Stream

"Cut out all the ropes and let me fall."
Birdy

~

The night is dark. The breath is stale. I try my best.

She's the fastest runner I've ever seen. A ball of fire bouncing from star to star. An untouchable comet. But the subtle truth is that she's so much more than that. And when she starts running toward herself, she's gonna see how beautiful she is and things won't be as blurry.

My cliché metaphors are usually based on natural elements. And that's okay. I try my best.

My identity is flaunting its cartwheels in between the sea-waves. And yeah, I can't see a thing. The purple sky is dead. And the wind around me is impregnated with all the words I fail to transcribe. That's okay too. Disappointed idealists and fractured perfectionists. The road to spontaneity is like recycled toilet paper. His dead eyes cover the withered leaves that still hang onto his rib cage with their torn and scentless wings.

I don't deserve my friends. They're wonderful. Maybe one day, I'll feel better about this.

I used to think that we become what we lose. I don't think so anymore even though I know it's true. The paradox that paints the difference between being and becoming stares at you in the face every other second. Some of them know that every word is a battle, that every thought is an ethical decision, that there are so many people. There are so many people.

The plot lines aren't that thick. The patterns are just too entangled and the variables insanely hard to define. But it's all the same drama really. The good part is that character development is interestingly unpredictable. What are you waiting for?

I wish I knew what to do next. I wish I knew what to say next. But incoherence is all I can offer right now. And that's okay because at least I'm not pretending that I'm not confused. How can I not be? With all these old versions of me buried layer upon layer, incongruent crap hiding behind 'spiritual existentialism' and 'metaphorical resonance', how can I not be confused? Maybe he's right. Maybe I am a 'bullshit artist'.

I'm sorry. I know this isn't good enough. But that's okay. It's okay because it helps me relieve my repressed deep-seated anger. I'm just tired, okay? I'm tired and my heart remains a no-show. You shouldn't have said what you said. It's not okay. I'm not okay.

The bullshit is clogging my throat, leaking through my fingertips. So, yeah, here you go.

The light is dark. The breath is hopeful. I try my best for love's sake.

The quest continues. The lies keep piling up. The ocean is as wild as ever. The sky is clear. The sky is clear. Shuffle the cards. Re-shuffle.

~

"There is a light and it never goes out."
The Smiths

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