The Wandering Mind

 I wonder if you ever woke to find that your first thought was of me. I wonder if you always hoped that mine was the first face of the day you'd see. I wonder whether you were excited at the prospect that you and I could spend another day together. I wonder if you realised it wouldn't last forever.

I wonder if you ever spare a thought for me now. I wonder if I walk casually into your mind, or whether I burst in, unwelcome and unwanted. But really, I just wonder too much, and all my wondering will come to nothing because I will never get any answers.Oh wandering mind, it is time now to go to rest.

Let the Music Speak

I want to play you a song to tell you how I feel. That's the only way I know how to say the things I cannot speak. I'll take you to a meadow, where the grass was allowed to grow wild and untamed, and with the guitar in front of me, I'll let it do all the speaking for me. The melody will wrap around you, and filter into your head, obliterating all other thoughts, until you do nothing but listen and understand what I am trying to tell you. The sky will mirror back to you all the things hidden in my heart, all those things I was unable to communicate in any other way. It will show you things you wanted to see, and some things you never wanted to know. And all the while, the guitar will speak softly to you.

I shall sit there and watch your reaction, for that is the thing I fear most in the world. Though I was afraid of what the world might think, of how they may cast me aside when I lose all sense of mystery, the enigma I maintained because I didn't know how to deal with consequences, I would still be brave enough to fight through it all, if only you tell me you'll stay by my side. I'm still not sure what love is, and whether I can be strong through all the changes it will bring, at least I will try. For you, if not for anyone else. So I beg, it's the least you can do, even if it means nothing to you, please sit down with me in the meadow, beneath the azure sky, and listen to the song I want to play for you. And if it turns out in the end that you want nothing of me, I shall lie, and say it was just a song I wrote about feelings I'd only imagined. I promise to never let on that it was about you.

My Vulnerability

I stared at the sun today. I was trying to find perfection. I was trying to find something that made sense. For you see, I'm lost, more lost than I have ever been. I can't tell which way is up, which way is left, and I don't know which direction I was heading. Suddenly I've found that all my emotions have been stirred from where they had settled at the bottom of my heart. And I realised that I haven't accepted everything I thought I had. It's amazing how one thing can have such a profound effect on you that you experience an onslaught of emotions every time you see or hear it. Not a thing in the world has ever affected me this way before. It's thrown me into the maelstrom I thought I had ridden out. I don't cry only because it's beautiful, but because it brings out the hidden fragility in me, and the things that do that are the most terrifying of all. I'm scared of being the weak one, the victim, the one who has no control. I'm terrified of the things which leave me in tears, utterly helpless because they show me to myself.

I can't bear to see my own reflection; it reminds me of too many things. Of how I don't know my place in this world, of how I am too afraid to carve myself one because I may isolate myself and have nowhere to go. It reminds me that I am alone, it reminds me of how terrifying that is. It reminds me that the clock is ticking and that I am growing older, still as lost as I always was. I feel old, and tired, like this has been an uphill battle all my life, and I still can't see the crest of the hill, no sign at all of relief. So I hide my face in my hands and cry. The silent sobs shake my body, and nobody notices, and when I face the world again, the only sign that something's wrong is my slightly red ringed eyes. I can't find a way out. The only exit is the one I'm too afraid to take. It means I have to be honest with myself, with everyone. It's not something I'm brave enough to do. What if all it does is show me that I'm more alone than I thought? What if it doesn't lead me to the things I really need? Because some words, when spoken, change the world forever.

Everywhere I look there are remnants of things that are no longer; vestiges of people, of memories, of feelings, and they all bring out something darker than nostalgia. They remind me of times that I knew where I stood, when I was not a speck of dust alone in a cloud. But alone is how I do things. I'll never speak these words out loud until I've come to terms with it on my own, and I'm sure I'm not going to break down in front of anyone. I'll make sure the only time I'm this vulnerable is in the dark of my bedroom, past the midnight hour, and no one can burst in and see my fragility. Time makes you bolder because the consequences of facing your fear diminish as circumstances change.

All the while I shall wish what I have always wished: that I could sail the sky.

Burdened

No, I don't want to be alone anymore, I can't hold myself up, I can't walk the same old streets, seeing the things I always have. I can't stand the profound loneliness which grates my heart and dulls my senses, cloaking me in misery and turning everything ashen. The constant deep breaths I take to stop the tears will one day no longer be enough, and even as I try to hold myself together, I shall be seeping through the cracks of my own defences. I feel that day is arriving sooner than I had feared, and that it will find me splattered on the ground, innards where everyone can see, where everyone can read the things I kept to myself. And none of them know how it really feels, to be so vulnerable, so small, so tired; so alone. I wonder if they ever feel so alone.

It's like sitting on the outskirts of town, watching everyone as they laugh, as they talk, as they pass from familiar place to familiar place, knowing where they came from, and knowing where they belong, and the realisation dawning that as close as you are, you are not part of that at all. You are the outsider, the watcher, the one that the world passes by, a forgotten face in the shadows, a silent observer who hides behind their veiled eyes. But I'm slowly becoming undone, by the hand of none other than loneliness; that dreaded companion who tortures you even as they pretend to comfort. I was never strong enough to bear this. The silence descends and nothing can distract me anymore from the darkness that's eating me from within.

So I sit down with the lights off, and I wrap my arms about my legs and let myself cry the tears that I've always tried to suppress. Instead of trying to fight it, I let the loneliness fill me, and the feeling overwhelms my frame, the very fibres of my being tingling with the sensation, with the knowledge that there is no one. I'm tired, so, so tired of fighting this. My cracks have turned into crevasses, and I must simply let myself be, broken and collapsed with weariness, succumb to the terror that I have failed myself. Not even my anger can save me now. I betrayed myself by not being who I am, and the world betrayed me by passing me by like I was unimportant. I'd just be another story ending with tragedy. Sometimes I think all we are is tragedies. I shall put myself back together and pretend this never happened, but I shall carry the weight around, my cross, and I shall bear the scars forever. But you'll never catch me in a such a moment of vulnerability, and you'll never know the raw feelings that course through me. All you'll ever get is this, a mere shadow, for I have not the gift to express it in words.

Women

It's wonderful to see something of empowerment. It's fantastic to realise that we can be more than what we are, and that we don't need to be told how to live our life, or to be forced to live by rules made up by societies long ago. The people who change the world are the ones who are not afraid of defying it's conventions.

It is utterly ridiculous when you stop and think about all the things we conform to just because they are the unspoken 'rules' of society. All areas of our lives are affected: to some extent we all worry about our bodies, how they look, how they smell, what kind of impression we give to other people. We put pressure on ourselves to be there in the roles that are expected of us, and though we say that this is not the case, the world tries to impress upon us the importance of fulfilling those roles by putting up impenetrable iron bars when we want to progress past those boundaries into the lives we see, but are not allowed to attain. We have all become spectators in the game of life, where we are only allowed to sit and watch while others, the men, play the game itself.

But the rules are slowly changing. Here and there, among the masculine brawn, you may spot a woman, fierce in her femininity and holding her own against those who would usurp her. These women are inspirations to those who sit at home, burdened by domesticity and bound by outdated conventions. The collective consciousness has changed, has begun to accept that we are a part of society just as much as the males who have traditionally held the power, and they are beginning to realise that we can roll the dice just as skilfully as they, and perhaps even better. They are beginning to see that equality must be accepted for the world to grow beyond its current boundaries.

And one by one, we are stepping up to the plate, and each of us are hitting home runs. They can no longer deny that we have the power to be great, and that nothing will stand in our way; neither men, nor conventions, nor rules. We can have it all, and we intend to take it.

Unexpected

We were talking, the way we always do, when something out of ordinary happened. You reached out, placing your hand gently, but firmly over my eyes, hiding the world from me. I was lost to the world of darkness, and the only thing that held me anchored to reality was the sudden, unexpected feel of your lips on mine.

Only, it wasn't reality, for I woke up to the cries of the crows.

Threads

Things unravel. That is the nature of life. The threads pull apart, and where they were once part of something bigger, they become individuals once again. Alone. All we are are threads, woven into the fabric of each other's lives.

Love is Life

The familiar feeling struck again today, cutting through the haze of my thoughts and torturing the soft part of my brain with an overload of emotion. I closed in on myself, thinking dark thoughts, remembering bright memories; and dark memories. I wonder where it's all disappeared to, that potential that seemed so great at the time, but has now disintegrated into the wind, the way ancient skeletons crumble to dust. It seems so long ago, and in fact, it has been, but the loss of those feelings haunts worse than any ghost. Perhaps it's not the person I miss, but the feeling, the warmth that seemed to radiate from my life, outshining the dark cracks that have always run through me. It may not have looked like it, but I was happier then than I had ever been.

I try to keep my façade of confidence, whilst beneath the surface do battle The Things That Are, The Things That Were, and The Things Which May Never Be. Each face two fronts of battle; three entities struggling to find their truth - my struggle to find my truth. I found, as the battle drew on, that it will never truly stop, and I shall look for the truth, for hope in any place I can find: films, books, other people, the paranormal; after all, the true reason we read is to find the one character who is unmistakably ourselves, and to follow their journey, so we may know how our story ends before its conclusion. And all the while we have the same longings, the same fears, the same habits of mind, turning our world on its axis; some of us wait to find the one to shift our world on its poles, others of us merely want to know when it will stop its gentle revolution.

But somehow, through all the pain, through the war raging within ourselves, we find that sad place of desires that have never been fulfilled. These desires create a special kind of melancholy, reaching in and peeling back the layers of skin to expose our heart, reaching through the blood and the muscles and the tissue layers to expose something which should never see the light of day, though it yearns for it the same way a poverty ridden artist yearns for a paintbrush in his hand and a fresh canvas before him. It is more than desire; it is life. And life is composed of those small moments of delicacy, of intimacy, of love: the smell of a lover in the morning, the curve of their spine against your chest, the girth of their body in your arms, the way their hand touches yours, and the way they berate you with mirth in their eyes. Life is composed of those moments: you brushing their fringe from their eyes, they placing their hands on your hips and whispering in your ear, the way you kiss their neck, the way everything just fits between the two of you. Without such moments, we cannot claim that we have lived.

Yet, some of us travel without being blessed by such moments, and the self doubt creeps in and sets its dark roots in our most vulnerable place. Instead of love grows despair, and one day you wake up in the grip of pure panic, thinking that you may wake up alone for the rest of your life. Instead of joy in friends' happiness, twinges of jealousy taint everything, and you wonder what it is that keeps you from having what they possess with their own lovers. You wonder how you could be so repulsive to others. You despair that you may never find a person who shall love you, and whom you may love in return. The wounds are kept raw because they are constantly chaffed by the world; it seems you just rub the wrong way with them all. The best you can do is hope.

The Shut Up Hearts

Where the towers of metal and glass kiss the sky, there wander a many people who have since been dubbed the Shut Up Hearts. Each day they wander through, each day they are as lost as the day that passed before. They march headlong towards some vague and distant goal, nestled among the lying city lights, which promise that all dreams come true. Too afraid of pursuing the pleasures of the heart, they decided to ground themselves to this life in their work; tedious, dull and repetitive - they convince themselves that this is life, and this is the best it's going to be.

They are strangers not only to each other, but to themselves, for they shade the desires of the heart as well as they shade their eyes from the glory of the sun with their expensive glasses. They don't know how to caress their heartstrings to play a haunting melody, nor open their eyes to a stranger on the street who suffers the way that they suffer. They each hide from themselves; the Shut Up Hearts cannot venture from the prison for which they hold the key, because they believe that they are safe behind its bars. The fear of loneliness keeps them alone.

The trees sigh as they pass beneath them, knowing that they shall all be lost in among the skyscrapers' shadows. To each other they are the Faceless Ones, for they do not open their eyes to see one another, their gazes sliding off and away, the way water slides down glass, leaving it unmarked and untouched. They are ghosts, walking shadows, eyes expressionless and dull, glazed over and looking into a world that is a mere shadow of the one that they refuse to see before them. They trace the same steps in the same way, until the unfamiliar becomes the familiar, the overlooked, and the mind becomes lazy in its observation, noting nothing but the unusual. The Shut Up Hearts wander in dark corridors alone and wonder why they cannot find a way out, when they are at the very threshold of escape, but choose not to use their energy to take that extra step. The buildings of metal and glass know this, and they laugh as they kiss the sky, for they know that they bask in the light which the Shut Up Hearts wish to seek.

One day, they will awaken. One day they shall recognise the glory of the world they live in; one day they will discover that the city lights do not deliver on their promises; one day they will find that the world is not so dull as they have come to believe; one day they will see that they are not as alone as they thought, and that the rest of the world was just waiting for them to wake up.

A House Is Not A Home

What makes a house a home? What renders some buildings magnificent, and others shabby? Why is it that we react to different spaces in different ways?

We find that wherever we go, we react differently. In cathedrals we are awed, the Gothic designs bearing down on us lightly and heavily at the same time. The arches show us to heaven, but the sandstone grounds us on this earth. The majestic spaces fill us with longing, but beside the gigantic columns and the ornate stonemasonry, we are humbled, and the paradoxical yearnings struggling within ourselves come to a compromise, and this we call spirituality.

And then there are moments, out beneath the dome of the sky where we experience a similar awe to the one that held us captivated in the cathedral. It is similar, and yet, so different; where the cathedral kept us in quiet appreciation, the outdoors makes us want to cry out in euphoria. There, watching the sunset burn the sky a thousand different colours that make our breath catch and our eyes widen to etch them into our memory, we feel that we are infinite. In those moments, we can see eternity stretching out before us in one long, beautiful sunset that never fades, and always brings passion and tranquillity to our lives.

But those spaces that are so overlooked are the ones which mean barely anything to someone else. They are those places where we feel most at home, relaxed and comfortable. A home is more than just a house, more than the furniture, more than the colour of the walls, more than the books on the shelf. A home is a reflection of ourselves; somewhere where everything is where we want it to be, where everything looks the way we want it to and where everything smells just the way it ought. For someone to truly understand you, they must only need to look at the personal space you've created for yourself in the world - whether it be a room in a house, an area in an office, a house in a city, an apartment in a building. That space is yours and yours alone; it is personal, it is private, and it is where you go to lay your head to rest after a tiring day.

We are stirred to fiery anger when someone tries to access that space without our permission, or when they try to change it, rearrange it. We are driven to irrationality, to deep ire, and we shout and become increasingly upset the more the space is changed. For once someone begins to alter what we have created, it loses the meaning it once had; it is no longer personal, and the connection of familiarity and comfort is shattered. You don't know where things are, you don't like the colour of the furniture, nor the smell that it gives off, the fragrance of its wood different from the fragrance of your wood. The room loses its personality; you do not become the space, and it looks strange with you in it. You cannot look at it with affection and pride, you sulk and look at the colour of the walls dejectedly, remembering what it was like before. The space loses the essence of you. And you lose your home. You lose a friend. You lose yourself.

The House of Strangers

And I don't know where we're going, I can't even say where we started, but we can hope that it's better than here. We'll take all that we can carry, everything that we hold dear, and we'll forge something better for ourselves. We'll take the music that plays in our minds and transcribe it in the sky, then we'll float to the heavens and dance in the clouds. And the words that drift through memory will be scrawled onto bits of paper; the poems of our hearts.

And should there be things that we need forgiveness for, we shall see that we have found our redemption in the smiles that we give to passing strangers. Everyone who meets our eye takes away some small part of ourselves in those smiles, so we know that should we die, a part of us lives on the memories of those moments, in those people whose faces we shall forget. For the eyes are the doors of the soul, and while something of ourselves leaves through them, it enters into the other person who catches our glance, and nestles into their heart, if but for a moment. And we'll find that wherever we may go, we are not alone. The world is full of people carrying around minute parts of others. We are all houses for the kindness of strangers.

The Hidden Art

I fear that I shall not glean the surface of my mind and that all that creativity that flows within it will stay trapped there. I know that beyond some door, somewhere in the recesses of my mind, there is a well of creativity, a room bursting at the seams with ideas that chase each other, tumbling and rolling in splashes of colour and light and energy. Beyond that door is not a room, but an entire realm, living, breathing - infinite. But somehow the key is hidden, and so far all I have experienced are those tiny pools, which leak from beneath the door and drip from the keyhole, melding together and beckoning you in, only to prove they lack the depth that they promised.

I fear that I will continue to present only the obvious - the tip of the iceberg that sits above the water, gleaming in the daylight, tall and proud, but lacking majesty and mystery. For the magic lies with what is beneath the surface, beyond the tumult of thoughts that revolve around a dull routine and mundane concerns. It lurks, letting the obvious take the credit for its subtle work, for wherever the surface turns its head, the lurker is directing. Theirs is a marriage between marionette and puppetmaster. The marionette is on display, laughing and teasing and basking in the attention it receives, but the puppetmaster sits in the shadows, bristling with pride and grinning with satisfaction, because he knows that the puppet above is only a shadow and a product of his work below.

But I fear that the puppetmaster cannot be harnessed. I cannot help but want for his genius to be omnipresent and easy for me to reach into to pull out a masterpiece. I fear that the brilliance will forever be hidden, and that I shall be tortured with the flotsam and jetsam that I am allowed; for who, seeing only some tiny corner of the night sky all their life, would not long to see the entire universe? The potential is present, it is just a matter of learning to utilise the majesty and grandeur guiding us towards creativity in our short moments of madness. For only the insane truly know the genius of humanity.

The Anger That Won't Disappear

Make a fist. Smash it through a brick wall. Feel the pain. That's the only thing you can do to keep yourself from ripping out their throats and from kicking them till there are no bones left to break. They won't ever understand you, and you don't need them to. You just want to be left the fuck alone. Their chains dig deep into your skin. Isn't that enough to satisfy them?

It takes every fibre of your being not to pummel them and bash them and bruise them and kill them with anything you can find. Hands itch to hit, hands itch to hurt, but you must restrain them. Can't let them know that you hate them with everything you have. Turn the music up louder. And louder. AND LOUDER. Is it working yet?

Dig nails into your scalp. They bite and it hurts, and it draws blood. But that's all you can do. It's all you can ever do. Otherwise you'd end up in prison for murder. At least this way it'd look like suicide and they'd never know the truth. You want to scream, you want to hit something hard, but you can't because they'll hear. They're always fucking listening. There's no escape, and you can't take it anymore. So you write it out, hoping that it will take away some of the itch. You find that it doesn't work at all, that it only makes it worse. They disgust you, and you hate them with a passion; one of the only passions you've ever learnt to summon. You weren't meant for love, only hate. It's all they bred you for.

You make a fist and go to strike your desk. With your hands held above your head, the muscles in your arms stiffen as you fight against yourself. In the end you win out, but you cry in frustration. Tears blur the words that you write to get it all out. Why the fuck should you keep it back? Why?
You think, and realise. It's because you can't tell them anything. They never listen. They never care. They'd laugh and brush it off, or else think you've gone mad, succumbed to the Devil. They sent you to him themselves, fucking hypocrites.

You can see it now, all those people's reasons. Why they run the knife against their skin, digging it deeper until it brings blood to the surface. Until it's deep enough to scar. Because there is no other way; you hurt yourself because you can't express the pain in any other way. This. This is the low that you've brought us to. Are you fucking proud now?

Crash Landing

I had hoped that everything would go smoothly, allowing me to descend from above and comfortably settle into that position I'd picked out for myself. Alas, nothing ever happens the way you would like, most especially if you were not precisely sure of what it was that you were doing in the first place. Crossing your fingers and hoping never quite seems to work.

Still, it was better than having my parachute tear in mid air. I merely crash landed, though not too dangerously. Now all I must do is look around and find a way to return to the place which I had intended to inhabit. Surely it cannot be too difficult. Though it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be, surely my landing is not irreversible and that I can somehow find my way back. I can only hope, it's true, that something happens and that I am allowed into the fold, despite my actions and stupidity. Oh lord, I hope that everything turns out in the end.

Between Now and the Future

It feels as though you're a stranger who means more than a stranger to me. You're a memory of a memory, hanging somewhere in the ether space between reality and dreams, the past and the present; irreconcilable.

It feels as though I've lost you, but I'm not sure I ever had you. Our entire relationship was formed between "hello" and "goodbye" and somehow has persisted past those boundaries. Conversation came naturally and flowed, the mellifluous words gliding off our tongues and dissolving into the air between us to the cadences of our laughter. Though the multitude swarmed around us, we took no notice of them as they passed, like two rocks, steadfast despite the raging rapids.

In retrospect, we stood together for less time than I thought, and yet it feels as though I took more from that brief meeting than I have taken from the friendships I've had for years. Camaraderie bound us in an instant and careless laughter rose from us almost immediately, and we settled into a casualness, as though we'd been striking up conversations with each other for years.

Perhaps we have nothing in common, but that did not at all impede our banter. I was entranced by your presence and captivated by your voice and the accent which bespoke of exotic places and patchwork summer meadows held together at the seams by low stone walls. I cannot speak for you, but you must have recognised something within me that held you to our conversation. Why else the chat about things that differed from your original purpose?

It may have only been a short talk, but in those ten minutes, I grew into myself as a person. I held myself taller, straighter, and with more confidence. As we stood on the pavement among the city crowd, I no longer felt like a bumbling teenager who did not fit properly into her own skin but like an adult who'd long since outgrown the awkwardness of their limbs and long since resolved the dilemma of their place in the world. I felt as though I'd gained a level of sophistication, that we'd reached an equal footing where countries and ages and positions didn't matter, because we were simply two people laughing away on the footpath. And for the first time, I felt that I had the potential of a seductress, as though I was possibly good enough for someone to be interested in a way people had never been interested before. After all, who looks at the girl in the shadows?

As quickly as it came, it just as quickly passed, for though we were enjoying our conversation, we each had to continue our separate ways. And so it ended with a smile, a handshake and an "it was nice to meet you." I walked away with pride and satisfaction, and a warmth that spread from my chest outwards. I still wonder if you looked after me as I left, hoping that we'd meet again, the way I hoped. I did not look back because I was already looking forwards. I wonder if you too hope that we shall meet again.

A Question of Security

I sit down to write, but I stare into space, unsure of which words to grab from the maelstrom that is my mind. Whirling through at gale force speeds are conspiracies, theories, longings, paranoia and vulnerability. And today I can't quite be sure which one to write about. There's fear and uncertainty about my place in this world and how secure I feel in it. Paranoia keeps me wondering whether I could have compromised my personal safety in some way. In this world of instant information and lax security on identification, it can be all too easy to succumb to the trap of a predator. Sharing something as simple as your name can lead to someone entering your life through the back door; present and unwanted.

The sick feeling in your gut subsides a little when you think it through, but then returns when you realise how easy people are to track these days. There are windows into your life everywhere; a photo here, an account with something there, and you never know who could be watching. Can mentioning your name to someone over the Internet lead to them tracking you down in person? You ask yourself whether anyone would really bother, and whether anyone would really hound you in such a way. You think not, and then all those stories come floating to mind; people who were just like you, enticed and seduced, so innocent, and then destroyed.

In this world of easy access, security is just an illusion.

Beautiful Tragedy

There are those things which are full of immense beauty and a terrifying depth of tragedy. They reach out and strike us in ways unforeseen, brushing against the emotions we didn't know could be brought to life by such things, and we tremble, unsure whether we are comforted by the beauty, or whether we are merely borne onwards on the tides of tragedy.

Fragility keeps us captivated, drawing us into the grief, the sadness, and the sense of secret places, of loneliness, delicacy; the beauty of the broken hearted. We allow ourselves to be torn and scratched and marked with helpless abandon, for nothing else in our existence can touch us in the same way. Unbidden the tears form in our eyes, and we weep, silently, with more grief that we thought could be summoned. We fear that the sounds of our anguish will break the spell of pulchritude, that instead of seeing something fragile shatter, we shall unleash unprecedented chaos and succumb to terror. For though we dwell in that beautiful sorrow, it bears forth no horror, induces no fear; we are allowed to only feel empathy. Should we sever that connection, we lose that sense of delicacy and we are forced to experience the woe in a manner too painfully, too realistic, for it shall no longer carry within it that beauty.

Thus, silently, observing, and yet feeling everything, we witness the passing of something fragile. And the red breasted robin looks on, curious, the vines grip the wall ever tighter, the rusted iron wrought gate shuts without its normal squeal, and the sun hides behind the clouds, afraid to peek from behind its makeshift curtain, lest it devastate the heartbreaking scene with its rays of happiness. In those moments, we are infinite and minuscule, and tall, proud, but completely broken. And in those moments, we live forever. In those moments, we are the universe.

Silence Is Painted Blue

You padlocked the door, leaving me on the outside, confused and lost, without the slightest notion of where to head next. So I sat right looking with hope at the door, maybe you would open it again. You didn't, and I'm still completely locked out. Somehow I don't think you'll ever open that door to me again.

At some point I realised I must stop sitting where you left me, for I was wasting my life away there, growing older and colder and no closer to you. So I wandered, full of fear and uncertainty, and though I try to leave, I cannot bring myself to move completely out of sight of that door, because somewhere, deep in my heart, I still hold that spark of hope that someday you may need me and opening the door, you'd look at me and invite me back to help you. It's the most improbable thing in existence, and yet, improbable isn't impossible.

But if you care to listen for a moment, you'd realise the desolation you left me in. If you quiet down for just a moment, you'd hear it: silence. My world is the world of silence, and it's painted blue. I'm going to wander into the blue; that place from where I shall be irretrievable. Ready?

Scent of the Future

Could you stand by and watch while the whole world burns? When the flames leap up and tear apart everything you've ever known, are you merely going to stand there and watch?

Should you not instead stand at the head of your generation, leading them into the future, into a world where they won't have to live in fear of the sky burning? Emancipate them all from the fear, from the thoughts that chained our ancestors. The time has arrived for change; the very wind brings the scent of a different future, letting it waft through the empty halls and chapels, through our hair, through our hearts. We must recognise it, identify what needs be done, and stand up and do it. The world is not as egalitarian as we would like to believe, though it is in our power to put it on the path of equality. Who is going to be brave enough to grasp the future in their fist and pull it towards us?
Will it be you?

Did you know it could be you?

Those Who Hurt

Can one person save the world?
I wonder.
One person can save a life. Indeed, one person can save many lives. But can one person save every life? Or is that too impossible a task?
They are only the rarest of rare days when everybody who goes to sleep at night was everybody who woke up in the morning. Too often people are lost, disappeared into the dark, the place which the living cannot visit, though they might try.

And those who hurt rub the blade against their skin, leaving behind a fine line, for a few seconds invisible, until the break begins to fill with blood.
And those who hurt hold a flame to their skin, flinching as the flesh burns, but yet remaining steadfast, immovable until the patch is red raw and the pain becomes unbearable.
And those who hurt do not allow a morsel of food to remain within their bodies, starving themselves because they do not see themselves as beautiful, starving until they become loose flesh hanging on a visible skeleton and all vestige of beauty has wasted away like their body.
And those who hurt weep, allowing the hot tears to run down their faces until their eyes become dry and bloodshot, and they cannot cry anymore.
And those who hurt cry out, waiting for someone to recognise their distress and lead them to the salvation they have been hoping for.
And those who hurt smile, and laugh, and joke. And lie.
And those who hurt hope; they hope that someone will see the mask and will gently pull the fake visage off their face and expose the true one below, and then will hold them, and love them, and cure the loneliness, drive away the horrific memories and show them that there is beauty in this world.

So tell me, did you recognise the pain in your friend's eyes, did you notice the fake laugh, did you realise that it wasn't a joke after all?
Did you save someone's life today?
Because sometimes those who hurt leave us, and fall into the darkness, and the world loses another day of which it could have boasted that everybody lived.

Born of Darkness to Burn

You all just stood by and stared as my whole world was torn asunder. The rift that was created in the fabric of my reality bleeds into what's left of my life, spilling over my broken pieces and creeping into my depths. I've tried to dig through it all, to something brighter, something better, but here I'm stuck, in a rut I can't break out of. Senses dulled to the feelings of reality; I can feel no sting, no hurt, no joy, no bliss. Numb to everything; this is no existence. No, I can't take, I can't take this numbness anymore. Must stop to save my soul. Can't fake it, no, don't think everything's as it seems - we can't fake it anymore. Need the guitar to wake me from this nightmare, and pull me deeper into its sweet intoxication.

Need to create myself a cure, need to bleed to find the answer. Too far gone for tears, too far gone for fears. I need to save me. I'll find me a stage, I'll grab me a microphone, I'll make them listen; make them cower, make them cry blood. Raise my voice and make myself heard. Scream the things which weigh on the soul, in the shadow that is heavier than I can bear. Can someone who drowns in their own tragedy make something of themselves? I wonder if you could bear the weight either.

Find me a place where I'll forget my name, forget that goddamn dragging weight. Tired of feeling faithless, tired of being a disappointment, but tied now to that expectation. I'm painfully aware of all the things I do, of all the things I don't feel, and all the things I do. Too aware of how I'm not what others hoped for. Forgive me, or forgive not, I care not at all, but don't keep here. I need to find something to live for, before I become a living corpse, a shadow of a person, of a soul. That question of what I live for haunts, terrifies, goes unanswered. It screams and shouts from within me. It hates, it hurts, it stains and it holds you in its iron grip, making you writhe in pain and wonder why the hell it chose you.

If I can live for the night, for the seduction of the darkness, for the heavy guitar chords ringing through the fibres of my body, intoxicating me, I will. It's a love affair I am willing to risk being exposed. I need to find my place, my empty public place and make it fill with people, make it my private place, and have the courage to sing what I can't say, to expel my panic into the night, and express my lusts, my needs, my pain, my grief. For screaming it out loud is the only time I feel alive. I need something that'll change my life forever. Is the dawn going to bring it? I can't live with the hurt that still shames, I can't live with the grief that still blames. And if it means that I won't ever sleep, than so be it. It's better to burn out and fizzle than to go unnoticed at all.

Music is the saviour of the soul. It will be the saviour of my soul. If it's the only thing I can grab to lead me to salvation, then it is the path I am going to take. I can only hope that Fate will be merciful and lead me to what I need.

Find the Shore

Could we wander these streets forever? What happens when familiar ways become too familiar? When dreams become dreams? Are there ways to recognise what you truly want in this life?

If I spent a lifetime wandering, I'm not sure whether I would be able to rummage through the dark chest my mixed feelings and grab the one of the many that I feel for sure. It's too difficult to be certain; it's too easy to live in uncertainty. The chaotic maelstrom of emotions are a refuge, a safe harbour - familiar. To venture out to discover the truth is daunting, in a way only blue skies can be. Some ships are definitely destined to never set sail, and not all those which cut loose their moorings return to port. Yet one cannot live spending a lifetime shut away from the fears of living. And one cannot progress when each step is a step into the fog.

I'd like for someone to live in my skin, to understand the muddled mess of my mind. I wonder if anyone would be able to make any sense of it. Take a feeling from the storm, mould it in your hands, make it the shape it's supposed to be. Show me the colours through which my life could turn. Tell me whether it's lust or love, confusion or worry, fear or laziness. Explain the weariness, take it away. Show me the path of happiness so that I may follow it. Let me not lie and while the days away.

When does being a dreamer become dangerous?
Is it when you create a life away from the nightmare, a life steeped in music and poetry and beauty, and the seduction of pain?
Is it when you face reality with only a dull notion of what is real and what isn't?
Is it when you are so tired of the way life progresses that you sleep your whole way through?
Is escapism the ultimate doom?
Is the only way to live to die and be born again?

True Beauty

And oft I've wondered whether we can truly feel beauty, whether we can experience it. They are rare moments that will fill us to the brim, and continue to fill until we overload, and it all comes splashing out the sides. But those moments happen.

On the most fortunate of days, and the most rare, something will brush against our very heartstrings and make them vibrate with an energy, familiar, and yet strange; the energy of true beauty. It resonates within us, filling, and filling, until we can longer hold any more. Then you find that tears are leaving trails along your face, and that your heart wants to leap out of its cavity in your chest and melt into the world. You find that you want to shout the feeling into the world, but cannot find the words to express the emotion that has taken hold of you. All at once you find that you are removed from the world, and still so intrinsically linked. You feel connected to everything, and still separate as yourself. You want to take the hands of all around you and draw them into the experience.

Beauty is love. Love is beauty. It is not everlasting, but powerful - the most powerful thing a person can experience. And you will sing, and you will laugh, but mostly, you will cry. For, true beauty makes you weep.

White Knight

I'd love a white knight. I think that sometimes, we all need one to save us from our woes. There is, however, an issue here: the white knight cannot always save you the way you need them to. They too are only human. But for a moment, for one shining, glorious moment, they give you hope, they show you a vision of the way things could be. So you aspire to that. It's not always easy, it's rarely ever simply granted, but must be worked for, and the victory is all the sweeter for that.

It was a flash of how much I was missing out on in life. I met you and you talked about the military, about your training, though you never went on to serve, and I realised that there was so much out there; things I was not experiencing because I was cloistered among the same four walls I had stared at since childhood. I wonder if I am whiling my life away in a useless stupor because I never do what I want to do. You've skydived, you've moved your life to another country and you work for charity; I don't have a thing to compare against that, nothing at all.

Then there was the film. Sometimes a story is just a story, but sometimes, in fact, more often than not, a story is a message. This one said, 'you cannot achieve perfection by repressing parts of yourself, but by embracing all aspects of your personality.' Is that what this is? Am I repressing some part of myself because I'm afraid of embracing it? The truth: yes, I think so.
It's strange how events, people, films, artworks, can all leave a deep, and different impact on you, all on the same day. It's as though all the threads of your life are revealing themselves to you through these things, showing you the things that are wrong, and those that are right within your life. You know it's a sign when you stare at the theatre screen, scared to watch, but helpless to tear your eyes away, because what you see is a reflection of yourself, filmed and projected onto a screen for people to see. The situations are different, the extremity of the case also differs, but you recognise that person all the same; you recognise the patterns, the hate, the obsequious attitude, the anger - the need to be more than what you are.

Then, somewhere along the way, you realise how alone you are. Those you thought would be there for you, aren't as close as you hoped. In fact you were closer with him, with a stranger for a few moments than you were with them, even after a few hours. You grow sullen, though they don't notice, passing it off as another of your moods, but in truth, you were happy before they made you realise that they wouldn't be there for you the way you hoped they would be. You shrug it off, what else can you do, and keep going forward with your life, but staying stationary all the same.

But I keep thinking that I'd like to see you again. You were nice, you were amusing, handsome, obviously charitable, and you made me feel, for the second time in my life, as though I wasn't being overlooked. But I lied to you. I'm sorry, I regret it, but it was the nicest way I could think of saying goodbye and not being forced into something I don't want to do. My way is not to help people financially, but in person, by labour, by support. Forgive me that my way is not your way. So I lied to not have to do things your way. But you were still gracious, and polite, after all, we'd had a conversation about something completely different most of the time. And you remembered my name. That counts for everything. I do have to thank you, because though you made a small impact on me in a day of impacts both large and small, it will be a lasting one, nevertheless.

So yes, I'd like a white knight to show me the way I'm supposed to be going. Or rather, I know the way, I just need help starting down that path. Encouragement, support and help would all be a gift. Inspiration was today's gift.

Hiatus, Return

Long ago, so long ago, there used to live a girl who often sat in the dark and wrote. She would compose endlessly, the words flowing through her and onto the page, out into the world where the wind would snatch them away and take them to the the furthest corners of existence. One day there came a storm; it whipped the pages from her hands, it stole all her words, and flung them far far away.

The lonely girl stood, and watched as the wind scattered all the friends she had ever known and resolved that she would trek until she gathered them all together again. For a long time she travelled, for a long time she wandered, for a long time, she was not sure what would become of herself. And in that time the urge to write would overwhelm her, and she would fling herself onto the ground and weep, for she had nothing with which to record her thoughts. And very soon, the words began to leave her, seeing that there was no escape through that girl.

Slowly, so very slowly, she collected all those far flung sheets of paper, she dusted them off, and she bound them into a book. Often she would flip through that book, and be astounded with what she found there - words that she did not remember having written, words that were beautiful and haunting, which danced and wept and sang and grieved. She could not believe that such things could have come from her mind, could have been formed by her hand across the pages. But it was true; all those pages were memories and feelings, scrawled or carefully traced, and all that was written had meaning.

Always did she keep that book with her. Sometimes she would read it, but more often than not, she would merely thumb through the pages, glimpsing snatches of things that were. She was glad for having found all that she feared she had lost, for those words bound her to a time when she was a different person. Thus she dubbed the volume The Book of a Girl Who Was.

Then one day, absentmindedly stroking the cover of that book, she came to the realisation that the words she thought had fled, had slowly begun to return; they whispered in her mind, the background noise to her thoughts, which would sometimes be heard clearly, other times, be a mere presence, shadowy and insubstantial, but ever there. She let them come. She took her pen, found a fresh sheet of paper, and began to inscribe the phrases which turned in her mind. By the end of the first session, she had looked down upon her work and found that it was different from what she had written before, and yet, all the same, it was strikingly familiar. With a smile she put aside that paper and began another, and another after that, filling sheet after sheet. Then she stood back and laughed, a melodious sound that uplifted her heart. For it was that she had placed aside The Book of a Girl Who Was, and began composing another volume. This new book, she could see was an amalgamation of several books, all intertwining and growing as one: the books of The Girl Who Was, The Girl Who Is, and The Girl Who May Come To Be.