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

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 

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

Death

“You are afraid to die, and you’re afraid to live. What a way to exist.”
Neale Donald Walsch

~

They got it all wrong. But I see things for how they truly are. That's what most tell themselves in secret, in-between breath and breath, in repressed silence. We all fail to notice the most integral part of reality, that we see nothing, nothing but ourselves, deformed.

They got it all wrong. And as they engage in thought while recurrently failing to pause the grand game of delusion and blind trickery, they also fail to notice that no matter how deep the intellect digs, the finite hole and its neighboring treasures will never account for infinite weakness.

They got it all wrong. And though it's admirable that they can see in the curls of simple letters old particles of dust dancing in fresh yellow sunlight, they still fail to recognize the music. And I fail miserably just the same to rescue the timeless tempo of the soul drowning in this ink.

They got it all wrong. And their pale figures are like beautiful old buildings tainted with the cheap paint of modernity and a touch of make-up to hide the battle scars. They left the castle and paved the circular road to vanity with expensive clothes, walking naked in copies of shoes as polished and tarnished as their faces.

I got it all wrong. I got it all wrong because I buried anger in the deepest layer of my being. And the calm silence that ensued continuously reminded me to forget that all these people were going in and out of my house faster than this lucky smoke I'm breathing out.

I got it all wrong because I write about temporary failures because I am both temporary and a failure. And I write this nonsense down as these words words fall from my eyes onto paper in a blink. So here's one for the upcoming death of my parents. And here's two for the people I love the most, since they're already dead. But that's okay. It's okay because we all paint death in broad daylight with the letters our lips draw - little bits of earth that align, layer upon layer, above our cold and motionless bodies beneath the gravestone that invisibly reads: How soon is now? 

Everyone you love is going to die. And that's okay because death is a good thing. For while the doors of life are a rite of passage from one lie to another, death is the gateway to truth and justice.

To be fair, there are some things here that are worth delaying death for. By 'some' I mean 'two', Love and the Human Spirit - Love and Art for short. And if by any nonrandom chance you manage to add purpose to the recipe, I have a feeling that death would take the long way home to listen to what kind of music you can make.

Now, things here are either for rent or immaterial. And all that is immaterial is either a well concealed lie or a mostly forgotten truth. Now the cool thing about mostly forgotten truths is that they're right there in front of your face resonating with the vibrations propagating across your shirt. And the coolest mostly forgotten truth is that other people are wearing shirts too.

My heartbeat is not for rent.
And my voice is my voice.
Great performances unfold in dramatic monologues. Yet memorable ones write future history in and with brief moments of mixed frequencies, voices that team up against life for the sake of an honorable death.

So run. Run toward death with your favorite soundtrack beating inside your invisible headphones. Run toward death and touch every heart you meet with grace. Run toward death and give it the parts you really want dead. And then, with whatever remains of you, run through.

~

“To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.” 
J.K. Rowling

Dawn

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

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

Coldplay

~

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

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

[...]

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

[...]

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

I'll start with the first line.

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

I already know your line, by the way.

~

"But I believe in music... 

The way that some people believe in fairy tales."

August Rush

Smoke

"What I've felt, what I've known

Turn the pages, turn the stone
Behind the door, should I open it for you?"
Metallica 

~

It is a dark and deeply beautiful view. And I want you to be here with me. And I tell myself now that I want you here because I want all the stars hiding behind empty clouds above me get the chance to meet that one star that shot through my heart. But I know that I just want you here because I love you. And I just said those three words out loud four times in a row and I don't know exactly why.

Yet now I tell myself that words are but empty promises, hopeful fireflies that die when their ink catches fire, when the plot reveals that death is the hidden title of everything they wrote in the wind at night. And I suspect that this wind travels through me because I am not here, and that even if I were, the night would still magically lose its memory at dawn, just like it did yesterday.

So what happens to these forgotten moments of wonder where you only exist in my imagination? Do they die with me just like I'm dying in them, with the sound of your laugh in this fictional background? Perhaps the fireflies I made up will align in this starless sky to spell out your name in light, to make me smile right before the curtain closes and death applauds with the starry letters falling gently onto my empty bed of heartbeats. And, then, perhaps, you'd wake me up in the glorious morning night-people dream about when they're dead and that's when I'd tell you that you are the light and deeply beautiful view that erased the night in my heart.

[...]

It's almost morning now, and the silently still buildings are staring back at me with a giant grey cloud fading into pieces above them. And the motionless scene reeks so badly of death that I almost forget that there are hundreds of lives having dreams as vivid as the smoke in my breath and as dead as the breath in my smoke.

Yet, interestingly, just like smoke, the truth has three faces. And to every face, there are two scales. When you face your heart, the pendulum swings between Faith and Fear. When you face your self, the clock either ticks for Goodness or for Power. And when you face your soul at midnight, you'll either see that Love is a timeless mirror, or you'll be lost in the drama of self-deception, divided in images of broken silhouettes in the shards of glass you pretend to inhale so you can fall out of sleep from this grand delusion.

[...]

So enter the world of an enigma that was broken when it was born. Enter the world of lies, a world that tricks its own existence into death. Enter a world that can no longer tell the difference between reality and fiction. Enter a world of make-believe purple rain falling onto yellow autumn leaves to write a fairy-tale even though the author is colorblind. Enter a world where thoughts become footsteps that leave no trace on this desert sand, while all the feelings in the world are colorlessly buried alive underneath this damned map of empty patterns.

[...]

Just like this smoke, I have one face. Just like this smoke, I was once the purple fire that caught the curtain by surprise. And just like this smoke, I, now, into the morning wind disappear.

So wake up and read the wind and perhaps you'll comprehend how beautiful it feels to burn into love with the sound of your laugh in the background.

I know the night won't remember any of this.

But maybe you will.

I love you. It's only one whisper this time. And I know you just heard it.

~

"I take this key
And I bury it in you

Because you're unforgiven too."

Metallica

Perfume

“The dawn of beauty always comes after night.” 
Sorin Cerin

~

It's ninety minutes past midnight and you're not here. It's ninety minutes past midnight and I'm not here either.

I wonder how many minutes we still have together.

Over the course of history, sleepless nights have born witness to too many people, their headaches and heartaches, wishes and prayers, to songs that silenced the passage of time and a music in the silence that only the heart can hear. And yet on this sleepless night of my own, I swear by the graceful movement of your perfect eyes as they read these letters, that I just want to hear your voice.

I can think all I want about the non-existent distance between your stars and mine, about how our heartbeats travel the skies and meet midway to plan our next hug, and how our spirits visit each other's dreams and therein vow to forget all about it in the morning. And yet I know that all these thoughts are only echoes of the 'I miss you' that won't stop playing back in whatever's left of my soul.

I honestly don't know what to write anymore. And I don't know if I should do the right thing and leave or stay and see you every day. I know you told me to do the right thing but what's more important, the right thing or the right person?

You once told me that the only signs that matter are those we cannot see because it is those signs that keep us free and I didn't tell you how that simple thought changed my world. One day, I'll propose to you an equally beautiful idea that will change your world too.

But for now, tell me, love.

Tell me how you stole a heart I didn't know still existed. Tell me how you brought back words I thought were dead. Tell me how your perfume magically makes my lips paint a smile on your neck. Tell me this dream is good enough for you and that it won't be replaced with another, that you won't travel the world with someone else. Tell me that we will spend many sleepless nights together, nights where we won't know whether you are me or I, you, nights where I will look into your eyes and tell you the three words I promised myself never to say again.

For now, I tell you this, with the low, slow voice that you called boring:

I'm yours to keep.

~

“May night continue to fall upon the orchestra.” 
André Breton