In this rain: we are golden

Ridiculous self doubt, never ending, unwilling to appease, to appear kinder in these dark lights. Your success brings a deadly blow to all that we have been slowly building. The pages written should be burnt. The notes sung should go forever quiet. This is the power you have over us. It seems that feeding off of you is no longer an option. You bloom and we retreat. These times are trying, I have never pretended they were otherwise. We are preparing to celebrate your every success. The clothes we chose, the way we brush our hair a little different, the soap is even new, our bodies smell like spring blossoms, like clean bed linen. All this just for you. Because you asked. Because you love to shine but love to blind even more.

Mostly I am speechless, taken aback by what you are able to create. Then grow sad when my futile efforts are placed next to your magnificent ways. Only in my mind, the truth can never reach daylight, can never breathe to see what I see. There is a whole army of us, talentless fools. There is a swarm of us weeping court jesters, looking into a mirror and seeing our forgetful reflections. The halo, the glory, only you deserve. This gang of bandits, silently hoping to steal that which cannot be stolen from you, ever, is now harmless. What you posses is yours to forever have. What we cannot have, we cannot get through wit or sheer force. This has been and forever will be the most miraculous challenge: to accept our own debilitating limits. To accept my own crippling truth of a talentless existence. Like a spear through a noble heart, stops the beating, starts the overflow of life escaping in rivers of blood.

In the face of such adversary, in the face of facts, there is no chance to fight. No chance to change. For fleeting moments we think we are golden. Then those moments pass and we are back, landed safely, opened our parachutes just at the right time. We are back to being ourselves, our common, forgettable selves. We watch those better than us, those who have been chosen, who have been bestowed with talents ridiculous. May they shine longer, brighter, better. Our greatness lies in not what we are unable to achieve and pass trying, but what we are able to accept and embrace, whose creation we are able to praise and gulp, mould into our souls. And here you have won. I will surrender and point to your masterful ways when asked what I had aimed to say with the words that I had temporarily borrowed. Borrowed they were, never mine, never really mine.

You fly on the backs of beautiful stars. The glitter is real gold on the tips of your fingers, on your strict eyelashes. I bow in amazement, turn to the night to shelter me like always. To allow me to create for me. Even if nobody reads. Even if what I can do, can never be anything remotely as good as what you can do. You are truly golden. I am merely reflecting the light.

Never Let Me Go

If these Heavens can hear the words uttered by the many mouths that attempt in each second to save themselves, then let these words ring loud. Let them tear apart the velvet drapes that cover the sacred ornaments. Let them ripple far and wide, let them hurt the ears of those who never bend to change. Let these words sail aimless, let them reach dry land unexpected. Let strangers kneel and bow to their beauty. If at night there is still a deity alert, let the words woo its wandering soul and hone it so: to forever hold on. To endure. Through hardship and trials, through unthinkable obstacles and spirit crippling injustices. Through dense forests and even murkier waters. To survive. Through betrayal and back stabbing, through disappointment and a mountain of sin. To stay amongst the living, to strive for a better soul. I have long ceased to shine. You, you are a shadow lurking in the back of my mind. 

This is how it has been, for far too long. The vastness of my soul lying empty, wasted away, eaten by rust that attacks like the most ferocious enemy. There is no threat of overflow, no danger of a sudden rise and counter attack. You hold me captive, but it is solitary confinement. I cannot escape and slowly wither away. Each attempt at freedom kills the courage inside. Each cry for freedom is lost in the cacophony of tears and insults slurred at your outline. For nobody can see. You hide away. Like a master puppeteer you hold all the strings and move me against my will. I wish to not go forward, but you make me smile. This is me, this rotting soul, this darkness that drenches my every living minute. This is me, unable to smile, always on the lookout for a faint slimmer of hope. Forever disappointed, retreated from the blinding lights of your ways, of your illusion of hope. 

Still, I plead, turn to Love and deliver this soliloquy. I am neither worthy, nor unworthy of your precious gifts. I have never deserved these blessings. Never have I committed a sin so great to merit a punishment so severe. I can never hope for the grace of Love, I can never fathom why it would go amiss, elude my life. Hold off on these thoughts, hush them, keep them unformed then tie a rope around their necks. They must never see the light of day. But in the moment of desperation, in the approaching sense of deliverance I mime these words: never let me go. With each breath gaining strength. With each stroke of the old palm the embers inside forever suppressed start to glow. The air fans their insatiable desire to burn. That they do. I turn my head towards the sun and whisper: I am a sinner. The words are carried on the back of the winds, they are coy but playful. They may not land them where intended. This is a risk I must take. In the middle of this land where no flowers grow, where the skies are forever grey, where the cries are muffled by the sheer muscle power of the ones keeping guard. I will not be beaten down for much longer. I will not allow for my words to stay silent. With an enviable breath I take to form my mouth to say: never let me go. And it is heard. No longer a whisper, no longer just outlines, no longer inanimate or a dream. The words are heard, their power unstoppable. I have drawn attention to myself, these shackles are being lifted and I can finally see. The words call on the arms of the ocean to cover me. Ever louder, ever stronger, ever clearer I seem to be unable to stop them. Love, I seem to be unable to stop these words that are intended for your ears. Never let me go. How confidently they march and I let them. Never let me go, never let me go.  

See how long I have waited? See how my whole has shrivelled? See how I am barely recognisable? I am finally where I want to be, close to you, almost able to touch, to see. You will forgive me, I hope. These past wrong doings will be wiped clean and I will no longer fear my own voice. Hold me now. Hold me Love and let me hear the words from your mouth to my ears: I will never let you go, never let you go.

This old soul, you good man, will wait for you

The ripples of the world, the ebb and flow, the currents which sail good intentions and bad alike will one day reach our lands. They already do every day. Travel down rivers that are murky at best, carrying filth, carrying a burden from far away, unknown beds. They travel on the backs of magnificent waves that crash uncontrollably, break the rhythm, the predictable cycle of life, death, rebirth. These undeniable truths about the human spirit soar, on the backs of eagles roam all lands. They fall to the ground like snowflakes that may cover or destroy. The sharp edges of the water freezing in the smallest places imaginable. Inside a cell. Inside a heart, inside a den that keeps little ones from giving up their lives to the cold. These truths, the ones that teach us about ourselves, hold a mirror. They are constant. Through the passing of time remain unchanged. Thankless objects, mirrors, murmurs that grow into a screeching echo, they all order a halt. How we must all stop at once. Watch as the eagles fly above, unwrap the truths that we understand and stay alert for the ones that are about to hit us. 

The disappointment escalates and I can no longer find even a fragment of your soul worth fighting for. Sadness covers my days but only until I understand that it is I who must change. The process leaves my soul aged, old and used, almost too frail to pick up and start again. Too few have been the good men. Too many were the temptations and the soul could not withstand the battering. It withered away, turned into a monster unrecognisable to everyone around. Shrinking with each lie, with each word hanging heavy on its mind: to outdo itself, to raise itself straight, to never bow its head to those who are out to conquer and cripple it with stark notions of deceit. You have scarcely done good. Your spirit has seldom seen the light with which it was once filled. The world drenched in sin has overflowed and dirtied the spirit which you possess. You cannot shake the excess.  

It is difficult to gain coherency, to allow a sense of hopefulness to enter the days that are heavily guarded by grey clouds and clouts of doubt. Your father has been just as weak as you. He has bowed to the same lords you do. He mistook power for righteousness, grace for authority and boldness for love. He thought himself strong, but died with a broken spirit so in need of mending that the angels first carried him to their infirmary. Only then was he allowed to account for his deeds before the gods. All your fathers, all your mothers, their fathers and their mothers, all fathers and all mothers in history and time recorded have fallen short of the glory. We venture onto the same paths and can only hope that we have learnt from past mistakes. Their mistakes are ours to fix. Their spirit is ours to mend. Our lives are for those after us to judge. 

I plead with God, night after night, day after day, to show me a good man. I plead with the Maker to make me worthy of a good man. Humour me, please. But these good men are hard to come by and the soul grows older with each obstacle, with each trial set before it. Some temptations it cannot resist. The wait at times seems endless. In the wait both our souls are corrupted. You are pulled to become conceited and I am pushed to become latent then righteous. A sea of sadness covers me, I am inconsolable. Through tears that are not my own I feel my spirit rise. Rise to shed the mistakes of those before me. Rise to seek power in the efforts of humility. Rise to move towards the light that will paint it gold. I raise my hands, slowly. I turn my old soul, my still malleable body towards the warm. The voice inside like a restless hurricane waits for the moment it is finally let out. Then like a thundering echo that rings endlessly between two gaping cliffs: I will wait for you. These words send cracks to the abyss, return with a time lapse, all still and motionless when the cry from the bellows of the spirit is released again: I will wait, I will wait for you.