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

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

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 

Fight

"Empty spaces - what are we living for?"
Queen

~

What can you say? What can't you say?

I can say that false ideas can be the right and necessary steps to reach correct conclusions. I can say that no one likes a broken toy that keeps repeating the same half-sentence no matter how hard you push its button. I can say that I don't know whether I'm more afraid of what I want or of what I might find out. I can say that it all falls back into the distance between love and fear though I know that there's a lot more to it - to this. I can say that I hide my face behind metaphors because I can't stand the sight of the truth. I can say that my imagination fixes the brokenness of this world though it feels like it's other way around. I can say whatever I want to say because freedom shapes both biology and the bed-covers that hide it. I can say whatever I want to say and you can interpret things in whichever way pleases you and I can say that this phenomenon indirectly, and in some unnamed half-lit perspective, accounts for both heaven and hell. I can say things in my head in a combination of talk-back and play-back and broken-back modes just to exhale the recycled shit I have bottled up. I can say whatever you want to hear but I'd have to truly know who you are and I don't because no one really knows anyone and no one knows what's really going on. I can say that I know myself but I'd simply be lying to someone I don't know. I can say anything but it will always be closer to nothing than to some thing. And I can say that the show must go on, no matter what.

I can't say that I didn't want to mix the 'cans' and the 'can'ts'. I can't say that this isn't compensation for my lack of organization. I can't say what love is. I can't say that this isn't getting boring. I can't say that the word 'fraud' doesn't always come to mind. I can't say that coincidences exist. I can't say that I'm honestly doing well. I can't say why I'm doing this can/can't thing even though it's not making me feel well. I can't say what I really want to say but that's fine because I like it when the words come out spontaneously - and they are. I can't say that I don't admire how everything, even hardship, is so well-designed. I can't say what self-love is because I don't yet fully know how the process works. I can't say how I really feel for multiple reasons. I can't say what these reasons are. I can't say that I like order more than chaos. I can't say that I'm not disappointed by the lack of coherence here. I can't say that I can't say things anymore. And I can't see it, and I'm not sure I want to.

But why? Why do different questions always lead back to answers that sound and smell the same and yet taste like different kinds of pain? Why do words initially appear so unique and then commonly feel like torn papery skin that smells of old carpets? Why does knowledge ache more to be forgotten than to be known? Why do I crave forgottenness rather than oblivion? And why am I asking all these questions anyway?

This is empty and sad. And I claim to be currently neutral and devoid of feeling. So either this isn't a faithful reflection or, maybe, I'm just being as self-deceiving as ever. This is boring and disappointing. And on a scale of one infinite void to dull refurbished introspection, this is paradoxically both and neither and utter nothingness.

When the words fail, one has to wonder what is left floating in the shipwreck. When the words fail, the welcome mat on the door of your imagination spells embarrassment with a single 'r' to tell you how unwelcome you are - here. And here is all you have. And here is nowhere suspended in brokenhearted ill-shaped half-breaths spat-out into vomit-inspiring stains on the portrait of someone that looks like someone you thought was you. So go on and write and read this terrible attempt at not being terrible at a life you wake up everyday to deserve. And live on though you can't re-write what you repeatedly failed to read in that smoke of these burnt-out candles of those dark wishes you whispered to the endlessly suffocating night you couldn't save. And now exhale incomprehensible light into this sin-eating darkness, while the night's neck-snap still echoes in your trembling hands. When the words fail, as you can't see, this happens and you don't.

What do you want to say?

I want to say that I can't take it anymore.
I can't take it anymore.
There, I said it.

Is that your final answer?

No. The show must go on, no matter what.

~

"Outside the dawn is breaking."
Queen

Shadow

"Et entendre ton rire comme on entend la mer 
S'arrêter, repartir en arrière."
Renaud

~

She was a galaxy and I wanted to cross all the light-years stretched within her eyes.

But I'm tired. I'm tired and this new kind of pain isn't one I can tune out into the numbness of my veins. I'm tired and the breakdown is on the verge of tearing up my papery soul.

I can't maintain composure and I can't maintain my hateful self-criticism. I can't help seeing the flaws and I can't dodge them anymore.

And no matter how far inviolable principles go, the fraudulent eye is there to put up a smokescreen masquerading as the immaculate horizon.

This is not me. It's just how my broken parts behave. This is the broken road of growth mazing under the clouded sky of insanity. This is not me. It's just an ugly mask consuming my skin.

Anger. Rage. Anger.

Every day, I see strangers walking on the street, with virtual copies of themselves fighting off their inner and outer demons. And as they all fail to keep a straight face behind the dance of light and shadow, I keep wondering why we all keep pretending. And I wonder if my buried struggles ever appeared as a sword-fight in someone's imagination.

What are we doing here? Does anyone really know when or where or why or who they are? And if you're on the quest of becoming who you truly are beyond all those kinds of despair, then how do you know you're on the right path? How do you know you're not just pretending not to be pretending, like everyone else?

This is the point that stretches into a dimension. You either see it or you don't. We're all acting as if this is real, as if we are for real. When the truth is that what truly matters is kept hidden behind the stage, while we falsely lose and regain despair as quickly as the spectators' fake smiles fade. Maybe it's always going to be this way, human beings beating their egos against the wall of despair.

I know that some things matter more than life. And, yes, there are moments that outweigh the universe. But I don't want to talk about any of that.

People change. People help other people change. But no human being can fix another.  Everyone's broken; some are broken beautifully, others not so much. Yet, breathing aside, people lie to themselves far more often than they do anything else. People are cruel. And they're ruining everything. People are selfish. And the first thing they always ruin is themselves.

I wonder if my dreams and my words are part of the script I'm pretending not to read. And I wonder if anyone in the audience ever truly saw the mirror-like property of the eyes behind the mask. I wonder if I will always be acting alone on this stupid stage of delusion. And I wonder if I will ever stop wondering and just walk out of here.

There is a thick line between honesty and self-deception. Where are you?

There is a thin line between identity and purpose. Where do you want to be?

There are no more lines. All you can do is read between the lies.

Action.

~

“Act well your part; there all the honour lies.” 
Alexander Pope

Snow

“I feel too much. That's what's going on.' 'Do you think one can feel too much? Or just feel in the wrong ways?' 'My insides don't match up with my outsides.' 'Do anyone's insides and outsides match up?' 'I don't know. I'm only me.' 'Maybe that's what a person's personality is: the difference between the inside and outside.' 'But it's worse for me.' 'I wonder if everyone thinks it's worse for him.' 'Probably. But it really is worse for me.” 
Jonathan Safran Foer

~

The walls were deep dark purple. The door was grey on the inside and it was open. The room was empty. The wooden floor carried the scent of burnt-out stars and I was sitting there by the corner. There were no windows. The ceiling was made of reflective ice and it became blurry whenever I pictured the faces of the people I loved. It was all fiction. It was safe fiction, and so was I.

He could enumerate his complexes in non-alphabetical order and compare the sum of the numerical values, corresponding to each of the starting letters, to the difference in salinity between the left eyelashes and the right ones. He could write this whole damn spectacle in an equation and solve it with his eyes closed but he could never apply the result. He could always tell the difference between arrogance and despair, lurking in the spaces between the lines, trembling in the tells beneath the lies, and sending him back to bed, where all dreams lie broken, dead, unread.

I can't tell you where it all went wrong even I wanted to. I can write it down in patterns and maps across the infinite realm of metaphors. I can't remember when exactly it all broke down and I'm not even sure I want to. I can breathe out smoke and become skin but it seems that I was built to do it the other way around. I can't say that I can do whatever I set my mind to - not anymore. I can tell you how you feel. You can break these chains whenever you want to. You can break them; and timing is key.

But the door is open, remember? How would it feel to be open door to an empty room?

Maybe the truth - the attainable one - lies in the distance between fiction and reality, time and timing, freedom and necessity, hope and despair, between the finite and the infinite, the eternal and the temporal, the sickness and the remedy, and, maybe, between the left eye that reads the lies and the right one that sees through them. And maybe the sum of all these distances will one day become you.

I don't like labels but I think all human beings are delusional. And the grandest delusion of them all is when we make the slightest smile of all, the smile that thinks it understands what it just read, what it just said, though it neither sees beyond the wine nor tastes the heartbroken bread.

The point is that, that there is this veil. The point is right there, right behind the veil. That's why everything you see, everything you see is always asking you the same question, here and here and there: What do you see? What do you see? What do you see?

[...]

Once, there were dreams and then, there were none. Twice and thrice, I faked and faded,

Maybe it's time I take my best shot.

The walls are still the same, though a lot of people have tagged their names and left. The door is maroon-black on the outside and it's closed shut. But it's still fiction out here. And I can't wait till you see the invisible paint I have on my face.

Maybe the truth is in the difference between these colors we exchange and all those we keep to ourselves.

I'm sorry I ran out of colors.

~

“Think of what starlight 
And lamplight would lack 
Diamonds and fireflies 
If they couldn’t lean against Black...” 
Mary O'Neill

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

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

Awe

“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.” 

Rudyard Kipling

~

I was frozen face down, my nose nearing a centered hug to the edge of the pavement, and life's bare foot thundered down on the back of my head. Reddish retrocausal lightning ensued in a bloodied painting with no title. The shattered fabric of the crushed brain dyed the sidewalk dust with the dry dew of the paradoxical void - a silent story read in between the lines of cobblestone about a broken face of a soul that wrote itself off onto the empty memory of a conceptual black hole that sucked life's misstep into the razor-light mirror-like shredder I was hiding behind my eyes. And thus the only hug was that of a two-dimensional bear-trap set to the seventh Solfeggio frequency folding life's knee into counter-clockwise oblivion. The scent was that of frozen concrete melting at the touch of the eccentric lullaby of a victim of anti-heroism, an artless artist with ink flowing from the edge of his hair to the shadowy sunset of life's heel. What you heard was the melodic ink, a rhyme and a tale about the minute difference, all delicate and frail, between the hellish curtains and the holy veils, the ruptured mirrors and the punctured grails, the conceptual twist of the maze-like tails and the paradigm shift of the wind in the sails,

Adjusting.

Speak of necessary fine-tuning to the projector of meaning before the story ends, beneath the pattern that bends under the weight of reality settled on the surface of the black swamp in your hair. Speak to the night of the morning pale, the edge of colored thoughts and humid lyrics about the reconstructed taste of dawn in the tea and the Pyrrhic victory of two ends converging behind the illuminated bitter-sweetness of smoke. 

Failing.

There are no words.

Some see words as series of clawing strikes to the face of existence attempting to rip it of its raw beauty, leaving lettered scars in a light of diminished value. That's why they say that there are no words, why silence is revered in the realm of beauty.

Obviously, I disagree.

There are words. And when placed in the right way, for the right reasons, the words, presumably read at the right time, will change both you and your existence. And they will then tell you that it is up to you to change the world.

Re-adjusting.

My words often fail to make it back from the realm of metaphorical resonance. They fail to make a difference. But we are who we are and it is what it is. No.

Now, what if we could see the different scales that map the maze of mankind, the magical axis of imaginary time, and the bright light of childlike wonder floating in between the moment and the while - what happens then?

The iris was frozen in the labyrinth it holds, and life put a knife through its back.

So it poured its story of melancholic tears in the thirsty lines between cockroach mountains. No.

I found the axis set to the beat of my heart.

And I discovered that the light was made of metaphors. 

I opened the map at every turn and every curl and I kept asking myself, what do you see?

What do you see? What do you see?

I saw the map staring back at me.

I happened.

And now, there are no words.

~

"Once we realize the extraordinary power we have to compose our lives, we'll move from passive, conditioned thinking to being co-creators of our fate."

Jason Silva

Momentous

“In chess, as a purely intellectual game, where randomness is excluded, - for someone to play against himself is absurd. It is as paradoxical, as attempting to jump over his own shadow.” 
Stefan Zweig

~

A melody of subtle happiness travels in floating musical notes around the center of my eyesight in a masquerade of invisible birds and planes falling into shreds of feathers and paper, settling on a heart that beats pain and anger disguised in a helpless symphony of sadness.

One, a shortness of breath. Two, an echo of a dying heartbeat. Three, a mind beheaded by confused and elusive variables with the constant ax of pain. Four, her eyes were once full with the depth and breadth of life. Five, her eyes are now a broken portal to a non-existent dimension. Six, flowers wither. Seven, flowers wither. Eight, flowers wither. Nine, number-shaped bullets shoot the music down.

Discrete hands softly encircle the kitchen clock that makes up her neck. She can't tell the time because it's hiding beneath her throat, face down. But her breath smells like seconds. And the focus shifts from the heaviness of chest pain to that of a headache as a single minute dives through her blink and into her swallowed pride. This clock is broken - it lost its parts in a battle against time. This clock is broken - and her discrete hands were not her own. This clock is broken - and it took them thirty-one blinks to slowly slit her throat.

Maybe things don't need to make sense.

But assuming that things do make sense. Perhaps I'm seeing you through multi-shaded spectacles, with thick lenses stuck between the color of your soul painting its outer layers and the faded hue of mine lingering on the worn-out interior. Maybe everything happens inside the lens and everything else is just the illusory reaction of the universe. Maybe we should all take off our glasses to see things for how they truly are, how we are all one. But then again, we are not all one. We are free to become whoever we want to be. Whether you want to be a jet black anti-hero or a desert gold victim, a greenish maroon protector or a blood red mercenary, whether you're a frozen ocean blue that paints paralyzed waves or the fiery purple privilege of the night sky, whether you're the most broken grey of all or the light-ray that only made it to grey blocks of letters, we are not one. We are many and each one of us must discover his own true color, dip that dry, unused, magical brush in it and finally get to paint beneath and beyond the borders of this line drawing they call 'life'.

So to each her own passion, his own poison, her lying truths, his truthful lies, the moments that meant so much to her though they never really happened and the moments that shaped the edges of his bed while she was half asleep. Reality recurrently dies at an alternating frequency. Yet the Truth is right there, at every corner and every turn, in every wave and every curl, engraved on the heart of the hero, and questioned in the mind of the weak. So send apologies to the ego of every weak hero because they forgot their introspective glasses in the house. And send flare signals for every starving existentialist who's writing stories with the crumbs that were supposed to take him home.

The ice, it either melts or breaks. And the same goes for glass. So whatever you're made of, sooner or later, you will stand in the middle of the line that joins your melting point and your breaking point. And in a moment of momentous divergence, you will make your move.

'Who you were, who you are, and who you want to be,' that's seven-dimensional chess with three demons and an extra player you cannot see. We are not all one. We are the seven that only become one after twenty-one handshakes, two broken mirrors, and a one-in-a-million mixture of humility and courage.

So blessed be the titans and the knights of honor that unknowingly know the difference between a game of chess and a set of drums.

And blessed be the brave.

~

"You've gotta find your big, gigantic drum kit."
Nick Andopolis

Music

"Inside these pages you just hold me."

Ed Sheeran

~

My dreams are burning in the sky. A part of me calls them stars, the other, dust. And I don't know whether my soul is made of cosmic dust of a star that died, or of one that is not yet born. And while confusion lays its empty weight upon my numb and wasted mind, I secretly pray for cold rain to protect my dreams from the fire. 

My senses fail and I feel no pain. The 'I' I gaze upon inside escapes me and I'm too slow and exhausted to try and catch up with it. My heart keeps failing to materialize. But why?

There must be some explanation for this non-feeling phenomenon. And there must be something more here according to my calculations. Or perhaps I've made some miscalculation. But where?

What is my heart waiting for to show up?

I keep telling myself that I've understood every step in this ancient journey of mine, but have I really? Am I lying to myself like they all do? Aren't we all the same at the end of the day?

Who the hell are you? 

Scratch that and rephrase.

What the hell have you become?

[...]

What are words when you no longer know who you are? The symphony that has been playing in my mind all my life is gone. But where to? 

The chairs of the artist and the composer have disappeared. Oblivion. There is no proper wording to verbalize the situation. Thoughts fade. That is all. Thoughts fade. And like a dying autumn leaf that bears within its patterns the sleepless marks of every season, I fade too. Even the state of spontaneous expression fails to find the crooked path into my soul. Perhaps, the latter has gone out of its way to find another. Or perhaps, it's busy playing hide and seek with a kindred mate. All I have here is a small number of songs that recurrently shape my lips and state of mind. And since all I had has become a forgotten number of ancient memories, I intend on filling that space with whatever comes next. Whatever comes next I hope I earn it. I hope I deserve it.

Meanwhile, blessed be the noble knights of honor that have reflected light upon my broken road.

And blessed be the brave.

[...]

The warm wind hums a long lost melody that loosens life's tight grasp on the heart. And yet the music does not go in. It just takes a numb machine out of its cage for a dance.

And they dance to every sound because they know that everything is music.

It's in the slightly audible whistle in the movement of smoke as it parts ways with my breath to seek a more inspiring partner. It's in the sharp knife in bloodied fingers as it slowly moves against the violin in all my flashbacks until all the strings are torn and I fall asleep. It's the same music that made the metro stop and listen to how a little girl and a very old man were exchanging genuine smiles that transcend ethnicity. It's in the way your nose and my heart wrinkle at the sound of your laugh. And it plays in my blood whenever I imagine all the memories we're never gonna make together. In sad and happy moments alike, the music is there. And it's beautiful.

I wish I could describe the dance but I can't. 

So what do you feel? Is the music really there or am I imagining things? Don't answer that.

Answer this.

Is there music when you close your eyes?

~

"I just wanted you to know."

My Chemical Romance

Becoming

“Power over others is weakness disguised as strength.”
Eckhart Tolle

~

M + 7i = 71

Solving a problem usually starts and ends by finding the value of an unknown variable. In order to find the missing element, ordinary techniques require you to put all the known values on one side, and the single key to the problem on another (It's usually X but in this case, it's M, for multiple reasons). Then, you must calculate how all the things you know are related, and your problem will be solved. If you have two unknown variables, you need two equations. If you have more, good luck with the recurrent headaches and whatever drugs you take to make them go away. In my equation (seen above), I have made enough progress to get the number of unknown variables down to one. I figured out the value of M a while ago and now I am left with the lovely imaginary unit i. The latter allows you to move from the world of rational numbers to the realm of the complex, all the while knowing that it's all a play in your imagination.

So why are you so sad? Do you wake up every day to the buried thought of having failed at resolving your equation? What known constant continues to escape your sight? What unknown variable continues to pain your mind? Are you reading some crazy person's words to escape your worries? Do you fear that you've become a monster or a fraud underneath all these masks? Do you know what part of me is writing this and which part of you is reading it? Did it cross your mind that it is you who is writing in blinks while I am only a voice inside your head? Do you think power makes us stronger and love, weaker? Or is it the other way around?

Why are you so sad?

Identity may be the brightest highway to an empty darkness. It could also be a narrow path that your demons are not allowed to take.
Love may be coagulated blood pretending to be a red rose with two colorblind mockingbirds bathing in its scent. It could also be at the core of every honorable truth in this very dishonorable reality.
Purpose may be ridden with losses that will take with them parts of your heart. It could also be the only way to protect the people you love.

So Identity asks you who you are now and who you want to become.
Love follows up and wonders who you want next to you when all your dreams come true.
And Purpose waits for your answers with either a frown or a smile.

So why are you so sad?

Are you broken beyond repair? Do you feel like you're a stranger that no one truly knows or appreciates? Is your ego part of the constants or the variables? How many lies do you tell yourself before you go to sleep? How many truths can you not say out loud even when there's no one around? Which do you distrust more, your heart or your mind? Do you miss that person that used to be a part of your life? Do you wonder if they miss you? Can any of these questions really make a difference?

To each his own illusion, passion and poison and to hell with all these words I write about their interwoven ramifications and imaginary equations.

Conclusion. Talk is cheap and actions speak far louder than words. So dear reader, stop being sad and make better decisions for a better future. Logic never fails.

~

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 
Love never fails"
1 Corinthians 13