Butterflies

“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”
Aldous Huxley

~

It’s crazy, isn’t it?

It’s crazy how everyone’s insane, how they keep pretending not to be.
The night is devoid of comets and stars. And I have three cigarettes left. It’s funny how I try to silence the pain with toxins, though I know poison could never be a cure. But I’m well-acquainted with the easy way out and I’m tired. I tried to convince her why she shouldn’t kill herself. And I saw my failure reflected in her eyes.

My fingers tremble because I’m overwhelmed by all the pain I see around me - not because they’re typing intense words. What I let out is nothing compared to the world my eyes perceive. All I see is hurt; a world of dying butterflies slowly crashing to the ground like multicolored leaves. The night is devoid of color and soul. And I have two cigarettes left.

How can they not see the patterns? The path to perdition is set. The road to self-destruction is paved with broken smiles and desperate lies. The confusion is deafening. And I can’t listen to the cosmic melody because all I see is the blood on their hands as they play their instruments. Someone once said that we become what we lose. He was wrong. We become what we want to become.
The night is devoid of moonlit words. And I have one cigarette left.

She couldn’t unzip her dress. So he helped her. And her skin was like that of a flower unfolding the beauty of the universe behind all the smoke streaming through his lips. There’s the universal, the particular and the veil we’re trying to pierce. There’s the actor, the audience and the curtain closing as we speak. Then there’s you and me, and the mystical unity we fail to breathe. And this night is devoid of love and sanity. And I’m all out of cigarettes. And I’m all out of love.

This smoke is as real as the grand delusion. And it mixes well with all the words I could never say. So take this secondhand ramification of endeavors that never made it out of my head. Take it even though words will never be actions. Take it because I’m out of breath and out of smoke. And I can borrow the latter but does anyone have a breath to spare?
The night is devoid of light. And I wish that I could say that 'there is a light and it never goes out.'

But not tonight.

Tonight we die. But tomorrow, we live again. 

~

“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent”
Victor Hugo

Light

"If I could be with you tonight,
I would sing you to sleep.
Never let them take the light behind your eyes."
My Chemical Romance

~

I try my best.

What if your best isn't good enough?

But what if it is?

The walls slowly close in, aiming to crush my explosive mind. And I keep staring at the foreign paintings that decorate them, the faces of the people I love. I keep telling the walls that I can't breathe. I send them my pathetic requests with broken eyes because the words won't come out. But it's all in vain. For once you turn your back on the walls of your heart, the walls of reality turn their backs on you. Thus, still, hopeless, I remain a fan of the intensely dramatic, as loyal as ever to the wonderful realm of fiction.

Masks divide you. Dishonesty tears you apart. And the most beautiful things you feel remain inside your head. "Once a liar always a liar." "Once a quitter always a quitter." The voices lie because you subconsciously command them to destroy you. To overcome this, you must remember that one can never cheat their way into and out of destiny. Fate's hand floats around your heartbeats to see which are worthy and which are failed. Will remains free though. Someone I once knew taught me that.

But the world is ugly and sometimes the people we know and love, they become forgotten memories.

But sometimes, we meet someone that restores our faith in humanity, in love, in art, in the future.

And when the past comes back to haunt what's left of you, you find yourself just staring, obliviously flooded with thoughts of surrender, with ending credits flashing. "No, hold on," she says. You see a young soul masquerading as a veteran warrior, telling you that the love in her heart can fight off your demons. She hugs you, pushes you and starts running, leaving you with a gentle warning, "if you don't get up and run with me, you'll never know what happens in the future." And as she runs away from your gaze, you see a whisper flowing through her smile, "our future."

Life is full of surprises.

If you haven't met yours yet, I really hope you do.

Now, look around, after you close your eyes. Those people you love so dearly, are they not worth the pain?

Do not stand your ground as you face the storm. Run instead. Run toward it with weapons of heart and soul. Fix your eyes on the mountain you wish to climb and charge. Run with faith and conviction and you will find that they are the perennial wings of cosmic resonance, smoothly extended from your skin, mirrored in the light behind your eyes.

Run and know, that most storms are made-up ghosts. And though some are future dreams disguised as endless nightmares, you still need to keep your eyes closed wide open, because those details are divine.

We live and die in love. And a fall into shreds today is a chance for us to pick up the right pieces, the ones that can make up a whole that won't break tomorrow.

The music plays on within you, no matter how many doors you close.

Live on, dear friend.

~

"As we fade in the dark,
Just remember you will always burn as bright."
My Chemical Romance

Phoenix

"Dusk is just an illusion, because the sun is either above the horizon or below it. And that means that day and night are linked in a way that few things are; there cannot be one without the other, yet they cannot exist at the same time. How would it feel to be always together, yet forever apart?"

Nicholas Sparks

~

Free your mind. Regain stability. There is nothing here for you.

This barrier is weak and broken.

They're all fighting shadows. And I'm fighting with this pen. And it's unable to salvage what's left of me. My senses fail to capture the music. And my heart fails to feel it. Doubt is all-encompassing. And I am not here. I'm that gap between the heartbeats, the forgotten leaves in the wind - a fragment of torn silence that couldn't make it through life's blind spot. We are who we are, failing, fading and forsaken. We're that broken down dust at the beat of dusk, deluded by the bruised colors of sky and sea, drowning in their symphony.

And now the drugs don't work. And all the stars are out. And there is nothing to look away from. The world is ugly and this blackness is bliss. So let there be light, and many, many shadows to shelter us from sight. And, you, dear weakened soul, go back to sleep, for this wand you hold, it bleeds but fraudulent magic. And I... I am here. I'm this damp gaze suspended in breathless vacuity, the infinite horizon that never was... that never will be - a loveless shadow in a deserted darkness.

Now, listen close, dear ruptured heart for now, it is time to go. Listen close and act at once so we can leave, so we can run, so we can row, so we can breathe [...] Now, go and sever that faithless bond and crush those picture-frames. And burn them. Burn them all. Burn them and build yourself great wintry walls of atonement from their residual ash. Have our new citadel of seclusion rise above perfidious pain, above tainted clouds and forlorn rain. The stars are dead and you will never see them again. The stars are dead. The stars are dead and their theoretical story is bitter sorrow - impeccably unwritten, eternally unread.

So let there be light, and many, many shadows, and I'll be that shadow that never lets you hit the ground.

Let there be light, and many, many shadows, and may the phoenix and the blackbird never again resound.

~

“My breaking heart and I agree, that you and I could never be, so with my best...my very best, I set you free” 
Rachel Yamagata

Resolution

"All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle." 
St. Francis of Assisi

~

Where to start?

Unbent horizons and hollow cigarettes. Broken ties and eye-tearing smoke. Imaginary bonds and colorless daydreams. Dramatic plot twists and star-gazing epiphanies. Time-twirling questions and good music. Guest appearances and starring roles. Comfort zones and -

A new year comes with new promises and new surprises, a new you and a new me.

~

Her eyes, they spoke of words unsaid and torn manuscripts that were never read. They blinked with the sound of the turning pages of an untold tale; eyelashes that could paint fiery courage pale. Yet, the voices recurrently told me that silent songs and buried bones share an eternal friendship, that a breaking heart in a broken home is an open door to an empty room, that there is an infinite light and a single candle staring down all the darkness of the multiverse, that there is a forgotten hourglass beneath the chest with sand that smells of fraudulent heartbeats, sand that shakes to the sound of the fractured violin and its stuttering echo, both jumping the rope of this infinite loop. But when I looked at you, none of this ever came up. When I looked at you, the voices just wanted to listen.

Her eyes, they spoke of stars and constellations, scattered across our interwoven dreams.

Her eyes, they spoke these heart-pressed lines. They sailed the waters of remixed rhymes. But I was taught to trust no one, not even myself. I was taught to notice the invisible, to make long-distance power plays -with people who didn't know the power-play dimension- right before the end of the game, to lose in every damned dreadful way before I land my final strike. Throughout the years, I learned to doubt every line and definition until I forgot my own shape. I learned how to map lies on someone's face and how to lose mine in the frozen shadows of sinful icebergs that bear neither name nor memory. I swam through letters just like these until I lost sight of the shore and I never looked back because home became an array of pixels beyond a screen. There, I pulled three roses up my chest, through my trachea, and I laser-blasted them away from my eyes into 'virtuality' slipping what was left of my dreams into the pockets of blessed fictional characters. Then I filled that cardiac space with songs that wore a perfume similar to that of the crack-ridden petals that fell off.

Her eyes, they spoke of future visions paved inside the hallways of the Grand Design and old childhood swings that unknowingly operated at the frequency of the Golden Ratio.

Where to stop?

The dreamer and the dream. A candle in the mirror. Words in his heart. And music in the dark.
The dreamer and the dream. A play of light and shadow. An addiction to fiction. And a thirst for reality.
The dreamer and the dream. The truth behind the veil. A tale of myth and legend. An empty holy grail.
The dreamer and the dream. The chill upon your skin. The tears that won't come down. The fracture in your crown.
The dreamer and the dream. The broken beat within. The game of love and pain. Rays through your windowpane.
The dreamer and the dream. The mirror in your eyes. And the love in your words.
Listen.

Her eyes, they speak.

So listen to the music sitting behind the countdown.

Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

~

"Either define the moment, or the moment will define you."
Walt Whitman

Dawn

"Those who are dead are not dead, they're just living in my head.

And since I fell for that spell, I am living there as well."

Coldplay

~

To whoever has buried the soul within, I write this to you.

The night is still and the beat is faint as the fight continues between sinner and saint. The night is still and this world is empty for you have lost both self and will. The night is still and your face just turned off all the lights with that flickering candle dancing with your blinks. The night is still and this foreign body I possess longs to see the paintings on your skin. The night is still and starless as I breathe in a scent of dying sighs and microscopic supernovas. The night is still and I still don't know how to move at the sound of this soundless music. The night is still and silent as your lips slowly close and break these words I inaudibly bleed. The night is still and the empty feeling of emptiness envelops me because I am inhibited by an enforced lack of inhibitions. The night is still and you still don't get it, do you? The night is still and I'm failing at writing a musical letter because harmony has long forgotten me. The night is still and the rhyme is free, as I fill the blanks in my memory. The night is still and the blanks reveal themselves as ancient bullets within the beats. The night is still and my blood streams through the electrified hell I hide behind my eyes. The night is still and the supposed windows of the soul are bloodshot with reddish dew, burning in and out and through. So break the door and the still of the night, for tonight the angel's wearing black and the devil, smoking white. Break the door and kill the guards, before the spirit jumps off and turns into red and broken shards. I know that you are the light that shines on the broken and that each person is his own savior. And I know that I am numb and frozen still. But the night is still and I knit this painting with lips made of smoke. The night is still and you still don't get it, do you? The night is still and earthly love mostly swings between a proof and a quest for a self that's always somewhere else. The night is still and these are ashes of a cigarette and not those of a phoenix. The night is still and the fire you start in me burns this quill into blessed sinful ink. The night is still and calm and I wish I could smell your perfume as I imagine kissing the fire off the palm of your hand. The night is still and the wind is pretending to understand how destiny is handwritten with a flowering faith shaking in the storm that fights freedom, the storm that fails to realize that this rose is made of heavenly fire. So enter the world of lonely nights and dying lights. Enter the world that writes with that bright and blissful fabric you fail to hide, to paint the still night with bright broken letters in envelopes you unfold in your dreams. Still, the night is still, so still that it reminds time of my undying love for you while I remind you why those envelopes are undated. So break the door between your heart and mine. Break the door because the music within me is that dimmed light on the floor outside your bedroom. The night is still and you still don't get it. Please wake up. Wake up and break the door. Break it and enter this world with fire in your hands for the night will remain still until you light this broken sky with the dewy faith on your bedroom window and mend it with the reign of the divine love that's beating in raindrops within your chest. The night is still and you still don't get it, do you?

[...]

We are one with fire and rain. We are one with the rose and the flame. We are one with the birds and wolves. We are one with the equations we solve. We are one with the general emotion and the particular thought. We are one in this rainy drought. We are one with the wind in the music. We are one with the beats in our heart, and this heart doesn't rhyme with anything else.

[...]

The night is still but it knows that we are one even if you don't. The night is still and the ending is always the most difficult part. So enter this world of endless stories and maybe one day we'll write the ending of this musical masterpiece of cosmic love, together.

I'll start with the first line.

Your hand is in mine and the lines intersect at dawn.
[...]

I already know your line, by the way.

~

"But I believe in music... 

The way that some people believe in fairy tales."

August Rush

Starlight

“Words are a pretext. It is the inner bond that draws one person to another, not words.” 
Rumi

~

The rain was falling softly on the two sides between your nose and your cheeks but you weren't blinking. And the sky was dark and starless because all the light and all the stars had found dwelling in your skin and in your eyes. And there was this moment, this very specific moment, when I was watching you and it made me run out of words. So I closed my eyes and ran after them and made them line up against the wall of my heart:

"You resonate at a frequency so intensely beautiful that it confuses the harmony of the golden ratio."

[...]

And as she was dancing she drew Metatron's Cube with her hands and that made me want to call back my only two imaginary friends from their endless pursuit of the metaphysical holy grail. And I did. And they instantly came because they knew I wouldn't contact them after so many years unless it was serious. So picture the scene: Michael, the best student in the mythical Pythagorean school and the first friend I ever made, was sitting to my left. He was the one who taught me to see the numbers in people, to visualize their attributes, their potential, and, naturally, their weaknesses. And to my right, sat Socrates' secret disciple, and the closest thing I've ever had to a brother, Gabriel. He was the one who taught me to see to the music in the numbers. Michael and Gabriel were both eternal rivals and best friends. And this whole time, they thought that they'd figured the secret of the universe, that they had nothing more to learn. Michael put it in an equation (6+12+23=20) which he discovered through Sacred Geometry, then he encoded that equation in the Triquetra symbol and convinced me to tattoo it on my forearm. Gabriel said there was an easier way that Michael had missed. And then he showed it to us with his magnificent handwriting. (Gabriel didn't have a voice, as far as I knew, but he could draw words in the air that only Michael and I could see.) And even after so many years, I still remember how the words floated above us:

The secret of the universe is revealed to you right after you honestly smile to a child, and right before they honestly smile back, in the silent music of that split-second-almost-blink-thing the kid always makes to accept your smile.
P.S. You're right, Michael. It's also 6+12+23=20. 

[...]

So as she was dancing she drew Metatron's Cube with her hands and that made me call them back. And I did. And they came, and they saw that they were conquered by what her divine dance drew in and beyond spacetime. And then I smiled at her and she kinda blinked and smiled back.

Then she laughed.

That's when Michael said: "Where are her numbers? Why doesn't she have any numbers? Something's wrong, Gabriel."
Gabriel was smiling ecstatically, which usually only happens when he claims that he can hear the Music of the Spheres, or when Michael attempts to draw the Flower of Life.

"I think she can see us," whispered Gabriel.

~

"The night was dark

And the dark, blue

And I was both,

Split in two.

The stars were bright

And the music, true

And you were the light

That went through."

Unknown

Ghost

"Time's forever frozen still."
Ed Sheeran

~

This auburn autumn leaf, torn to pieces in the snow, shares its broken structure with my tired mind. And though your snow had melted ages from long ago, replaced by legions of purple orchids blossoming in cardiac weather, your seasoned mind still thinks it's autumn, anticipating the fall.

So run as fast as you can in this frozen hourglass of melting seconds. Run quicker than your skin until it falls off and you become a ghost. Run and leave everything behind. Run and don't look back.

But before you start running.

Remember.

Remember those who fixed your compass.
Remember those who tied your shoes.
Remember the girl who fixed your glasses
Remember the boy who gave you his food.

Remember and know that without them you wouldn't be able to walk.

Play the memories in your mind on the scarred surface of the wall and watch how the cracks slowly and magically fade.

And forget me. Forget me but please stop running. Forget me and remember who you are.

[...]

Today, I couldn't see the color of your ink. And, today, my voice is the echo of a broken record.
And every word was an arrow shot to the secret mirrors I'd kept hidden inside.
And the arrows have hit their target.
So, today the glass is broken and the only sound is silence.
Today, you are not here and I am a desert in the desert.

Today, you are not here and here is gone.
Today does not know our name.

[...]

Now, I wonder if tomorrow is an empty circle of soundless movements of lips painting heartbeats that have fallen out of sync. I wonder if doubt is the greatest warrior that has ever lived, the warrior that has never died. I wonder how vulnerable I've become on a scale of 'void' to 'full of love'. I wonder if tomorrow will be as empty as my hands feel right now.

[...]

I wonder if our hourglass of sun and snow is running out of moments.

~

"And we’ll never be the same; 
Never, forever.
Like ghosts in the snow
Like ghosts in the sun."
My Chemical Romance