Chocolate

"There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own Soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious." 

C.G. Jung

~

In what concerns the choice between vanilla and chocolate ice-cream, he codes the first with 'V' and the second with 'C'. V reminds him of the fall from grace and the loss of purity. C reminds him of the glow, the glow of the dark side. He chooses V after convincing himself that the glow is truly that of the hidden light of people living in darkness. This makes him wonder why the shop doesn't offer CV ice-cream in the menu and call it Life. Deep down, on the surface, he knows that he just prefers the taste of vanilla. Or does he? Shortly after, he lights a cigarette and then uses the light behind his eyes, the one he licked off the tip of blazing ash, to observe his tentacles. Again, he wonders. He wonders if he is a squid or an octopus. He already knows that he is a squid because he thought of it first and he is definitely not in a self-deceitful mood. Or is he? Upon pondering the significance of the respective colors of black-blue squid-ink and black octopus-ink, he finds his tentacles metaphorically patting him on his now reassured back of a squid. He whispers to himself, in the sarcastic tone of rudimentary intelligence he despises: "It's okay. it's okay." A second later, after subtly extinguishing the flame of a potential rebellion in Stress Level District, he considers the possibility of coming up with a joke about a squid that likes vanilla. But right then or a fragment of a second later, he notices the salivary metaphor, just sitting there in the wet white glow, waiting to expose the contents of the squid's black and blue feelings on paper-like ice-cream. However, a young and forgotten voice interrupts the trailing train of thought. The train makes its infamous whistle, a lullaby of cryptic words in the supposedly distant cigarette smoke. The indifferent child is just standing there on some random rail in the railway. He looks to his left at everyone he loves as they attempt to survive an overwhelmingly beautiful and ugly Reality. And then he slowly shifts his head to the right: a comfortable, colorless bed, a silent, color-shifting window, and a comforting, infinitely-colored screen - The realm of Fiction greets thee with the infinite hope of lucid daydreams. Look at me. This is where you belong. Otherwise why would this fictitious speech bear your voice? The train's whistle returns, moving upward in curly lines of smoky ink, blue from his quasi-closed lips and black from the sleepless nights, nights glowing like arched lamp posts reaching up his inflamed skin to the purple light suspended in his eyes. The child's mind screams 'jump' but his heart writes it off in lowercase letters. He imagines the swing of an old pendulum hanging onto nothing. Left, right, reality, fiction, love, dreams, death, void, stress, security, people, him, cruelty, metaphors, delusion, illusion, purpose, identity, love, right? Jump? Where? What does a baby squid write on vanilla ice-cream? Reality or Fiction? What a terrible joke...

What if I don't jump? If the train is real and I am fictional, it won't hit me. If the train is fictional and I am real, it won't hit me either. If we're both real, I'll be dead in a few seconds. But what happens if we're both fictional?

Blood. Void. Rewind. Love. Faith. Purpose. Become.

If this is fiction, am I the kid or the train or both - or the distance in between? Am I watching or drawing or both - or neither? Am I the unmentioned elements in the questions or the potential fruit of the tree above their roots - ? Are you listening to the sound of the train or are you some writing writing in the smoke - or are you the sudden void after every question?

~

"What we do not make conscious emerges later as fate." 

C.G. Jung

Star

"And I just wanted you to know."

My Chemical Romance

~

An eternal feeling unhesitatingly and continuously screams in the depth of your dark abyss. Echoes bounce off the walls, fueled by a resentment toward the conditions of time and space. It says that it is unconditionally timeless, boundless yet wonders, under its breath, for how long it's been stuck in this hole. 

Some nights are broken, dead and true. Others are tender shattering dew. 

In the midst of noise, words crawl on a sidewalk. It must be really loud in your head, mockingly whispered the abyss. Even your words know there's no way out of here. Is our truth cold enough to puncture that heavy soul you so terribly wish to abandon? Paint the pain upon the brow, disillusioned by delusions, and punch the rain into your eyes, for this is but the world of lies. Like an inherently divided coin, sailing through the cobblestone, I wonder which side fortune will pretend-bury today, as its brother washes away under this dusty broken loan. Alas! Know that hell is not bounded by the red corners of your eyes. And so you must look further and beyond that gaze you distance yourself from - for the deeper you dwell, the closer your home to hell. 

We're in this together, said Heart to Horizon. 

Light music ensued. 

We're in this together, said Mind to Pattern. 

Mute lights fired through. 

Why is no one dancing? The soul wondered. 

I am, echoed Silence. 

But no one heard it. 

So listen. Listen to the shadow dancing in the rain, singing the praises of creation. Listen to your story and everyone else's, for a single thread can only resonate within its web. Listen to the lines hiding in their retinas, the ones their mirrors forget on the other side. Listen, second-most of all, to your silence. 

Some nights are broken, dead and true. Others just never make it through.

When time loses meaning, and you feel that you don't belong in this body, or at least that this planet is not your home, it makes you wonder if it's simply all a dream. Yet you can't help but try to make sense of the contents of your existence. Thus as I attempt to hug you, our feet planted at the center of the bottomless rift of our fractured identity, I find that you are as opaque and immaterial as I am, that this open-ended monologue is a meaningless echo that bounced off all the voices in my head.

I believe the main difference between the suffering individual and the individual whose brilliance is widely recognized is identical to the difference between difference and similarity, because empty space is empty, and because Divine Perspective rules them all.

Some nights are broken, dead and true. And the stars align with your suffering because they want you to be you. 

What about me?

What happens to me when the music is gone? 

How bright will the hour of my star shine when I pass?

How short is the breath to failure? And how deep is the road to contentment?

What about you?

What do you see in the horizon?

And how does silence make you feel?

How do you fill the many blanks between these lines?

And which of the seven versions of you is blinking right now?

Some nights are broken, dead and true. Others bless the divine in you.

~

"One who doesn't know how to dance, says the floor is crooked."

Nepali Proverb

Imagination

"Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly."
Langston Hughes

~

A drum-roll is composed of two beats.

I fell asleep to the vague image these words put in my head. And perhaps, I never woke up.

Ever since I was a kid, I've been trying to reduce life to a system of ideas. Meanwhile, I also attempted to develop a system of principles for the purpose of ethical navigation. Over time, the two systems became entangled like two pairs of shoelaces fused together, joining the two right feet of an enigmatic human being who can only walk in circles.

In my head, the systems are invincible. Also, in my head, reality and fiction are knit together into the same mask I hide in the world of mirrors.

I don't know who this is or why he's writing with a particular shade of purple. I don't know if these words are the blood of dawn extracted from an afflicted horizon, above the sea of doubt, and below the sky of hope. Maybe they're just modern make-up for a play with no real script, a demonic game between the voices in your head.

In my heart, there is, to the best of my knowledge, nothing.

So why would you take a worn-out and empty container?

There are two nights in this ink. One of them is mine and the other is, naturally, yours. Now each night contains a vision, with a dream lying there underneath. In mine, I walk and run, and walk and run, and walk, and run. And then I stop and stand still. And as the deep dark dream pretends to be me, I pretend that I'm okay, and that nothing's wrong, closing my eyes to the idea that taking this deep breath will fix the broken dawn. Yet I know, deep down, that I'm dissecting the constituents of that air I'm breathing in, looking for a scented trace of life as my feet step on the guts of the dreams that committed suicide in my head.

That was one of the voices in the play.

Now it's your turn. So are you watching closely?

Are you running or walking?

How dark is your night?

And how dead is your dream?

Is the map beneath your feet a circle?

Is this all confused fiction in a real mirror or is it the purest reality in a fictional mirror?

Do you know what a mental drum-roll sounds like when the drummer's eyes are closed?

Close. 

Play. 

Listen.

What do you see? What do you smell?

Are you watching closely?

A drum-roll is composed of two beats.

~

"We sat in the car

& the night dropped

down until the

only words were

the crickets &

the dance of our voices.

& for a moment 

the world became

small enough to

roll back & forth

between us."

Brian Andreas

Cut

“In the cloud, reflections mirror reflections, cutting out the object and leaving only infinite emptiness.” 
Joseph MacKinnon

~

My hand was in yours. Your hand was in mine. And there was a moment where I didn't know which was which. Then, the moment was gone, and another one came. It was the moment of separation, slowly tearing the pages of the book we wrote in our minds, pages about the dreams that we carried in our hands, interlocked. Yet, right before that second moment ended, time froze. Time froze with the tips of our fingers barely touching and I knew that a blink later I'd be falling off your side of the edge like drawings of sands made of demons while you'd be falling, over and over, in water-drops, off mine, like an imagined suicide scene on playback.

But time froze because it knew we were timeless. And it just sat there on a dusty chair that had 'Faith' carved on its back, watching the motionless picture of Fear's sword of Doubt pointed at Love's heart of Hope.

Cut.

~

You're not supposed to be in the audience. You're not supposed to be in the audience. You're not supposed to be in the audience, watching an ego disguised as reason taking up the role of the lead actor. You should know that this podium is not only set for a grand masquerade where the truth doesn't matter. It's set for anyone who has something genuine to say. And everything you see on stage is but a staged symbol, a moderately hidden clue for what's going on behind the scenes. So get up and come inside for it is in the dark curves of your mind that you find the scriptwriters. And when you do, it will neither feel nor smell good back there because all your lies, fears and insecurities dwell in the ego's lair, fueling your quest for a nonexistent power. Maybe, just maybe, one day you'll find it in you to write your own script, your own lines instead of lying yourself to sleep.

~

And so we spend the time that wastes us and write stories that erase us. Then time just vanishes because the shame leaves no place for any other concept but disgust. And they stare blankly at the conscience that died with its mouth open and its eyes gouged, screaming two simple words for the child that ran away into the horizon, Come Back.

~

Once, in a nonexistent time and twice, in a place of delusion, a child ran into his reflection in the mirror and broke it. Both were running to find themselves but what they found was something else. The boy in the mirror found a broken hourglass of sand and water, drowned in mud. And the boy with blood on his face found an open locket with an empty picture frame and a clock that's always stuck at dawn. Each paced around in his room in recurrent patterns of confusion between the definition of a curse and the 'nondefinition' of a curse. And as they walked through life, the pieces of glass wrote, with blood and footprints, tainted puzzled words and painted worded puzzles. They met again, and again, in different colors and shapes, on the surface of other people's eyes. And many mirrors were broken twice, and twice, again.

~

Whether you break mirrors because you can't see yourself in them or polish them because they withhold the truest lies you've ever written, know that you are neither of the elements of the inner fight, nor are you the sum of the broken mirrors.

You're that person still sitting in the audience, alone.

~

“Love art in yourself, and not yourself in art.” 
Konstantin Stanislavski

Emoh

“Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” 
Anton Chekhov

~

Shadows form when the light is blocked. And while many stipulate that dark shadows often stand in the way of beautiful colors, the truth is that this darkness is merely the vacant spot of unexpressed light. And while the obstacle moves closer to the source, the shadow grows, larger and larger. As a reaction, the source usually increases its intensity, making darkness darker, and turning the edges from which we fall into it to mysteriously shimmering black gold.

So it is likely for a shadow to appear as an intricately ornamented enigma which life challenges us to unlock when, in reality, the complex design perceived is one projected by the mind. The latter is one of the pieces of the puzzle. You can measure its edges and understand its limits to see the source behind it or you can simply fade into its appeal.

At most, if not all moments, our soul attempts to express something through our mind. The message is corrupted by the noise of false assumptions, misplaced desires and, most commonly, a dishonest sense of self. Naturally, the sources of noise overlap. And while only a magical blend of love, faith and wisdom can redeem the purity of the message, it is essential to remember that in a single life, a multitude of souls and minds are part of the equation.

Now, when you look at something, a wall for example, or a screen, there's always that distance between you two. And sometimes, when you truly focus on that space, it makes you lose focus, and it feels as if it's transferring you to a different world. It is in this same world that people imagine scenarios in their minds, scenes or memories of scenes that make them smile or blurt out parts of a forgettable script in front of strangers on the street. It makes sense now how, throughout my life, I had felt most at home while walking empty or nearly empty streets. It's always that same distance, that same space. You can choose to drown or swim in it. You can ride its tireless trains or just watch their fictional and occasionally thrilling accidents. You can visit people there, like those who stopped being in your life or those others with whom you've shared not more than a single honest gaze or conversation that was cut short by the ways of life. Clearly, this personal space differs from one person to another. Mine happens to be the closest thing to a constant home that I've ever had. And though it merely looks like a worn-out piece of stained crystal glass onto which my thoughts are registered with a permanent marker, the chaotic scribbles, graphs and figures have become like the curtains to a window. And these curtains seem to have far more appeal than the outside world.

I don't know if you've ever come and sat by my side because my eyes have always been locked on the tainted window. All I know is that I've been sitting here forever, slowly writing on fragile glass, painting layer upon layer of imaginary curtains, secretly wondering why the people outside can't see me. And right now I don't even know if there's a door behind me if anyone wants to come in.

Shadows form when the light is blocked. And my window is covered with curtains of words and faces, memories and dreams, lies and confessions, numbers and profiles; a drawing that makes no sense. Yet. fortunately, sometimes I can discern a distance between the window and me, and when I do that, a soul-sent message finds a peaceful place in the chaos, filling in the blanks with meaning, blanks I thought were vain bullets in my heart.

But it turns out that's where the light goes in, through the puzzle piece, through a letter your soul sent to you. . 

So where are you now? Are you sitting next to me? Can you see these rays painted with the light of meaning? 
A four-letter word shines through the specific locations of the puzzle pieces on the window of the story of your life. 
[...]

I've always believed that Art is an explosion and that Love would one day gracefully bring the old tainted piece of glass to pieces, to fireworks for two soulmates that sneak out of their windows for a late night embrace and a loud conversation under the night sky about the stars above them,followed by a silent one about the stars in their eyes. But, perhaps, I'm wrong. You might very well be this light that's piercing through, and I might even be yours. And, perhaps the light is divine. Either way, love is not the explosion of the glass-like story of your life, it's just an exchange of light blocked by whatever obstacles you have floating on the surface of your eyes. 

Some waste their lives trying to solve equations in the dark, with numbers and variables that only exist in that personal distance that no one else can see. Others waste it by breaking out, with shards of glass broken in their pupils, not knowing that a light not seen through one's own eyes makes them slowly bleed out till the human in them becomes too ghostly to be alive.

Perhaps love happens when a window momentarily functions as a mirror.

So look closely until you see the reflection. Or maybe just close your eyes. 

What do you see? 

Is his window hers and hers, his own? Or have they built a secret passageway in-between?

Who do you see?

Were they unknowingly sleeping next to each other all those nights they thought the bed looked too empty?
Were their fingers interlaced this whole time? 
And are they now both smiling at the same reflection?

I don't see any reflection.

Are you here?

Are we home?

~

"When you look in the mirror, do you look at yourself, or for yourself?"
Unknown

Music

"Inside these pages you just hold me."

Ed Sheeran

~

My dreams are burning in the sky. A part of me calls them stars, the other, dust. And I don't know whether my soul is made of cosmic dust of a star that died, or of one that is not yet born. And while confusion lays its empty weight upon my numb and wasted mind, I secretly pray for cold rain to protect my dreams from the fire. 

My senses fail and I feel no pain. The 'I' I gaze upon inside escapes me and I'm too slow and exhausted to try and catch up with it. My heart keeps failing to materialize. But why?

There must be some explanation for this non-feeling phenomenon. And there must be something more here according to my calculations. Or perhaps I've made some miscalculation. But where?

What is my heart waiting for to show up?

I keep telling myself that I've understood every step in this ancient journey of mine, but have I really? Am I lying to myself like they all do? Aren't we all the same at the end of the day?

Who the hell are you? 

Scratch that and rephrase.

What the hell have you become?

[...]

What are words when you no longer know who you are? The symphony that has been playing in my mind all my life is gone. But where to? 

The chairs of the artist and the composer have disappeared. Oblivion. There is no proper wording to verbalize the situation. Thoughts fade. That is all. Thoughts fade. And like a dying autumn leaf that bears within its patterns the sleepless marks of every season, I fade too. Even the state of spontaneous expression fails to find the crooked path into my soul. Perhaps, the latter has gone out of its way to find another. Or perhaps, it's busy playing hide and seek with a kindred mate. All I have here is a small number of songs that recurrently shape my lips and state of mind. And since all I had has become a forgotten number of ancient memories, I intend on filling that space with whatever comes next. Whatever comes next I hope I earn it. I hope I deserve it.

Meanwhile, blessed be the noble knights of honor that have reflected light upon my broken road.

And blessed be the brave.

[...]

The warm wind hums a long lost melody that loosens life's tight grasp on the heart. And yet the music does not go in. It just takes a numb machine out of its cage for a dance.

And they dance to every sound because they know that everything is music.

It's in the slightly audible whistle in the movement of smoke as it parts ways with my breath to seek a more inspiring partner. It's in the sharp knife in bloodied fingers as it slowly moves against the violin in all my flashbacks until all the strings are torn and I fall asleep. It's the same music that made the metro stop and listen to how a little girl and a very old man were exchanging genuine smiles that transcend ethnicity. It's in the way your nose and my heart wrinkle at the sound of your laugh. And it plays in my blood whenever I imagine all the memories we're never gonna make together. In sad and happy moments alike, the music is there. And it's beautiful.

I wish I could describe the dance but I can't. 

So what do you feel? Is the music really there or am I imagining things? Don't answer that.

Answer this.

Is there music when you close your eyes?

~

"I just wanted you to know."

My Chemical Romance

Dream

"So go on, Love, find a new direction."

Mayday Parade

                             ~

I keep having this recurrent impression that all this is a collection of interwoven dreams. And it seems to me that every person I know really has no idea what's going on; they don't fully understand the story beneath the dream. Meanwhile, I sit here watching them, surrounded by mirror-like holograms, gateways through which I convince myself that I understand their dreams. Now, knowing that we're all the same in some sense, I wonder what kind of dream I'm living in, and what kind of life I dream of. I do, however, know that if I live enough to become really old, I'll have plenty of stories to tell about all these mirrors around me, and like most or perhaps all people, I will try to subtly mention how I played a nice small role in the lives of the people I loved; or maybe I'll keep that part to myself to be able to sleep at night.

Perhaps the motive behind these words is to tell myself that I'm a mirror too, that I'm not invisible and insignificant, that I'm neither broken glass nor darkened dust breathing through the projections.

Either way, for now, I sit and watch, stuck between the void and the light, hoping that the heroes around me will rise above their struggles, and that those I no longer have the chance to see find love and faith and, one day, themselves.

All these wishes upon a dream, they vanish in the blankness of my thoughts, slightly beyond the numbness of my nerves. They dissolve at the edge of the mirrors before they reach my personal space - the one I refer to as a castle when I want to compensate for my lack of confidence and as a fortress when I want to hide my trust issues.

All these wishes upon a dream and, still, last night, she asked me to make a wish. And she had no idea what I wished for but for some reason it made her smile that I breathed death into the candle, probably because she sees life in the little things.

All in all, it was a beautiful day with wonderful people. If there were a detached narrator, he would probably focus on the view from the rooftop. But for me, the real moment was in a subway that didn't know our names around strangers who probably thought expensive brands could make their names and bodies more valuable. The real moment was timeless, and independent of space, and it knocked at the door of my fortress.

In all honesty, it took me a while to understand that the world I live in is mostly about decisions, sometimes about actions and rarely about words, that when you read someone else's words, you only understand what you wish to understand, that all decisions are real actions yet some actions are a waste of time, that all actions are meaningful words but some words are a waste of breath. And regardless of what I say now, you probably have no idea what I really mean because whoever you are, you're just like me, stuck in a dream that you don't understand. Yours is perhaps in a painting that you can't draw yet while mine is in a book written in an ancient language that I don't understand.

In any case, whatever you choose to name your painting, be sure to figure out the name of the artist(s) first.

All those wishes upon a dream and I sit and watch them float around me. I slowly watch them die just as slowly as I realize that I don't deserve them.

Sometimes, the dream deserves a better dreamer. Sometimes, dreamers die because their dreams become nightmares. Sometimes, the dreamer and the dream don't know that they're the same person. Sometimes, they just want a good night's sleep and sometimes they just need to wake up. And sometimes, time kills them both with a single shot to the heart. But sometimes, in a flashing moment, you understand that your dream is a mirror, and you wish for it to be unbreakable. And that is how a dream triumphs over time and destroys it in a single, eternal moment of love, most real, most true.

Once upon a dream, I folded the night and my heart into the wings of a paperplane. 

Once upon a moment, the plane flew and disappeared in your eyes.

And one day, the morning sunlight will seep through the windows and fall upon the covers covered with our scent. And my eyes will be open and yours will be closed. And the paperplane will reappear - at least in my imagination - and the wings of night and heart will unfold. And that's when I'll tell you the story behind the wishes upon the dream.

I'd start at the beginning, where most things usually end:

"Once upon a time, I met this girl [...]"

And once I say that, you'll smile because you want me to know that you're only pretending to be asleep.

Then I'll wake up.

In the symphony of silence, we remember moments.

Yet, in the melodies of noise, time makes us forget.

                              ~

"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live."

Albus Dumbledore