I’m a thief

I steal not only what is precious to you, but what is essential. You might think that we are blood brothers, but we’re brothers only in indecency, in the malignant intent to deceive. We are brothers but not in blood. I steal the air that your lungs crave. I steal the ideas that you thrive on, that propel you to create. You shine on a well lit stage, cloaking with emotions that once raced through you. You tell your story, they all applaud. Then I come to steal, clench, rip away the best moments and reuse them as my own. Your pain becomes mine.
 

With frequency you become desensitised and I become the body that is hurled back to the gutters of heartache. You learn to live with your pain, you channel it outwards and I catch it as it hits me in the face. I like the duality, the connection between you and me. But then I saw you break. I couldn’t leave, mesmerized by the force with which you hit the bathroom floor. You curled up and cried, silently succumbing to the pain that you thought you were releasing each coming night. The pain grew inside and erupted involuntarily. I watched you wipe off the tears. I felt like a thief.

I’m a silent intruder, a motionless robber. I listen then move to create, to make what was yours, mine. You chose to share and empowered me to use the wings of your despair as my own. Never do I take flight. When you are up on that well lit stage, I am curled up on the bathroom floor. When you stand I break. When you break I watch you fill the room with the most amazing poetry. I move in carefully to steal each heavy, honest word. You let me. You smile then turn away so I can rampage amongst all that you’ve decided to show.

Do your lungs not need this air? Do my hands not need these words? All along you had no idea and you never will. I keep on using what you create but selfishly keep to myself all that I create. You laugh, ask me what I had made. I lie, tell you I can never make anything. I am clumsy and talentless compared to you. But we both know that I have seen you break. We both know that we are brothers not in blood but in intent. We both try to find that which will mend the ways that we choose sometimes. We both know that nothing you make is your own. Nothing I make is mine. It runs through me, but never can be held. We both know that your pain is mine. We both know that every line in your poetry has already been sung by someone else. We both know that each idea I have has been used by someone else. We both know that I’m a thief  but I’m not the only one who steals.

whole is hard to shatter

Fragments from a decade ago still resonate. Resonate with the person I am today. Remind me of the person I used to be, or still am. Paying careful attention I discover traces of all things I held dear then. I discover them in the now, in the person I am today. Have I not changed? This brings comfort and frightful recognition. Parts of me are the same as back when dreams were believed to have the distinct possibility of coming true. Firm belief in the notion that the moment will come that will erase all past injustices. Tight grip on this belief, locking with all ten fingers, hanging above the endless sea, no notice of depth or danger. That was me then, able to believe and suspend disbelief for considerable periods of time. Fragments resonate, not the whole. I realise now but still willingly travel back in time on the wings of these thoughts.

There I stood uncorrupted, in virtuous ignorance, riding the waves of life’s big questions on the backs of wooden horses that spelled out honour, grace, bravery, loyalty. Big words filled my life, brought unbelievable burden and sadness. Truth crept in and truth destroyed everything else around it. Wasteful ideas about nonchalance made me cast away peers who didn’t make the cut. The circle of elite were privileged and we chose who to include, who to not. Instead of answers I found ever more questions. To some I guessed the answers and got lucky. To some others, I’m still searching. Years seem to not matter, distance or time bears no relevance. Slowly, one by one, I had to let go of first grace, then bravery, then dreams of unthinkable magnitude. By letting go there came the burden of emptiness and lost expectation.

I had to learn how to walk with a straight back again. Sometimes I still forget. I envy those who never bend, those who only bend for the ones they love. I bend with every breeze that catches me off guard whilst crossing a bridge. I lose the hand of honour and justice, I lose sight of grace. Humility and honesty meet me once every so often and the time we spend together is precious little. I used to fill my life with grandiose ideas about an honourable existence. Every step, every day I lost a little of the wholeness. A decade ago I embarked on a journey that was going to be a sail in a hot air balloon, singing all along the way. The hot air slipped from my balloon and in a haste I had to throw out the heavy words that I took with me. First went grace, then honour, then bravery, then loyalty, then humility, then honesty. At last I landed and now spend much of my time retrieving all that I had lost until now.  

There are fragments from the past that help. There is a room full of strangers when the music starts. Then I feel like I did when the world was not too dirty or unjust to take on. When I saw only the good. Every breath of every stranger brings me closer to who I was then. Every note builds the words that I have lost and spend each waking minute trying to find. There is a G from grace. Soon there comes the H in humility. I expected no fast recovery. I am willing to take the long way back, but I fear that I can never be whole again. I can never be uncorrupted like how I started out. The success of survival stems from hardening the shell to weather any storm. A decade ago my whole was hard to shatter. A decade ago I was a whole you could not have shattered.

Some Will Walk Alone

Today I persuade myself that there’s worth in each thought that ferociously begs to be let out. It’s hard to believe and would be easier to walk away, give heed to the slumbering, the quiet call of the calm moonlight. I lose hearing the thumps, accept that the silence within must mean silence out here. Time is not enough, thoughts must lay in the dark never surfacing, never causing anyone discomfort. With endless care these thoughts can no longer live a solitary life. With endless care they rise to sing harmonies that bend the most unforgiving of hearts. The hardest hearts will open to beautiful dream, repeating the once familiar. Thoughts circle around the same streets, thoughts come up to the shore to wash their dust ridden bodies clean. Laughing as they do so, I keep a watchful eye so that no-one takes them hostage. 

Leaving a prison, being liberated by crisp, clean air, hurrying down spiral stairs. How time holds me in its firm grip, how slowly winter waltzes in. In the silence I think of you. Every snowdrop bears the burden that your leaving caused, sheds a light on how time has decided to chain me to the past. There have almost been a dozen winters without you and there have only been a few with you. Still, I never love anything more than seeing my city covered in snow. Then I whimper in the darkest night, nobody hears, you the least “please give my broken parts back”. But you won’t let go, keep each piece, demand a ludicrous ransom I cannot give you. I do not have that kind of time, those kinds of treasures.

It is hard to find words when the words have left me. It is hard to lure them back to where they have been treated so miserably. You are no help. Words wrap themselves around you, but the less I write about you the easier it is to live. I have upset my words and in return they will not obey me. Dance! I say and yet they will not dance. Move! I say and alas they will stand still. How can I heal my soul if these words won’t help? Words lock together to make thoughts and find power in numbers. Who can resist a thought? Who could not erase a word? How many times have you forgotten you once meant that you loved? How often do you throw forgive to the beasts keeping it a deadly secret that you did not mean it? Only the words never forget, or forgive. Misuse them and they will refuse to cooperate. Deny them and they will stand locked to barbed wire. Impossible to tame them after such long time left out in the wild. Oh how I would need them, how easy it would be to start writing about my broken heart, about you. They trick me, rush forward when they can cause pain, remain hidden when they should heal. Never do they anger me, I love them just the same.

There is still hope. Nobody has taken hope from me. I hope that you will forget me. I hope that I will forget to write about you. I hope that the next time it snows where you are you will think of me. I hope that some words will forgive me and we will make sweet love to the page that awaits. I hope that one day the realness of each passing day won’t scare me. I hope your sweet memory will never leave. I hope that if I had to fade I would return again.

I hope I will.

I hope I will love again.