A Better Letter

I feel tired, worn out, exhausted. The days start with an unending desire for the end. When the end nears the dread appears. In a few hours the cycle will start anew. The weight of each day pulls me down. Unable to stand tall, unable to smile with my whole heart. I am weary, uninspired. I am tired beyond belief. The strength to keep up, to lead the way, to be a forceful direction has left unnoticed. Slipped, escaped and now there’s a hollow body. I am nailed to the ground, any movement comes with the painful recognition that all attempts are in vain. The days are fast, but dead slow. I wish for things that come and go, never steady enough to take root or make a firm impression.

The wind blows from every which direction, unmerciful, cold. The skin on my back gives little shelter, the air penetrates leaves me shaking to my bones. Come wind, take all of me, take the best that I can offer and blow hard to make it disappear. I stay quiet when I hear the wind approaching. I await in earnest, almost excited. I know my role, I know my place. Never do I forget to add humility, to keep the outlook I have been blessed with. To treasure the way I humbly let the wind blow through me. The way I let the weight of each day push me down. The way I hold no opposition, embrace the unstoppable intent of change. I am the same person I was when you met me. I hope you can still recall. I am the same person the moon knocked down, the clouds saved, the sound of your thoughts guided home. If time passes and the wrinkles multiply on my tired face, I will still let the wind play me. I will let dishonesty burn me. I will let the fights run their courses and I will stay true to what I believe to be the essence, the meaning, the reasons that keep me living. I will be weak, but will stand to salute every honest man. I will bow to every selfless deed. I will stroke the shiny hair of each woman willing to offer a sacrifice.

The choices you make leave me sad. Disappointed and ashamed, I turn away so as not to see your gleaming face. You have done nobody proud. With your selfish ways, you have caused more hurt. They all look to you for advice and you have made them feel like you are king of this cardboard cut-out castle. I can follow no more. This path you have to take alone. I am left behind. Left in the old ways you so quickly forgot. Or just care not to remember. Alone I am more comfortable, in my own pace, in my own time. You do not need to pull me up to your speed. I have no care for it, for you. Look back once, just once and then you will never again look at me the way you used to. I will be fine, I have learnt to live with the disappointment. Friends who are graceful, righteous, humble and constant keep me in line, keep my soul alive. I used to have tears but cannot cry them for you any more.

I have worked myself to the bone. I have given my all but these times require more. The wind blew us, I stood still and let it go through me. You opted to shift towards the direction that seemed needed the least resistance. I accept, even understand at times. I cannot follow. If never again am I able to rest my eyes at night, I would still choose the path that is mine. If never again do I get a day’s rest, I would still feel I am doing the right thing. There is a mighty power that will hold us, question us, remind us of all our mistakes. I want my mistakes to be grand and bold, unapologetic and honest. I want to see them, I want to know them, I want to call each by their name. I want to know I have made mistakes and I want to be reminded. I need the mirror to stay true. Only then do I have a chance at making a lasting impression on the people I have been blessed enough to have met along my way. Including you. 

Something Like Joshua

I am almost always hopeful. Allow my mind to slip into fantasies of the grandest kind. I am almost always honest. Try to live by the words that make me so, these words that force me to be true to the person I long to be. I succeed at being myself, still seldom I imitate the woman I long to be. Each day starts out with the unbeatable hope, the possibility of something extraordinary. Each day ends with the beaten realisation: change comes slow but it almost always comes when least expected. I am almost always true to what I think to be righteous. I bend for no-one, except the ones I love.
 

That ever elusive, that intangible, that poetic mellowness that oozes from the mild mannered bellows of your seductive, deep voice. It keeps me grounded, chained. If ever there was an escape, there is no longer a route I can take to free my soul of you. Not of you, but the thought of you. The whimsical, flimsy, earth shattering power of you. The illusion of you, the illusion of such power. It keeps me whole and sane, standing resolute amidst the most violent tempest. Standing firm as a beacon, like a lighthouse, to guide the wandering souls home. This is what your words do to me. This is what you do to me. 

Surpass the rational. Write three chord songs about heartache and the imminent pain. Fool those who are willing to be fooled with your mischievous smile. Say, is this what you had hoped for? Confide in solitude and silent darkness. Confessions of inaptness, self doubt and humility will stay neatly bound, hidden. No dark deep enough could make me turn from you. I cling to the sorrow you resonate. Loyally I stay dedicated, ardently  stupendous, in awe of you.

I bent for you a long long time ago. I ask nothing in return, you won’t even notice the weight. There is sometimes darkness but mostly light, wholly inspirational passage from your words to mine. This is what you do to me. You won’t catch yourself flinching at my confession. Can I hope that you will read? I hope you never will. The dark that passes you finds home in me. Fictional as it may be, I use it to build words, sentences which then fly aimless in ether, sometimes locking with the ones you’ve made. We may never know. 

From time to time I keep thinking that something like Joshua is what I need to find.

Medicinal Blisters

I am a lot of things. I am broken inside, appear whole on the outside. I am whole inside, appear broken on the outside. I bruise easily. Your hurtful words fall off my hardened skin and you can never bruise me. I hide quickly in the face of conflict. I sharpen my battle tools when you roll your arguments towards me. I shy away from all your challenges. I spend nights tangled in the torturing beauty of creation. Then bad writing, misplaced rhythms and silly juxtapositions: words of inertia surface. To sadden me. To question my every moment offered to the night and its mesmerizing pull. Taunted and maimed, somehow lost, not entirely truthful or found. There are times when it feels right to pass the invitation. There are other times when regret gets the better of me. I allow all these feelings to bulldoze over me, to cover every hidden part of my soul. To come and conquer, to make better, to fully occupy the barren sights of my malleable spirit.

Motionless. The cruel breeze of these steel daggers, a loud swish, then all disappears. The heavy fight postponed, numbed by disbelief and hurt by the anger projected. Sometimes this is how I feel. I lie still so that no dust cloud can cover my judgement. I lie alone, forgotten. I lie determined to survive the passing cyclones of dishonesty. Is this the stone from which all other stones have been made? Throw it at me if you think my words are untrue. I will take the beating, I will surrender humbly. No words of mine have the power of persuasion: that is why. They are just words used at my own pleasure, with no weight or maturity. That is why. Their curly bodies, my vain efforts, together, in unison, should be flogged, publicly ridiculed, taught a lesson. This is why.

I am lot of things that the eyes cannot see. I brush against your fears and come out laughing. I medicate my sore soul with the words I set free. I twist your arm and pull magic tricks. You start to cry, feel uncomfortable, search within, feel sorry for me. For me, the writer, the person you do not know. Me, the girl you thought you had figured out, down to a tee. You read of darkness, but I seek and find deliverance. My kindness mixes so profoundly with cruelty, creates a homogenous blend, no borders, no start or end, just a vast substance which engulfs you from the first letter to the last. Sprinkle the page with love and I have lost you for good. At the end of each sentence I surface then dive back into the unknown to search the wreckage that has been left, or built, over the years. I dissemble it piece by piece, life then builds it back bit by bit.

I have a heart that is blistering. The pain sometimes quietens its healthy, vivacious beat. My heart grows tired at times, sighs lonely, wishes for the fights to be less frequent, less violent. This heart has its dark, has its pain, has its void where once love lived. This heart never goes mute. A faint murmur, a distant thump, a weak but determined sound and the glorious relief. There is time to continue. Comes the empty page and with each stroke of a new letter, the beats grow louder. The four corners of hurt become blunt, unable to cause further damage. Except for these blisters. They appear to ease the friction but remain painful reminders after the imminent danger has passed.

I give my heart to you. I give these words to you. I give my dark to you. I stand in shame for this time again I have not accomplished that, which I had set out to do. You leave these words feeling sorry for me. I leave with another blister burst. Once again, I am forced to beg you to next time again, read on.

and as for winter, it is only may

There is no stopping. There is no stopping the momentous river, the forceful flow, the speed at which the body of water rushes from high to low. Latitude, constellations, the pull of the moon, these things are in charge. The piercing sound, the noise of the robust river emptying its filth onto its own bed keep the wandering mind at base. The sight makes you uncomfortable, the sound pains your frail ears. The fish jump in desperation high into the air, gasping, trying to defy the laws of physics, biology, chemistry. Through guilds of glittering silver they fall to their fate, carried at speed to their new resting place. The land devastated, this is what is left behind.  

How things have changed, you whisper. There is no more love in your heart. The landscape of the soul echoes that of an aftermath, a horrific disaster. Every nook, every hill, every man made tower of success wiped flat in a fraction of a second. I blinked, you destroyed. This barren sight bears your name, this is your prize. My esteemed friend, regret, never fails to show in time of need. The other friends we once shared now pick sides. I am captain, you are captain. The river we navigate is untamed, unruly, flows through curtains of gallows, there is no chance to escape. Only maybe to the moon.

You forfeit grace when I shout - do not! But you do, and walk away. Oh how those whispers haunt, how your sudden eruption exploded in my peaceful heart. I try to ease the qualm, but sadness drapes its endless weight over me. I wait for resolution, for a higher power to take me. Pray for time to heal.

Here is how peace descends. How silence takes over once more. Everything comes to a slow halt, turns back to how it was before the boisterous interruption. The river retreats.  My heart may survive, may grow back the parts that have been badly damaged. May learn to grow more beautiful parts that will take flight, search the world and land with someone new. I may learn to believe in days that will not be so blue. May even stop wishing for winter in this early May.