Resolution

"All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle." 
St. Francis of Assisi

~

Where to start?

Unbent horizons and hollow cigarettes. Broken ties and eye-tearing smoke. Imaginary bonds and colorless daydreams. Dramatic plot twists and star-gazing epiphanies. Time-twirling questions and good music. Guest appearances and starring roles. Comfort zones and -

A new year comes with new promises and new surprises, a new you and a new me.

~

Her eyes, they spoke of words unsaid and torn manuscripts that were never read. They blinked with the sound of the turning pages of an untold tale; eyelashes that could paint fiery courage pale. Yet, the voices recurrently told me that silent songs and buried bones share an eternal friendship, that a breaking heart in a broken home is an open door to an empty room, that there is an infinite light and a single candle staring down all the darkness of the multiverse, that there is a forgotten hourglass beneath the chest with sand that smells of fraudulent heartbeats, sand that shakes to the sound of the fractured violin and its stuttering echo, both jumping the rope of this infinite loop. But when I looked at you, none of this ever came up. When I looked at you, the voices just wanted to listen.

Her eyes, they spoke of stars and constellations, scattered across our interwoven dreams.

Her eyes, they spoke these heart-pressed lines. They sailed the waters of remixed rhymes. But I was taught to trust no one, not even myself. I was taught to notice the invisible, to make long-distance power plays -with people who didn't know the power-play dimension- right before the end of the game, to lose in every damned dreadful way before I land my final strike. Throughout the years, I learned to doubt every line and definition until I forgot my own shape. I learned how to map lies on someone's face and how to lose mine in the frozen shadows of sinful icebergs that bear neither name nor memory. I swam through letters just like these until I lost sight of the shore and I never looked back because home became an array of pixels beyond a screen. There, I pulled three roses up my chest, through my trachea, and I laser-blasted them away from my eyes into 'virtuality' slipping what was left of my dreams into the pockets of blessed fictional characters. Then I filled that cardiac space with songs that wore a perfume similar to that of the crack-ridden petals that fell off.

Her eyes, they spoke of future visions paved inside the hallways of the Grand Design and old childhood swings that unknowingly operated at the frequency of the Golden Ratio.

Where to stop?

The dreamer and the dream. A candle in the mirror. Words in his heart. And music in the dark.
The dreamer and the dream. A play of light and shadow. An addiction to fiction. And a thirst for reality.
The dreamer and the dream. The truth behind the veil. A tale of myth and legend. An empty holy grail.
The dreamer and the dream. The chill upon your skin. The tears that won't come down. The fracture in your crown.
The dreamer and the dream. The broken beat within. The game of love and pain. Rays through your windowpane.
The dreamer and the dream. The mirror in your eyes. And the love in your words.
Listen.

Her eyes, they speak.

So listen to the music sitting behind the countdown.

Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

~

"Either define the moment, or the moment will define you."
Walt Whitman

Bulletproof

"Lost my heart

When I found it

It had turned to dead, black coal."

Sixto Rodriguez

~

He shoots.

Imagine an ocean covered in clouds. Come down, and through. And look right. If you look closely, there's this thin horizontal space hovering in-between white and blue. And that's where you're suspended. Now, if you have water on your face, then you must understand, deep down, that one must not dwell in metaphors, no matter how swell the reflections on the waves or how comfortable that bed of clouds.

But everything's interconnected and it's beautiful. And while the two voices in my head tell me that the universe is within and that all the colors of the world extract their ink from your retina, the third voice sings the discordant chorus in the background: "Run, quit and disappear. Get back to bed." And it makes me wonder. It makes me wonder if all this wondering is coded in the same pattern my feet always sculpt in the terrible sands of reality. It makes me wonder if I'm at least a good enough runner to get some sand up there with the useless dust -at the turn of my chin- on that mirror. Maybe that way, the guy in the reflection will appreciate the effort and let me fade away without the extra bullets in the back of my head. Maybe one day, your reflection won't let him shoot. And they'll both watch us walking away into this hellish madness, painting gardens of bliss under our feet.

Are you fearless or are you too afraid to even realize what it is you fear?

Are you fearless or do you just have nothing to lose?

How can you be both fearless and loving?  It stars with an F.

[...]

If only you knew my story, maybe then you would understand why I vanished; first last sorry goodbye.

Perspectives and interpretations dizzily spin above two concentric circles, and the colors, if any, shift from warm or cold on the light spectrum - nothing to declare.

Enter dark cold rain. An old white hoodie with blood-orange stains. The river flows in you and so too does the light from that train. The mind wanes and wails and trails behind the rhythm so you put on your headphones to follow the pain and silence the source that echoes it... that maimed heart, masquerading as this crooked hand, bent to write all this 'inkkrap' just to get through the night.

[...]

The broken deconstruct the script. The bent twist the tale. The dreamer designs the metaphor. The actor salutes the empty stage. The dust seeps through the mirror. The clouds impersonate a smoke screen. The story becomes the characters... or is it the other way around?

He bows.

~

"But don't bother to buy insurance 'cause you've already died."

Sixto Rodriguez

Child

"I'll be yours
When it rains it pours
Stay thirsty like before
Don't you know that the kids aren't al-
Kids aren't alright."
Fall Out Boy

~

I need to do this well. I need to do this right. If I don't, then I'll have nothing left to hold on to. If I can't jump over this wall at the edge of my fingertips, what does that make me? I tried on many labels and none of them worked. If I can't write anymore, what else should I do? If I can't arrange the words in a way that makes me feel something, how can I genuinely move anyone else? If I keep forcing this by intentionally lining up letters to face my existential crisis for me, will this headache go away? Why are all the holes in the ground waiting for me to dig deeper? Why aren't there any holes in the wall? I'm just tired and out of breath. And I need to let things out. But I can't write anymore. I can pretend. It's very easy to pretend, as you can see. But like most things in life, this is bullshit. I'm sorry.

Now, I must dedicate this to this voice I can't recognize as my own. And as it now silently transforms my dedication into the empty acknowledgments of a worn-out novel made up by the blank pages it contains, I would like to thank, most impassively, the dark shadows in between the papers, putting the desolation to light and mysterious sleep. This is the emotionless story I make-believe about all that within me beats in vain. And it now ends with your eyes, gazing as blankly as they should.

None of this was supposed to happen, but it did. It happened and I didn't. And if I could destroy all these mirrors I call metaphors, I would. No, I wouldn't. I would never give up this illusion for the terrible delusions of reality. I would rather live forever in this uninspired lack of inspiration than accept this collective brokenness, that grand affliction pushing against my eyes, against the heart I hid behind the void, my beautiful impermeable void that challenges this failing world to pierce it.

Yes, the world is ugly but my horizon is unbent. My horizon is unbent. The world is ugly but I live on because there's good music and good people - and because Christmas is coming. The world is ugly but there is a loophole in this loop of holes that have me by the neck. My horizon is unbent. The world is ugly and I can't breathe well. The world is ugly and I can't breathe right. The world is ugly but I have you to hold on to. The world is ugly but there's no wall I can't jump over if I know that come dawn I'll have your skin at the edge of my fingertips. The world is ugly but all its labels blur out whenever we lock eyes or hands or bodies or the door and the world behind it before we go to sleep. The world is ugly and I can write time into oblivion just to make your heart skip a beat or two with mine by its side. The world is ugly and I hope this is making you smile because I broke all these walls just to get here and hug you. My horizon is unbent, you see. The world is ugly but I'm hugging you now and this is wonderful even if it's not really happening. In my head, the world is, sometimes, almost as beautiful as you are.

And thus we knock on the door beyond chaos and perdition. And then we knock some more. We play hide and seek with the magic seeping out from each side of the veil. Sometimes it's light. Sometimes it's pale. And sometimes it's dark. But there is a remedy in the music that moves all that is frail. So can you hear the beat in this awfully composed cure? Can you hear the faint melody knocking on your chest? Can you see the magic painting your face? Or are these blank pages on the surface of your eyes?

As I said, I can pretend. It's very easy to pretend, though you might not see. And like most things in life, this is a love letter disguised as bullshit. And i'm not sorry anymore. I'm intentionally lining up the next letters to face you.

uoy evol I

And it now ends with your eyes, gazing back at mine.

That unbent horizon, this is it.

~

"And in the end
I'd do it all again.
I think you're my best friend.
Don't you know that the kids aren't al- 
Kids aren't alright."
Fall Out Boy

Disconnect

"When the paper's crumpled up it can't be perfect again."
Linkin Park

~

Yeah but, she co-wrote my life with the words she never said.

There was once a young kid who thought he could do anything. One day, he read somewhere about a common phenomenon among teenagers called the Invincibility Complex. From that day onward, he understood that 'eventually they all fall' and that no one is invulnerable.

"What if I fell to the floor..."

There was once a young kid who dedicated all his observational skills to discover the strengths and weaknesses of everyone around him. One day, someone told him that he was projecting. From that day onward, he started including himself in his analysis.

"Couldn't take this anymore..."

There was once a young kid who got hooked on self-destructive behavior. One day, he came across the concept of self-love but he could not comprehend it. From that day onward, at every given opportunity, he told people that they should not reduce themselves or others to the mistakes they make.

"What would you do..."

And she breathed out love when my blood was mere fire, when I only saw my bruises in the blue sky.

When the definitions are wrong, all our stories, whether written or read, neither, or both, will be flawed and misunderstood. The worst stories are those that have missing links, where the reader can only focus on how the events are unrelated, how it's all incoherent nonsense. The best stories are where the reader feels part of the story, where the characters can somehow touch him, and thus, change him.

This is not a good story. It's just me looking for one in the emptiness. There are no characters here. There are only voices that my mind is trying to silence.

The origin, you see, is a sad conversation on an old and broken phone. The process, so far, involves an inconsistent run over fictional obstacles. And the purpose is -

And she stood behind her silent voice, staring at the sea, all three conspiring to heal my broken skyline, to mend the horizon that bends behind my eyes.

This story isn't designed to make me feel anything. It's not supposed to make you feel anything either.

But how do you feel about not being able to feel anything at all?

Does it hurt? Does it hurt to be you? Is that blood on your mask? Is that pain in your heart?

Where did she go? I just wanted to make her smile.

~

"I see you up again wandering so diligent
Crossing your T's as though it weren't irrelevant
They say formality, this is what they really meant:
They can be the walk and we can, we can be the pavement."
Agesandages