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.