept us going. Now I stare at the dark blue sky, reaching to touch the brightest constellation. It must be easier to fly. I imagine how it would be, tearless and dry. On a balmy ocean top the heart would float until it came to a new land. Once reaching the shore the abundance, like a pirate, would capture the newcomer and hold it prisoner in paradise. Not a better story, not a different ring to the events unfolding, the happenings in chronology.

But the heart tries. Even amidst the constant stops, the forceful halts, it tries to beat to its own rhythm. Burry it and it will rise. This is when we gather strength, take each blow and harness its teaching. This is when we stand in line, like everyone else give in to get something back. For a little while longer we hope we can stay, create, see, breathe.

A Generous Soul

The perplexity with which it all started is slowly winding down. Starting to make sense without the probability of error. Without the confused and zigzagged ideas, the over complication that left you saddened at best. Little light was seen. It looked hopeless for too long. It made you look dumbfounded, left a scar that will surely never heal. You will never heal. You will merely learn to imitate everything you see around you. That will be enough. For a surprisingly long time, that will do. Your tangled knots will not show, will not hurt. You will be celebrated for your achievements and your health. Take those words and burn them. In the furnace of your raging soul, use those words to fuel the response. Use those words to burn.

There you are, standing alone. This is a beautiful sight, how I have missed you. There are no signs of your battles. Your face is smooth. As smooth as the rising sun. I decided to only give, forget my old ways of taking, burry the memories of a selfish existence. What is it that you need? Can I give you what you want? These words will help. Sprinkle them over the bits that have not yet healed. I could fall in love with you in a second. I stop myself, but can only just. You pull me into your ways so dear and I forget to hold back, to look ahead, to remind myself of the pain that always follows. Here you are, in your full beauty, pointing at me, waiting to waltz right over. I take a step towards you, then retreat. Scared, wiser by the scars, quiet since you left me. Silent since you left me.

We resist. With all the power we can think to conjure, we resist the temptation, the chance to change for the worse. I resist you, in turn you resist me. There is me in everyone you meet. We grow stronger with time spent apart. No longer is it thoughtless and intoxicating. No longer do you loose your head. No longer am I blind sighted by your magnificent ways. What you do now is significant. It is important and crucially visible. You will leave your imprint on these malleable souls. They yearn the words, they yearn the notes.

It is simple, easy to navigate. Your task has been set, the path is straight, lined with allies. Draw your compass and head your troops down the road that has been lit. I may or may not await at the end. The journey is what serves the purpose, not the destination. You give your kind soul to these strangers who take all of you. Not even a question, not a flinch in the other direction. You bow in servitude and tightly hold the pole which fixes your roaming feet to that exact place, that particular time. Here I am unable to change you, broken by the lost time and begging for a new beginning. This time I will iron out the creases from your imperfect ways, watch as you leave with a curious smile and give in to the darkness beckoning with the last song sung at your departure. As simple as it ought to be, I leave to find a more generous soul, a better teacher, a kinder companion.

Smile a broken smile

I know you are waiting, precariously drifting. I know you would rather have it different, have it tamed to suit you. You beg for it to be just a little easier, somehow a little less burdensome, a load less heavy to carry. The back is breaking, the spirit is cracking. Only the outline is visible, the silhouette of what once was. You are mistaken, but do not realize it. You are too confident of the whole you perceive as indestructible. At times it is of pivotal importance to let go, surrender, feel the backlash of standing resolute against the storm, feel the physical pain of the beating rain. We must all learn. Learn to immerse ourselves in the quiet sadness, learn to listen to silence, learn to move in stillness.

This is my secret. This is how I see the world, how I make sense of the things happening around me. These things are what make every day real. There is no better propellant; there is nothing more powerful than looming sadness to knock me out of stillness. I surrender to sadness, gracefully bow, hand down all my weapons and allow the truest, kindest human emotion to run through me. And stay. Stay uninterrupted; stay warm, cushioned and homely forever. Capture the heart, capture the head and like an echo bring back the parts that were thought to be lost. I am finally saved. This, what guides me, this, what keeps me on course, this, what teaches me to be better. No other has the power to jerk me out of apathy, to stop the tidal pull.

Pain is an intoxicating feeling, one that makes me want more just as I scream for less. I cherish this dependency, would never change it for anything. Sadness brings meaning, enriches the dull, inconsequential days. It is only through profound sadness that I am moved enough to tilt over and reveal something of myself. Intimate and sad, intimately sad, saddened thus intimate. I am chained, it is a sweet captivity, one that rewards beyond comprehension. One that constantly blesses, sends an invisible welcome home my way.

No other feeling but sadness has the capacity to make me want to live more. The cowards take no notice, hide in well dug holes or badly light caves to escape the wrath of sadness. Not me. Not ever. I offer my all, gladly offer all that I can so that I may get to feel moved, inspired by the deepest most desolate moments that descend like a tight web on the days. The nights. The sadness feeds me like no other. It stirs me the way nothing else can. It whispers ideas, witty remarks, words that sit combined in a unique fashion to amaze. In the mirror of sadness I catch a glimpse of my true self. I see a smile, somehow broken, weak, trying to hide. I see a broken smile ready to take on the world, ready to admit that only sadness makes sense. Only sadness did ever make sense.

Sing All The Songs

In my heart there is constant disdain. At times too much, at times too hurtful. Feeble men and feeble doings pass, I care not even to send a flinch their way. I never flinch at your words or at your outside, the deceiving words or the mockable expressions. All these leave me untouched, unmoved, uninspired. Spiteful mannerism, hateful words that bubble out of your mouth and yet you are celebrated. You are paraded in your plastic chair that you believe is a throne made out of gold. I am not fooled. To me you are just weak, exactly what you were before you drenched your crippled soul in the murky pool of power. If this is how you succeed, then I am grateful to never rise above the limits of my abilities, never dig a mine to expose my talents, never clad my fragile soul with words that are untrue, unfaithful.

The anger brings a realization anew: the tide may cover, the moon may expose. Covered I wish to remain, fearful to be exposed. I let you in but you only catch a glimpse then you must leave, hurry along and never talk of what you have seen.  In all your dishonesty, in the ways of the world which you have so masterfully adopted, there is no place for a truthful voice. You have lost yourself, but I never want to lose the parts of me which are most valuable. These parts are the air to my lungs, they pump the luscious blood of my spirit. In this world humility is dying a painful, coarse, despicably torturous death. With each word, with each deed you administer yet another blow, yet another stab to the already slowed heart of the world. Precious few heal, the vast majority destroy. The evil laughter accompanies and the devil sits in your tone of voice, lurks each time you speak. One word of yours kills two of mine. That is how we must live, I will sacrifice, spit at the thought, shrivel eventually in the poisonous pool of your lies.

It is night. You retreat; you never liked the dark for it brought little satisfaction. It is night and I revel in these short times, these ever shortening times that I have in a world where truth rules. Night is when truth rules, when humility gets a moment’s relief from the constant torment. Night is when men and women all over the world sit in inspiration, create the stuff of dreams. They dream colour. They dream oceans and forests with endless music. They dream words that send unstoppable waves to wipe out hypocrisy. They dream figures that appear invisible in the daylight. They are creators, healers, bringers of joy. They are tellers of the truth. They burn even the thought of your existence with one glimpse. You cannot stand the dark and now it is night. I forget the destroyers and think of only the healers. I am in awe only when things born in the night appear. They litter my path and give me hope, courage to march on despite the ugly surrounding my every move. You creators behold endless beauty, undying humility. You creators hold the pieces together, plant seeds of life in desolate lands that have turned to deserts. You creators save and make rivers once run dry, flow with boundless fresh waters.  

I hear the thumping, I am me again. Do not try to break me, I bend for no one except the ones I love. I would rather slowly vanish in the dark than to live your life of lies in the light. And I do slowly vanish, with each day grow fainter, less glossy. The night bathes me, nurtures the weary parts, balms the doubts and soothes the questions that pull me closer to the light. But the night is short and your webbing powers spread uncontrollably. I see my fateful end. Until then I turn to creators for inspiration, for hope, for courage to take the fight that I feel I must take. In awe every moment I see the creations. The notes nail my soul to the ground. The words tie my heart to the places I have never known. The colours trap my head in circumstances that teach me to be content.

This is what you do to me. This is what your ways have done to me. This is why I am only awed by those who create. This is why I demand to hear all the songs, why at all times you must sing all your songs. They might just help rid these suspecting spirits of the ways of the untruthful man.

Underwater

To be an inspiration to susceptible, guardless readers, listeners, watchers, thinkers, walkers, eaters, lovers, drinkers, breathers. Draw a note from your endless suitcase of sad tunes, tie it with a bow to your fragile wrist and walk proudly around, parade your own making. Just like these words, they will burn, imprint the meaning each different to those who take the time to read. It is a hat trick, a maze in its own right, a desolate road to recovery or a glorious path to freedom. Born out of a simmering desire to want the want. This is how I come to be inspired, how I am touched by what you had written. Simple, confined to the musical restraints, almost silent, heartbreakingly still. You push my whole body under water then slowly allow me to surface, float weightlessly in your sorrow, wallow in my own self pity, hurry towards the elating end that lifts my spirit momentarily.

Useless to think that any effort on your part could save me. There are only waves that bring me closer, calm me, stir the vessels that channel elusive, futile beginnings of thoughts sprawling on the page. Quickly lose coherence and I am back to drifting to your humming, endlessly roaming, being carried to invisible safety by these tireless words, these over used melodies. With each repeat you gain confidence and I am forced to revert back to where you found me. Where I found you. Over time it becomes easier to breathe, seduced to attempt to fill my lungs with air underwater. With each attempt I come closer to understanding the fate, the essence of existence that is defined by an unending need to create. Without it there is nothing, nothing above water. With it there is only a constant pull, only seldom liberated from the force which beckons deep down below. Never reaching dry land, only staying afloat: this is the most that can be said, can be done, can be wanted, wished for, prayed. And even like this, even with this threat of a painful end, the prospect of constant captivity, the creation like an iron chain, a heavy anchor pulling at the soul, even with this burden the gift of a word, a melody, a rhyme is far greater than any threat or pull or pain that could befall. I let go, fall after you and sink underwater.

I live my life with countless regrets. Each day brings a new one. I have lost the will to name them, keep them at bay, try to revoke them. Then comes a light, a wave, a feeling when I know that it is time to write. For that moment, for the duration that writing lasts, that inspiration holds on, that the fresh air forgets to change in my lungs, all regrets are overturned. Never mind what happens afterwards, how great the fall is, how the regrets magnify and the faults multiply, for this short time I am afloat. Right now, lying on a raft, sailing, wishing for shoreless seas. While these words last, while you read them, while I listen, there is stillness and air underwater. There are no regrets or wants for a different life.

You have moved me, fed me, kept me breathless. You have changed me, bettered me. There is but one thing I can do. I let go, fall after you and sink underwater.

I'd rather be in Michigan

If it wasn’t for the unimaginable colours of your landscape, the quietness of your ways, the stillness of your heart, the perfect harmony of this ludicrous unity, I would have given up, admitted the insanity of my place a long time ago. I burn like a lantern underwater, like a flame challenged by hurricanes, rains, icicles falling from the sky. The fire dies from time to time, almost regularly, as often as it is re-light then gains strength and gathers the capacity to fully glow under the hazy waters, amidst crazy winds, monsoon like rains. You demand an explanation and I cannot give it to you, this is just how things are. Contradictious and lovingly different, this is how I survive, this is how I accept the things that I cannot change and the powerlessness that overshadows every move I make. Indescribable is the beauty that surrounds me, yet words find me in abundance, hold me captive until they can rest assured on paper. I give in and allow myself to be moved not by the harshness of what is outside, but by the quietness of what is inside. The almost silent yearning for something else, a different place, a different time.

These futile fights I must learn to never again engage in. I know full well the outcome, yet cannot resist. Cannot resist the desire, feeling content at having voiced these thoughts. This is my place, here to stay, here to be shared with anyone who wants to see. Dead certain that this is my place, but longing for something different. When have dreams not made you yearn, fully succumb to the burning desire for change? Desire that can never be acted on, still feeling the undeterred pull of the want, wish and hope. Keeping it all a secret, conjuring to manifest only when it is safely dark outside. Feeling hidden if nobody else can see. Feeling exposed if nobody can see and ghoulishly using the anonymity of these words to cover any trace linking this fantasy to reality. I cannot shout this any louder, I cannot make you see more clearly, I cannot decide whether to gaze at your unending beauty or to move away from the blinding spectacle that you have decided to surround me with. I could even die trying.  

Then again I am here and you are where you are. If standing still never challenged you then you might not understand the sorrow that twists its tight rope around me. Squeezes tighter, invisibly cruel. Physically moving through the obstacles, through the thick fog, through the forest in which all my dreams are projected onto a canvas where I move in and out. There are a million places I want to be in, want to share the right now, experiment with the more fortunate, with the more talented. Pack my words in a suitcase three floors tall, take them with me, toil over the labour of pulling them from street to street. Someone will take pity, offer to take some home, use some for more and more people to read. Slowly I would part with each and every one. Then I would hide, spend days, months and years befriending more conspicuous kinds, parade them later, but in another dream with melodies accompanied. Lose them overnight and only see some rarely, barely recognisable through the change that freedom has forced onto them. Surely some would never find their way home. I too might end up homeless, poor and drenched in sadness, empty and regretful over the places I did not go, instances I did not follow, instincts I refused to embrace, people I have shut out, words I never knew I could use. I too might end up silent, just a lost figure, seamlessly ordinary in a landscape where nothing stands out.  

My holes have been made by fear gnawing swiftly, by courage being forced to leave each comfortable den, by doubt lurking, by indecisiveness playing hide and seek. The holes are too numerous, cannot shield me from the burning sunshine so I stay safe in the shadows, shouting from the sidelines, cheering those who have less holes, who have more holes, who have ribbons of courage tied to every hole, whose holes spell out pride, who have accepted to be homeless, reckless, friendless, and always ready for sadness to take control and create. I do not have enough holes to let go, I may never will. This is where I am. It may be exactly where I need to be, it might also be the last place I should be spending time in. I am who I am and it may be perfectly enough, it may also never be anything I long to be. I make my choices and embrace the things I am able to make, never find happiness anywhere else but in sadness. I would never have it any other way. This is me. At times I long to be elsewhere. At times I would rather be with you in Michigan.