Customary Holiday Post - 1

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It feels weird to be here again, considering how many lifetimes have gone by since I had something to say. Not that I have anything in particular to say tonight, but the silence is killing me. I hate silences, the way one would hate an especially rotten smell. It isn't just a mental sort of loathing, but an overwhelming physical sensation that makes you clench your teeth and steel your insides.

I'm home again.

The real problem with silence is that it can't be drowned out. I'm fairly certain of this, because I've tried everything. And the only thing that ever helps is screaming inside your head. But even that doesn't work if you can't find your voice. And I think I've lost mine.

I haven't been able to write for too long now. I think it's because every time I decide I want to try, the letters rush into each other, melting together like some sort of soup mix gone horribly wrong until I can't tell whether they're saying anything at all. It takes every bit of strength I can muster to just separate them from one another and read them as words. Usually I can manage that.

Sometimes I can't.

When things go wrong, you can draw upon an inner strength that kicks in like some sort of dependable electricity-generator. But when the only problem is one with the voltage, there's nothing to do but try and finish reading your novel in the flickering light, hoping you don't miss out on something important that would have completely transformed your life.

I can't understand time. And it feels like space itself is playing some twisted prank on me, trailing me with shadows and tricking me into believing that I'm never by myself. Clawing through curtains makes my fingernails bleed, and it tortures me that the only physical evidence left behind is smudged kohl and chalk under my nails.

I used to know where I was going, even though I pretended otherwise. Now, I feel out of focus, like a photograph taken from a shaky camera on a star studded night. Frozen in perpetual blurriness. Like a snowflake. Unique if you bother to put it under a microscope, but just a tiny, falling, melting piece of ice otherwise.

I have become my own dream. But there's nothing more to destroy here. And I can barely hide in the areas of this canvas that are still devoid of paint, pen marks and blood. Thank God for stainless tears.

The carousel is making me sick, and I keep telling myself I'll jump off when it completes one more circle. Except I can't tell the beginning from the middle from the end.. And I've almost come to believe that there is no difference. Maybe it never began. Maybe it will never end.

I'm still going to jump though. Regardless of whether or not Prince Charming or the Snow Queen reward me with their promised kiss of life. And if I manage to melt the glass in your eye as I sail through the air, I'll crash magnificently to the ground, shining in all sorts of colors as you cry for perceived sacrifices.

But, time is so much faster than I can be. And it's running out the rabbit hole. I thought Wonderland was beautiful, and I still think so. But the paint is peeling off the walls and I'm beginning to think this was only a cheap imitation. Or maybe it's dying.

And I'm so dizzy...

Aeternum vale

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I don't understand why I feel like I'm going far away. Every day, so many things disappear into too-soon approaching horizons, and it feels like it's me who is receding into the icy waters. Except the colder it gets, the hotter I feel. There must be some way back. But which way is back?

If everything disappears, will I disappear too? If everything that makes up my very existence burns to smoldering ashes, will I burn too? If all that means anything comes to mean nothing, would anything mean anything ever again ?

Rule one: Stay in the abstract. Rule 2: Always remember. Rule 2, proviso: Remembering includes remembering to forget.

Why must everything always contradict everything else? Why is the "odd one out" the odd one out, when one is always odd anyway? Why does it all come down to numbers? Why must everything mean everything else? Why must everything mean nothing?

Why can't I find any answers? I don't know where to look. And everywhere is a very large place. I think I'm running out of time. I wish I knew where it all went. It's been twenty years, and every day, all I know is a little more of nothing.

I've stopped thinking. These are thoughts that keep escaping because I don't want to keep them in my head anymore. I can't, because I have no room for them.

They keep telling me to think back. But back to what? And with everyday, there's so much more to choose from. And I wasn't always me. I am not always me. But we get by with a little help from our friends. And a friend of the devil is a friend of mine.

I scare myself.

Sorry?

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I am impossible to talk to. I care about nothing and no one. I always do as I please. You, your pleas and your tears, your anger, your authority and your fears. They mean nothing to me; and for all you have to say, your words may as well be static that I can barely hear above the music (that won't stop) playing in my head.

I am selfish and unfeeling. I am cold and made entirely of apathetic igneous stone. I will not cry for you, the world or God. And I will not cry for myself. Oh, I shall never be unkind and I will never make you cry. But I will not promise to be there to hold your hand as your world falls to pieces. And I will not be around to catch your falling tears.

...
It's only because my hands and head are already full. I have no safe place left to keep (the rest of) your sadness and your pain. If you're bitter and mad, and if it would make you feel better, go ahead, take it all out on me. It doesn't make an ounce of difference.

I'll do what I can to keep you safe - but only as long as you stay on that side of this dilapidated wall. Try and break through and I promise to hop back into the rabbit hole. And if I am supposed to apologize, I'm sorry.

I will only haunt the rarest of your thoughts. And though I will vanish as soon as you ask me to, I will leave you my shadow. I will be your one regret, but I shall not be found. Because I never want to be lost again.

Leaving

A last post from college.

It isn't even an entire month. I have got to remember that. Everything will still be fine when I come back. Nothing really ends. I'm waiting for the cab to get here and everything feels so surreal. In a matter of a few hours, will I really be home? I don't want to go back. I'm nobody's here. I belong to myself and myself alone. At home, I'm just ...there.

I wish I could explain better, but I'm pretty inarticulate right now and I could really use one last cigarette. *sigh* These holidays are going to be too long...

What I Want

I want winter to get here. I want to crawl under my blanket and lie there for hours. I want to sip hot coffee and smoke endless cigarettes in the cold rain. I want to wear full-sleeved clothes.
I want it all to be further away.

I want reasons.
But none of yours.
I want windows I can look into. I want strawberry ice cream in the rain. I want to want to wait and not have to.

I want things to make sense -
even if just temporarily.

I want reasons to stay.
I need reasons to stay.

...

You don't count anymore.

I need winter to get here...

Dead and Alive

She sat up in bed with a gasp. Jet black hair falling into bright green eyes that were widened in shock as she looked about her, breathing heavily. Moonlight filtered into the dark room through the glass windows, lighting up her pale face. With something between a sigh and a groan she let herself fall back into bed.

Just a dream...

Lying still for a while, an arm flung over her eyes, she found herself smiling. "Idiot", she muttered out loud, proceeding to sit up in bed and reach out for the small table by the bed. She picked up the pack of cigarettes and fished around in her pocket. Finding the lighter, she closed her eyes and lit the cigarette. A long drag and a moment later, she turned on a switch, flooding her room with pale blue light.

She pulled out a piece of paper and a pen from a drawer and took another drag as she stared out the window at the dark night sky. And then she began to write...

Another letter you're never going to get.

God, I really need to stop.

Well, maybe this one last time...

It's late and I'm really tired, but I know I'm not going to fall asleep until I finish this... so may as well, yes?


...I dreamed of that day again...

...The funny thing is I saw her so much more clearly than I saw you.

What was she wearing?

I think it was red.

Must have been.

She looked the kind.

No, wait.

It was black.

I remember.

Though it isn't from the dream.

I always have this dream in black and white, which is a pretty funny way of describing it, coz everything is gray.

There is no white.

Not even in the clouds.

She paused here, a far away look on her face and ash accumulating at the edge of the almost-out cigarette. A dog barked somewhere in the distance, snapping her out of her reverie. She took another drag and stubbed the cigarette out on the wall. Shaking her head, she sighed to herself and then continued from where she had left off...

I wonder if you would have still left if I hadn't given you her message...

Before I knew who she was.

I think so.

Or I like to believe I think so.

I don't know.

But Bruce seems to think so.

He says she would have found you anyway.

I guess he's right.


Bruce.

I don't know what I would do without him.

After you... left, he was the only one who I could stand being around.

Everyone else bothered me.

Maybe that was because their eyes looked around for you, but none of the bastards had the courage to ask me where you had gone.

I wanted them to, you know?

It's funny, but it's true.

I wanted them to, so I could tell them about her.

And how you finally got what you wanted.


I mean, it's not like you ever promised me anything, is it?

It isn't like I ever asked for anything...

But God, I miss you.


HE had come by last night.

Just an errand, nothing more.

It always is.

We only meet when I need something from him, or he from me.

It works that way.

Or at least it used to...


It's funny that it's been a year since I met him... and I haven't written to you since...


Do I love him?

I don't know.

I don't think so.


I know he bothers me... and it's not just the stupid pointless arguments.

He's almost as tall as you, though his hair isn't that much of a mess.

He walks like you as well. Lazy long strides, looking not like you ruled the world, but like you didn't care who did.

He smiles as rarely as you did, preferring to look either smug, annoyed or as if there was nothing there at all.

I wouldn't call it blank. Maybe indifferent....


And his eyes... well, his eyes bother me the most.

Coz they're nothing like yours.

They're brown.

An honest trusting brown, nothing like the smirk he never fails to wear!


But... on the rare occasions he smiles, they twinkle... just like yours did...

and sometimes, when it's late, cold and dark... and there's no on around but us, he'll let me in.

Just a little.

He isn't like you on those nights.

He's real.

And he hurts.

And I can tell.

Not like you at all.

Not one bit.

But on those nights, they're not his eyes.

They are yours.

All I can remember is you asking me to look into your eyes while I begged you not to leave...

Every thing else fades...

And I remember why I have to stay away.

Why I don't love him.

Why I will not.

Why I can not.


Though... what I don't really know is if it's despite the fact that he reminds me so much of you... or because of it...

__________________________________________________________________

She put down the pen thoughtfully and picked up the lighter again. Lighting another cigarette, she leaned back and looked out the window to see the lightening sky. Another drag. It had now been two whole years. Two years since he marched off after that girl. And she still missed him.

Picking up her cell phone, she dialed an all-too-familiar number. As she waited, she picked up her lighter again, this time using it to set fire to the letter in her hand. It was a fitting goodbye. He had, after all, gotten exactly what he wanted. And her? Well, she mused as she watched the flames eat away at the letter, She'd be okay. Possibly in love with a dead man, but okay nevertheless. Not just a dead man, she reminded herself, In love with a man who died chasing a dead love. Smiling sadly at her ceiling, she lay in bed, waiting for the phone to ring. She didn't know if she loved him, but she needed to hear his voice.

___________________________________________________________________
Halfway across the city, a man with tousled hair opened his brown eyes and blinked at his ringing phone. He smiled sleepily as he saw the name flash on screen.
"Hullo?"

You called?

I look into your eyes
waiting for a sign...
for a trace, a shred of memory
of what you'd left behind

Instead I see just darkness
Staring out at us all
A smile that reveals just as much
as an empty dilapidated wall

Where did your laugh go?
That never failed to make me smile
Where did your strength go?
That kept us going all this while

I turn away, tired of waiting
and I want to walk away
I don't know how to tell you
you haunt me night and day

But a step is all I can take
Before you quietly say my name
and suddenly I'm back to the day we met
and everything is the same

I tried so hard to catch you
But all I could do was watch you fall
Now I turn around again
How can I walk away when my name you call?

Written in December 2008

You and I, A Different Story

Tinted,
Like a car's darkened windows
Ironic?
You could say so, I suppose.
Forgetful,
like you you used to be
By association
I guess I could be guilty.
Trust
You never really had to ask
Lies
I'm sorry, it was nothing but a mask.
Love
Do you even believe in it today?
Lust
Is that the only other way?
Confused
It's all I really know for sure
Peace
Is that really what I'm looking for?

Forget
Just like you used to do
Guilty?
Ah, I'm almost as bad as you
Laughter
Rings best in the coldest night
Pain?
Out of mind once out of sight
A Plan
There really is no such thing
Is it Cold?
Oh darling, won't you sing?
Today
Made of scraps, like of metal old
Memories
All that remain after the rest you've sold
Stars
To remind you of things you knew but long forgot
Innocent
Always, Until the day you finally get caught