To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.”
W.B. Yeats
~
Illusions.
The smoke mixes well with the darkness. And the white light comes off the screen to crash onto the stranger's hands. Whose hands are these? The keystrokes brighten up when I push them. I'm not alone. I don't like it when I'm not alone. I wish I could die. I don't mean that in a completely suicidal way. Perhaps, it's only part of me that hopes for death. Is there a you in you that wants to die too?
Enter the void.
Thankfully, I can turn down the emotion-volume to a minimum—and you can read what remains, these letter-shaped stains that leak through my fingers. I'm alone now. All that is incontrovertibly true is saved in this bubble. Thus, I am not allowed in. But, at least, I can read off these spherical layers and I can transliterate tribulation. All I have ever known is here. My castles of repressed tears. My frozen rivers of rage. My beautiful sleepless nights and the starry sky that drowns them. All my old selves are here, buried alive beneath the ashes of my cigarettes. And there's him too, that motionless shadow which glows darker than all this madness, my madness. Stand here. Right there. Let your feet float atop silky ember. Yes, right there. This is where I last saw him, the shadow's owner I mean. He was just a little kid, a little kid who really loves paper-planes. And this used to be his playground. He liked to run, all the time. And... and this is where he stopped. He just stopped and looked at me. "What have you done?" he said. And that was it. He vanished. I never got the chance to explain.
Let there be light, and many, many shadows.
Take your best shot. Take your best shot. Take a shot of self-destruction with an aftertaste of fake redemption. I numb the hurt with self-deception and you, and you can turn up the volume because I've already fallen asleep. Take your best shot because your wounds are crippling your body language. Take your best shot because every moment is eternal abandonment. Take your best shot because you only have two bullets and the last bullet is you.
Blessed be the brave, and blessed be the knight of faith.
So comprehend apprehension for this heart-drum is forever paired with pain. Blink away this wretched ink and blink away the rain. Hold on to the key of fiction and redefine insane. Then turn the pages, turn the pages, turn the pages and decorate the veil. And burn off the reflection as you fade away. The purple heart implodes. The breathless voice erodes. All I have ever known is here. So how dare you ask me to—
Wait.
What was that? It was a dashing flash, a silent blur. Did you see it?
Look. No. No, not like that. I mean close your eyes.
It's a paper-plane.
Well open it!
7-SYS-1
~
Frank Warren