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.

Wish Me Away

And in these trying times there is but one beam of light, a faint source of fortune, a delicate reminder of the things that are seen. The things that you may see. Mostly the clouds cover any sane reason or judgment. Hanging high above, dragging deep down low, these foggy images of the future send you leaping towards the wrong direction. Head over heels you rush into the unseen. Told me you could no longer hear the warning shouts from friends who foresaw your inevitable crash. Where has your voice of reason disappeared to? Then you blame the changing times, the hurdles that the passage of these endless hours bring about. Hands up in the air, you hold off on decisions, curl in a corner and sob uncontrollably just to make a point. To make us feel like fools for not having seen, sensed or felt the burning immediacy of your standstill. You look up with your tear filled eyes and with an honest desire you sigh: wish me away.

Your voice is breaking with sadness, your life is too burdensome to lightly take. Unpacking the injustices, the harsh words and even harsher deeds, you stand in the middle of the road, bare and exposed, waiting for the gentle wind to blow through you. Wishing for the scorching sun to dry your much seen eyes. Hoping that by the desire of want the hurricane conjured will wipe your soul clean. The wind never gathers enough strength and you must put the weight back on. Dress your fragile body, cover all the parts, leave nothing behind and continue walking. Walk on. Each broken promise, each word that cut your heart, each time the shouts pierced your ears, each scar to envelope the fair skin on your brittle bones, each must go back on. Each must make the mark so we all see and so that you remember.

There are signs that scare and signs that encourage. The shell is broken to a million pieces to reveal the beautiful core intact. There is hope for the future yet. Not tomorrow, may not even be in this lifetime, but there is hope in the distance far ahead. You no longer need to take everything alone. Stand the wind alone, endure the sun, walk with the weights dragging you down. You must fight for you. I cannot give you directions or shield you from each injustice. I cannot stop the words that in an unruly fashion lash out against you. I cannot halt the power, I do not own time. In my helplessness there are instances when I curl in a corner and sob uncontrollably. I look up with my tear filled eyes and with an honest desire sigh: wish me away. 

Lament of the talentless

This is my love song. These are your words. This is my attempt to convey. To find the coherence that you long for. Amongst these daunting shadows I stand in desperation, waiting for a sign to confirm that these words are strong enough. That they are right. That they can stand alone and not be shaken by the wind. Here is my forceful yell, hitting the rocks that entrap me. I wait for the echo to return in sweet confirmation, carried by the breeze that dances loops around me, leaving the message gently in my ear. If only it were so. If only the yell turned into distant, soft embroiders of assurance. But it never will. It gets lost. Swallowed by the eternal vastness of this impenetrable hole.

Then I continue. My journey leads me through darkness. The dark is met with only the occasional simmer of light sifting through the dense net of doubt. No chance to find the way, no hope for a guide. I learn to lean on walls, to see without light, to feel the turf under my unsure feet. I learn to curse and praise my invisibility. I learn it is a hindrance and an asset in the process of trial. I want you to love my words. These words that have been born out of desperation and a fierce desire to make better, to fulfill a destiny, a calling, a path that has been set. I want you to love my words without ever seeing me. Lure you, repel you, make you hunger for more, make you elated or bereaved, leave you in the dark beside me or bring you to the light without ever reaching the surface with you. I want you to love my words. Nurture them, heed to them, never turn from them.

As imperfect as this whole may be, it is my whole. Crooked, chipped at the seams, torn, dull, barely useable, a true whole no more, but the only thing I know to belong to me. A perfect fit to my misshaped soul. I would not know how to use more. The exact measure of talent that has befallen me sinks low in the cup, disappears at the sight of a better trickster. The murmurs quiet and the shuffling feet slow, stay motionless until there is a need, a desire again for the words to arrive at the page. This quest is as much as I can take. Bigger adventures, grander plans would die in execution. The nights are few which welcome the thoughts, the words, the emotions. Those nights can barely handle the traces of talent that lead me into deeper darkness, more unfamiliar and uncomfortable places of interest. These nights cheat my lungs, prove that living is not breathing but feeling. In these powerful nights I am invincible and my words are shiny ornaments of a priceless value. I hold the air in my lungs hostage until I am done, have fully succumbed.

 

Towards the end I wish you away. I want to keep my secrets, never let the dirty work of creation be known. By the end you would have seen my bare flesh, exposed, publicly ridiculed. Maybe you felt it too, maybe you will read again to try and understand. Maybe you will read until you discover the sense. In every attempt remember that it was more important to write, to come to the end of these words than to have forcefully rounded a message or tale of success. These words survive on little talent. In a sea of waving enthusiasm do the best they can on endless nights that allow them to roam freely.

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.

Unbecoming.

So I have been seduced by your sights. Your amazing colours, scents, the arid vast lands that lock no sand, hold no roots. So I have been turned into someone else, a wiser, more accepting woman. Negligently, for a second, I mistook your beauty, making belief that I could hold it, have it. So I believed for a prolonged period of time that I could uproot myself and live in your abundant kingdom. Arrived how I left, in awe. Churned out body and soul to see the parts I have waited years to see.

I hold no regrets, openly claim my infidelity. I left the spring streets to roam deserts, towns destroyed, newly created, to see seas that grow and disappear. I shared sights with men and women who aver those lands, who bow continually, who make nothing of blind sighted fanatics dragging their heels. But my residency was only temporary. I missed the trees gloriously parading their petals of white and pink. I missed the bloom which they show only to a few. I ran away, hoped to find peace, hoped to find trees that were beautiful the same. Now, upon my return, like the prodigal son I beg for forgiveness. Beg to be let back in.

Here is my heart, swinging back and forth, swaying sideways, hoping to brush against yours. I learn where home is through great cost, through breaking fully to mend partially. I leave to return. I return to want to leave again. I say nothing of the battles fought, how peace never settles. But you suspect, maybe even know. Share the burden and allow my inexperienced heart to befriend grave injustices and bold untruths. Slowly the unbecoming descends, a bad fit, an uncomfortable disposition.

Then I learn. Build walls from pieces I have gathered. Respect sits highly on a wired fence and I have seen it. I slowly learn the how, capture each moment, forgive each misplaced step, one by one. I am yet the same, still somehow different. I have let go, but hope keeps me captive. Forces me to visit far away lands and cheers, mocks from the sidelines while I am childishly mesmerized by all I see. By men of devotion passing, by women in wigs of errors, by differences that only ridicule the sameness. I am much the same as I was a week ago. I am nothing to who I used to be last week. My eyes have seen hatred and peace. My eyes have seen divine building blocks. My eyes have seen trees as old as the good news.

Still, I beg for forgiveness. Silently, just like last time, I beg for your forgiveness. I left wanting to return, I have returned wanting to leave. All I know is your grace. All I know to do is beg for your forgiveness. I have been seduced, I have been unfaithful, I have been forever converted, my heart turned, my mind opened. I have foolishly given up rain washed lands for deserts of rocks, beige camouflaged battle grounds, sparkling reminders of faiths warring. I hoped to find you, but you wished not to be found. I have seen and now long to be allowed to come back down.

Laurence Alma-Tadema

If no one ever marries me,—

And I don't see why they should,

For nurse says I'm not pretty,

And I'm seldom very good—

If no one ever marries me

I shan't mind very much;

I shall buy a squirrel in a cage,

And a little rabbit-hutch:

I shall have a cottage near a wood,

And a pony all my own,

And a little lamb quite clean and tame,

That I can take to town:

And when I'm getting really old,—

At twenty-eight or nine—

I shall buy a little orphan-girl

And bring her up as mine.

gonna write it out. gonna wait it out

There are places of importance one should visit. Life changing streets, buildings, monuments, people, scents, skies, beliefs. In the back alleys is where the heart gets lost. Forever. Instilled with every footstep the magnificent grandness lurches above the endless spirit. To this place I must go. The pull of those dusty streets, the barren landscape, the scorching heat, the drought stricken, crackling earth is unending. Goes beyond any other pull I have ever known. I hope to find myself in those lands, find the wandering parts that have roamed unnoticed, unimportant to anyone but me.
 

If this place bestows confidence onto me, then I will turn to whisper my deepest secrets to its streets. If I will be allowed to unmask all that is unholy in me, if these parts would shelter the bare skin, the throbbing flesh of lies, the untruths that have marred the soul, then I would shrink to hear the growing roots, bend to see the careless winds, run to see the motionless rocks of a thousand years gone. Then I would try to be brave enough to listen and believe. To see sense in the one thing that is of truth. The one answer which outlives all other answers. The one love that outloves all other impostors.

The gentle bowing of these men of faith may help to shed the memories of you. Rid the past of your entrenching presence. I will let the winds rush through me, find their way through my fingers, blow from the deepest bellows, scare me into surrender. Your face will no longer linger. The thought of you will no longer haunt.

The deserted land, the soul emptied, these are what await. Stillness in havoc and unruly words flung at each other from arm’s length. I may not see the whole, I may miss the parts that have been veiled. I may visit the land and never see myself in it. But here is a chance. A decisive moment of power, a fate fulfilled, a destiny manifested. These burdened souls, these heavy hearted men of faith will aid my unsure steps towards the place, the time. Towards the other who will listen, who has waited, who has been just as unsure as we all in our unending walks.

This place is bigger than me. Bigger than my heart. Bigger than my soul. This place fills me, finds me, wants me, captures me, releases me. This place is where death equals life, where they will throw dust in my face, where they will embrace all my wounded memories. This place is where I will attempt to unload my burden, come clean about all my lies, find a soul, used a little, scarred in places, but hopeful and beautifully shining in the spring sun. From there on this place will have the best part of me. From there on home will mean something different every time I hear it ring. This journey you should take with me. This place entraps even the most hard of hearts. This place has entrapped me already. Entrapped me before I ever set foot on its dusty streets.   

Winter Has Left Unnoticed

It seems that you are inconsolable. The lights flickering at the almost unnoticed edges of contentment leave you sadder than you were before. Everywhere you turn, the traces of things once known come hurling at you. At break neck speed. The knowledge to evade has left, you have become the bull’s eye. Sadness is your kindest companion, a true ally in every hardship, a sincere friend in this wholly insincere world. Consoling words fall right off, court jesters face sure beheading upon this task presented: to chase the sadness from you heart. It seems comfortable, habituated and you seem at peace, content with the circumstance. Must you brave this cold night all alone? Must you wander these desperate streets without the warm words to balm your neck like a woolen scarf? You bow your head in agreement: that you must and you must alone and you must in gloom.
 

Some words can only surface from the dark. On a clear day, with the sun brightly shining, some thoughts will not form. The pool of sorrow creates them and catapults them into daylight when it has been long dark outside. The breeding ground for words that change is your inconsolable heart. The heart that has not been hurt, has not been pained, has not been broken. It has only been left alone, it is merely lonely. The lonely heart dips further into the pool of sorrow. Further and further until it is drowned then saved by a rope made up of truths that leak darkness. The page captures the drops, here a gasping wound, there a broken wing, all becoming inconsolable, with time passing ever more reluctant to dry on sun drenched beds amidst hearty, tall grass. Protect them I must, protect your broken parts I must. So I run in search of you to cover your shivering spirit with my warm, loving, unending tearful collection of words.

 

Will we ever see winter turn into spring together? Spend a day watching the trees grow their magnificent leaves? Muster all their strength to bring to life their most vulnerable parts. Then you mourn for winter has left unnoticed.  The frost, the snow, the ice have vanished without a teardrop. The trees are busy living, the sun is busy shining stronger, the lovely snowflakes have parted and may never return. Winter has accepted the constant abuse, the bitter reception when it arrives and the loud, joyful, shameless celebration when it leaves. Disdain at its every effort to decorate our lands. Winter’s soul is not broken, never drowns in the sadness but may one day decide to not come again. Visiting these lands where contempt reigns pushes winter further into the pool of sorrow. Winter, just like you, is inconsolable. Gently sweeps through, enters slowly and leaves abruptly, these people sing and dance too loud when it dies. Who will revive winter next time? You wonder as you stand alone somewhere near where winter has last been.

In all your sadness I see an unending beauty, an unthreatening willingness to document these emotions. Your love for the words that emerge one by one brings tenderness that can only live with an understanding for the sometimes dark birthplace. Please never forget to use these words wisely, make them lure you closer, make them give you freedom to explain the unending sorrow, the rightful sadness, the tears that uncontrollably flow at the sight of the seasons changing, people hating, love disappearing. Whisper to me that you see where I am even if I stand in darkness, trapped, unable to move except to the beat of your voice. Promise that we would run into the cold aimless, to save those who have never seen the dark, inconsolable truth that guides you and me. If we are two lonely words, I want my dark to cover yours.

Regrettably Drifting

Whether it’s trough a storm of emotions, memories that haunt, instances that have been impossible to remove from the heart, through words leaving scars, tangled in arms that have healed, there is a slow and steady drift. Towards and away, ebb and flow, constant tug of war, unending circular motion through hurt and pain. Then you feel the pull, from left to right, to a monotonous beat, to melodious variations in different times and different places. Somewhere in this aimless drift there has got to be direction. To that notion you rest your weight on the stranger next to you. Darkness falls silently.

It began with an almost unnoticeable current: just a breeze that gently nudged the unsuspecting sailboat. Frail as it went out to sea, unable to keep its bearing, succumbing to the masterful pull of the moon. On that boat lay a hopeful life. Hopeful and unwise, facetious and careless in attending to the forceful wind. The ever drifting machinery, the means of success or a despicable end. As for a hunted prey, the fear is overtaken by rational and clear thought. To survive.

 

Amidst the calmness the seas may roar. The paths may be closed by ravenous vines hoping to see a soul fall. Feed no other need but the need of hunger, simple, complacent hunger. The spirit will follow. Each choice is then veered either this or that way. Beyond the control of any wind in sail.  Beyond that realm of possibility lies happenstance. Serene and serious, the way we have set sail to is north, by chance. Stumbled upon the guidance of those wiser before us, but ultimately unable to keep to the rhythm of their words. The dance catches the tender hearts, the beats throb through the skin and bones, the cage that protects the muscle and sinew. Then like a feather leaving on a journey with the winds, the dancers fall to the luscious rhythm of each promise unkept. The direction changes, the paths unwind, the good moon stays unmoved, the winds take the sails and head them a new way. Drifting, I wait.  

The night clears the day before of the harmful thoughts. Night pulls its veil over every error, every unkind word. Softens the ground on which the unforgiven will fall. Night quiets the cacophony of daylight deliverance. Merciful are the forces of nature, allow the memories to take place, to roam the heart and soul, to conjure images long gone, revive conversations long forgotten. For a moment the drifting halts. In that moment I find you, unchanged, still from the will that suspends the reach of time or space. We lock hands, pull each other closer. Just as I feel you our time is gone. The night is merciful or patient no longer. I drift further, let go of the old, seek new instead. Peace comes in many forms, some painful, some sacrificial, some unnoticed.

The slow and steady drift enters unseen. Shifting direction then holding still. Through gasping holes of sorrow. Through overflowing love. Through brittle and dry land. Through mazelike marshlands. Through the dying sun and the killing moon. Through each life lived unpained. Through forgiveness. Through grace. Through the unending beauty in letting go. Drifting slowly, drifting, fortunately. 

No Tears Will Flow

It is easy to be drawn to your world. The scope of despair does not repel. There is a sea of darkness that poses mystery and it attracts. Brokenness, like a virtue, like a lesson taught by the many taunting instances of history leaves the soul bare, leaves the outside yearning to be let in. You are somber, accepting the course of fate that should befall. It is the desire of one, it is the pleasure of one. This world protects its own and offers merely a glimpse for those who wish to gain an understanding. You appear true, truer than anything else these eyes have seen. The perfect gimmick or just fooled by the haze of your secretive ways. Come offer these thoughts, unveil your plans, calm the storms with your centuries old wisdom. It is easy to be drawn to your world, there is truth in the roots, there is hope hidden somewhere in the back alleys of memories centered around a day when life as you knew it changed.

The sadness is so deep that no tears will flow. It is earthed in the most sacred burrow of your soul. It asks nobody for forgiveness, it haunts no idea in pursuit of change. Your soul, like a giant, takes the sadness to harness grace and humility. With each battle lost you know that you must learn. They are your people and their sadness, your own. You have seen them resilient and you have seen them crack under the burden. You have never seen them betray the only idea they live to protect. The sadness comes from generations being denied the freedom to falter. It deepens with every boy becoming a man, with every will overturned, with every silent plea never reaching the makeshift wall to bounce off of. Herein lies the inattackable concept: truth brings about infinite sadness.

The cycle of life must continue. Out of boredom or a heightened sense of duty, the task is carried on, the sadness passed from mother to son, the darkness kept out of sight of the rotating Sun. There is consensus that this deed must be done. It is a hereditary tendency, encoded in the genes of everyone from your world. Despair. Despair at the state of the now, at the thought of the past, at the bleak possibilities the future holds. It seemed some of those thoughts were more highly regarded than others. There is fault in your unending sadness, there is danger in your world of despair, there is caution that begs for attention over your all encompassing darkness. Still, your world attracts for it lights the way to further self search. It is a source for truth.

You are not moved. Not even by the bustling spring landscape? If my soul was better, purer, whiter, I would follow. Spring captures me. Sends me years ahead in the future, fills me with hope. Life, once again, is showing its power. Despair now has no room in my heart. Darkness banished, brokenness forgotten. Yet, not at all. With every petal appearing there is an urgency to turn towards the founding notions of your world. Beauty seen as a hindrance only to be used as an aid in painting the infinite power of one. You have made a deal. A union so sacred that complete surrender sends you standing strong at the edge of anguish. I long to follow. To believe as well as you. To long for the sadness as much as you have made it your soul’s desire. To want the dark, inexplicable despair. To know a sadness so deep that no tears will flow.

My Name: The Veil of Ignorance

The things happened have been curious, almost heavenly in their detail. There was an idea, a longing, there came substance and through heavy breaths the concept was born. The melodious flow of life, the featherweight injustices that befall instantly. Helplessness is the first lesson to learn. In broad daylight the thieves came and robbed you of your very first day. The day that all other days are measured to.

There is power in your graceful slowness. How spring leans in, only just mocking, only just snickering at our efforts to change, to undress, to clench the faint sunshine. Time bound you to its side and you are aware of nothing. No need to hide, to ever remember these days, they are swallowed whole by the intangible black matter. You may never know the importance or the burden of the beginning, of every single beginning. In thick darkness came the notion that formed the substance which lead to namesake. Before you know there will be a life chained to you, forever you will be bound by the mistakes of those before you, the thoughts of those after you. There is no path you can choose that will save you from the struggles. This here is how it starts.

You will soon learn how futile your voice is. Screaming down the things hateful to you, and nobody to suggest change. The reaction will be nothing you had ever anticipated. Claims will fly high overhead that you would have wanted this or that. Your voice will go silent, your cries will be muffled, your every effort to move towards that which you want will be halted by a forceful giant. You will lie there motionless. You will not matter until you manage to state your claim: you have been ignorant of these ways. Visibility on a clear night will be compromised and with the popping of the open fire each will retire in sweet belief that you have what you want, you got exactly what you had wanted, you could never possibly want anything else. But you do. And you will. Until you are beaten down to accept that what you see is only ever what you can get.

Stay confined to the parameters you have been given and there will be no progress. You must flee the comfortable to know things better, different. You have to see people broken, miserable from the hardships they must endure. And you gloat in your luck of having been born into a luxurious part of the globe. Oh so comfortable. Learn to know no bounds, to see everything, to hear every opinion whether grand or small. You should keep days for when fear takes over, when hatred bubbles, when doubt and conceit creep in and your soul invites them. The rain may move you, but it may leave you completely still. For much of the way you will be alone. You will lie. One day you will see the end to this unsure beginning. The journey rests with you, whether you embark or not. Whether your eyes will be curious or your soul chained.

You will not meet people who know your name, so you must teach them. Kindness may evade or empty uncontrollably on you. You must search, from now until the end, for those who are honest, who are true, who will show you that whatever you learn from now will never be enough. There is only so much time that can be covered up with your veil of ignorance.

holes.

You were always so careful. You tread lightly so as not to break the bits inside you. Things that were misplaced or lost, you spent endless days trying to retrieve. The idea of perfect never left your shoulders. There it sat, dangled its feet, chuckled when doubt neared. The fragile had bubble wrap. The honest had rows of shields. The piercing rays that begged for a peak at your heart’s real state were repelled by the forceful concrete that you so carefully built, block by block. There were no cracks, no crumbling of the foundations. You have been a devoted keeper, a real master to that which has been trusted in your care.

Except these things burst and fall to millions of tiny pieces. On your watch it all becomes undone. This is no fault of your own, the inevitable is hard to evade if at all possible. You were just not prepared and chose to ignore the alarming signs. But there they were, behind the rows of shields, behind every lurking, curious light beam that found its way through the pores of that impermeable concrete. Everyone saw. When it was dark and there was nowhere else to look, we all saw that your heart had holes. Why are you not consoled with the know that we all do? Some hearts have tiny, some have gasping, some have growing, some have shrinking, but they all have unfillable holes. Holes where hurt has been.

 

Be brave. Be courageous and start to dissemble your constant guards. The journey will not be easier with them, it will not be always pleasant without them. You have done well for yourself till now. We have seen the full you, do not be ashamed. No heart is the same as the other, no life has the same purpose as another, no idea born out of want for change is in vain. You should feel so proud of your heart. It is with this imperfect heart that you will win wars, souls, other hearts that will follow. Follow your modest, lovely, stunningly beautiful, miraculous heart. When has hurt not made you stronger? When have your enemies not bowed once they have seen your shining, reluctant, truthful, humble heart? And you have been concealing it. You have been thinking it is to be shut away and now feel naked that your secret is out. We know. We know that your heart has holes too. Look up. Dry your eyes. This is time to learn to see how beautiful your heart is. Look how perfect in its imperfection. Look how alike it is to you. Learn this moment so you can teach others what it feels to finally see the seed inside.

You can never be sure and this anyone will guarantee. Wise men of all walks of life know only this: the heart has its holes, the sun its rays, the sky its wind. Honesty will cripple you, but a life lived without it kills instantly. Others around you are the same. Some try to fool you with words, grandiose statements that bend the ear and ring majestic for days on end. Some others masquerade the outside with stolen ornaments, shiny and facetious. There are roads that lead to nowhere lined with signs that direct. Countless traps wait for your child like, unsure step. There will be ghosts in the dark luring you towards the wondrous light. There will be kind souls shooting at you, wanting to see your demise.

You be strong now. Be sure of the heart you have. Know that it has its holes and that without its holes it would not be a heart at all. Know that love can only wrap itself around your heart through those holes.

Hadestown

The God of War, in his unforgiving tone turned to you and said “it is time”. Swearing under the undeniable oath you claimed that you will carry out the deeds that must be done. Kill the ones who must be gone, maim the ones who must be maimed. There will be no looking back to yesterday, no droopy eyed search for tomorrow’s peace, there will be war. There will be battles fought, there will be advances, there will be unforgiving strategies, no day, no night. You were summoned, called on, finally made to feel important and under no circumstance were you ever going to relinquish the order, the fate, the duty which you were called on to carry out.  Serious men are to do serious business, the God of War has made sure his voice was heard across mountains, oceans and treacherous lands. It is you who carries his voice inside your own.

Sundown balms the weary bones with soft rays, almost unnoticed, almost too easy to miss. Where light never reaches is where your queen lives. She toils. The plates before her crack as she opens her deep brown eyes and slowly lifts them to light your face. Persephone, the ruler of the underworld is here to speak. Unimaginable is her voice to you, melodious and kind, the hardened deity lures you instantly: “go find him who journeys forever”. There is no time for questions, she turns and as with the steam of a boiling bath she disappears behind the voluptuous nymphs who have pulled each and every string of you heart until now. The underworld is a sacred place to visit and you have come back from it with a mission. Only a few have survived, many have perished in the quest to do what they have been summoned to do. Mortals clench the fragments of myths, most of them die whilst doing so. You can be different or you can cease to exist just the same. The gods could not care less. This challenge is yours and yours alone.

None of your biblical gods have been invented yet. Abraham’s not had Ishmael or Isaac yet, Jacob’s not had his twelve children yet. No prophets have roamed the lands, no scrolls have been recorded with dubious facts. No history and no future to tell. The gods, sometimes out of fury, out of contempt, out of hatred for their own flesh and blood have sent you on an errand you could not have refused to undertake. There is war and there is search. There are traps along the way ever diminishing the chance of a successful outcome. In search of the one who journeys, you embark on your war. Through uneducated people and places, farms where they count the passing of days by how much fish they catch, you learn the evils of war. The beauty in time taken to finish that which could also be done in a haste. The wars have worn you out, the skies turned ever darker, the call of Persephone ever louder, yet the travelling king was bound to never return. You slowly understand the years it took Odysseus to find his way back. From then on you command those who take the long way home.

You were not prepared for what was expected of you. No god in history or in the present could ever hold that against you. Fatefully you do again all that has been asked of you, all that you have already failed to do countless times. They could call you Sisyphus but you are no king. You wretched mortal, you creep of a dying kind, you slow and pitiful man who has been broken by war, broken by promises unkept, broken by your life that has been unkind. The gods do not care about the excuses, about your pains, your blisters, fractures, burns, your bruises. May the wrath of the house of Zeus come thundering down on you! May the wrath of the great God of All evade you! Then and only then do you have a chance to fulfil that which was asked of you. The God of War has instructed you to fight. The Queen of the Underworld has commanded you to search. The King of Epic Journeys have stood silent as you found your own deplorable end. None of them know that you have secretly travelled a great deal to bring them peace. You cried along the way, but in the end you have brought them what they had asked from you. You have brought them your soul. Intact and honest, you are now willing to give them your soul. Hades, take my soul! I long to join the nymphs and sinners in the underworld. I long to roll the boulder up the hill. I long to journey endlessly in this world that you have made for me. I long to live in the world you have made for me.

kind to myself, kind to others

Accepting the harrowing colours,
the reality that tips on its very own axis.
Aching for the void that can never be filled,
longing to see through the abysmal, the disgraced.

Bound by the infinite ropes of regret,

held tightly by servitude, a twisted sense of duty.
Fighting to loosen the grip to catch solid ground.
To feel peace.

Falling on unkindly words.

Hoping there is reason in hurt.
Running aimless towards a common goal,
Hiding senseless from the unending cold.

These souls torture me, these souls burn.

Some words help me, some words kill.
The past haunts me, the future stays behind.
You bend me, I am still, blind.

Creation is a chore, uninspired these lives remain.

Chimes rang through the river.
I was unable to speak or follow.
You took what was left.

Oftentimes kindness is mistaken for weakness,

Braveness for meekness, loveliness for sincerity.
Then kindness leaves me, only to pair with you.

Now it’s empty, broken like a fool.

Whispered in a Song

The days that make me question are too numerous. Too numerous and too cruel, impeding every moment that poses otherwise. Then the constant spinning makes me doubt even the most sturdy, sane and straight forward thing in my life. Each victory shoots me down the path of confidence. Each disappointment sinks me into regret. Regret gnaws away at my soul and I am unable to banish it. Such a firm grip it has on all things that are present, reaching back in time, exchanging places, people, mixing and matching that which was, with which is. Suddenly I am unable to distinguish between where I should be and where I am. Faintly, I see where I should be, is not where I am.

Then I turn to you. My sole guide in this hazy journey that I have been forced to take. Forced or asked to. My place is not where I think it should be. My place is right where it is. How you pull at my soul, how tight you pull the ropes in opposite directions. It is with excruciating pain that I start each day and it is with no better sentiment that I end it. And in between the start and the end, without fail, I shift left to right and right to left, trying to see where I should be. On a good day I see my perfect place. On an even better day, I see where I am going. On a bad day I only see where I want to be but can never get to. Like a child I beg for your help. Lost, exhausted, frightened, I look for you to show me that indeed I am right where I should be.

The peace you see on the outside reflects little on the inside. There are moments that shine, and I shine along with them. There are people who make sense and my life makes sense with them. There are days that outlive all other days and with them I create a legacy. But every day I spend in battle. You see little evidence of the fight, there are no bruises, there are no casualties, there is no blood, there are no children and women running for cover with tears streaming down their faces. Just because I have no tears does not mean I don’t cry. I cry for the person I never became. For the things I never achieved. For the mistakes I am about to make. For the people I didn’t fight for. For the love I never let go.

On glorious sunny days, just a whisper sets me straight. In my heart I know that I am right where I should be. But the heart is not confident, it is the frailest part of us all. The night descends with questions that the morning tries to erase but fails with each attempt. I have come to accept that what I know now, I will doubt once I wake. I am alone at night and I wait for the qualms with the sun, with no one by my side. Then I remind my heart that we must gear for battle. That being here can make me grow. That from here I know where to go. I might seem lost to you, I seem lost to me at times, but I am hardened by the journey, wiser by the time past, more accepting of the fate that should befall. I know I am right where I should be. Do you?

A Good Heart

Dragging my feet through the winding alleyways of life, sometimes in a careless skip, some other times in dreary disbelief, heavy from the burden, light from the simplest notes that dance around me when the gentle snow is falling silently on the ground before me, I take an unexpected stop. Take count of things that have been and those that I still await. With fear and excitement I halt to wait for time to rush forward. So I can keep track. Standing still to gather courage for the road that lies ahead, to muster strength to move forward, to see, appreciate all that is around. No other agenda, just the majestic beauty in each carefully orchestrated step. Those steps might be pre-meditated, might be random, might be my own choice, might be a part of some greater plan. I might have faith along the way, I might spend my days aimless.

In the stillness I know that I have your good heart. Good, strong heart. I learn from it, learn how to make my own heart compassionate, forgiving. I have to be ready, prepare for those who I’m yet to meet. You teach me each day. In wondrous amazement I listen to hear what your heart says. Mostly it stays silent. In the silence I search for my own beat, steady but young and frivolous. Your heart knows how to love, how to forgive. My heart only knows how to cheat the feelings that might be harmful. Taking chances seldom, adhering to a distance that assures safety. A full heart that wishes no pain. Kindly you take my hand, each passing day you show me a little more, show me how to guard my heart without shutting away its beautiful tenderness. I cry most nights. I open the light to my heart to you, a liberating deed. I fear that it’ll break, my heart’s not as good as yours. You move without a word, console me, my weeping eyes, my saddened soul, promise to make my heart as good as yours. On dark, deep winter nights, when the ice plates form on the backs of rocky rivers, when the snowflakes lock to make a soft carpet, I let myself believe, fall into the silence of the deep night in perfect belief that my heart can be as good as yours.  

I plan in unity, I plan in solitude. Whichever way the road bends, my road, the one that brings me to a long, slow stop, I know that there is time to prepare my heart. That for however long you are there to help teach me to see confidence as virtue, honesty as bravery, humility as strength, I will walk with a straight back. I may not have known how to see clear if it wasn’t for you. Wherever the road may lead, with whomever I am supposed to walk my path, I know that I need a good heart. In all decisive measures the heart is pivotal. I may lose you soon, I may lose you only with the end of a lifetime, your heart may turn hard and mine ugly. We might lose each other and we might lose our good hearts, but we lose each day, just as we gain each passing minute more of the wholeness, more of the courage to march on. March as the load gets heavier, march as the love grows fainter, march as forgiveness becomes impossible. Hardened by the years and broken by the bitterness, the good heart will need our pristine memories to come to a living beat.  

I remember when fear left me unable to move. I remember how you came to hold me then. I remember how I felt the unstoppable beat of your good heart.  I knew then I wanted my heart to have no other beat.   

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.