Sunrise

“Twilight fell: The sky turned to a light, dusky purple littered with tiny silver stars.”
J.K. Rowling

~

Letters and lines, they intertwine. They come to you as symbols and signs. But do you recognize the handwriting? Do you recognize the road? Don't look away. It's okay if you do. It's okay if you weren't listening. It's okay because the bright lights in their eyes have already stitched their glow atop your heart.

I wish I had words for fading memories, for lost friendships and forgotten songs. I wish I still had those eyes that could take me to the sleepless cemetery of stars. I wish I could take you with me, my beautiful cold, my beautiful dark, my beautiful corner; my ever-faithful void. For so long, I secretly thought that you had etched your pain upon every piece of me, that all the warmth I will ever encounter would eventually shiver at the sight of your gaze.

But now I ask myself and you,

Have you forgotten me?

I'm that child who saw the stars behind the rain. I am the enigma of self-inflicted affliction. I'm the boy who dug for the truth beneath the shadow. I am that seeker who fell in love with the horizon. I am the game, the game lonely children play to pretend they're someone else. I am the past, present and future interlaced in one broken moment. I am you, dearest void, as I have always been. So why are you not answering? And why is it colder than our usual cold?

I write to you today though I feel I should not. For I feel like an ancient recipe with expired secret ingredients unable to remember their distasteful failures. I cannot tell you what will become of us, or me because I don't know, because I can't feel anything beyond the pain of potentially losing you. I keep writing that word so that perhaps I'd feel it. And I know, deep down, that even if you decide to leave me to the road, I will keep you in my handwrit-

An echo interrupts the rain, blurs the shadows and their games. The void replies,

Heartbeats and souls, they interweave. They become you if you believe. Yet will you recognize the smell? Will you recognize the warmth?

You will never walk alone – unless you change the story.

I don't think you can.

 

 ~

“There's always a story. It's all stories, really. The sun coming up every day is a story. Everything's got a story in it. Change the story, change the world.”
Terry Pratchett

Dream

"Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete?"
Tupac Shakur

~

The house is small. And it is made of wood; light brown exterior, reddish maroon interior. It has one door, three windows and a backdoor on the left side. It's a one-room-house in the middle of nowhere. Inside, the four walls are stacked with thousands of photographs, all staring at a single bed at the center.

I built this house when I was a child. I built it with early traumas and wet pillow covers. I built it with broken toys and fits of rage. I built it with yellow bedsheets and humiliation. I built it all by myself and wrote betrayal on the welcome mat. I'd been sleeping there every night for as far as I can remember. The few cracks in the ceiling even found a way to map themselves as wrinkles on my face. Perhaps it was their way of reminding me that no matter how badly my memory attempts to self-destruct, the pain of the past will always be etched in the mirror.

That house right there is the reason why I've always been homesick, why I could never belong. The world's beautiful lights could not compare with the dark grey brightness my eyes were accustomed to. And all those seductive perfumes people wore smelled nothing like the stagnant shame and regret entrenched in my lovely rotting mattress.

No one's ever set foot near this place. But love has a way of clawing at your insecurities, of tearing all the metaphors you hide behind back to reality's page. So here I am now haunting with words the haunted house that's sheltered me for years. The walls of sanity have been breached. Anxiety has hit like a storm. The windows have shattered into stubborn tears and the ceiling has finally crumbled onto all those past selves I can barely remember.

The door is still there though. And it opens with a single word. We can go inside and I could show you some things you don't know about me. But now is not the time.

Now is the time to wander off this barren land, past the broken house and the plastic castle on its left side, past the friendly void and its endless patterns in the concrete, past the rose and into the next adventure.

So, tonight, I'll get to sleep outside for the first time. I'll sleep in the bed we built together with love. And I'll look at all the stars I named after you and dream with misty eyes. I'll dream of the fireworks in your skin. I'll dream of the magic that pervades your blinks. I'll dream of you, of the younger you, of the older you. I'll dream of you, all of you.

And, maybe, tonight, we'll meet in the same dream – and we'll greet each other with that I-love-you-smile we're both really good at. Yeah... that one.

I guess we've already met in the same dream.

~

"Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?”
Edgar Allan Poe

Magic

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.”
Roald Dahl

~

Words fail.

I wish I could go back in time to see you as a little child, playing in your room. I wish I could heal the pain in their eyes. I wish I were brave enough to join my body the moment it leaves our bed in the morning. I wish I had the will to go through with my plans. I wish I had enough strength to keep those sudden bursts of heartache from showing on my face. I wish I could erase these scars. I wish I could erase these scars. I wish I could forgive myself. And I wish I could pause time and run to you, hug you, then unpause.

Words fail. Wishes fail too.

Yet these rivers of smoke sail through the glowing darknesses of the dark. And your watery eyes blur the scene as they gaze into mine. So I stare at the silence of my heart and into your gently blinking stars. And I see you. I see you.

Can you see me too?

Wishes fail. And all the questions they leave behind, they fail as well.

But I am neither wind nor fire, neither truth nor dream. I am but a fictional fact in factual fiction; that sigh we share as our fingers interlace in their ever-flowing faith.  And you are here and there and in every rupture of my heart. You are love and truth and beauty and everything in between; that eternal heartbeat that keeps our hands warm.

So can you feel this? Can you feel us? Are you listening?

We are music. We're the music that answers every question, the embrace that brings dying wishes back to life. And even when words fail, love does not.

Our love never fails.

Because we are Magic, Love; magical children playing in your room.

~

"I realized I was thinking of you, and I began to wonder how long you'd been on my mind. Then it occurred to me: Since I met you, you've never left."

Unknown

Observe

“You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”
Morpheus

~

Suppress the bursts of emotion as hard as you can. Push the tears back inside. Push them back. You always knew you didn't belong. You don't belong anywhere. You never did and you never will. Deep down, you know. You know you can never show them who you really are. You know. You know they'll never realize what they mean to you.

No matter what, keep your eyes open because the hell within is far greater than the hell without. And keep your heart open so that maybe some of the hurt gets out. And, most of all, keep your child hidden in his room. He doesn't deserve to see you like this.

All around me, I see art. I see it in their eyes. I see it in the stars, in the waves. I see it everywhere. What ensues is a sort of appreciation devoid of passion. This is nice. And this same beautiful emptiness flows through my hands. So I write. I write to get a chance to capture the feeling, that gentle light that continues to elude me. And, still, I feel nothing. Over and over, I write to escape the void. Over and over, the void erases me. And, still, I feel nothing.

What do you see?

What do you feel?

Try to feel it. Try to feel it, now. Now, pause. Now burn the ocean on the canvas of your mind and pour it into a spoonful of liquid painkillers. Jump in. Dive in. Swim. Swim slowly through these hypocritical layers of a damaged psyche. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe out that self-deluded conscience that cripples your soul. Breathe in. Breathe out. And when you get to the bottom of shallow depth, you may find a shadowy metal reflection staring back at you. Are you watching closely?

The shadow becomes you.

And, still, you feel nothing.

So let there be light... and a shadow – you. Let it through. Then tell me where it hurts.

~

“Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.”

Carl Jung