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

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

Courage

"I went to sleep a poet, and I woke up a fraud."
Fall Out Boy

~

A downside of living inside your head is that it takes you a while to understand what is really going on. And though being detached from reality isn't the worst state to be in, it sadly does lead to a terrible place, one where it is very hard to look at life - or at the mirror - from a perspective untainted with disappointment.

The upside of the state of disconnection is, however, not to be underestimated. Over time, genuine solitude allows you to become immune to everything. It allows you to observe the fake and ugly world without knowing that you're a part of it. It also allows you to see that what you loved and believed in slowly drowned while you were staring at the sunset, writing poetry about childish dreams. Eventually, you find yourself writing about how people turn from strangers to memories, memories to ghosts, ghosts to ideas, ideas to words, and then, somehow, from meaningful words to meaningless moments of silence. Like this one.

All it takes is a single moment of disconnection, to see things for how they really are, and not for how we want them to be. And there it is, all around you, falling apart in a mind-shattering instant.

Insecure eyes. Subtle imitation. Circular repetition. Delusional ego, there you go. If you don't follow, read that again.

It is perhaps the fear of being undefined that most defines us. Meanwhile, in a world of endless labeling, we hopelessly attempt to define ourselves, over and over and over, pretending to know what's going on, believing our own lies every once in a while. And it works, for a while. It works because we can relatively breathe easy with the mask on, during the day, and at night, we just sleep and forget how much we hate what's under the mask.

The thing is that, as our age increases, we learn to slightly alter the sound of our ideas, unknowingly making them, obviously, unsound ideas, shedding light on certain places and darkness on others. Slowly and steadily, the lies take over you. And in time, you become a lie, a fake. Then, you wake up, hopefully.

Result. Some people spend their lives focused on manipulating everyone and everything around them, as if spilling black paint on a coloring set will change the colors of the pencils. Others waste their lives waiting for someone or something that only exists in their imagination, as if there were a mythical creature or prize that has the special ability of turning shit into gold.

Conclusion. Neither spend your life nor waste it. Share it, instead.

The disconnection formerly mentioned is thus, for the sake of sharing, bound, now, to become a connection. So, deluded self, kindly be brave enough to break the walls you've built around your heart and mind. Be brave enough to risk them both again because some people are worth it.

In fear, we run to escape our own soul.
In courage, we run to find it.

~

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” 
E.E. Cummings