Ten years to the day. Now I scribble on my arm. I search words that express emptiness. Apprehension. I await a trip that I don’t want to take. I want to fly further. Longer. I want to be near you. But just my heart, not my head. You leave me alone and I near tears. Sadness comes to overshadow and I hide.
I fear for me. I fear for you. Mostly we’ll be fine. Reluctantly I keep telling myself that we will love again, just not each other. So goodbye, you’ve taken plenty of my time. As sad as my heart is, it is time for it to be free. It needs to love again, but not you. No longer you. It is time for me to heal, without you. So I fly. Not to you, but I fly. Away from where I am today.
And you stay. Ten years to the day, you stay. Wait for none, cry for none, find love with another because you and I have lost our chance to love one another.
We will love again but just not each other.
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Monday, September 15, 2008
He Wished For Simpler Times
The voice remained unrecognised. So close to my heart but somehow foreign in a setting that seemed unfamiliar at first. But how fitting! To sing the most personal song with the person who represents the most personal emotions. Whose music tore them apart or drove them closer. Just a final splinter, breaking the skin of her hand, lodging deep into the flesh, causing havoc and pain. Just a final push and now he’s won. He won the battle, he won the fight. He’s done.
Bitter, free, peaceful and lonely. There’s anger in tranquillity and there’s motion in stillness. And I’m swept away by the desire. The grace that so unexpectedly descends. That almost lurks, awaits the right moment, then traps the soul with one carefully aimed arrow. I am caught and will forever be held captive by those notes. By these words. By this voice, by this man, by this gentle loneliness. The moment will surely pass, the sudden infatuation will subside, but the deeper yearning will stay. Its memory will forever be held dear and kept alive out of fear or envy. I gladly succumb for I know no sweeter place than the soothing heaven of his words. Carry me far from where I am. Show me a place where I belong. Your pain will find home and your fragile optimism will find shelter. The rain may soak the shoulders of your cloak, but I will see to it that your love will be returned anew.
The times they are simple no more. Yet they could be. If you knew me. Knew me now. If I could see you. See you now. I waste most of my brand new days. I waste them thinking there was a way for you to know. But I stay lonely and alone, hanging onto the threads that you so carefully orchestrate to hang between the ones who desire and you, who desires none at all. But life could not be sweeter even if it’s bitter sweet. Even if only pain knows the sweetest remedy. I would not wish to change anything, to change anyone for you. You are not who you sing to be. Nor did you ever say you were.
If times become simple again, I might have you. If I wait it out, I might know you. But till then, I will listen and learn. In awe, in disbelief, in love, in bitter loneliness. In hope, in fear, in envy.
Bitter, free, peaceful and lonely. There’s anger in tranquillity and there’s motion in stillness. And I’m swept away by the desire. The grace that so unexpectedly descends. That almost lurks, awaits the right moment, then traps the soul with one carefully aimed arrow. I am caught and will forever be held captive by those notes. By these words. By this voice, by this man, by this gentle loneliness. The moment will surely pass, the sudden infatuation will subside, but the deeper yearning will stay. Its memory will forever be held dear and kept alive out of fear or envy. I gladly succumb for I know no sweeter place than the soothing heaven of his words. Carry me far from where I am. Show me a place where I belong. Your pain will find home and your fragile optimism will find shelter. The rain may soak the shoulders of your cloak, but I will see to it that your love will be returned anew.
The times they are simple no more. Yet they could be. If you knew me. Knew me now. If I could see you. See you now. I waste most of my brand new days. I waste them thinking there was a way for you to know. But I stay lonely and alone, hanging onto the threads that you so carefully orchestrate to hang between the ones who desire and you, who desires none at all. But life could not be sweeter even if it’s bitter sweet. Even if only pain knows the sweetest remedy. I would not wish to change anything, to change anyone for you. You are not who you sing to be. Nor did you ever say you were.
If times become simple again, I might have you. If I wait it out, I might know you. But till then, I will listen and learn. In awe, in disbelief, in love, in bitter loneliness. In hope, in fear, in envy.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
90 days passed and 9 more to go
If the changes that surround us become obstacles in the way we live our lives, then our lives need adapting so that the changes are met with more ferocity and less hostility. Power to the powerless and courage to those who fight change like a deadly enemy. Some need to be bold, some need to give up, some need to find solace in remorse. Because change will not disappear, only follow time on the looping path of life. Lies. Sacred cycles that never break the rhythm that nature set as a course to forever follow a pattern. Autumn’s set foot. Mornings are breezy, nights are cooled by the nonchalant Moon’s stare. The days are stuffed with the last powers of the sun’s rays. Just enough to boil the asphalt, melt the tarmac that holds the tram tracks, cause havoc on the sidewalks and burn the green leaves of innocent plants. Just enough to breathe life into those who need the warmth and just enough to destruct everything that wishes to hide from the cruelty of the rising Celsius. Fight as long as you have the will to keep fighting.
My voice went silent. I lost it or cared not to make it heard for reasons that are mine. I stayed enchanted by the monumental shifts that life produced. Jumping phases, turning corners that held secrets and new ventures that I could hardly walk alone. But alone I must stay and keep enduring, living, loving and making plans just the way I want. There is stillness and silence in the hurricane that has swept across my life. Misplaced and replaced, memories deleted and made, new habits found, old ones forgotten and died. In the stillness there’s light. In the light there is hope. In hope there is a chance to view the changes in my life as the most gracious gifts that fate could ever bestow upon me. It’s just one of those days.
I look to the future for answers. They hide. I’m shy. With a life that’s reminiscent of progress and maturity, with a soul that’s tangled in words someone’s said out loud, so recklessly. I own a lot, but not time. Time could give me the greatest joy, but before I could have that to myself, I need to be bold, need to jump in the cold water, need to grow older with a boy like you. The answers might not even exist if the questions don’t. This makes me restless and what calms me only is the notion that in just a few days I will hear the sounds of heartache. The sombre voice of a lonely a man. The symphony of strings that tell tales of healing the wounds that life deepens, wrinkles that worry causes, memories that time erases. Of this, I can never get enough. Of his sweet voice I can never get enough. Of my new life I can never get enough. Of the hopeful days gleaming ahead I can never get enough. Of love I can never get enough. Of you, I can never get enough. Still I know, that today is just one of those days, just like any of those days that will pass if I crawl underneath my blanket.
My voice went silent. I lost it or cared not to make it heard for reasons that are mine. I stayed enchanted by the monumental shifts that life produced. Jumping phases, turning corners that held secrets and new ventures that I could hardly walk alone. But alone I must stay and keep enduring, living, loving and making plans just the way I want. There is stillness and silence in the hurricane that has swept across my life. Misplaced and replaced, memories deleted and made, new habits found, old ones forgotten and died. In the stillness there’s light. In the light there is hope. In hope there is a chance to view the changes in my life as the most gracious gifts that fate could ever bestow upon me. It’s just one of those days.
I look to the future for answers. They hide. I’m shy. With a life that’s reminiscent of progress and maturity, with a soul that’s tangled in words someone’s said out loud, so recklessly. I own a lot, but not time. Time could give me the greatest joy, but before I could have that to myself, I need to be bold, need to jump in the cold water, need to grow older with a boy like you. The answers might not even exist if the questions don’t. This makes me restless and what calms me only is the notion that in just a few days I will hear the sounds of heartache. The sombre voice of a lonely a man. The symphony of strings that tell tales of healing the wounds that life deepens, wrinkles that worry causes, memories that time erases. Of this, I can never get enough. Of his sweet voice I can never get enough. Of my new life I can never get enough. Of the hopeful days gleaming ahead I can never get enough. Of love I can never get enough. Of you, I can never get enough. Still I know, that today is just one of those days, just like any of those days that will pass if I crawl underneath my blanket.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
The trees on my street.
My walk home is the sweetest journey for the imagination and the tired soul after a demanding and disrespectful day. My street starts where a square ends. A square buzzing with life when the weather allows. Chairs and tables, laughter, friends uniting and lovers hiding in non existent corners of a round urban formation.
This part of the historic Budapest is teeming with names that leave me bowed each time I read. Great many writers, thinkers, inventors. Their names made immortal by attaching a straight piece of this earth to them. Starting with my street:
Krúdy, writer of tales, of endless journeys of a young man in a fantastical universe. This universe being nothing less than his and his writer’s reality.
Mikszáth, standing with his huge belly and respectful moustache, pipe in hand in the middle of the square. He wrote of emotions that hold true for all eternity. He wrote what he saw to be true, no love to cover the evils of man, but with all the love in the world.
Babits, lived in a house on the square. He wrote and was the master of the tangled web of thoughts humans toil forever with. He wrote of temptation and redemption. He warned man to forgive and sewed his words carefully around the fragile idea of the individual possessing all power but emotions taking the better of him ever single time.
Irinyi, inventor of matches, shared this part of the town with these masters of the pen. He brought warmth and light to the endless dark days of winters without blue skies. Those days burned.
Each day I am reminded that the soles of remarkable men of talent decorated the cobbles that I tread lightly on. That whatever is in the present starts somewhere very far back in the past. I am not the first to see the trees of my street. I am not the first to enjoy the quiet bells of the church on my street. The bricks of my room whisper of a former owner, a high ranking priest, a cardinal or bishop who murmured Hail Marys till the morning hours. Or another who spoke of forgiveness but could never forget. Preachers who cloaked in burgundy velvet and hurried down the stairs I walk day in day out to celebrate Mass to those who chose the word of God instead of the word of emperors, the monarchy or politics.
The streets wind and withstand the test of time. They learnt to never shriek when rain taps their backs on a cool autumn night. Living with pride each day that someone great, someone good, someone in love, a child with hope, a lonely soul, a two that just forged, might be walking their backs. They don’t mind the hooves of horses, the tires of cars, the steel of tanks, the plastic of shoes, the bare feet in the summer. They want to lead you to wherever you are aiming to go. In some happy instances they want to be the destination and help you find home on the buildings they boast. There are no tricks up their sleeves.
Today was a joyously hopeful and desperately hopeless Sunday. The two always come hand in hand in my life. A moment of light and then a moment of grey. Shifting and turning until they even out or just argue the whole day. I have little control and have learnt to embrace both emotions with all of me. On days like today, my walk home means more than on hectic days filled with work and worries of another world. On days like today I have time to pay attention to the details of my lovely street. I nod to the square, marvel at the names that cover plaques on almost every single building. The houses run from 1 to 19 on my side. That’s ten. Today my street had a big day. Today my street got some new trees. The square got some lovely fresh flowers that want to grow roots at the feet of Mikszáth. The street was proud and hopeful, vowing to be a good keeper of the new creatures it must nurture. The trees will be happy on my street. They will learn who lived here before them. They will realise that their ancestors were used for Irinyi’s matches, for Babits’ somber poems and they will lift their new leaves towards the church and its bells that ring far and wide to remind all to repent. And that they will. They will repent and forgive, love and breathe oxygen for me and my cohabitants of this lovely street to LIVE.
This is for the new trees on my street. Right now, amidst the doubt and the grey, even breathing feels all right.
This part of the historic Budapest is teeming with names that leave me bowed each time I read. Great many writers, thinkers, inventors. Their names made immortal by attaching a straight piece of this earth to them. Starting with my street:
Krúdy, writer of tales, of endless journeys of a young man in a fantastical universe. This universe being nothing less than his and his writer’s reality.
Mikszáth, standing with his huge belly and respectful moustache, pipe in hand in the middle of the square. He wrote of emotions that hold true for all eternity. He wrote what he saw to be true, no love to cover the evils of man, but with all the love in the world.
Babits, lived in a house on the square. He wrote and was the master of the tangled web of thoughts humans toil forever with. He wrote of temptation and redemption. He warned man to forgive and sewed his words carefully around the fragile idea of the individual possessing all power but emotions taking the better of him ever single time.
Irinyi, inventor of matches, shared this part of the town with these masters of the pen. He brought warmth and light to the endless dark days of winters without blue skies. Those days burned.
Each day I am reminded that the soles of remarkable men of talent decorated the cobbles that I tread lightly on. That whatever is in the present starts somewhere very far back in the past. I am not the first to see the trees of my street. I am not the first to enjoy the quiet bells of the church on my street. The bricks of my room whisper of a former owner, a high ranking priest, a cardinal or bishop who murmured Hail Marys till the morning hours. Or another who spoke of forgiveness but could never forget. Preachers who cloaked in burgundy velvet and hurried down the stairs I walk day in day out to celebrate Mass to those who chose the word of God instead of the word of emperors, the monarchy or politics.
The streets wind and withstand the test of time. They learnt to never shriek when rain taps their backs on a cool autumn night. Living with pride each day that someone great, someone good, someone in love, a child with hope, a lonely soul, a two that just forged, might be walking their backs. They don’t mind the hooves of horses, the tires of cars, the steel of tanks, the plastic of shoes, the bare feet in the summer. They want to lead you to wherever you are aiming to go. In some happy instances they want to be the destination and help you find home on the buildings they boast. There are no tricks up their sleeves.
Today was a joyously hopeful and desperately hopeless Sunday. The two always come hand in hand in my life. A moment of light and then a moment of grey. Shifting and turning until they even out or just argue the whole day. I have little control and have learnt to embrace both emotions with all of me. On days like today, my walk home means more than on hectic days filled with work and worries of another world. On days like today I have time to pay attention to the details of my lovely street. I nod to the square, marvel at the names that cover plaques on almost every single building. The houses run from 1 to 19 on my side. That’s ten. Today my street had a big day. Today my street got some new trees. The square got some lovely fresh flowers that want to grow roots at the feet of Mikszáth. The street was proud and hopeful, vowing to be a good keeper of the new creatures it must nurture. The trees will be happy on my street. They will learn who lived here before them. They will realise that their ancestors were used for Irinyi’s matches, for Babits’ somber poems and they will lift their new leaves towards the church and its bells that ring far and wide to remind all to repent. And that they will. They will repent and forgive, love and breathe oxygen for me and my cohabitants of this lovely street to LIVE.
This is for the new trees on my street. Right now, amidst the doubt and the grey, even breathing feels all right.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
My salvation lies in your love.
There’s lightness to forgiveness. An airlyness that sends the soul carelessly floating at the exact moment the words I forgive you plunge from the mouth. These unimpressive collection of letters, anchors that kept the soul bound to the abyss for an eternity, now all of a sudden are freed and with it, the soul roams.
This is how I feel. But an incredible weight still holds me down.
That’s your face, your ways.
There’s a real threat I won’t survive this. I scare myself. I wish for days gone past. I drink to your health and know, so truly know, that all that we have become would never be enough for our two. It would be something doomed to break, like a dry twig, snap. I’m firmly rooted, you’re boundless. I’m greyscale, you’re Technicolor. There’s an ocean of ideas between us and none concern the present. I’m hanging between my greatest fears and dearest hopes.
You’re free, I’m still locked in your memory.
I stay, you leave.
But know that for however long it may take,
my salvation lies in your love that's past and in your love that's present.
This is how I feel. But an incredible weight still holds me down.
That’s your face, your ways.
There’s a real threat I won’t survive this. I scare myself. I wish for days gone past. I drink to your health and know, so truly know, that all that we have become would never be enough for our two. It would be something doomed to break, like a dry twig, snap. I’m firmly rooted, you’re boundless. I’m greyscale, you’re Technicolor. There’s an ocean of ideas between us and none concern the present. I’m hanging between my greatest fears and dearest hopes.
You’re free, I’m still locked in your memory.
I stay, you leave.
But know that for however long it may take,
my salvation lies in your love that's past and in your love that's present.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
waiting for a bearded fella
There are a lot of customs a girl my background and culture must follow in life. The likes of Christmas, Easter, name days spring to mind. But I’ve been given freedom when it comes to celebrating my birthday. Well, almost, provided it’s with family. The where is my choice. The how is my choice. So I’ve come up with a plan a few years back, almost six as I recall, to make a point of writing something for my friends who are close and who are not so much, to take with them on this day that marks my entrance into the world. Mine and many others’, but allow me to take this moment to fulfil every narcissistic desire in my body and gracefully succumb. And please, never think for a moment that I try to fan a wholly unfounded notion of accumulated wisdom over 26 years because even suggesting that would be silly. I am no preacher or knower of truth. I am no giver or selfless saint. I am no example to follow. I just have words. I cleverly borrow words to fit the occasion.
I won’t begin a tale now, I’ve no time or ideas, but I will try to make sense in these coming lines as best I can. What I know about myself and the world would come as no surprise to any of you my learned friends. The realities that I have discovered over the years pale in comparison to the ones I’m yet to find out. You’ve seen them I’m sure. You’ve lived through them I know. But when be hopeful, if not now? When have the courage, if not now? When have the wisdom and the bravery to admit to the broken parts, if not now?
A lot of things are hazy for me right now. I’m half way into finding out what it’s like to have a piece of this world, to claim as my own. What it’s like to work hard for something concrete. To use my experiences not to get fooled by bureaucracy. And it’s hard. Has been hard and will continue to be hard. But I meet these every day challenges with enthusiasm and excitement. I’m slowly also finding out how different I am now to how I was when the people who brought out the best in me were around. But this never scares me, just cautions for a wiser choice next time. I know what it’s like to miss time. I’ve personified time so many occasions in writings that now I think it’s just a good-turned-evil friend of mine from a while back. Someone I used to know well.
But before I trip and fall into the pitfalls of life’s winding and sometimes dark road, I know what I still want. These things drive me to do better and try harder. To think about change, even if implementing them would be somewhat difficult. I know that there are things I can never have and feelings that I will never know. There are places I will visit and there are people I’m yet to meet. I will make friends and I will lose some in the years to come. I will build and destruct with ease. I will forever wish for more love… but time’s tricky with that.
Before I turn a year older, I will just sit here and wait for a bearded fella. He with a heartache and a song to turn even the most desperate of days into a flood of joyful tears. I know that him I will love and I already love the way he gently loves.
I won’t begin a tale now, I’ve no time or ideas, but I will try to make sense in these coming lines as best I can. What I know about myself and the world would come as no surprise to any of you my learned friends. The realities that I have discovered over the years pale in comparison to the ones I’m yet to find out. You’ve seen them I’m sure. You’ve lived through them I know. But when be hopeful, if not now? When have the courage, if not now? When have the wisdom and the bravery to admit to the broken parts, if not now?
A lot of things are hazy for me right now. I’m half way into finding out what it’s like to have a piece of this world, to claim as my own. What it’s like to work hard for something concrete. To use my experiences not to get fooled by bureaucracy. And it’s hard. Has been hard and will continue to be hard. But I meet these every day challenges with enthusiasm and excitement. I’m slowly also finding out how different I am now to how I was when the people who brought out the best in me were around. But this never scares me, just cautions for a wiser choice next time. I know what it’s like to miss time. I’ve personified time so many occasions in writings that now I think it’s just a good-turned-evil friend of mine from a while back. Someone I used to know well.
But before I trip and fall into the pitfalls of life’s winding and sometimes dark road, I know what I still want. These things drive me to do better and try harder. To think about change, even if implementing them would be somewhat difficult. I know that there are things I can never have and feelings that I will never know. There are places I will visit and there are people I’m yet to meet. I will make friends and I will lose some in the years to come. I will build and destruct with ease. I will forever wish for more love… but time’s tricky with that.
Before I turn a year older, I will just sit here and wait for a bearded fella. He with a heartache and a song to turn even the most desperate of days into a flood of joyful tears. I know that him I will love and I already love the way he gently loves.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Another note.
Far from the blinding lights of happiness comes a clear cry that speaks volumes on a gloomy night, a clearly dark night, on the desperateness of a failed attempt, on a futile effort to gratify the soul with hollow regret. There is time to hide for everyone who feels weak in the knees. Focus the mind on the kind spring awakening and reassure the spirit of a boundless journey through the haphazard maze of time’s fortress. Somehow we will all fly.My new bag will carry my burden of regret, shame and even indecisiveness. In the meantime I have the chance to delude my susceptible heart into thinking of the imminent change around as the sole cause of an eventual happy ending. Change is not kind. Not to me. Not now. Not yet. Folded arms cannot reach towards the hill of forgiveness. My unwillingness to change much of my situation leaves my senses paralysed and my will helpless, stuck in an innate body and a discommendable mind. Here within lies the challenge. My challenge.
I keep wishing. I let the troubles fall off the tip of my fingers with one hasty shake, escaping the traps of the deep wrinkles of my palms. Let the sun catch them and lift their fragile bodies onto someone new. I know not how to deal with them. To me they are like children with no direction or need for care. The early April breeze keeps my hands clean, blown off it are the simple troubles of a tragic life. A kingdom with no savoury hallucinations, just images of horror that appear kind in the daylight. Smile. Write. Confused words appear and demand to be recorded on paper. The fingers lie disconnected from the mind. Excommunicate.
I need him to love me back. Now. With his sensitive heart and gentle mind. I need to know that we can survive a stormy sea that lies between us. In change I will become more of me. You will have most of me. All most of me.
My gasping soul needs you to give it time to regain its composure and grace before it can leap toward another hopeful wanderer of the night. Hold me close for now since the rain falls, cold brushes against me, dark seduced the light, the hollow shelter frightens me more than it used to comfort. Alone I have no chance to survive, even with the colours that flow from the words I steal from others. My empty cave is damp and sombre, your hand can make it a little less cruel.
I need to keep writing. Writing notes. Not just for now, but until I know I found the one that needs no more writing on the wall. It may be years still or that time may never come. I may need to write countless notes before I can finally write the one that says now I love.
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
a lighter load
I am uneasy. Things happen around me that make me uneasy, frightened, uncomfortable. I realize that most of the time I do exactly the same with my words. I make the reader feel uneasy, uncomfortable. But deeper do the roots of my despair lie. I feel not the fickle uneasiness of a few well chosen, painfully perfect, sharp letters. Words on paper are just wiggles of lines, succumbed to the writer’s every narcissistic effort. Their truth only shows once the writer has realised their freedom. Rarely does this happen and the reader must never end the quest and the questioning. Why. But this is not what sends me screaming into an empty corner. I fail to understand the simple things, like songs that say goodbye, like a bird almost motionless trying to glide. Love. Death. Life. Disapperance and regret, loneliness. The power that only a moment has. There is no other power like it. There is no power but it.
With every bone in my body, I wish that love can somehow be enough. That it can erect bridges between lost parts of the soul and that it can conquer the undiscovered places of the mind. Every night I pray for the unwanted love to find home. For all loves to finally find home. I ignore instances that present the fact in clear light: love is seldom enough. A teardrop cannot capture the vanity of its existence. Whilst waiting for an imperfect love I forget to calculate the time that passes in loneliness. There’s apprehension and tension, there’s eagerness and enthusiasm, but ultimately all with a bitter end for time all along has been passing mercilessly. And if love can never find the empty heart then all that is left is time gnawing away at the soul. Mercilessly.
I don’t know why some people leave and some stay behind. I don’t understand the moment everything shifts. Life into oblivion. Present into past. Love into prayer. Laughter into tears. Sadness into pain.
The only power I have is the power to whisper sincerely please don’t go.
Sharp enough to teach a lesson, soft enough to never make me bleed. But the world is cruel and cruelly it takes that which is most precious to us. Each other…
I’ve not made amends with time. I cannot forgive its nonchalance and mighty power over all. I stay away as much as I can. I remind myself that I am in awe only when I see seasons changing, when I see progression, when I see change. But I grow fearful when I see the past recorded on paper. When I see the wrinkles on my hands. When I see that those who should be here have been called away. Forever. Time has played many tricks on me, still, I murmur in this peaceful night: I can wait.
With every bone in my body, I wish that love can somehow be enough. That it can erect bridges between lost parts of the soul and that it can conquer the undiscovered places of the mind. Every night I pray for the unwanted love to find home. For all loves to finally find home. I ignore instances that present the fact in clear light: love is seldom enough. A teardrop cannot capture the vanity of its existence. Whilst waiting for an imperfect love I forget to calculate the time that passes in loneliness. There’s apprehension and tension, there’s eagerness and enthusiasm, but ultimately all with a bitter end for time all along has been passing mercilessly. And if love can never find the empty heart then all that is left is time gnawing away at the soul. Mercilessly.
I don’t know why some people leave and some stay behind. I don’t understand the moment everything shifts. Life into oblivion. Present into past. Love into prayer. Laughter into tears. Sadness into pain.
The only power I have is the power to whisper sincerely please don’t go.
Sharp enough to teach a lesson, soft enough to never make me bleed. But the world is cruel and cruelly it takes that which is most precious to us. Each other…
I’ve not made amends with time. I cannot forgive its nonchalance and mighty power over all. I stay away as much as I can. I remind myself that I am in awe only when I see seasons changing, when I see progression, when I see change. But I grow fearful when I see the past recorded on paper. When I see the wrinkles on my hands. When I see that those who should be here have been called away. Forever. Time has played many tricks on me, still, I murmur in this peaceful night: I can wait.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
the two that broke
I need you to know, this won’t be broken.
I wouldn’t be writing this if I didn’t think that love was a noble and serious, a worthy being that latches itself susceptibly onto our souls and mars with each day that sees its grip grow fainter. Oblivious to its power but acutely aware of it, no flesh bearing man can survive without the life giving love. But so much more powerful in beauty, the graceful love that descends to build a life and tear it down at the same time brings meaning amidst the chaos, almost every single time.
Mostly just a fragile whisper. The love that I nurture is weak and shy. Even on the sunniest of days it needs my hand to walk tall in this world. Just holding the hand, just shielding the sun’s powerful rays, just boasting with confidence from a keeper so devoted, my love shines. Shines like no other. I am responsible for my love and never do I want to see it hurt. Like a little bird that’s tossed at the wind’s command, my love could not withstand the battering of the harsh outside alone. My job is to keep it safe, hold it sacred until there is someone I can share it with. How perfect spring is to let fly the loves that have been wanting to escape all winter long. Except my love. My love wants to feel the warm haven that I provide a little while longer. And I certainly don’t want to force an angelic being, an innocent deity to be corrupted by the villains the world holds on its back. Planks of wood above the water I walk on so that my love won’t get wet. There are days it fits into my little pocket. Some others it just walks beside me. On Sundays it flies.
The most important thing is to have faith in your love. Whether it’s on loan with a dear another, or whether it’s growing restless in your pocket, you have to believe that it can live on its own. Never shake in your belief that your love will know better. Over the years it will learn and will only come back to you once it’s tried all other options. But you can’t take it for granted, cannot not love it and must never ignore it. A few simple notes will lure it back to you, a melody that is sweet to its ears can hold it captive for a short while. Words that are carefully orchestrated and fan its vanity will chain it down for only a moment. Hurt no other and no other will hurt you. Love your love and it will love you back. But when it breaks, you need to heal it. It has only got you.
My love needs my promise that I will try to bestow it upon a boy who will take good care of it. I have promised, you have my love now. It is new and almost invisible to the naked eye. So small and so vulnerable it needs to hear that you think of no one else but her. That you love no one else but her. That you see no one else but her. Sometimes I think I want my love back, but I am being brave and have sent it to live in you. I fear that you will forget, I fear before I have proof of your negligent ways.
As gentle as a summer breeze this is what you need to whisper to my love: I need you to know, this won’t be broken.
I wouldn’t be writing this if I didn’t think that love was a noble and serious, a worthy being that latches itself susceptibly onto our souls and mars with each day that sees its grip grow fainter. Oblivious to its power but acutely aware of it, no flesh bearing man can survive without the life giving love. But so much more powerful in beauty, the graceful love that descends to build a life and tear it down at the same time brings meaning amidst the chaos, almost every single time.
Mostly just a fragile whisper. The love that I nurture is weak and shy. Even on the sunniest of days it needs my hand to walk tall in this world. Just holding the hand, just shielding the sun’s powerful rays, just boasting with confidence from a keeper so devoted, my love shines. Shines like no other. I am responsible for my love and never do I want to see it hurt. Like a little bird that’s tossed at the wind’s command, my love could not withstand the battering of the harsh outside alone. My job is to keep it safe, hold it sacred until there is someone I can share it with. How perfect spring is to let fly the loves that have been wanting to escape all winter long. Except my love. My love wants to feel the warm haven that I provide a little while longer. And I certainly don’t want to force an angelic being, an innocent deity to be corrupted by the villains the world holds on its back. Planks of wood above the water I walk on so that my love won’t get wet. There are days it fits into my little pocket. Some others it just walks beside me. On Sundays it flies.
The most important thing is to have faith in your love. Whether it’s on loan with a dear another, or whether it’s growing restless in your pocket, you have to believe that it can live on its own. Never shake in your belief that your love will know better. Over the years it will learn and will only come back to you once it’s tried all other options. But you can’t take it for granted, cannot not love it and must never ignore it. A few simple notes will lure it back to you, a melody that is sweet to its ears can hold it captive for a short while. Words that are carefully orchestrated and fan its vanity will chain it down for only a moment. Hurt no other and no other will hurt you. Love your love and it will love you back. But when it breaks, you need to heal it. It has only got you.
My love needs my promise that I will try to bestow it upon a boy who will take good care of it. I have promised, you have my love now. It is new and almost invisible to the naked eye. So small and so vulnerable it needs to hear that you think of no one else but her. That you love no one else but her. That you see no one else but her. Sometimes I think I want my love back, but I am being brave and have sent it to live in you. I fear that you will forget, I fear before I have proof of your negligent ways.
As gentle as a summer breeze this is what you need to whisper to my love: I need you to know, this won’t be broken.
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Almost silent, already still
Looking back, to even just a year ago, a day like today would have come more often and with more imminent force. Now, when the days blend into each other and when there’s little else to hold onto then my own desperate self chants of an optimist’s verse, now I stop and think more. But even adjusting to a life that’s comfortable, bland and boring, rings far from what I had imagined for myself. There are only moments that allow an escape and they are only as kind as the seconds they hold. Too few. Too fast.
I wonder if it is just all that simple. Just as simple as sitting down and starting to write. Is that what a novel’s all about? Just a decision from a story teller to begin telling that story? Any story. His story or hers, theirs. Where do I keep going wrong? There will be days when the flood of emotions overwhelm me and leave me uncomfortable in my own skin. I yell a euphoric chant, slash my skin open and wail as I realise that life vividly is trying to use my talentless and semi blocked channels. There’s something awaking in me. Moving and shaping, asking for help to live. Seldom am I alert enough to realise what is happening. Writing is discipline for me. It is order not chaos. It is choice, not fate. It is painful not carefree. It is extra curricular, not a drug I need to live. It is a chore I must do. I must because if I don’t, I feel my existence a burden for society. There is already too much burden to carry, too heavy a load.
Once my body will be completely still, lifeless. My mind may stay intact and my eyes ready to tell my story. Then I will need every one of you to stand there next to me. Hold me together with love, encourage me with smiles and let go of me when I feel I’ve gone too far. I wonder which one of you will stay and which one of you will turn away. Who will read or dance, sing or talk, make me a lullaby? All my true colours will reflect on all your true intentions.
My life’s not crazy, just lonely. My ambitions are not forgotten, just have not been verbalised. My friends not absent, just distant. My love not gone, just captive by someone else. But at the end of a day like this, I feel like my soul’s been shaken by the kick to my stomach. It hurts and I yell. If you hear you could come help because I’ve found that everything works in your arms.
I wonder if it is just all that simple. Just as simple as sitting down and starting to write. Is that what a novel’s all about? Just a decision from a story teller to begin telling that story? Any story. His story or hers, theirs. Where do I keep going wrong? There will be days when the flood of emotions overwhelm me and leave me uncomfortable in my own skin. I yell a euphoric chant, slash my skin open and wail as I realise that life vividly is trying to use my talentless and semi blocked channels. There’s something awaking in me. Moving and shaping, asking for help to live. Seldom am I alert enough to realise what is happening. Writing is discipline for me. It is order not chaos. It is choice, not fate. It is painful not carefree. It is extra curricular, not a drug I need to live. It is a chore I must do. I must because if I don’t, I feel my existence a burden for society. There is already too much burden to carry, too heavy a load.
Once my body will be completely still, lifeless. My mind may stay intact and my eyes ready to tell my story. Then I will need every one of you to stand there next to me. Hold me together with love, encourage me with smiles and let go of me when I feel I’ve gone too far. I wonder which one of you will stay and which one of you will turn away. Who will read or dance, sing or talk, make me a lullaby? All my true colours will reflect on all your true intentions.
My life’s not crazy, just lonely. My ambitions are not forgotten, just have not been verbalised. My friends not absent, just distant. My love not gone, just captive by someone else. But at the end of a day like this, I feel like my soul’s been shaken by the kick to my stomach. It hurts and I yell. If you hear you could come help because I’ve found that everything works in your arms.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
just a lost wordsmith
I make no effort to decorate my words with elaborate ornaments. I keep them simple and safe. Try to bow to them or make heed for a force that is sometimes beyond me. But there is always relief in the proximity of emotion that raptures the heart on creating, reading or just being. For a moment all stands still. Every nook, every corner of the world, every little breath, every silent step. Greatness then pounds my luckless talent into the ground. No vain attempts will be tolerated when time is so precious and life so short and love so bound by selfish creed. And I try to draw away from the light that tickles my curious whiskers and lures me ever closer to its deadly centre. Warm turns burning hot and cold holds ice its prisoner. Captive.
Pearls roll down the hill. One by one. Fast as winds that blow across fields of wheat. Golden fields of lustrous grain. Gazing eyes fixated on the eternal kingdom of clouds. Could there be a way higher? The rain appears and with a power so mighty dries the soaked land and leaves the drenched shrubs only cracking soil. Walk a bridge a thousand miles and free the mind of deadly greed. The soul whole and hearty, all the marred parts cleared by imagination and love. So fast does guilt run and so slow does forgiveness arrive. When waiting for the pure intention to appear a lifetime tastes what eternity must feel like. No odour or sight, no ruffling sound just two weary hands reaching for a higher ground. Closing in.
Summer may leave and behind comes a palette of magnificent colours, but longing can never replace the abundant love that surrounds us each night. Every whispered word may stand as a testament to the most fragile bond between woman and man. I keep my weight off it and you should think to release it. Never mind what the branches whisper, they only know the sweetness of your eyes and not the hurtful words that you pick so carefully to fire. The peaks melt their snow. Rivers tumble to lakes and plains. Rocks carve the back of the mountain. Torture. And they never complain. How can meeting hearts cause so much pain? The spark never arrives.
What more to say when the hearts love and leave lonely. When the lovely love betrays every secret word. When the world takes no heed of your pain. When the rain starts to fall on the leaves and taps its lovely melody to all who have the ears to hear. Hush now, it’s starting. Listen. Love. Learn.
Pearls roll down the hill. One by one. Fast as winds that blow across fields of wheat. Golden fields of lustrous grain. Gazing eyes fixated on the eternal kingdom of clouds. Could there be a way higher? The rain appears and with a power so mighty dries the soaked land and leaves the drenched shrubs only cracking soil. Walk a bridge a thousand miles and free the mind of deadly greed. The soul whole and hearty, all the marred parts cleared by imagination and love. So fast does guilt run and so slow does forgiveness arrive. When waiting for the pure intention to appear a lifetime tastes what eternity must feel like. No odour or sight, no ruffling sound just two weary hands reaching for a higher ground. Closing in.
Summer may leave and behind comes a palette of magnificent colours, but longing can never replace the abundant love that surrounds us each night. Every whispered word may stand as a testament to the most fragile bond between woman and man. I keep my weight off it and you should think to release it. Never mind what the branches whisper, they only know the sweetness of your eyes and not the hurtful words that you pick so carefully to fire. The peaks melt their snow. Rivers tumble to lakes and plains. Rocks carve the back of the mountain. Torture. And they never complain. How can meeting hearts cause so much pain? The spark never arrives.
What more to say when the hearts love and leave lonely. When the lovely love betrays every secret word. When the world takes no heed of your pain. When the rain starts to fall on the leaves and taps its lovely melody to all who have the ears to hear. Hush now, it’s starting. Listen. Love. Learn.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Resting in the bounty of the Lord
Let his flawless soul travel the distance between truth and lies.
Where eyes no longer show that which was once hidden.
He took so much. Almost all of me.
Take his righteous soul and keep it safe.
Where hands can no longer reach, soothing touch can no longer bring relief.
He took so much. Almost all of me.
Ask him not to measure love from the tears that drip.
Or to bear the secrets that we have entrusted with him.
He took so much. Almost all of me.
Now I see that time will not have mercy on me.
Slashed my heart open, watches it bleed, stealing a part of me.
He took my heart. Almost all of me.
Show him what he’s done.
Dried tears when they fell like rain, kept whispers like breeze, sang with the angels on an empty field.
He took so much. Almost all of me.
My one love, just a fragile ghost, I demand you to haunt me.
Your eyes spoke of tender love, unforgettable gratitude.
You took so much. Almost all of me.
Now I’m hurting. Aching. Bleeding.
And you’re in a hurry. Helping. Giving.
But you left me here. Grieving. Crying.
I want you back. I want you back.
May you rest your head on velvet grass, safely, happily, in the bounty of the Lord.
Where eyes no longer show that which was once hidden.
He took so much. Almost all of me.
Take his righteous soul and keep it safe.
Where hands can no longer reach, soothing touch can no longer bring relief.
He took so much. Almost all of me.
Ask him not to measure love from the tears that drip.
Or to bear the secrets that we have entrusted with him.
He took so much. Almost all of me.
Now I see that time will not have mercy on me.
Slashed my heart open, watches it bleed, stealing a part of me.
He took my heart. Almost all of me.
Show him what he’s done.
Dried tears when they fell like rain, kept whispers like breeze, sang with the angels on an empty field.
He took so much. Almost all of me.
My one love, just a fragile ghost, I demand you to haunt me.
Your eyes spoke of tender love, unforgettable gratitude.
You took so much. Almost all of me.
Now I’m hurting. Aching. Bleeding.
And you’re in a hurry. Helping. Giving.
But you left me here. Grieving. Crying.
I want you back. I want you back.
May you rest your head on velvet grass, safely, happily, in the bounty of the Lord.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
all we can do is keep breathing….
It’s hard to understand what it means to let go
When the warm flesh becomes cold and rigid
The hazel eyes become distant
Then waiting patiently for the lights to dim
If ever I was prepared, now is not
Grasping the potency of death
Leaning for a gentle touch
A kiss by the parted: a final goodbye
Then I wait patiently for the lights to dim
If ever I am prepared, now I can’t
From the slow fall time must wake us
Pick up the pieces from these fragments
All you knew to be once real now is gone
Then he waits patiently for the lights to dim
If ever I am prepared,
I’m not.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Bullet Point #8
“Your friends will change and some will leave you. This will undoubtedly cause you grief.”
Deep do the roots of friendship lie. Deep in my soul there are a few other souls who have claimed home. Home I gave them, or have tried to.
But some friends have turned from you.
That they have. My heart pierced. Pain took a throne right at the centre of my heart’s secret place for love. I had no words, none loud enough to keep those who were slipping away. As the miles grew below my feet, the ties grew thinner and some friends disappeared out of sight, forever. The pain this caused, like a deadly serum, spread over my soul and kept it ill. It can only slowly recover from the loss of the lives it thought it was connected to.
Loyalty you say is a virtue.
One that is often neglected, one that has been my essential companion on the journey to finding friends to travel the lonely road of life with. Early in life I have learnt that friends mean air, source of life, answers to many tangled tales told along the way. First I stayed silent and in the silence listened to murmurs. From those fragments of words I picked the origin which best suited my ears. Then I watched as that person showed their outline to me. Then I saw the smiling face, held the sweaty little hands, laughed at jokes made at somebody else’s expense and then showed parts of my soul; without them realising I gave them my all. These friends I still have, they still see the whole of me.
I heard you have changed.
My one foe: time, has made me who I am. And change must come hand in hand with time. Sometimes welcomed sometimes not so much. But the most dearest parts of my soul have had time to change with me, to see the change in me and see the change in themselves. It’s a two way mirror.
But you cry.
When I know that a friend has been lost to the world, yes. When I know that no longer will my ears hear the whispered secrets. When I am alone. When I realise that alone might also mean lonely. When she’s on an island and I am not. When he is fighting for his life and I know not. When they’re together and I’m not with them. When a song that we danced to plays on the radio. When a phone call sounds distant, too distant to comprehend what has happened to us. When time robs us of the most precious moments a friendship can have. When I know that treasuring a glimpse of a past life can never carry meaning in the now. When weekends are too short for a meaningful conversation. Then I weep.
Then I weep.
Deep do the roots of friendship lie. Deep in my soul there are a few other souls who have claimed home. Home I gave them, or have tried to.
But some friends have turned from you.
That they have. My heart pierced. Pain took a throne right at the centre of my heart’s secret place for love. I had no words, none loud enough to keep those who were slipping away. As the miles grew below my feet, the ties grew thinner and some friends disappeared out of sight, forever. The pain this caused, like a deadly serum, spread over my soul and kept it ill. It can only slowly recover from the loss of the lives it thought it was connected to.
Loyalty you say is a virtue.
One that is often neglected, one that has been my essential companion on the journey to finding friends to travel the lonely road of life with. Early in life I have learnt that friends mean air, source of life, answers to many tangled tales told along the way. First I stayed silent and in the silence listened to murmurs. From those fragments of words I picked the origin which best suited my ears. Then I watched as that person showed their outline to me. Then I saw the smiling face, held the sweaty little hands, laughed at jokes made at somebody else’s expense and then showed parts of my soul; without them realising I gave them my all. These friends I still have, they still see the whole of me.
I heard you have changed.
My one foe: time, has made me who I am. And change must come hand in hand with time. Sometimes welcomed sometimes not so much. But the most dearest parts of my soul have had time to change with me, to see the change in me and see the change in themselves. It’s a two way mirror.
But you cry.
When I know that a friend has been lost to the world, yes. When I know that no longer will my ears hear the whispered secrets. When I am alone. When I realise that alone might also mean lonely. When she’s on an island and I am not. When he is fighting for his life and I know not. When they’re together and I’m not with them. When a song that we danced to plays on the radio. When a phone call sounds distant, too distant to comprehend what has happened to us. When time robs us of the most precious moments a friendship can have. When I know that treasuring a glimpse of a past life can never carry meaning in the now. When weekends are too short for a meaningful conversation. Then I weep.
Then I weep.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
154 Folk Songs
Through the creative formations of some of the most talented musicians, poets, tellers of truths, I hope to stay afloat. These strings, ropes of hope, I clench to. On any other day I would walk by, but today I stay. Earnest.
When coming undone can seem so harmless is when I realise there are ways to let go. Parts will disappear so that something new can grow. For them much like for me.
There are 154 new ways to live.
There are 154 chances of seeing the beauty in this world.
There are 154 different juxtapositions of words and tunes that all sing of the despair and the love and the marriage of the two that almost always ends in pain.
My heart is still beating. How ‘bout yours?
When coming undone can seem so harmless is when I realise there are ways to let go. Parts will disappear so that something new can grow. For them much like for me.
There are 154 new ways to live.
There are 154 chances of seeing the beauty in this world.
There are 154 different juxtapositions of words and tunes that all sing of the despair and the love and the marriage of the two that almost always ends in pain.
My heart is still beating. How ‘bout yours?
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Time – what if I had You.
A pointless infatuation with something that’s past. With someone who’s never been. Reappearance, or the illusion of it, somehow can throw the self into a dark and damaged state. The right to be tortured and tormented grows with every time the heart gets shattered. Hang on, there’s a life to be lived here. Pain, even if dire, will seduce the yearning soul into thinking it is living. Then it thrives and seldom leaves. Wait to see if you can stand. If you can get up from the floor. Count the minutes that pass, the pain that sets in. Watch as the soul gets emptied and another spirit takes its place. A more cautious and careful spirit, a more rational and pragmatic spirit. There are lots of different ways to live. Each day can change us all, eternally.
So when you enter again, in such a fashion, having never been here before, is when my life unwinds. Stranger, here I give my heart. You can’t see, can you? I always pick the ones who cannot be. Who cannot be mine. To you I offer my all. But what if my all is not pleasing to your eyes? In every season I find winter, wrap my flawed body in many layers, hide what could appear unpleasant to you. You need not ever unwrap.
Our story goes: the Moon was half full. Soft melody danced around the room and got us drunk with its hazy and seductive words. All it took was just one lonely glance. You had me. Once you knew you held time, you pulled me ever closer to you. I was shy, you were curious. I was afraid, you were adventurous. I was damaged, you were strong. In the safeness of your hands I began to uncoil. Traced my once proud self back to how it used to live. I found my voice. No longer alone, I walked straight, stooping only once in a while. I let go your hand and never lost balance. Alone was just as free as with you. Every secret wanted to belong to you, so I let them make the trip from my heart to yours. You kept them safe. You would have kept them safe. You would have kept me safe. If only you had ever been. Been mine.
You look lonely, lonely in that picture. I hope it was just that moment, that unfortunate moment when the iris closed. You breathed and showed a much happier face the moment after. Time caught you off guard. Time tricked me into believing in you. If only I had you. If only you had ever been.
So when you enter again, in such a fashion, having never been here before, is when my life unwinds. Stranger, here I give my heart. You can’t see, can you? I always pick the ones who cannot be. Who cannot be mine. To you I offer my all. But what if my all is not pleasing to your eyes? In every season I find winter, wrap my flawed body in many layers, hide what could appear unpleasant to you. You need not ever unwrap.
Our story goes: the Moon was half full. Soft melody danced around the room and got us drunk with its hazy and seductive words. All it took was just one lonely glance. You had me. Once you knew you held time, you pulled me ever closer to you. I was shy, you were curious. I was afraid, you were adventurous. I was damaged, you were strong. In the safeness of your hands I began to uncoil. Traced my once proud self back to how it used to live. I found my voice. No longer alone, I walked straight, stooping only once in a while. I let go your hand and never lost balance. Alone was just as free as with you. Every secret wanted to belong to you, so I let them make the trip from my heart to yours. You kept them safe. You would have kept them safe. You would have kept me safe. If only you had ever been. Been mine.
You look lonely, lonely in that picture. I hope it was just that moment, that unfortunate moment when the iris closed. You breathed and showed a much happier face the moment after. Time caught you off guard. Time tricked me into believing in you. If only I had you. If only you had ever been.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
An Evening
Not a day has passed and yet you’re already a memory. Nothing in me warned that you would capture my heart so wildly. There was no telling.
Since I’ve known myself, I have always been prone to your advances. Just a glance and your smile would linger. My stomach would shrink and your eyes so motionless conveyed your undying desire to have me. Yet a loveless future is what awaited me. Years later I saw you again, carelessly trying to make meaning of the puzzled feelings that rushed through you upon seeing my face.
Not a decade has passed and yet you’re my only one. Still. I stare into the present with hollow eyes and empty emotions. I did what needed to be done. Love seemed not important. Your hair grew long and curled carelessly on your forehead. I never saw you again, all the years we were married, I never ever saw you.
Now we’re in a different time, altogether altered zones of reality. This is my time; that is yours. The plane that you exist on is unknown to me. There’s no crossing to the other side. Whisper to never forget to let you know where I am. This is where I am.
I would have needed you with me tonight.
Somehow someone has engraved a name in my soul, but you seem to not see. For your eyes my all is blank, waiting for your soft knife. Now there is weight to time. There’s a serious and heavy burden that comes with the passing of time. Faces from a long time ago appear if we ask them. We both remember. Remember that lake, that tree, that bench, that cobble, that bridge, that piece of heaven, that lovely bush, that high fence, that forbidden kiss. But quickly reality comes to softly cover with a white sheet all these useless moments of perfection. There is no need. What lies dormant stays with us forever. Time passes. Weighs us down. Looks us in the eyes. He never comes. He wasn’t there. He never intended to hurt. Life passed without love. For me, much like for you.
But there was that one…
Evening.
Since I’ve known myself, I have always been prone to your advances. Just a glance and your smile would linger. My stomach would shrink and your eyes so motionless conveyed your undying desire to have me. Yet a loveless future is what awaited me. Years later I saw you again, carelessly trying to make meaning of the puzzled feelings that rushed through you upon seeing my face.
Not a decade has passed and yet you’re my only one. Still. I stare into the present with hollow eyes and empty emotions. I did what needed to be done. Love seemed not important. Your hair grew long and curled carelessly on your forehead. I never saw you again, all the years we were married, I never ever saw you.
Now we’re in a different time, altogether altered zones of reality. This is my time; that is yours. The plane that you exist on is unknown to me. There’s no crossing to the other side. Whisper to never forget to let you know where I am. This is where I am.
I would have needed you with me tonight.
Somehow someone has engraved a name in my soul, but you seem to not see. For your eyes my all is blank, waiting for your soft knife. Now there is weight to time. There’s a serious and heavy burden that comes with the passing of time. Faces from a long time ago appear if we ask them. We both remember. Remember that lake, that tree, that bench, that cobble, that bridge, that piece of heaven, that lovely bush, that high fence, that forbidden kiss. But quickly reality comes to softly cover with a white sheet all these useless moments of perfection. There is no need. What lies dormant stays with us forever. Time passes. Weighs us down. Looks us in the eyes. He never comes. He wasn’t there. He never intended to hurt. Life passed without love. For me, much like for you.
But there was that one…
Evening.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
names
ray lamontagne
catherine feeny
rachael yamagata
william fitzsimmons
joshua james
sara bareilles
joe purdy
rosie thomas
patty griffin
ingrid michaelson
the weepies
amos lee
iron & wine
joshua radin
tom mcrae
lori mckenna
people whose music will change your world
catherine feeny
rachael yamagata
william fitzsimmons
joshua james
sara bareilles
joe purdy
rosie thomas
patty griffin
ingrid michaelson
the weepies
amos lee
iron & wine
joshua radin
tom mcrae
lori mckenna
people whose music will change your world
Monday, August 27, 2007
Now I write only for me
So all that’s secret can find the page. Because now there’s no threat. There is no weight to my words. Only for me. Now is when I share that which I wish for the most.
Love.
I cannot wait to meet you, my dear unknown someone. I will start loving you now and learn to love you more each day until we meet. Then I will have a bag filled to the brim with love. One that will never empty. I will lie still next to you. Silent. We will discover sweet melodies together. I will accompany you on the journeys you’re yet to take. Just a word and you will have me fully. I will love the now you have and you will learn to love the me that lives in your future. Each day a new beginning, but a continuation of everything we knew before. I want to be whole with you. I want you to know that all it will take is a look, a whispered word, just a glance and I will offer my flawed love and my fragile soul, my damaged body wholly to you. Just for you.
Until we meet I will write for you. I will live for you, breathe for you and love for you. I will memorise routes to hidden places to share with you. I will capture moments of sadness and tenderness to show you. I will preserve the amazement, the excitement and the hunger for honesty. I will wait patiently. When we meet, the years will wait so you can read all I’ve written for you. So you can see all I’ve been keeping for you. And in turn, each day we will fall in love all over again. All year long. All lifetime long.
Love.
If only the sometimes deadly and dark clouds wouldn’t come to overshadow my undying faith in you.
Love.
I cannot wait to meet you, my dear unknown someone. I will start loving you now and learn to love you more each day until we meet. Then I will have a bag filled to the brim with love. One that will never empty. I will lie still next to you. Silent. We will discover sweet melodies together. I will accompany you on the journeys you’re yet to take. Just a word and you will have me fully. I will love the now you have and you will learn to love the me that lives in your future. Each day a new beginning, but a continuation of everything we knew before. I want to be whole with you. I want you to know that all it will take is a look, a whispered word, just a glance and I will offer my flawed love and my fragile soul, my damaged body wholly to you. Just for you.
Until we meet I will write for you. I will live for you, breathe for you and love for you. I will memorise routes to hidden places to share with you. I will capture moments of sadness and tenderness to show you. I will preserve the amazement, the excitement and the hunger for honesty. I will wait patiently. When we meet, the years will wait so you can read all I’ve written for you. So you can see all I’ve been keeping for you. And in turn, each day we will fall in love all over again. All year long. All lifetime long.
Love.
If only the sometimes deadly and dark clouds wouldn’t come to overshadow my undying faith in you.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
I wish I could take you with me, all the way to New York City
First the song it rattled.
There has to be a point of realisation, where everything that is to come would have been, pointlessly existing even before coming to life. Words that have yet to surface would plunge into the depths of the dark, staying secret before all eyes. Here is the collection of such words, just enough to pause for a moment but weak enough to demand that final point beyond which no further memory would be recorded. A suspension of all ideas and emotions. But first, before I say goodbye, let’s hear that song rattle.
When you’re as selective and undoubtedly limited when it comes to styles in music as I am, and swear by the simplicity of both lyrics and music, then the only place you could enjoy the real roots of contemporary folk music is the Boston/Cambridge area of the state of Massachusetts. There I sat in a bar, listening to any old musician who would pull out the chords and the phrases which would paralyse me. Folk music, the guitar rattling, the voice filled with emotion. The music follows a linear path and the words echo that almost dying and sorrowful but gently fragile realisation of a sometimes futile but ultimately wonderful life and its equally mind boggling challenges. How could you not fall in love with the world upon hearing that music? How could you not love the place you were in when first that chord chimed its way into your ears?
All my favourite songs took on a new meaning because I was travelling the roads they were written on. They could have possibly been written on. Were inspired on. And then I remembered home and realised that I am much alone there. For five days I was in a place with likeminded people, where everything that I love is the lowest common denominator. Where everything that I am inspired by is taken as a given on any random Wednesday night. Where a conversation will begin with not places but names, titles of songs, titles of pages that line books of grandeur. Only in Cambridge will you get a soul searching folk song with your beer. Only in Boston will The Weepies CD start playing in an indie bookstore’s coffee shop. Only on these streets will they know every single singer songwriter I praise as deity in this ungodly life of mine.
Then came the city.
Then came the city where dreams are rarely made, since it’s said to never sleep. And as threatening as it may seem at first encounter, it is the gentlest places I know. Ruthlessly fast, but shimmeringly gentle on closer look. Like a dragon waiting to be loved, it lets you touch and bask in its beauty, ready to take you on journeys you’ve never thought. You love the crowds of people hurling through its streets, barely exchanging a glance let alone a brush of shoulders. The cloud of stench that carries you from avenue to avenue, that you grow to miss when in a corner it disappears from sight. Excuse me, do you know where I could find some peace and quiet? Seek not that which we do not have here.
New York City felt comfortable, homely, familiar. I felt it embrace me with its wide avenues and orderly numbered streets, with its chaotic sections of its chief Manhattan, the island formerly boasting many hills. Now this flatland of fortunes looks only to provide you with coffee to go and a good advice before an opportunity for world market domination would arise. Still, amongst the many faces I felt at ease, like I was one of them, a nobody on the streets of a city designed to be ruled by the people of the world.
Coming down has never been more heartbreaking. Seamlessly sifting through the streets of a supposedly busy Budapest I saw that my first love is a dreamy, sleepy little town. I commuted twenty four hours to my out of town, countryside retreat, where they not only speak a different language but have sharply objectionable ideas about political and economic unambiguity. But I could not help but be glad and smile. Because I am happy and proud, glad that I am here to share the burden, happy to be here paying my way into this new world we’re building. Happy to be a part of a place with history and not so busy streets. A humane, huggable city of twisting and narrow streets, always cleared of litter lest the angry mob should build barricades in sign of their growing disapproval of the tongue in cheek politics of the so called fathers of our homeland.
Now I rest my pen.
And with this trip to a place where I felt maybe I should or could belong, I feel the time has come for me to rest my pen. I have come full circle and have grown tired of caring too much and not caring at all. You have seen much of me and have travelled a lot with me. You have held the magnifying glass, seeing deep into my soul and have carried the map open at the page where the wind took me. You have endured pages that spoke of a lover without love. You have read, all along, a fractured and misleading interpretation of an evolving democracy founded on quicksand, managing to stay standing only by holding onto a thread. You have listened to the world’s finest songs with me. You have made me feel there was a need once for the words that made it onto this page.
Thank you. Now find another blog where the writer needs all your support. Find an idea that can inspire you. Find a day when all your fears disappear. Find a city you can love as much as I love the one I got. In the meantime, learn to be kind to everyone around you.
Everyone, everywhere.
There has to be a point of realisation, where everything that is to come would have been, pointlessly existing even before coming to life. Words that have yet to surface would plunge into the depths of the dark, staying secret before all eyes. Here is the collection of such words, just enough to pause for a moment but weak enough to demand that final point beyond which no further memory would be recorded. A suspension of all ideas and emotions. But first, before I say goodbye, let’s hear that song rattle.
When you’re as selective and undoubtedly limited when it comes to styles in music as I am, and swear by the simplicity of both lyrics and music, then the only place you could enjoy the real roots of contemporary folk music is the Boston/Cambridge area of the state of Massachusetts. There I sat in a bar, listening to any old musician who would pull out the chords and the phrases which would paralyse me. Folk music, the guitar rattling, the voice filled with emotion. The music follows a linear path and the words echo that almost dying and sorrowful but gently fragile realisation of a sometimes futile but ultimately wonderful life and its equally mind boggling challenges. How could you not fall in love with the world upon hearing that music? How could you not love the place you were in when first that chord chimed its way into your ears?
All my favourite songs took on a new meaning because I was travelling the roads they were written on. They could have possibly been written on. Were inspired on. And then I remembered home and realised that I am much alone there. For five days I was in a place with likeminded people, where everything that I love is the lowest common denominator. Where everything that I am inspired by is taken as a given on any random Wednesday night. Where a conversation will begin with not places but names, titles of songs, titles of pages that line books of grandeur. Only in Cambridge will you get a soul searching folk song with your beer. Only in Boston will The Weepies CD start playing in an indie bookstore’s coffee shop. Only on these streets will they know every single singer songwriter I praise as deity in this ungodly life of mine.
Then came the city.
Then came the city where dreams are rarely made, since it’s said to never sleep. And as threatening as it may seem at first encounter, it is the gentlest places I know. Ruthlessly fast, but shimmeringly gentle on closer look. Like a dragon waiting to be loved, it lets you touch and bask in its beauty, ready to take you on journeys you’ve never thought. You love the crowds of people hurling through its streets, barely exchanging a glance let alone a brush of shoulders. The cloud of stench that carries you from avenue to avenue, that you grow to miss when in a corner it disappears from sight. Excuse me, do you know where I could find some peace and quiet? Seek not that which we do not have here.
New York City felt comfortable, homely, familiar. I felt it embrace me with its wide avenues and orderly numbered streets, with its chaotic sections of its chief Manhattan, the island formerly boasting many hills. Now this flatland of fortunes looks only to provide you with coffee to go and a good advice before an opportunity for world market domination would arise. Still, amongst the many faces I felt at ease, like I was one of them, a nobody on the streets of a city designed to be ruled by the people of the world.
Coming down has never been more heartbreaking. Seamlessly sifting through the streets of a supposedly busy Budapest I saw that my first love is a dreamy, sleepy little town. I commuted twenty four hours to my out of town, countryside retreat, where they not only speak a different language but have sharply objectionable ideas about political and economic unambiguity. But I could not help but be glad and smile. Because I am happy and proud, glad that I am here to share the burden, happy to be here paying my way into this new world we’re building. Happy to be a part of a place with history and not so busy streets. A humane, huggable city of twisting and narrow streets, always cleared of litter lest the angry mob should build barricades in sign of their growing disapproval of the tongue in cheek politics of the so called fathers of our homeland.
Now I rest my pen.
And with this trip to a place where I felt maybe I should or could belong, I feel the time has come for me to rest my pen. I have come full circle and have grown tired of caring too much and not caring at all. You have seen much of me and have travelled a lot with me. You have held the magnifying glass, seeing deep into my soul and have carried the map open at the page where the wind took me. You have endured pages that spoke of a lover without love. You have read, all along, a fractured and misleading interpretation of an evolving democracy founded on quicksand, managing to stay standing only by holding onto a thread. You have listened to the world’s finest songs with me. You have made me feel there was a need once for the words that made it onto this page.
Thank you. Now find another blog where the writer needs all your support. Find an idea that can inspire you. Find a day when all your fears disappear. Find a city you can love as much as I love the one I got. In the meantime, learn to be kind to everyone around you.
Everyone, everywhere.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Once there was an emotion
There was an emotion that started all this. Maybe a long time ago, I can’t quite recall, or maybe just a few moments ago. I forget to make note, I just know there was a feeling of wanting more out of life that lead me to words. I know that I wanted to see the dark and the light, the ugly and the shining, the dirty and the clear of this life. If there was something graspable, something that I knew I wanted to hang onto, then that’s the emotion that has lead me here. Because there is so much crap, too much crap all around. We kick the empty can on the street and have become too accustomed to the derelict sights of the inner cities to ever notice the gap that is coming between us.
When nobody cares is when all things fall apart. When those who could make a change choose to live for the now is when small things show cracks in the ceiling. When I feel I have become powerless and indifferent by the challenges of this world is when I feel I need to remind myself of the most essential emotion that lead me to begin writing all those years ago. Because once the words had found me, I could only succumb. Their power, much greater than the power I can ever comprehend. And the Truth sometimes surfaces in the most hidden lines of my writing, without me knowing, surprising the unsuspecting reader with a phrase that will stick and will haunt until it has the power.
On a hot day I will sit with my skin bare, listening to the simplest magic of a few words and a few musical notes and I will be inspired to cut through the fog and haze and reach deep down for that hidden emotion that started everything. As long as I can find that and through that justify what it means to be a writer without anything to write or a lover without anyone to love, then I can safely create that dream without anyone ever knowing the truth.
Let’s take a bow together and vow that from now on the emotion that has kept us captive will continue to inspire, on even the dullest and most hopeless of days.
When nobody cares is when all things fall apart. When those who could make a change choose to live for the now is when small things show cracks in the ceiling. When I feel I have become powerless and indifferent by the challenges of this world is when I feel I need to remind myself of the most essential emotion that lead me to begin writing all those years ago. Because once the words had found me, I could only succumb. Their power, much greater than the power I can ever comprehend. And the Truth sometimes surfaces in the most hidden lines of my writing, without me knowing, surprising the unsuspecting reader with a phrase that will stick and will haunt until it has the power.
On a hot day I will sit with my skin bare, listening to the simplest magic of a few words and a few musical notes and I will be inspired to cut through the fog and haze and reach deep down for that hidden emotion that started everything. As long as I can find that and through that justify what it means to be a writer without anything to write or a lover without anyone to love, then I can safely create that dream without anyone ever knowing the truth.
Let’s take a bow together and vow that from now on the emotion that has kept us captive will continue to inspire, on even the dullest and most hopeless of days.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Potpourri
If ever you were wondering how hard it would be to slowly dance across a burning room, then you wondered enough about the pointless allegories of life. For life, a mere mirage of ideals and dreams, a recluse for those who believe that there can be such a thing as the realisation of morbid, unearthly, irreplaceable, unattainable goals: a fortress of unsavoury hopes and adorations. Then you find out that there is little more than a year left. Or maybe that year will soon be reduced to a sum of only a few of its months. Perspective changes with each hour passing. There is no more need for courtesy or regret. This is happening to me, to someone close; to someone I should feel close to. But even if it happens to the most irrelevant person, that hymn should not be forgotten solely for the reasons of irrelevancy.
For forty years I have lived a loveless life, without meaning or tenderness. Save, just save a lovely minute of your time for me. I will promise to cherish that dear moment for all eternity. For now I know what time means. You, the beholder of eternity, and me, and how no other can threaten the sovereignty of the magnificent dream. Even if you appear in a glowing white robe, just a silhouette on the distant horizon, I will hold you close to my heart and whisper words like love. You may see the purest of emotions appear on my tired face. The bones sharp and brittle, old and used through the wondrous years of an elusive life. But as of yet, I have not had a chance to weep.
And this, this is a one page poem with no rhyme or structure other than strands of thoughts that run through my mind. But there was an emotion that started this non-poem, started everything. I clearly recall how helpless I felt, how frustrated and how useless. How wondrous I thought the journey home was. How easy it was to love and how painfully difficult it was to be loved. Reciprocity lost interest, a long time ago. And with that, no story got ever fully told.
Who could dispute the obvious? He says there is no way that I can compete with the other woman. So I draw stick figures in the sand, on the paper and imagine my life in only two dimensions. There is the dimension of me and the dimension of what I imagine to be. But I stay earnest in my efforts to convince myself that alone is what leaves me thriving, happy, inspired. Let’s leave tonight with the hard earned conviction that what’s ahead is something to look forward to and what’s behind is nothing but an empty collection of minutes deemed significant. I may even find someone who will make me enter the world of three dimensions.
For forty years I have lived a loveless life, without meaning or tenderness. Save, just save a lovely minute of your time for me. I will promise to cherish that dear moment for all eternity. For now I know what time means. You, the beholder of eternity, and me, and how no other can threaten the sovereignty of the magnificent dream. Even if you appear in a glowing white robe, just a silhouette on the distant horizon, I will hold you close to my heart and whisper words like love. You may see the purest of emotions appear on my tired face. The bones sharp and brittle, old and used through the wondrous years of an elusive life. But as of yet, I have not had a chance to weep.
And this, this is a one page poem with no rhyme or structure other than strands of thoughts that run through my mind. But there was an emotion that started this non-poem, started everything. I clearly recall how helpless I felt, how frustrated and how useless. How wondrous I thought the journey home was. How easy it was to love and how painfully difficult it was to be loved. Reciprocity lost interest, a long time ago. And with that, no story got ever fully told.
Who could dispute the obvious? He says there is no way that I can compete with the other woman. So I draw stick figures in the sand, on the paper and imagine my life in only two dimensions. There is the dimension of me and the dimension of what I imagine to be. But I stay earnest in my efforts to convince myself that alone is what leaves me thriving, happy, inspired. Let’s leave tonight with the hard earned conviction that what’s ahead is something to look forward to and what’s behind is nothing but an empty collection of minutes deemed significant. I may even find someone who will make me enter the world of three dimensions.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
What's up?
Please don't ask me that. When you raise your pen and gently roll its tip on the paper and circle the line "what's up?", then that's a question that needs to be answered. But my reply would be lost among the many hopeless hearts, aimlessly wandering in the dark night. So I keep it to myself, better to just whisper it when nobody can hear. "I'm doing all right, just confused sometimes."
There are lots of good plants growing, blooming, oozing their balsamic scents, sweetening the air around them. They are picked one by one. Torn from their stems, from the branches. They happily fall into the sack, then lay spread out on the canvas, waiting to be cut into exact pieces. They will dry and give their power from nature to someone who waits instant remedy. "We're herbs" and they're proudly singing with the birds. We're waiting for the hands to pick us from this tree. We want to travel in the sack, we want to be spread on the canvas, to be dried by the warm air of the attic and stay still in the cup and let the water dissolve all the goodness. We want to bring relief. I know.
"How has your day been?", but we used to walk past each other every single day. You remember what I have erased from my memory because it seemed unimportant. Now I'm faced with you and having to explain where you've disappeared to. I'm sorry, it all seemed too unimportant to record. Maybe if I had kept my eyes more open. Maybe if when I was 13 I could have been 25. Real importance rarely finds me in the now and regret travels much the same road as realisation does with me. If I was to write a poem, your name would be its title. Can that make up for the lost time? A piece of me has been lost to the endless history of childhood.
The story tells of a card that has traveled the world twice. It saw very little apart from the back of another card which read:
From
Mrs Jill Willows
34 Cone Drive
Surrough
OL2 6YF
Only when the light broke through the seams of the Royal Mail bag could the card read the exact address. It never learnt where that other card was heading. It was happy traveling by its side, in silence, in oblivion to when their journey together would end. That was a secret in their relationship neither felt needed to know. They lived for the now and knew that they were moving closer to their destination with every black second gone. The card felt proud of its poppies, bending in the wind on its front. Nobody but the recipient would see that. This made the card feel special, unmoved by the futility of its journey through the busy streets of the suburbs back to where it was posted from. It wanted its sender to quickly lick those naughty little stamps and affix them to its free corner so it could start its journey anew. "I'M TRAVELING THE WORLD" and with that enormous shout it fell into the bottom of yet another grey Royal Mail bag. It never stopped until it came home. My hands ripped the envelope and marvelled at the poppies on its front. It's home now, it arrived from home and traveled the world twice to see its brand new home.
There are lots of good plants growing, blooming, oozing their balsamic scents, sweetening the air around them. They are picked one by one. Torn from their stems, from the branches. They happily fall into the sack, then lay spread out on the canvas, waiting to be cut into exact pieces. They will dry and give their power from nature to someone who waits instant remedy. "We're herbs" and they're proudly singing with the birds. We're waiting for the hands to pick us from this tree. We want to travel in the sack, we want to be spread on the canvas, to be dried by the warm air of the attic and stay still in the cup and let the water dissolve all the goodness. We want to bring relief. I know.
"How has your day been?", but we used to walk past each other every single day. You remember what I have erased from my memory because it seemed unimportant. Now I'm faced with you and having to explain where you've disappeared to. I'm sorry, it all seemed too unimportant to record. Maybe if I had kept my eyes more open. Maybe if when I was 13 I could have been 25. Real importance rarely finds me in the now and regret travels much the same road as realisation does with me. If I was to write a poem, your name would be its title. Can that make up for the lost time? A piece of me has been lost to the endless history of childhood.
The story tells of a card that has traveled the world twice. It saw very little apart from the back of another card which read:
From
Mrs Jill Willows
34 Cone Drive
Surrough
OL2 6YF
Only when the light broke through the seams of the Royal Mail bag could the card read the exact address. It never learnt where that other card was heading. It was happy traveling by its side, in silence, in oblivion to when their journey together would end. That was a secret in their relationship neither felt needed to know. They lived for the now and knew that they were moving closer to their destination with every black second gone. The card felt proud of its poppies, bending in the wind on its front. Nobody but the recipient would see that. This made the card feel special, unmoved by the futility of its journey through the busy streets of the suburbs back to where it was posted from. It wanted its sender to quickly lick those naughty little stamps and affix them to its free corner so it could start its journey anew. "I'M TRAVELING THE WORLD" and with that enormous shout it fell into the bottom of yet another grey Royal Mail bag. It never stopped until it came home. My hands ripped the envelope and marvelled at the poppies on its front. It's home now, it arrived from home and traveled the world twice to see its brand new home.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
25
One of those virtual greeting cards with a page long insert which gets you up to speed on the sender's life.
Lately I've been much confused, worried, even scared at the prospect - or lack thereof - I may be faced with. Most of you know what I'm talking about, since not a phone call or an email goes by in which I don't voice these concerns of mine. Some of you say I should travel, see things my way, shake myself up a little. Some others point out how it's not all that bad and compared to most of my contemporaries, I'm in fact doing very well. There are the ones who see no problem at all and still more who have nothing but empathy towards my failed attempts at trying to relocate myself physically and psychologically. But I fear to admit that the problem, my troubles, may prove to be buried deeper than I cared initially to show. The dark may even become darker, the fog denser, my Sun may be blotted out leaving only a golden trail.
25. I never imagined anything for when I'd become 25. I don't really want to imagine anything for when I turn 35. Those ten years will whizz by sooner than I will care to admit. I remember my 15th birthday very clearly. It was in Prague, I got a green top with little flowers on it, dungarees shorts and a back pack. My mom's aunt was visiting and I had very few problems. Ten years have passed and I still have very few problems, but only because I've learnt how to deal with most of the things life threw at me. So the few problems I do have, they seem to hit the core of my existence. But there is a mature weight to this age. There is wisdom in traces, there is solid and honest sincerity and there is doubt to unravel the slowly meandering certainty. I don't know if I'm heading in the right direction, I don't know if my private life is running its predestined course or if my professional life holds any surprises. In fact, there is very little I know. I have started to settle for content when I should scratch and burn until I find happy. I have become lazy and complacent. I have entered a state of mind where moments present the only alternative to a numb void.
What is most worrying is that I have lost inspiration and a desire to create. When all else failed, I always had the words. Now the words seem to not care at all, not care enough. I leave them dormant at the depth of my soul's despair and with that, hope never surfaces either. They dine down there, together, silent. I toil up here, I sweat with fear of actions never taken or taken in vain. But the words stay unconcerned and even the music doesn't move them any more. They have slowly given up on me because I never let them shine. I have never given them the chance to bask in glory. I have never fought for them or fanned their vanity with careless hope. So they have turned from me, these conspiring little wiggles, lines, straight and bent. Now I'm on my own and on my own is where my road divides. And look at me, instead of choosing, I stand still.
I feel powerless, unable to hold a firm grip, unmoved, uninspired, weak, irresolute. I feel like I have no patience or determination to see anything through. I care so little that my days follow one another and nothing ever makes me fight or believe. I skim the surface. The books I read leave ideas unformed. The scenery that is all around me brings only momentary satisfaction. But the power to change lies in my hands and I fail to make progress. Continuous rejection has left me with little desire to run at full speed. I see my tired little life lean towards the comfortable and unchallening future. But my tearless crying shows me that this should not be where I end. Right now, things are bleak. I have no idea which direction to start walking in. I am scared of the unknown and scared to leave the known. I find myself in a trap and nobody has walked past who knew how to get out of the hole. And I have no elaborate plans.
So 25. Please don't ask me to list my successes. Tomorrow morning, on my birthday, I will wake up, it'll be a magnificent spring day, full of the Sun's hopeful rays spreading over the lands. I know that I will wake with confidence, with hope. I will walk amongst the buildings of the greatest historical importance. I will fall in love with this city all over again, as I did last spring. I will see the Danube wash its banks slowly and seamlessly away. The bridge will hold no secrets and the seagulls will circle around the part of the river where the ships have not moved. For a moment, for maybe even the better part of the day, all the doubts, the uncertainty, it will all be forgot.
Now everything around me is perfect, I see it as perfect, only I have not found my perfect, my endless, my humble way.
Lately I've been much confused, worried, even scared at the prospect - or lack thereof - I may be faced with. Most of you know what I'm talking about, since not a phone call or an email goes by in which I don't voice these concerns of mine. Some of you say I should travel, see things my way, shake myself up a little. Some others point out how it's not all that bad and compared to most of my contemporaries, I'm in fact doing very well. There are the ones who see no problem at all and still more who have nothing but empathy towards my failed attempts at trying to relocate myself physically and psychologically. But I fear to admit that the problem, my troubles, may prove to be buried deeper than I cared initially to show. The dark may even become darker, the fog denser, my Sun may be blotted out leaving only a golden trail.
25. I never imagined anything for when I'd become 25. I don't really want to imagine anything for when I turn 35. Those ten years will whizz by sooner than I will care to admit. I remember my 15th birthday very clearly. It was in Prague, I got a green top with little flowers on it, dungarees shorts and a back pack. My mom's aunt was visiting and I had very few problems. Ten years have passed and I still have very few problems, but only because I've learnt how to deal with most of the things life threw at me. So the few problems I do have, they seem to hit the core of my existence. But there is a mature weight to this age. There is wisdom in traces, there is solid and honest sincerity and there is doubt to unravel the slowly meandering certainty. I don't know if I'm heading in the right direction, I don't know if my private life is running its predestined course or if my professional life holds any surprises. In fact, there is very little I know. I have started to settle for content when I should scratch and burn until I find happy. I have become lazy and complacent. I have entered a state of mind where moments present the only alternative to a numb void.
What is most worrying is that I have lost inspiration and a desire to create. When all else failed, I always had the words. Now the words seem to not care at all, not care enough. I leave them dormant at the depth of my soul's despair and with that, hope never surfaces either. They dine down there, together, silent. I toil up here, I sweat with fear of actions never taken or taken in vain. But the words stay unconcerned and even the music doesn't move them any more. They have slowly given up on me because I never let them shine. I have never given them the chance to bask in glory. I have never fought for them or fanned their vanity with careless hope. So they have turned from me, these conspiring little wiggles, lines, straight and bent. Now I'm on my own and on my own is where my road divides. And look at me, instead of choosing, I stand still.
I feel powerless, unable to hold a firm grip, unmoved, uninspired, weak, irresolute. I feel like I have no patience or determination to see anything through. I care so little that my days follow one another and nothing ever makes me fight or believe. I skim the surface. The books I read leave ideas unformed. The scenery that is all around me brings only momentary satisfaction. But the power to change lies in my hands and I fail to make progress. Continuous rejection has left me with little desire to run at full speed. I see my tired little life lean towards the comfortable and unchallening future. But my tearless crying shows me that this should not be where I end. Right now, things are bleak. I have no idea which direction to start walking in. I am scared of the unknown and scared to leave the known. I find myself in a trap and nobody has walked past who knew how to get out of the hole. And I have no elaborate plans.
So 25. Please don't ask me to list my successes. Tomorrow morning, on my birthday, I will wake up, it'll be a magnificent spring day, full of the Sun's hopeful rays spreading over the lands. I know that I will wake with confidence, with hope. I will walk amongst the buildings of the greatest historical importance. I will fall in love with this city all over again, as I did last spring. I will see the Danube wash its banks slowly and seamlessly away. The bridge will hold no secrets and the seagulls will circle around the part of the river where the ships have not moved. For a moment, for maybe even the better part of the day, all the doubts, the uncertainty, it will all be forgot.
Now everything around me is perfect, I see it as perfect, only I have not found my perfect, my endless, my humble way.
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Home – from where once removed
“Come, sit here” he said, “little girl, look” pointing to the dark window, “this is the journey that you have once taken, that have lead you to where you are now. So sit patently and watch closely!” The man with kind eyes showed the smiley and unsuspecting girl to her seat on the empty train. She had embarked without knowing where the train would go or who she would encounter whilst on it. The magnificent engine just pulled out of nowhere, in her room, golden and red, inviting her with a curious murmur to take a look inside. The girl was standing on the steps, with her nightgown touching the floor, when the man reached for her hand from the top. Now she sat comfortably and was ready for what would be unveiled before her eyes.
They whizzed by hills and rivers, buildings of all sizes, houses empty and filled with love. There were bridges and pastures, chapels and cathedrals, slanted chimneys and solar panels. The brave moon was shining, lending light to the magnificent display of places once seen, free, and places would be in the future. The girl chuckled as the train hit a curve, the man sat beside her and pointed to each significant sight, adding his own commentary to the journey. Slowly each building became familiar to her. She pressed her nose against the window, breathing heavily, covering the view with steam along with every breath exhaled. The outside seemed cold, icy, but radiant from the early rays of the spring young sun.
Then she recognised the Vltava hurling towards the south right below their train. “This is how you can see the truth” said he who was still sitting beside her, towering over her like the most fail proof protection. The bridge that bore the name of Charles then took them from one familiar site to the other. The tracks of the trams were used to fly their train around and around the city. Inside the old town, outside the new town. Suddenly she saw what had once been. She saw her endless journeys from one end of the city to the other. She saw seasons change the scenery and her in them. She saw herself struggling with teenage idealism. Korunovacni. Parzizska. Vysocanska. Sokolovska. Suchdol. V Udoli. The people paraded onwards and the tears were streaming down her innocent cheeks. She saw her past and she saw the future and all at once she was in the past and in the present. “Don’t worry, you won’t be alone” he then placed his arm around the little girl. But there was nobody else on the streets with her. Nobody to sit beside her on a lonely, rainy day somewhere on Wenceslas square. But somehow the past had seemed joyful. She saw days filled with hope, places filled with dreams, herself as a lover filled with love. The all too familiar routes she took from places unimportant to home. Quietening warmth ran through her body as she watched the weightless snow fall to the road, free of asphalt, just outside the forest, her forest. Every memory then soon followed and she stared out the window hoping to catch a glimpse of every scene enacted in the past, in real time, in the future. She felt herself free, happy. She also felt her heart ache from the void of love. She felt her stomach tighten into a knot when she could feel the end near, when she could see that once she would forget what it all felt like. Dread came over her as she faced feeling like a stranger in her own town. “Have to learn to love the flawed” said the man. She knew that what he had meant was that life was flawed and nothing in the present could change the past. The past remains as flawless as we dream it to be. The present stays as flawed as we can bear it to be. The future is too close to place distance between things done and consequences not yet mature.
The lights of the city grew ever smaller. She was ready to get off, to change the past, to live the once had, but he was firm in holding her hand. “Here comes the next one soon, just sit tight and you’ll see it will all be all right”.
They whizzed by hills and rivers, buildings of all sizes, houses empty and filled with love. There were bridges and pastures, chapels and cathedrals, slanted chimneys and solar panels. The brave moon was shining, lending light to the magnificent display of places once seen, free, and places would be in the future. The girl chuckled as the train hit a curve, the man sat beside her and pointed to each significant sight, adding his own commentary to the journey. Slowly each building became familiar to her. She pressed her nose against the window, breathing heavily, covering the view with steam along with every breath exhaled. The outside seemed cold, icy, but radiant from the early rays of the spring young sun.
Then she recognised the Vltava hurling towards the south right below their train. “This is how you can see the truth” said he who was still sitting beside her, towering over her like the most fail proof protection. The bridge that bore the name of Charles then took them from one familiar site to the other. The tracks of the trams were used to fly their train around and around the city. Inside the old town, outside the new town. Suddenly she saw what had once been. She saw her endless journeys from one end of the city to the other. She saw seasons change the scenery and her in them. She saw herself struggling with teenage idealism. Korunovacni. Parzizska. Vysocanska. Sokolovska. Suchdol. V Udoli. The people paraded onwards and the tears were streaming down her innocent cheeks. She saw her past and she saw the future and all at once she was in the past and in the present. “Don’t worry, you won’t be alone” he then placed his arm around the little girl. But there was nobody else on the streets with her. Nobody to sit beside her on a lonely, rainy day somewhere on Wenceslas square. But somehow the past had seemed joyful. She saw days filled with hope, places filled with dreams, herself as a lover filled with love. The all too familiar routes she took from places unimportant to home. Quietening warmth ran through her body as she watched the weightless snow fall to the road, free of asphalt, just outside the forest, her forest. Every memory then soon followed and she stared out the window hoping to catch a glimpse of every scene enacted in the past, in real time, in the future. She felt herself free, happy. She also felt her heart ache from the void of love. She felt her stomach tighten into a knot when she could feel the end near, when she could see that once she would forget what it all felt like. Dread came over her as she faced feeling like a stranger in her own town. “Have to learn to love the flawed” said the man. She knew that what he had meant was that life was flawed and nothing in the present could change the past. The past remains as flawless as we dream it to be. The present stays as flawed as we can bear it to be. The future is too close to place distance between things done and consequences not yet mature.
The lights of the city grew ever smaller. She was ready to get off, to change the past, to live the once had, but he was firm in holding her hand. “Here comes the next one soon, just sit tight and you’ll see it will all be all right”.
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