The Vast, Lonely Universe

Solitude. A single dot in the vastness of space. Staring at the beauty that surrounds, there's a sense of wonder, an awe, but mingled with it is a heart aching loneliness. It is one thing to wave cheerily at the stars, and quite another to be part of them. Luminescent clouds of dust and radiation wouldn't be so heartbreaking if there were someone to sit by my side and gaze at them with me.

All alone in the universe, single specks, all alone. How can it be that there are so many who are lonely, and yet will not come together to alleviate the pain? How can it be that my hand will sit empty when we all want someone to find our own?

Our City

The future, can you see it? You, me, and the city of lights, burning brighter as we learn its depths. Regal buildings which guard the streets, history embroidered with revolutions and elegance, waste and creation, and a pull, playing the melody of dreamers on our heartstrings, inviting us deeper, securing our place within its landscape; the carnival with no escape; the carnival with no need for escape - it is escape. In the dying light, as the sky turns to purple, we'll shout it from the rooftops: "We are home!", and the blue and yellow lights will ignite the city, consuming it in glowing, incandescent fire - a welcome parade better than we could have dreamt. We shall revel in the celebrations, the lights dispelling our fear, our apathy, our foolish nonchalance, dragging us into joy, pure and whole, and better food for the soul than the melancholia we are so used to consuming. Together, we shall drown in the pool of lights and stake our claim on the city of dreamers.

Fascinating, Beguiling, Strange

An image, fragile, unfocused, but endlessly fascinating - that is all I see of you. You are made up of colours and thoughts and movements, disappearing moments and never fading memories, and yet I know none of them. What lies beneath the surface of your pale skin? I would like to learn. Would you let me? Perhaps.

I see you sometimes, so distant, and wonder, if looking up, you ever see me. Further, and if you do, what is it you think? Do you think anything at all? Do birds in a flock ever consider one another beyond the strangeness of their belonging to the same family? The thought fascinates me, beckons me, yet beguiles me when it yields no answers. I shall pass the days wondering, and cherishing a small hope that I may learn the answers, and that the answers are of a positive nature.

The Stars and Our Tragedies

There aren't words that you can find, however much you scramble after them, that will alter our opinions of you. Words are meaningless without the intention behind them; attitude is all that matters. And while we have our sights set on the horizon, on the stars, those pinpricks in the universe, yours are on the ground, staring at your feet. You cannot progress, you cannot grow, when you dare not look ahead, further out from the thoughts inside your own head. That is why you are always going to think the things you do, and see the things you see.

Yet, why is that those who see the least are confident the most? It must be that the less you know, the bigger you feel in the world. Is it a paradox of the curious, the intelligent, that we must always feel insignificant with our knowledge, while those who know nothing try to convince us with their ignorance? Another tragedy to add to the list that we keep in the pocket by our hearts.

We must keep in mind that while we are weighed down by those tragedies, we are also uplifted by them. For we are they who shall leap for the stars while the rest of them, the blind, are unable to fathom the courage to do the thing which will shatter their perception of the world. Ignorance for them shall be their downfall. And the greatest tragedy of all is that they shall never know it.

We All Shiver in the Dark

 But we never really know pain, do we, amid these cages of steel and glass towers and cemented ground. Society is the padding. It is the blade which drags itself across our hearts, which makes us shudder, which forces blood to well up where there was none before. It is what we throw ourselves into, hoping that someone will see. Hoping that someone will save us.

And some of us wear scars, crossing across forearms, embroidering stomachs, decorating hips, tattooing thighs; marks of who we really are. Some of us wear nothing, but the scars are there, just as deep, invisible against the skin, scratched into the soul; peel back the flesh and see what's written beneath. And some of us don't know how to get it out; breath in, drown - that's how it goes - drowning in something which nobody can see; drowning but still alive. We keep breathing because that's the only thing we know how to do; the question still scratches at the back of our minds - should we? Wouldn't it be easier? Some do. Lost souls, all.

Can we ever truly realise our pain until we compare it to another's. We all feel a different hurt, a different pain, but we all suffer just the same. Don't tell us that we don't. We all fear, we all cry out, silent screams which echo in the empty spaces, we all shiver in the dark. Grapple at the light, try to touch the pristine, the clean; dirty it with our taint, the grime we can't remove, ingrained into the layers of ourselves.

Remember. Remember it always; whisper it to yourself when you walk past, when your eyes slide away, unable to bear the reality of another hurting soul. Remember: we suffer all the same.