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

Flight

"And this Love shows itself more in adversity than in prosperity; as light does, which shines most where the place is darkest."
LDV

~

She feels as if her heart is getting crushed under the weight of her worries - of the world. And deep down, she wonders how she made it this far, how she kept her relative sanity. I wish I could tell her that within her heart lies a universe, one that could never be filled by neither sadness nor void, a universe that can magically hide its light behind her eyes. But I can never tell her that. Because we don't speak the same language. Hers is for those who think they belong here. And mine is, well, for me - and probably for some of those who don't.

Her child is sitting in the back of the car, his eyes glued to the rear window, his chin resting on the numbness of interlaced fingers. He's wondering why none of the strangers are noticing him, how caught up they are in their own reality - behind seatbelts and clothes and skin. His lips are unintentionally moving to the words of a revolutionary song, unaware of how much their color rhymes with martyrdom, and that they will one day kiss both the idea and the meaning behind it - that the depth of the word is the depth of the hurt. The child was enslaved by his loneliness, hoping to be freed by love. So, perhaps, he was not truly a child.

In his artistic attack against homosexual oppression in the 1970s, a Greek poet came across a rather wonderful metaphor. Today, its modern English variant is phrased as follows: "They tried to bury us. They didn't know we were seeds." Clearly, the use of this fine alignment of words became far more general, spanning across every corner of the infinite concept of freedom.

More tears have been wept for fictional characters than for "the broken, the beaten, and the damned." And those tears could easily flood all the poor and unfortunate along with their possessions. It kind of makes you wonder why we fall in love with fictional characters; with people we don't truly know. And it makes me wonder how many times I was someone's fictional character. Also, the whole thing reeks of hypocrisy.

[...]

"The past is already written; the ink is dry."

And like each lone paper that was written on, folded, and thrown into oblivion, never to be found again, I became what I became. Though I remain unread, I became what I became. And, maybe, I refer to the bits of papers that became me as an unregistered aircraft that can never crash to the ground just because - Because the ten-year-old version of me closed his eyes and pretended that his hand-made, heart-thrown paper-plane disappeared in the horizon.

The ink is never dry. It's in every teardrop, blood-drop, breath and sigh.
And your shadow will always spell out your form, until you find the right alignment.

The ink is never dry. It's right there in your eyes.
So whenever you're not pretending to be a grown-up, use it well.

~

"Things that are separate shall be united and acquire such virtue that they will restore to man his lost memory."
LDV

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

Theory

“Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.”
 Isaac Asimov

~

The headache takes over. My fictional bubble tightens its grip on my extremities. They all become silhouettes though I know that they are so much more and that they, too, have bubbles. It's amazing how people can write so many things about their feelings though they don't truly know those people they love. In theory, I see all the ethical, religious and psycho-social patterns falling back to love - or lack thereof. In theory, I find music, literature and art struggling with sounds and symbols, nature and soul, to have a chance at communicating the fabric of love through chills, tears and accelerating or decelerating heartbeats. In theory, I miss my best friend. In theory, I wish I were capable of teleportation. In theory, almost everything is theoretical no matter how much you refer to it as practical experience.

If humans had a button that could play the song of whatever their brainwaves have to say, the world would be alright. Or, maybe, it would be far worse than it is now.

There are many paths, many ideas, many theories. And we discover some of them. Yet one must always remember that these mostly well-paved roads had been there long before we found them, that these roads could have only been created by an intelligent designer.

But it's amazing how almost every single ego is inflated. We don't know for sure why we were born or why we die. And going forward from this point to that one, we convince ourselves that we comprehend patterns of knowledge, even though we struggle to link the few core ideas we have from one layer to another. Hell, we don't even know how these ideas come to mind. All in all, we know virtually nothing. We don't know ourselves. We're not capable of knowing other people's intentions. And while science, with its widely acclaimed progress, continues to succeed in avoiding the important questions, mankind continues to fail in understanding all the words that matter - Time. Consciousness. Love. Identity. Human. Purpose.

So ask them. Ask them about the label they wrap around their pen. Ask them about the grace in their handwriting, and the purpose of its content. Then wonder about the significance of this broken pen and burning paper compared to the vastness of the universe - unless of course it is within us, and our pens, and brushes and chords redefine it, falling short almost everyday.

I wish I could do better. I wish I could swear that I try my best. But the only thing I can say for sure is that I feel like a theoretical wishing well, one that never works.

~

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
 Martin Luther King Jr

Resonance

"Well, bless my soul
You're a lonely soul
'Cause you won't let go
Of anything you hold."
Ryan Tedder

~

Do you know where your heart is?

The hardest questions are those you do not ask. And all their answers are buried in your mental blind spot. Now there are right and wrong answers in this 'visual snow'. Then there's you, covered in the multithreaded blankets of your optic nerve, pretending this blood is acrylic. And I'm there too. Or at least, part of me is. You won't find me beneath the shadow of synchronicity because I won't be there. But perhaps I'll be that forgotten variable that got crossed out by mistake in the mystical equation resonance always wears as a necklace. Crossed out and forgotten, sure, but I'll be there.

My fixation on a number of mysteriously attractive expressions remains unchanged. And that's okay. Maybe they're those empty diners along the road to purpose. I know most people are ideas - I think. And that's okay too. So are you an idea in their life? Are you a road sign or a street light? Are you a traffic signal or a torn bumper sticker? Are you one of those ideas that come with an expiration date?

He wanted to tell her everything but he didn't. Metaphors came rushing to his mind. The light that drowned the river. The moonlight that jumped off tree branches to land on her skin with an assortment of purple morning glories. His favorite fictional friends implored him to tell her about them, about all their chilling moments. Then the voices came and reminded him about the purple death of dawn and the failed birth of stars, the breathless haste and the daunting heart, and... those sudden bursts of heartache that fucking burn every beautiful image in your head. What happened to you?

I don't know. I don't know if there's someone who can save you from that freefall under the sheets. I don't know if there's a remedy for all those who were knocked unconscious by the lies of society. I don't know if this rotten world can be fixed. It's as if there's this force, you know, a force that won't stop erasing people's identities. Is it their doing?

That was useless.

The world is ugly. And the lonely stranger awakens everyday to walk it alone, knowing that, this, it isn't his home. Wherever he goes, the inviolable fabric of existence asks him terribly ambiguous questions.

What do you see?

Come back inside. Get back to bed.

Don't just stand there; paintings are formless. Don't look at me like that. I can see the dense blood drops slowly sliding off the right corner of your lips, you know? And though I'm not sure whether they're dreams or sins and secrets, I know your eyes can smell their rusted scent of despair. I know your heartbeats have long given up on becoming free-floating clouds, hopelessly hoping to swing the self-inflicted gore back inside. I know that you know that the children of a broken cardiac rhythm are but dehydrated, forlorn hands, recurrently feeding you the delusion within the delusion, punching holes through the painting, spitting you out as you swallow the void and exhale the inner child - dead on the dead knees that got tired from chasing you, his soul submerged in a shallow fictional red.

I don't dare you to move. But please, please do. And, for now, it's okay if you don't mind the gap between Kant and Kierkegaard. Because we both know only divine grace can you lift you up. And we both know that not a single soul cares about your inner battle - because they all know you're collateral damage.

No. [...] Because some singers pause their singing only to rekindle the hope beneath the moment.

So let there be light and many, many shadows. And blessed be the brave that are stuck in between, both wound and unwound by the teleologically suspended question, resting invisibly atop the woven waves of dreaded ink.

The question is right there. It's right here.

Do you think you can find it?

~

"People say that it can't work, black and white; well here we make it work, everyday. We have our disagreements, of course, but before we reach for hate, always, always, we remember the Titans."
Sheryl

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

Rapture

"That's why we seize the moment try to freeze it and own it, squeeze it and hold it"
Eminem

~

Breathe, breathe and break
This heart, this heart,
This heart's the love you give
The love you give for blood
Your blood, your blood, your blood,
Your blood it smells and tells
Of a love you make and take
And make and take
It hurts and shakes
The beat within; awaken.

I break, breathe and break
In this moment, the moment, the moment
You capture me, capture me
Unwrapping rapture; rapture's free
If only, only you could see
Tell me what do you see?
This life, it's fractures
And in one of'em lies the key - to be
If only, only you could be - me.

You break and breathe today
Your love, it bleeds of night
It lights the way, the way
Home reads your eyes, it spells your lies
And these waves, they freeze the bay
The cove of my heart is ruptured clay
Okay, I'll play this game of gray and gray and gray - and gray.

I breathe and break twice tonight - twice tonight
And your love lies, it lies, it lies in bed with torn clouded sight
Dead still, it still beats in here, it's warm and bright - it's warm
This war is rain and it stains my plain face - a fraud
I'll face this pain they all applaud and you can take, take the storm
And I'll meet you at the break of dawn beneath the breath of dew - dew of me and you.

Break, breathe and break
Those walls, this haunted room of masks and demons
It's hidden hate that kills your freedom
It's the madness that pretends to reason
To speak ill of love, the love that broke the fall from Eden.

We break, breathe and break
Yet our flooded hearts set aflame, they'll set silence in the lake
And this grief we partake in, it'll flatten these ridges and flakes
But unbreakable vows, they're unshakable bridges - the soul awakes.

I break and breathe you in
I end and we begin
In the music of love - it's playing on your skin.

You breathe and break me out,
Cast terminal vanishment onto doubt.

We breathe together and then, again, I ask you:

What do you see?

~

"It's like I'm standing there you know appreciating God's design
And then you showed up; it's like you read my mind."
Black Star

Symphony

"Juliet loves the beat and the lust it commands.
Drop the dagger and lather the blood on your hands, Romeo."
My Chemical Romance

~

You go inside and you close the door. You drop that straight face to the floor. You shut your eyes to silence the burns beneath the mask. The stranger's whispers in your head say that they no longer recognize you. And you then wander from phantom to phantom in the ghostly castle you had built for your heart. And as the borders of reality fade away, the inner edges grow sharper, harder, darker. I don't expect you to understand. Even I barely get it. There are roads and lines, you see. And while some patterns pull you deeper into the matrix, others push you over and beyond. So, much like metaphors, we float atop the notes of this veiled symphony. And, dazzled and perplexed by the enigmatic mathematics written in its shadows, we remain ignorant amateurs copying answers from one another. The truth, perhaps, is that the answer is the question and its supposed question is, ironically, its answer. And if we keep going backward in that perspective, maybe things make the most sense.

Questions and answers are probably bound by the metaphysical noumenon underlying the phenomenon of quantum entanglement. But none of that matters, does it? Because that kind of universal truth is inaccessible to human beings. Once accessed and comprehended, it is likely to hinder our progress in the quest for purpose.

Either way, I remain in my sea of dysphoria, occasionally saved from this normopathic world by musical bursts of artistic enthrallment. Indeed, most of my words are but sublimated abjection driven toward death by this aporic void. Yet, the music plays on and I am not a fan of tight-lipped melodies. So I'll just keep adding aimless commentary to this boring soundtrack I got stuck on repeat.

Now, you. Battle this delusion of sin and that delusion of reference. Try to put your head around the coexistence of Capgras and Fregoli and after you do that, go back to your room and hang that mask you dropped on this nonexistent door. Then sing the ruins of this imagined tale, and jump and dance on this bed like an uninhibited child. For all you are is a little kid with a pounding heart bouncing on and off an old mattress to shake off the insanity. Now, him. He can unveil that graphic symphony - not you. It starts and ends with a straight line as you lie in bed both born and dead. And there in the middle, all these ups and all their downs, there you go, high, low, high, low; die slow.

Wait go back. Maybe... maybe we can jump on the same bed together. And then, when we get tired we can just, you know, fall asleep and share all those dreams we had buried in ourselves for each other. It always goes back to love, doesn't it?

It does.

So channel the dreamer. Channel the warrior. And channel the believer. Push away the confusion and silence the mind for it is heart and destiny that together one another unwind.

Blessed be the brave, the souls that run on love, with love, for love - infinitely, unconditionally, inexhaustibly.

Break. Breathe. Become.

~

"And I broke my heart in two
One for me and one for you."
Reuben and the Dark

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

Split

“Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is like a train of moods like a string of beads, and, as we pass through them, they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue. ” 
Ralph Waldo Emerson

~

Lonely wanderers unite in separation, falling in raindrops through your windshield. And as the beautifully broken breaths of rain find gentle rest on your tender skin, I pull you in closer, and I hug you tighter. And, for a split second, all the desperate seekers of the world find home in our embrace.

The road to love is paved with mystery. The colors on the street depend on the clarity of your heart. The surrounding buildings are adorned with perfect pain and breathtaking joy. And we could be walking there now, hand in hand, carrying each other's hearts wherever they want to go.

Some say that everything here has an expiry date. Others believe that some things last as long as eternity.

Stories have been told and re-told. Words have been designed and composed, recycled and sold. And, today, I find myself wanting to write out thoughts and feelings in secondhand wording though I have no story to tell. I thus find myself filling the void with empty metaphors and darkened smoke. But that's okay.

Time flows faster, racing the tides of motion, blazing through space to finish off this bond and the one after. We breathe it in thinking that we have it contained when, in reality, its bullets are already out through our holey skin, setting the scene for our unholy grave.

But there is music in this world, music worth fighting for. It is the kind of music that silently cuts you deep so its tear-perfumed light can pervade the abyss beneath your heart. The music reminds us that there are souls worth the trouble, and that their smiles are infinitely more valuable than our pain-born hatred.

Yet I am tired and out of soul. And every road undertaken holds beside it a thousand roads untraveled and a wealth of unopened neural pathways.  I am tired and out of soul. And there is no one here because the door is locked with a key I lost long, long ago.

Still, I remind myself that change is inevitable, that it is necessary. And like a flock of birds alters its formation, so too must the stars we have enclosed within.

By the fields, near the lake, I once whispered all of my secrets to everyone around me. But I was alone because no one was there. I remember that I told them about the dark side of red, that part they always left unread. And I told them about the violet shade of blue, and how pain always starts in you. I spat out the driest words of dread, with blood clots hanging by a thread. And now I give that thread to you today so that you pull out this wretched heart of clay.

Hidden demons unite in separation, falling in fire-drops onto our skin. And as the beautifully broken ocean lays us to rest, you pull me in closer, and you hug me tighter. And, for a split second, I almost believe that you're here.

~

“Here too it’s masquerade, I find: 
As everywhere, the dance of mind.
I grasped a lovely masked procession,
And caught things from a horror show…
I’d gladly settle for a false impression,
If it would last a little longer, though.” 
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Unbroken

“Having perfected our disguise, we spend our lives searching for someone we don’t fool.” 

Robert Brault

~

I saw multi-threaded constellations and embroidered stars. They were painted atop the echo of an orchestrated cosmic dance of fire and ice. My heartbeats adopted the God-sent patterns and transcendentally carried me to an unbounded world of wonder. And then you blinked. And I fell back to what is commonly referred to as reality.

But my soul still rushed to seep through this skin, pushing my hand to hold yours. The trance then became enchantment, a mystical power imploring me to be with you in any way possible - for you are me as I am you, and we are one infinity unbroken in two.

The question comes and goes and then returns again. It asks you, love, about and for and out of love, and, still, you fail to answer. It folds itself in-between the broken lines tearing across my face waiting to ask you again: What do you see? Is this you or me, or us or a temporary delusion floating atop fraudulent ink? And what do you feel? Will the demons of melancholy always puppeteer the storms of anxiety? Or will we become that eternal rapture embodied in a two-feathered quill paradoxically re-writing the present? And are you here now, hiding between hand and heart, pressing on my chest in this outward-inward symphony?

The waves continue to crash upon the shore. And identity lingers, still, in liquid hiding as the blue sky of purpose lays its indifferent gaze into the lock of every oceanic treasure chest. The waves continue to crash upon the shore. And I see you lying on the sand, below the colors of a violet dusk. The waves continue to crash upon the shore. And my face is sheltered in the locks of your hair and my lips are pressed against your neck and our eyes are trembling in that heavenly ecstatic half-sleep. The waves continue to crash upon the shore. And our heartbeats continue to crash into unity. The waves continue to crash upon the shore. And the night is a glistening dark. The waves continue to crash upon the shore. And all that remains is the light behind your eyes.

We fight for what we believe in. We fight for the people we love. And if we find the right timing, we can break time's back and drain all those clocks ticking in its arsenal - for our hearts, they tick louder; they beat, when you listen.

Know that lovers do not forsake love. It is rather love that does the forsaking. For at some silent moment, it commits suicide out of respect for the ideal. And the rest is a history that never was.

Walk the world and you may find wonder and awe. Walk with the world and you could murder the art within you. Walk the worlds with me and our soul will lift off at every intersecting line of skin and lips and sight. Love, walk with me in weightless flight, in that world beneath your cosmic blink. And I, too, will walk this life with you. I'll walk with you forever.

~

“Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light; 

I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.” 

Sarah Williams

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 

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

Bulletproof

"Lost my heart

When I found it

It had turned to dead, black coal."

Sixto Rodriguez

~

He shoots.

Imagine an ocean covered in clouds. Come down, and through. And look right. If you look closely, there's this thin horizontal space hovering in-between white and blue. And that's where you're suspended. Now, if you have water on your face, then you must understand, deep down, that one must not dwell in metaphors, no matter how swell the reflections on the waves or how comfortable that bed of clouds.

But everything's interconnected and it's beautiful. And while the two voices in my head tell me that the universe is within and that all the colors of the world extract their ink from your retina, the third voice sings the discordant chorus in the background: "Run, quit and disappear. Get back to bed." And it makes me wonder. It makes me wonder if all this wondering is coded in the same pattern my feet always sculpt in the terrible sands of reality. It makes me wonder if I'm at least a good enough runner to get some sand up there with the useless dust -at the turn of my chin- on that mirror. Maybe that way, the guy in the reflection will appreciate the effort and let me fade away without the extra bullets in the back of my head. Maybe one day, your reflection won't let him shoot. And they'll both watch us walking away into this hellish madness, painting gardens of bliss under our feet.

Are you fearless or are you too afraid to even realize what it is you fear?

Are you fearless or do you just have nothing to lose?

How can you be both fearless and loving?  It stars with an F.

[...]

If only you knew my story, maybe then you would understand why I vanished; first last sorry goodbye.

Perspectives and interpretations dizzily spin above two concentric circles, and the colors, if any, shift from warm or cold on the light spectrum - nothing to declare.

Enter dark cold rain. An old white hoodie with blood-orange stains. The river flows in you and so too does the light from that train. The mind wanes and wails and trails behind the rhythm so you put on your headphones to follow the pain and silence the source that echoes it... that maimed heart, masquerading as this crooked hand, bent to write all this 'inkkrap' just to get through the night.

[...]

The broken deconstruct the script. The bent twist the tale. The dreamer designs the metaphor. The actor salutes the empty stage. The dust seeps through the mirror. The clouds impersonate a smoke screen. The story becomes the characters... or is it the other way around?

He bows.

~

"But don't bother to buy insurance 'cause you've already died."

Sixto Rodriguez

Child

"I'll be yours
When it rains it pours
Stay thirsty like before
Don't you know that the kids aren't al-
Kids aren't alright."
Fall Out Boy

~

I need to do this well. I need to do this right. If I don't, then I'll have nothing left to hold on to. If I can't jump over this wall at the edge of my fingertips, what does that make me? I tried on many labels and none of them worked. If I can't write anymore, what else should I do? If I can't arrange the words in a way that makes me feel something, how can I genuinely move anyone else? If I keep forcing this by intentionally lining up letters to face my existential crisis for me, will this headache go away? Why are all the holes in the ground waiting for me to dig deeper? Why aren't there any holes in the wall? I'm just tired and out of breath. And I need to let things out. But I can't write anymore. I can pretend. It's very easy to pretend, as you can see. But like most things in life, this is bullshit. I'm sorry.

Now, I must dedicate this to this voice I can't recognize as my own. And as it now silently transforms my dedication into the empty acknowledgments of a worn-out novel made up by the blank pages it contains, I would like to thank, most impassively, the dark shadows in between the papers, putting the desolation to light and mysterious sleep. This is the emotionless story I make-believe about all that within me beats in vain. And it now ends with your eyes, gazing as blankly as they should.

None of this was supposed to happen, but it did. It happened and I didn't. And if I could destroy all these mirrors I call metaphors, I would. No, I wouldn't. I would never give up this illusion for the terrible delusions of reality. I would rather live forever in this uninspired lack of inspiration than accept this collective brokenness, that grand affliction pushing against my eyes, against the heart I hid behind the void, my beautiful impermeable void that challenges this failing world to pierce it.

Yes, the world is ugly but my horizon is unbent. My horizon is unbent. The world is ugly but I live on because there's good music and good people - and because Christmas is coming. The world is ugly but there is a loophole in this loop of holes that have me by the neck. My horizon is unbent. The world is ugly and I can't breathe well. The world is ugly and I can't breathe right. The world is ugly but I have you to hold on to. The world is ugly but there's no wall I can't jump over if I know that come dawn I'll have your skin at the edge of my fingertips. The world is ugly but all its labels blur out whenever we lock eyes or hands or bodies or the door and the world behind it before we go to sleep. The world is ugly and I can write time into oblivion just to make your heart skip a beat or two with mine by its side. The world is ugly and I hope this is making you smile because I broke all these walls just to get here and hug you. My horizon is unbent, you see. The world is ugly but I'm hugging you now and this is wonderful even if it's not really happening. In my head, the world is, sometimes, almost as beautiful as you are.

And thus we knock on the door beyond chaos and perdition. And then we knock some more. We play hide and seek with the magic seeping out from each side of the veil. Sometimes it's light. Sometimes it's pale. And sometimes it's dark. But there is a remedy in the music that moves all that is frail. So can you hear the beat in this awfully composed cure? Can you hear the faint melody knocking on your chest? Can you see the magic painting your face? Or are these blank pages on the surface of your eyes?

As I said, I can pretend. It's very easy to pretend, though you might not see. And like most things in life, this is a love letter disguised as bullshit. And i'm not sorry anymore. I'm intentionally lining up the next letters to face you.

uoy evol I

And it now ends with your eyes, gazing back at mine.

That unbent horizon, this is it.

~

"And in the end
I'd do it all again.
I think you're my best friend.
Don't you know that the kids aren't al- 
Kids aren't alright."
Fall Out Boy

Disconnect

"When the paper's crumpled up it can't be perfect again."
Linkin Park

~

Yeah but, she co-wrote my life with the words she never said.

There was once a young kid who thought he could do anything. One day, he read somewhere about a common phenomenon among teenagers called the Invincibility Complex. From that day onward, he understood that 'eventually they all fall' and that no one is invulnerable.

"What if I fell to the floor..."

There was once a young kid who dedicated all his observational skills to discover the strengths and weaknesses of everyone around him. One day, someone told him that he was projecting. From that day onward, he started including himself in his analysis.

"Couldn't take this anymore..."

There was once a young kid who got hooked on self-destructive behavior. One day, he came across the concept of self-love but he could not comprehend it. From that day onward, at every given opportunity, he told people that they should not reduce themselves or others to the mistakes they make.

"What would you do..."

And she breathed out love when my blood was mere fire, when I only saw my bruises in the blue sky.

When the definitions are wrong, all our stories, whether written or read, neither, or both, will be flawed and misunderstood. The worst stories are those that have missing links, where the reader can only focus on how the events are unrelated, how it's all incoherent nonsense. The best stories are where the reader feels part of the story, where the characters can somehow touch him, and thus, change him.

This is not a good story. It's just me looking for one in the emptiness. There are no characters here. There are only voices that my mind is trying to silence.

The origin, you see, is a sad conversation on an old and broken phone. The process, so far, involves an inconsistent run over fictional obstacles. And the purpose is -

And she stood behind her silent voice, staring at the sea, all three conspiring to heal my broken skyline, to mend the horizon that bends behind my eyes.

This story isn't designed to make me feel anything. It's not supposed to make you feel anything either.

But how do you feel about not being able to feel anything at all?

Does it hurt? Does it hurt to be you? Is that blood on your mask? Is that pain in your heart?

Where did she go? I just wanted to make her smile.

~

"I see you up again wandering so diligent
Crossing your T's as though it weren't irrelevant
They say formality, this is what they really meant:
They can be the walk and we can, we can be the pavement."
Agesandages

Insanity

“I'll take crazy over stupid any day.” 

Joss Whedon

~

It feels as if there's a wall preventing me from expressing myself. I don't know what to think and I don't want to think anymore. So, instead of feeling this, whatever this is, I'm going to talk about it. And I won't feel anything.

He was born and raised in a country drowning in terrible feelings and poisoned ideas. As a child, growing up, he could not express what he truly felt or thought because it wouldn't be accepted. He wouldn't be accepted. And since the most essential need for kids is recognition, he, of course, didn't get any of that. Thus, a kid, he remained.

He wasn't doing well. He stayed that way until he was bruised by his own clothes, friends he would have died for. He wasn't doing well after that either. It started with 'under the bed' becoming 'in the mirror' but, eventually, he was able to see the monsters, whether actual or potential, in everyone, and everything. 

And then, something magical happened. Or, at least, that's why I hear him telling himself at night, that the world is rotten but he somehow found a loophole, that everything is linked and it all makes sense, that love and faith and art the strongest forces in the universe, and that he's one of their freedom fighters. But is he really? Or is he just a small lie in the matrix of manipulation?

So what's the problem? What's your problem? Are these your eyes? Is this your voice? Do you even have a voice? What have you lost? What have you lost? What have you become? What are you hoping for? Why the hell are you here? Why are you not feeling anything? Are you okay?

The most famous, non-technical definition of insanity is the following:

“Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.” 

Does that make sanity doing the same thing, over and over, expecting the same result? Or is it 'different things' and 'same result'? Or perhaps 'different things' and 'different results'?

More importantly, what does that make you? Is it wrong to be insane in a mad world? What's the difference between people who talk to themselves out loud and others who keep it in? Is it terribly unusual for someone to envision their own personal world and talk to the fictional people in it? Is it okay? Is it that different from what you do? When you talk to the images in your head, of those human beings you don't truly know, these people you refer to as friends and family, when you weave this subjectively imagined world of ideas and feelings about them, is that okay?

He wasn't okay. The bridge between physical and psychological pain was nonexistent because they were both the same land suffocating under anxious heartbeats disguised in deeply distraught water-waves filling his lungs. It is also said, in my head, that to switch between sanity and madness you must learn the difference between leading your mind and being led by it. Good luck. He wasn't okay. I'm not okay either. Yeah, me neither. I'm sorry.

I'm sorry this didn't make you feel anything. I can't give you what I don't have myself, when I can't see myself. But that's okay. Everything is gonna be okay, right?

And then, something magical happened.

~

“Awareness is the enemy of sanity, for once you hear the screaming, it never stops.” 

Emilie Autumn

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