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

Imagination

"Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly."
Langston Hughes

~

A drum-roll is composed of two beats.

I fell asleep to the vague image these words put in my head. And perhaps, I never woke up.

Ever since I was a kid, I've been trying to reduce life to a system of ideas. Meanwhile, I also attempted to develop a system of principles for the purpose of ethical navigation. Over time, the two systems became entangled like two pairs of shoelaces fused together, joining the two right feet of an enigmatic human being who can only walk in circles.

In my head, the systems are invincible. Also, in my head, reality and fiction are knit together into the same mask I hide in the world of mirrors.

I don't know who this is or why he's writing with a particular shade of purple. I don't know if these words are the blood of dawn extracted from an afflicted horizon, above the sea of doubt, and below the sky of hope. Maybe they're just modern make-up for a play with no real script, a demonic game between the voices in your head.

In my heart, there is, to the best of my knowledge, nothing.

So why would you take a worn-out and empty container?

There are two nights in this ink. One of them is mine and the other is, naturally, yours. Now each night contains a vision, with a dream lying there underneath. In mine, I walk and run, and walk and run, and walk, and run. And then I stop and stand still. And as the deep dark dream pretends to be me, I pretend that I'm okay, and that nothing's wrong, closing my eyes to the idea that taking this deep breath will fix the broken dawn. Yet I know, deep down, that I'm dissecting the constituents of that air I'm breathing in, looking for a scented trace of life as my feet step on the guts of the dreams that committed suicide in my head.

That was one of the voices in the play.

Now it's your turn. So are you watching closely?

Are you running or walking?

How dark is your night?

And how dead is your dream?

Is the map beneath your feet a circle?

Is this all confused fiction in a real mirror or is it the purest reality in a fictional mirror?

Do you know what a mental drum-roll sounds like when the drummer's eyes are closed?

Close. 

Play. 

Listen.

What do you see? What do you smell?

Are you watching closely?

A drum-roll is composed of two beats.

~

"We sat in the car

& the night dropped

down until the

only words were

the crickets &

the dance of our voices.

& for a moment 

the world became

small enough to

roll back & forth

between us."

Brian Andreas