Bracelets

"Don't, don't, don't, don't."

Simple Minds

~

It's late and I... I really don't know what to say. Let's see. I'm listening to music to feel better about myself. Sting's Shape of my Heart is playing. "He doesn't play for the money he wins. He doesn't play for respect. He deals the cards to find the answer, the sacred geometry of chance, the hidden law of a probable outcome - The numbers lead a dance." I think anyone would love this song.

Once more, tonight, I'll be hiding behind words. And yes, I know the night is beautiful, even if I can't really feel it. Boyce Avenue's cover of Drops of Jupiter is playing. "Can you imagine no love, pride, deep-fried chicken? Your best friend always sticking up for you, even when I know you're wrong. Can you imagine no first dance, freeze dried romance, five-hour phone conversation? The best soy latte that you ever had - and me." I wonder if I'll ever learn to play an instrument and make someone feel this way.

"Et si j'ai tort de lire dans tes pensées où rien de beau ne m'échappe - à part toi. Seuls, quelques silences m'effleurent encore quand je dors. Je n'ai plus de raison d'aimer. Et tant pis si je me détruis et je fais le tour de tes mots, tes promesses et tes envies d'ailleurs." The only thing that's more interesting than structure is that freedom one almost feels when they break the structure.

It's truly funny how other people's words can get to me more than my own. My veins are emotion-intolerant. Maybe that's why sometimes my heart seems as if it's gonna explode. Maybe I should stop smoking. He wanted to have the bracelet that was made of my heartstrings. And he has it now even though I had vowed to myself that this bracelet would be the final witness to my final pulse. It's truly funny how, sometimes, everything makes sense - even when all that is substance feels too foreign to exist.

"Do or die, you'll never make me. Because the world will never take my heart. Though you try, you'll never break me. We want it all, we wanna play this part. I won't explain or say I'm sorry. I'm not ashamed, I'm gonna show my scar. Give a cheer for all the broken. Listen here, because it's only-"

What are words compared to this? This thing you can't see. This heaviness I don't want to feel. I don't want to feel. Welcome to the dark side of melancholy.

Welcome to the black parade.

~

"Hey, hey, hey, hey."

Simple Minds

Swim

ليه ليهمني اني كون بدل من اني صير؟

كل الأشياء بتعيش لتنتهي بلحن جديد

الفرق بين الحرية والخضوع تخيير

.أنا لي اخترت. أنا لي قبلت. أنا لي قلت 

مشروع ليلى

~

Capture the moment. These lines are the broken streets to redemption. And, yes, none of this really matters. But let us play. Let us choose all the players and leave the void all alone on the bench. Ideas of sunrises and sunsets have gotten pretty sick of my redundant words by now. But that's okay.

All the colors are wrong. All the colors are wrong. And the details on your face are broken down equations. And though they're riddled with miscalculations and derived from unholy laws, they always add up to the right answer when you smile.

I never asked for any of this. This foreign reality is hiding the stagnant scent of childhood beneath their eyelids. And I see nothing but locally manufactured pain setting record-breaking corner-to-corner lap times in their eyes.

So drink up my empty gaze foolish little brother. Replenish my doubts with your leaking bloodstream. Let us drink to all the penknives that redefined our veins. Let us paint our tired dreams with these bloodshot eyes and those grayish-blue brushes we have stuck between our lashes. Drink up this baroque art foolish little brother before your post-impressionist heart crumbles to wheat grains.

Let there be light and many, many shadows - are you there?

The door opens.

The door opens like an old and rusted wound. And I want to close it because I'd rather keep my apologies in my heart, because my absence tastes better than my presence, because this planet doesn't feel like home.

Let it out. Tell them. Tell them that you hate it here. Tell them that you'd rather die. Tell them that you have the right to disappear forever. Tell me what happened. Tell me why all the colors are wrong. Tell me that things change when we really want them to.

The door closes.

The door closes and we both know that it's time to leave. Let go. Release the moment for the lines have already faded. I wish I could make you feel better. But I can't. Yet, I wonder if you're looking through the keyhole. I wonder why I find incoherence so appealing.

Blessed be the knight of infinite resignation. And blessed be the knight of faith.

Game over - soon.

~

سمي الشيطان بإسمو وسمي الفنان كذاب"

نصف الأشياء يلي بحسها بتجي من الخيال 

وإذا بناقد نفسي كلنا منحتوي أعداد

".أنا لي كبرت. أنا لي قبلت. أنا لي قلت

مشروع ليلى

Poison

"You came close enough to know my heartbeat but still not close enough for me."
Oscar Isaac

~

These tears lack flow.
This ink is dead.
What have you broken?

This heart shakes
Like yellowish purple foliage
In capricious disquiet.

These words break
Like hollow-hearted smiles
And I can't let you in.

I usually find myself torn between the cosmic orchestra and the abysmal void. This time, though, I'm not stuck. I'm somewhere else. The alchemic lake has dried. The trees of knowledge are naked. But the sky is clear. Always remember that the sky is clear.

You entrust your heart and its blood-flow to someone and you suddenly find yourself waking up to wet, reddened lips.

"So con, convince your mirror, as you've always done before, giving substance to shadows, giving substance evermore." Whatever the poison, it's not really making any difference is it? And no matter how sweet the music, its mysterious remedial force can't stop this internal haemorrhage. And that's okay. I'm okay.

Now take this uninspired garbage and bury it alongside your decapitated principles.

This despair is all I have
And it's not yours to hold
I'm not yours to hold.

This encounter is a delusion,
Boring encrypted mythology.
I'm not here.

This perseverance is an empty shell,
And now I break it into letters.
Everything will change.
Everything will change.

~

"Oh why can't you let go
Like a bird in the snow
This is no place to build your home."
Imagine Dragons

Always

“Reality is a cliché from which we escape by metaphor.” 
Wallace Stevens

~

His home is covered in snow and he can't get inside. He thinks tonight is the check we pay in the morning. And his gray wolf is covered in white, howling for a non-existent remedy.

Imagine the light in their eyes, brightly burning out.

Now fix your self on the resolution to embrace the brokenness of awe; fix your self. And as the stranger within you silently whispers a graceful breath, caressing the tomb of your undying dream, it sends a thunderous frisson down your spine - an unfinished arpeggio chews off your vocal chords.

Now the wings of the phoenix are set afire, and the wind is hanging on these broken wires. So we sleep tonight beneath the glow of snow and night, covering cortical flow with disharmonious blankets, sweating in the darkest shades of flares and glares.

Death is upon us dearest wolf - the supernovan star we enfold within us is due. This symphony of delusion will be ending soon - and as the ghost of yesterday takes tomorrow's train, we live and die today. We live and die today.

There are no maps in this revolution. There are no bulletproof hearts in this fight.

What you thought was gone is becoming livelier than honored blood. The child returns - the lady of the lake made an exception. His astral courage no longer exits at dawn. Ocean and sky may, in the mind, disconnect, but his core remains unbroken.

Get out of my head.

Look at yourself. Look underneath the layers of deception. Look into the dark and cut your shadow into pieces of coal - and swallow them whole. I'll pour this starlight in your drink and we'll split your dark side on the brink of this dot. So breathe out these words that emulate your scent and breathe in that venomous perfume. Know that the penultimate edge is never a line. It is that empty space between rapture and insanity. And know that the essence of knowledge lies in grasping the divide between why a forsaken moment can sometimes be momentous and for what the momentous must, sometimes, be forsaken. However, in the end, you must forget everything and listen. You just need to listen - listen to the music.

[...]

The mind extends beyond skin and bone, resting on the mirage of private property, projecting scheme and schema in the form of quantum energy onto a reality it cannot understand. So you see it there, paving the broken way with purple metaphors that smell like the eternal aroma of a dying flower; the morning glory.

The heart finds what it had lost - a pen. Yet this paper onto which we're supposed to write will not cease to be immaterial until the correct heartbeat frequency is set. The frequency depends on a few variables yet it is not your job to know them, it's your job to be all of them, all at once. Until you manage to do that, you can watch the foreign lines strolling down, down the script, waiting for you to act them out.

I wanted to tell her that she needed to lose the gift wrap because I could see the ribbons of her ego suffocating her soul. I wanted to tell her that it's not her fault. I wanted to tell her that I've read that the darkness will never comprehend the light, and that I have yet to realize which side I'm on. I wanted to tell her that I figure out illusions in the blink of an eye because I am one.  I wanted to tell her that everything was going to be alright because that's what I'd learned from my favorite songs - but I couldn't because I didn't want to lie. I wanted to tell you that no matter what I say, it will never be enough. I wanted to tell you that I, too, wanted you to know that I love the way you laugh. I wanted to tell you that you are both my remedy and my home, that whether you're covered in snow or moonlight or tears, I'll be right there with you. Always.

~

“How did it get so late so soon?” 
Dr. Seuss

Forsaken

"For a while I thought I fell asleep
Lying motionless inside a dream.
Then rising suddenly I felt a chilling breath upon me."
Dream Theater

~

They fail to realize that the universally desired constancy of happiness is but ignorant stagnation, and that unending joy lies at the peak of despair.

And you, you fail to notice the pain,  those miniature supernovas hiding beneath the shadows of your extremities, as their fading light lies waiting to engulf you. Yet all pain wants is an embrace, a hug that pulls you back to you, to the divine realm you keep avoiding.

But the show does go on, and the music surely plays on. And our dreams, they die in restless ripples, silently whispering words of forgiveness to our oblivious souls. And I know I always ask you the same question though I try not to, but it just demands to be let go. So, again, I ask you, what do you see? What do you see?

"On and on, does anybody know what we are living for?"

This symphony of waves is breaking the ocean's heart. It's sending chills into your eyes, slowly, steadily, down your spine, composing that stuttering poetic paralysis, imploring you to transform pointless motion into the multidimensional insight that can auto-tune these submerged instruments. So do what you need to do. Do what you need to do so we can play our music as we drown. And if we do, take some time to listen, then look at the forsaken waves we saved and tell me what you see. Tell me if I'm there. And when you don't find me, pretend this was our goodbye song.

"Outside the dawn is breaking, but inside in the dark I'm aching to be free."

The show was a no-show. I was never here. And neither were you. The water was breathless make-believe. And these dreams were children of delusion. And all the dreamers we know are dead inside. Still, no one can see you. No one can feel you. And yet, you keep going, still. Why? Because I'm practicing to perfect my art, tugging and twisting these cursed heartstrings until art becomes the explosion my tremors foretell - because everyone loves fireworks, because maybe then, someone will show up.

"I'll face it with a grin. I'm never givin' in. On with the show."

Blessed be the patient and the brave. And damned be the hearts that took and never gave.

"The show must go on."

~

"She softly whispered in my ear,
Forsaken."
Dream Theater

Graceful

"He was the crazy one who had painted himself black and defeated the world."
Markus Zusak

~

Blessed be the brave.

It doesn't matter, really.

This wall needs to be broken down. I know my words aren't good enough. The world is filled with delusional freedom fighters. It makes you wonder who's pulling the strings. It makes you see that the ego is steering these wheels towards the edge of doom. I've always been into conspiracy theories. And though I don't know whether my subconscious mind was trying to tell me that my ego was scheming to seize control of my soul, I know that there is only one kind of grace that can destroy any and all devilish plans.

It does matter.

But I've lost too many rounds. And I keep pretending that I'm not afraid of that invisible thing weighing over my heart. I'm exhausted, you see. But, losing rounds makes you stronger, doesn't it? Yes it does. But what about those extra voices that accompany the pain in the memories? What about the cuts and the bruises and all the blood you covered with your blinks while it leaked out of your soul? You bury all those things in the places you love the most, the places that allow you to breathe, places you assassinate one by one because a slow death is subtly different from suicide.

It really doesn't matter.

There are people you love. There are people you hurt without meaning to. And then there's that darkness where there is no one, not even you, especially not you. All those broken machines you can't fix because you can't fix yourself, forget them. It happened that you were taught to never give up. But for what reasons? There are people you love. And then there's you. But what are you without them? How strong are you compared to the idea of losing him? How strong are you compared to the idea of losing her? And what about the feelings carrying this idea? Where did this come from? Where is it going? What are you doing? What are you not doing? Why are all these voices hiding behind immaterial masks? Is that grass or rubble atop your grave?

I usually take cover behind an armor of metaphors. But this time I'm not on my feet. I'm not even on my knees. I just needed the words to bleed out of my lungs because I can't breathe. I've always aimed for my heart. I've always thought I would bring it home. Of course, back then, I thought I knew what home really meant, and I thought I had one.

There are no words. Every human being who has ever written a word knows deep down that - there are no words.

So what to conclude? When nothing ever was and nothing ever is, how dare I tell you that everything is gonna be okay? When all I can hold onto is my ever-faithful void, and all that I ever was is a broken chess set with half the pieces missing, you can't imagine how easy it is to imagine the ending.

There it is.

Blessed be the patient.

Will it matter?

~

“People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that’s bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they’re afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they’re wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It’s all in how you carry it. That’s what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality."
Jim Morrison 

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

Sleep

“In a mad world, only the mad are sane.”
Akira Kurosawa

~

The echo behind the whisper in the voice told me that the meaning of the meaning of life reveals itself in those colored bits outside the lines.

Do you see them?

Now do you see the artist's hand tearing through the painting? It throws a spear into your left eye because it wants you to see it right. It wants you to get out of your supposed self, zoom out, and see the second painting, the picture of a recollection of a bloodshot awakening.

Now go back to the first one.
Do you smell the blood on your cheeks?

This is the blood of the heart of the heart of the matter, the co-authored fabric of a waning soul as it weaves waves of scented verses, a red and wrinkled rhyme, a poem on your face.

Truth is, broken borders are gateways for the gallant, to embrace the patterns beneath the chaos, to hold the pulse in the blood of the heart of the heart of the matter that has nothing to do with matter.

So can you hear it? It's knocking on the door behind you, like the wind of sinusoidal hope fading in and out of faithful light, through the only keyhole you've ever really known.

Yeah. Okay. Now what? What do I do with all these words?

[...]

How do I turn it off? How do I make it stop? Why am I thinking about so many things that I don't really want to say? I don't want to get it right anymore, I just want to get it. I want to say what's really going on. I want what's inside to come out unchanged even if all that I am left with is noise. I want the words to honestly reflect who I am without all the games and illusions. I want to make sure that I am not a fraud, that I am not a growing cancer of fabrications. I want to be real. I don't want to be a well-told lie about the content of an empty shell. I want to be real. I don't want fiction anymore. I want to be real. Why won't anyone teach me how to be real?

[...]

What a sad way to wake up. The pain brings you to your knees. You're all alone - just like you always were. And all these metaphors you take shelter in are just as weak and broken as you are. Just go back to sleep.

Live on.

I can't anymore.

~

"He who lives more than one life, more than one death he suffers."
Oscar Wilde

Death

“You are afraid to die, and you’re afraid to live. What a way to exist.”
Neale Donald Walsch

~

They got it all wrong. But I see things for how they truly are. That's what most tell themselves in secret, in-between breath and breath, in repressed silence. We all fail to notice the most integral part of reality, that we see nothing, nothing but ourselves, deformed.

They got it all wrong. And as they engage in thought while recurrently failing to pause the grand game of delusion and blind trickery, they also fail to notice that no matter how deep the intellect digs, the finite hole and its neighboring treasures will never account for infinite weakness.

They got it all wrong. And though it's admirable that they can see in the curls of simple letters old particles of dust dancing in fresh yellow sunlight, they still fail to recognize the music. And I fail miserably just the same to rescue the timeless tempo of the soul drowning in this ink.

They got it all wrong. And their pale figures are like beautiful old buildings tainted with the cheap paint of modernity and a touch of make-up to hide the battle scars. They left the castle and paved the circular road to vanity with expensive clothes, walking naked in copies of shoes as polished and tarnished as their faces.

I got it all wrong. I got it all wrong because I buried anger in the deepest layer of my being. And the calm silence that ensued continuously reminded me to forget that all these people were going in and out of my house faster than this lucky smoke I'm breathing out.

I got it all wrong because I write about temporary failures because I am both temporary and a failure. And I write this nonsense down as these words words fall from my eyes onto paper in a blink. So here's one for the upcoming death of my parents. And here's two for the people I love the most, since they're already dead. But that's okay. It's okay because we all paint death in broad daylight with the letters our lips draw - little bits of earth that align, layer upon layer, above our cold and motionless bodies beneath the gravestone that invisibly reads: How soon is now? 

Everyone you love is going to die. And that's okay because death is a good thing. For while the doors of life are a rite of passage from one lie to another, death is the gateway to truth and justice.

To be fair, there are some things here that are worth delaying death for. By 'some' I mean 'two', Love and the Human Spirit - Love and Art for short. And if by any nonrandom chance you manage to add purpose to the recipe, I have a feeling that death would take the long way home to listen to what kind of music you can make.

Now, things here are either for rent or immaterial. And all that is immaterial is either a well concealed lie or a mostly forgotten truth. Now the cool thing about mostly forgotten truths is that they're right there in front of your face resonating with the vibrations propagating across your shirt. And the coolest mostly forgotten truth is that other people are wearing shirts too.

My heartbeat is not for rent.
And my voice is my voice.
Great performances unfold in dramatic monologues. Yet memorable ones write future history in and with brief moments of mixed frequencies, voices that team up against life for the sake of an honorable death.

So run. Run toward death with your favorite soundtrack beating inside your invisible headphones. Run toward death and touch every heart you meet with grace. Run toward death and give it the parts you really want dead. And then, with whatever remains of you, run through.

~

“To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.” 
J.K. Rowling

Smoke

"What I've felt, what I've known

Turn the pages, turn the stone
Behind the door, should I open it for you?"
Metallica 

~

It is a dark and deeply beautiful view. And I want you to be here with me. And I tell myself now that I want you here because I want all the stars hiding behind empty clouds above me get the chance to meet that one star that shot through my heart. But I know that I just want you here because I love you. And I just said those three words out loud four times in a row and I don't know exactly why.

Yet now I tell myself that words are but empty promises, hopeful fireflies that die when their ink catches fire, when the plot reveals that death is the hidden title of everything they wrote in the wind at night. And I suspect that this wind travels through me because I am not here, and that even if I were, the night would still magically lose its memory at dawn, just like it did yesterday.

So what happens to these forgotten moments of wonder where you only exist in my imagination? Do they die with me just like I'm dying in them, with the sound of your laugh in this fictional background? Perhaps the fireflies I made up will align in this starless sky to spell out your name in light, to make me smile right before the curtain closes and death applauds with the starry letters falling gently onto my empty bed of heartbeats. And, then, perhaps, you'd wake me up in the glorious morning night-people dream about when they're dead and that's when I'd tell you that you are the light and deeply beautiful view that erased the night in my heart.

[...]

It's almost morning now, and the silently still buildings are staring back at me with a giant grey cloud fading into pieces above them. And the motionless scene reeks so badly of death that I almost forget that there are hundreds of lives having dreams as vivid as the smoke in my breath and as dead as the breath in my smoke.

Yet, interestingly, just like smoke, the truth has three faces. And to every face, there are two scales. When you face your heart, the pendulum swings between Faith and Fear. When you face your self, the clock either ticks for Goodness or for Power. And when you face your soul at midnight, you'll either see that Love is a timeless mirror, or you'll be lost in the drama of self-deception, divided in images of broken silhouettes in the shards of glass you pretend to inhale so you can fall out of sleep from this grand delusion.

[...]

So enter the world of an enigma that was broken when it was born. Enter the world of lies, a world that tricks its own existence into death. Enter a world that can no longer tell the difference between reality and fiction. Enter a world of make-believe purple rain falling onto yellow autumn leaves to write a fairy-tale even though the author is colorblind. Enter a world where thoughts become footsteps that leave no trace on this desert sand, while all the feelings in the world are colorlessly buried alive underneath this damned map of empty patterns.

[...]

Just like this smoke, I have one face. Just like this smoke, I was once the purple fire that caught the curtain by surprise. And just like this smoke, I, now, into the morning wind disappear.

So wake up and read the wind and perhaps you'll comprehend how beautiful it feels to burn into love with the sound of your laugh in the background.

I know the night won't remember any of this.

But maybe you will.

I love you. It's only one whisper this time. And I know you just heard it.

~

"I take this key
And I bury it in you

Because you're unforgiven too."

Metallica