Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Persistence

It takes the tiniest of steps to get there. It takes agonising hours and meticulous detail and the recognition that some of it is rubbish.

Sometimes we have to start again.

Sometimes we need to rework what we have already done.

Always we need to pursue it, lest it jump out of our grip and disappear into a rabbit hole down which we cannot follow.

Monday, August 27, 2012

Devotion to Passion

Sometimes to succeed we have to take the tag and attach it to ourselves. We are what we name ourselves. If I scoop out my heart and plant it in the soil of my passion, I could say that it is my passion that keeps me alive; as it should be. But it cannot continue to beat unless I tend it, therefore we must spend time doing the things we love, accepting the name of our passion and turning it into an act of love and devotion.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

On Writing

From somewhere in eternity came some easy words. I grabbed hold of them and rearranged them on a page. But just as I reached to grasp some more, they disappeared, melting into ether. I cannot leave the rest of my sentence unfinished, the rest of my story untold, but I fear that this is what I will do.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Edges

On the edges of memory are quaint little corners of the world where the old and the beautiful collide with quiet gentleness. The lanes are filled with the aromas of freshly brewed coffee and baking bread. Strains of half forgotten songs in foreign languages float down the narrow streets, flirting with the breeze. Poets scribble on yellowing pages as they sit on rickety chairs, pen in one hand, mug in the other. Artists set up gallery and studio on the smooth cobblestones, capturing on unmarred canvas the fleeting light and beauty that only the dreamers can see.

If I could steal just one moment with you, I would press my lips to yours and remind you with a caress of these places. And I would hope that you would see that we belong there, and together we'd embark on a plane there to dance on the antique streets by the incandescent light of ancient lamp posts.

Sunday, August 19, 2012

All That I Am

I feel as though I'm lying on a bed of words and they're bleeding in to me. They whirl around beneath my skin, an unrelenting current, more real than the blood in my veins. They rub against the inside of my skin, they seep deep into my muscles, my tissue, my bones, and they itch against the tips of my fingers, willing me to let them out. A vortex in my mind urges action, to let the words escape in perfect, precise order, to capture them forever upon a page.

I cannot say that I am made of flesh and blood; I'm created of blotted ink and paper scrunched into balls. I am unheard poetry. I am untold stories. I am unsent letters. I am wasted potential.

Only You

I'm not asking to be able to read minds, but I'd really like to know what goes on in your thoughts. What secrets are your eyes hiding? What thoughts make your stomach churn and your heart flutter?

Once I'd hoped to read every book in the world, letting the words flit through my mind before shelving them in a library, vast and vanilla scented. Now I'd be happy if you were the only book I could ever read again.

I don't want to fall in love with every second person I see on the street, even if they're gorgeous, or adorable. I don't want my heart to be a temporary house for someone to rest in for a little while before they pack their bags and find a better place. If I'm going to let someone in, it's going to be you, and I'd hope that you will treat it like your own.

Somewhere I stopped wanting everything that mattered to me, because I found you were the only one that really did matter.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Half Starved

Turns out secluded life is dull after all. It turns out that the big bad world is only as big as you make it, and you can make yours very small. It turns out that after a while you start to yearn for more; at some point you want a bit of what others have, until you realise that their dose isn't enough for you either. At some point the craving is going to turn deadly and I'll spend the rest of my life starving.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Warzone

Shuffling feet, bent back - it's hard to get through this day. Heavy limbs, burning eyes - this isn't an unfamiliar tiredness. What if it is back? What if that sliver of damnation that I have wedged between my shoulder blades is inflamed again? What if it's wriggled further inside and is poisoning my blood with black? I'm afraid to find out whether it's true; it feels like it might be. The future's hard to look forward to when the present seems like an immovable weight crushing your chest. There isn't anything to be worried about, but anxiety eats at my stomach, worse than the most potent acid; I'm half afraid it'll eat right through me and my innards will fall out of my sides, a red glob of mess, stinking and putrid from the rot that's infested them. I can't let this get me. It's been a long war, but I haven't lost any battles yet. I can't afford to; one lost battle and I'll never face another again.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Fallback

I let you rent a fissure in my mind, and now you leak through whenever my thoughts perchance upon an idle vacancy. You dance merrily across my glassy eyes, tapping out the tune to my heartbreak. With a whistle and a grin, you hop out of my daydreams, pulling me into a darker reality. For one sweet moment I lived. For one sweet moment I hoped. For several long moments I imagined and fantasised and let you have your way. And then the door shut, and I looked to see the windows bared and walls padded with white; you've institutionalised me. I'd bet a pretty penny that I've made no impression on you. But I wouldn't be willing to gamble away any future sightings and two seconds of conversation. Just in case.

Monday, August 13, 2012

Cloud of Bliss

All I need is a moment. A moment of courage would be brilliant, a moment of nothing but utter bravery to face my fears. But that's not the thing moments are good for. Even if I have just a moment of glimpsing you, a moment of saying hello, then all is well. It might not be the moment that I'm building up to, but it's a moment I've been waiting for nonetheless.

I'm happy to see you. I wonder if you feel the same. I wonder if you catch a glimpse and double back to make sure. I wonder if you hope with pounding heart, or if your breath catches for a fraction of a second. Even if it doesn't, and I'm just another not-quite-a-stranger stranger to you, it doesn't change the fact that you brighten my day like someone swiped the curtain away from the window and let in a stream of light. It doesn't change the fact that I live on a cloud of bliss for a little while after I see you. You're my personal brand of drug, and there isn't a high better than the one that seeing you gives. Maybe if I'm really lucky, one day you'll confess that you feel the same.

Saturday, August 11, 2012

A Serve of Masochism

What a terrible realisation, to recognise the masochism in myself. All this time I must have been just another stupid person who puts themselves in situations with a flicker of hope in their hearts, knowing that the only thing to come of it would be a searing pain and a renewal of gut-aching sorrow. I should have known. This isn't the first time, after all. This is why I keep my distance. This is why I never really put myself out there; I would rather deal with the potentials, the possibilities, the fantasies, the projections, than the reality that's staring me in the face anyway. The truth is that I'm never going to have you, am I, my dear? But that won't stop me from turning my head every now and again, just to catch a glimpse, even if it means that I might see a heartstopping smile that hits me like a knife tracing its point along my insides.

Friday, August 10, 2012

Underwater

Pen in hand, its tip scratching across the surface of an off white sheet of paper. This is a dream being realised. Words flow. Thoughts crunch and grind to a halt, allowing the imagination to take full control. The hand directs the mind, the mind directs the hand, a mutual cycle, a symbiosis, making real a world unrealised. Some of us can only stop drowning when we let go and let ourselves get swept by the current.

Relief Bequeathed

Today no icy hand crept up back, nor left bloody scratched against my skin. Today I had no need to look over my shoulder. Today I  found that an otherwise inconsequential moment in a day could be momentous. But I also found that momentous as it was, all I wanted was for it to be inconsequential - what made it momentous was its sameness to most other moments in a day, when it could easily have stood out. Today I was fraught not with nerves, no jitters in my stomach, no sweat pooling in places on my body, no pounding heart in my ears; a simple statement was made, realised, accepted. This is the wish I have for the rest of humanity.

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

City Rain

The world is not so bad a place as it sometimes seems. The rain soaked streets are blurry with the light of an alternate universe; it offers us an insight into another reality that most of us steadily ignore. My head whirs with tumbling thoughts, some that appear from nothing, flash brilliantly in my mind, then fade away into nothing, leaving but the after image of their presence burned into the retina of my mind's eye. Why can I not dip my pen into its inkwell and have it ready to capture those thoughts? They escape every time. The words to recreate beauty teeter on the edge of my mind, ready to spill across the page, but as soon as I raise my hand, they are fled. Beauty perhaps, is meant to be viewed, caressed, experienced, but never captured - like the luminescence of city streets in the rain.

Saturday, August 4, 2012

Your Hell and My Hell Are Two Different Things

Give me a better reason. But no, you won't. You cannot, because you haven't the slightest idea about me, or how I think, how I feel, what I want. Ideals differ from person to person, we understand that, but we are so far apart it is hard to make sense of the fact that we even exist in the same universe.

I don't know what you expect from me. Is it respect? Because you might as well throw that idea out the window, set it on fire and sacrifice it to Satan. It is the kind of nonsensical thing that you might do just because we don't see eye to eye about things that concern me but not you. To have my respect, you need to earn it, and you are as far from that as you could possibly get.
Or is it obedience that you want? Well I'm not your fucking play thing, and I'm not your property. I do believe you live in the wrong century - maybe if you lived three hundred years ago, you could have this stupid control over everybody that you crave. Or maybe you need to sit down and think hard and re-evaluate what makes you feel like a man.

But you haven't even scratched the surface of me. What I am open about hides the secret I keep buried, locked behind impenetrable doors when I am around you. Oh, it gets aired, for it's not so hidden around those I trust, but you don't fall under that category. I don't care what you think, or what you feel, except that those feelings will probably swing around and slap me in the face with a vengeance. If I thought I could get away with telling and you and the worst happening was you never speaking to me again, I would do it, but I fear that worse will occur. For now, I keep myself to myself, and you get to prance around and think you're high and mighty, but one day I'll leave and you'll realise that you knew nothing at all about me. I hope it makes you feel like a failure, because that's the only thing that you have been in this life of yours.

And don't worry, if you die, I promise I'll leave you in the gutter to rot. It's petty, but it's the worst that I can do, considering there isn't a hell for you to spend the rest of eternity inside.

Friday, August 3, 2012

Stale Tragedy

You left a you-shaped hole in the universe when you left and I was content to leave it be. It hid in the shadows, a blankness that used to be you, but slowly, without my permission, someone comes along and tries to colour you back in. I'm done with that, I'm done with you, please go back to whence you came, before we had the misfortune to meet and let our tragedy play out. I'm tired of having to explain that story line to people. It's gotten stale.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Transformation Transmutation

How do we become ourselves? This is the ever baffling thing.

Am I myself because of how I look? Am I myself because of the itchy jumpers and tight pants I wear? Am I me because I think about things the way that I do, like, yet unlike, hundreds of others?

Am I made of the other small things, the moments that flit by like light upon a fragment of water? Am I myself because of the way my breath catches when I see you standing idly in the mornings? Or because my stomach churns and flutters when our eyes accidentally meet, strangers on either side of an impregnable wall, yet more familiar than we dare admit?

You'll walk one way, I'll walk another, and maybe someday our hands will touch, our eyes will not scamper away from each other when they meet, and we'll decide, simultaneously in our hearts and heads that this is where we ought to be.

We'll look back on the dark, and find that we did not become ourselves, we simply shed more light on who we already were.