Happiness

I never believed in it.

To me, for the longest time, happiness seemed only an elaborate illusion that human beings came up with to justify not acknowledging the weight of being.

Which is not to say that i didn’t believe in a good time.

Far from it.

I lived fiercely, every choice at every moment only made by answering two questions.

Will it make me freer?

Will it be fun?

And I was able to live so fiercely because I knew, or believed anyway, that the brightness would always be followed by the dark.

But, I think I was only always so miserable that i was climbing highs just go fall straight into lows.

Chasing the thrill of escaping the burden of being, straight into drowning in the depths of what it means to be human…

It’s different now. The past couple of years, for too many reasons to get into anywhere, I am finally learning what it means to be happy.

And for the most part, I am.

Which brings us to the reason I’m writing this post.

I know most of you reading my posts here may think I’m always depressed af. But that’s just a thing. I deal with intense thoughts and feelings by writing about / around them.

I mean, it’s one of the ways I deal anyway…

Definitely the healthiest one, ah.

Just thought I should put that on record. Especially now that i am facing the first long dark tunnel of this new phase of my life.

It’s still a way away, but I can feel it reaching out to me, even as I move towards it, my shadow racing ahead and already merging with the darkness that awaits.

I can’t help but be a little concerned, because the old miserable & self destructive me had her own ways of navigating through these things.

Set yourself on fire and sail through, comfortably numb.

Happiness is a new burden… And I’m not numb anymore.

I’ll burn if I have to, though. I don’t think I can ever stop doing that completely. In fact, I think that’s what it means to live.

We burn for different things, using all our past experiences and present dilemmas and future anxieties to light up our path forward, for ourselves and for those we love. And we keep reemerging from those ashes until one day there’s just nothing left to give.

I don’t mind burning. Especially not now, when I have things and people worth burning for.

But i can’t help the desire, the itch, the need to cause myself enough pain so that i can no longer feel any of the hurt that comes from outside.

Ah, I guess the blame is on me.

But I’d rather be shattering glass than any sort of hammer…

Anyway, so, yeah. TLDR; I’m happier than ever, but I bleed misery through words to heal, hence the sadder my writing, the better I’m probably doing.

Cheers. And may you be happier too.

Peace out.

Another Dawn

It’s dawn again.

I’ve watched the sun rise through so many different phases in my life. On cold rooftops and green fields and empty streets. In dresses and capes and leather jackets. With family and friends and lovers. As a child, in college, as a grown up. Because I was up studying, partying, fighting, bleeding, destroying, creating, raging, loving. Sad. Happy. Alone. Not.

Sigh.

It’s weird. I’ve known so many kinds of hurt, and so intimately, that even if I can’t call myself immune to them, I at least usually know what they entail.

But, lately, every time I am blue, I find myself …grey. In the sense that all I feel is distant and disconnected. Everything feels so far away…

The one cure I have found is running. Now that it’s been nearly two years since I last smoked even a single drag, at least half of which I’ve spent learning to dance, my stamina has made such an impressive comeback. And i love that feeling of the cool wind on your skin even as your heart threatens to burn up inside you. It grounds me better than any substance ever has.

Still, it adds to the weirdness, because, in a way, I keep feeling like the person I was before I went to law school. I don’t know if it’s the sobriety or the physical activity or just the fact that I feel like I’m thinking clearly for the first time in well over a decade. But, whatever the reason, I feel like the person I used to be. Minus all the teenage angst and inexperience, of course. And that is awesome.

What’s not awesome, though, is ten plus years of realisations striking home. Stuff I never allowed myself to even fully process in all this time because I never had the requisite bandwidth or free memory space. Now that I do, it’s like my brain is working overtime trying to play catch up with the life I’ve lived but not absorbed or reflected upon and understood from – adequately enough, anyway.

That’s my theory anyway. For why everything in the present feels so far away and unreachable…

It’s not that big a deal. Just that I know I’ve got to be careful. Got to guard against the temptation to deal with this disconnect the way I used to. Even though I know better now. Old habits die hard.

And I have been on this habit slaying trip lately. From cigarettes to alcohol to coffee to people to situations… But, wait. I’m so sleepy, I barely know what I am saying

Oh, no, I wanted to stay longer, but I’m having so much trouble just keeping my eyes open.

Guess I’ll go to bed now, and continue this tomorrow or some thing.

Ah, I like this feeling.

Stay safe, everyone.

Peace out.

Burning Heaven

The sky is on fire.

They say it’s only my imagination.

Probably just the guilt tinting my vision.

But they’ve always been fools

And also liars.

.

I won’t be deceived again.

Not when I can smell the smoke.

And not when, on it, I choke.

Like the night so long ago when I watched whole cities drown

Burning in a crimson rain.

.

They tell me it’s not my fault.

That i am not who they blame.

Yet they clearly want my shame.

But I will not give them the satisfaction of my guilt.

And they will not see me crawl.

.

Still, I’m no liar.

So, please know, I would gladly get on my knees

If I thought that it would bring any relief

But I know better now.

That the sky’s on fire.

Inevitability

The first time they met, the setting sun shone brightly for a moment, blinding after days of dark storm clouds.

Much later, in that twilight place, no golden sun marked their next meeting, only the crimson of spilled blood.

Now, after all these years, that past reaches out; a river of red amidst a sea of black.

There have been as many storms in the skies above, as have been at their feet below.

And more blood spilled than either of them could have ever even imagined, let alone wanted.

Not that it matters much, now, caught in ocean currents, borne ceaselessly into the future.

Once, they believed in the inevitability of them, of finding their way back, always.

For however dark the road, brighter were the lights that lit their way.

But, most water, like all time, can only flow in one direction.

And there is no going back, not for them, not anymore.

Which is probably for the best, all said and done.

For even if it wasn’t wholly dark and bloody.

Even if the sun shone, bright and golden.

Even if they were truly happy, once

It was only ever, always, momentarily

For nothing gold can last

Especially not the past

So, sail forward.

Bloodied, golden.

Alone.

Live.

Die.

Be.

Semi-precious

Autumn 2014

Their rarity made them precious
because they would not sing for me
for all that I begged and pleaded
My thoughts were always free.

I always looked at letters and words
as thoughts that you could bleed
But, no matter how long I called to them
they would never answer to me.

But warm Winters came to my scattered head
where there was light, and shades of sound
while I grieved for the words, silenced and dead
yet thanked the Stars I had been found.

But, even safety nets tear, and the best plans fail
There’s nothing we know that shall stay the same
I know, you promised the sun amidst this gale
but my own words were drowning in the rain.

Please understand why I could not stay
Not when you’d so easily watch them bleed.
Yes, every price must be paid
But, they mean the entire world to me.

And now, they sing for you, they always do
while I stand here struck with the blues
My words are cliched and awkward, but true
And stuck in the middle with you.

Always

It isn’t always the memories
that undo you late at night
Sometimes it’s only a feeling,
an absence of some near-divine light
Sometimes it is a number plate,
when the numbers add up to a name
Or a person stands up to be who you were,
and you avert your eyes in shame

It’s knowing that you’re growing
and that things must be left behind
That you are only a stranger
lost somewhere in the threads of time
And it’s paying the cost of life
in memories not yet made
It’s holding on to the hope
that some things can still be saved

For in the depths of something unstoppable
always tugging at my soul
You were the first hand to grab mine
and burn through all the cold
And I know you haven’t cared
for quite a long long time
But I’ll never forget that moment
when I first learned that I was still alive

And if I could have just one thing,
I don’t know if it would be you
But I remember the shade of your eyes
better than you ever could
It’s because I’ve seen the light in them
And it’s a light I can’t unsee
So, if it comes to a choice between us,
even my darkness could never choose me.

The Kindly Ones // Crying Lightning

 

The Origin

“All around me darkness gathers,

Fading is the sun that shone;

We must speak of other matters:

You can be me when I’m gone”

Stasis

“Flowers gathered in the evening,

Afternoon they blossom on;

Still are withered by the evening:

You can be me when I’m gone”

– Two-part poem in The Sandman, The Kindly Ones

Molten

I cannot hold you in my hands anymore
Flowing out of my veins, like lava in flames
Shining like an intense ocean of red and gold
if I choose to burn, is it not only I who is to blame?

Though sometimes I still dream of that very first time
That my ice-cold soul felt the burn of your skin
Around your fingers, you wrapped my reeling mind
Leaving my edges on steam, and my core, molten.

And you should know I’ve been melting ever since
First in cracks that trickled, then in streams that screamed
And I wonder if you ever truly were the lost prince
Or simply a lord from some nightmarish tale I once dreamed.

My love, how can I follow you any further into this night?
When I know not the way through the depths of your mind
I set out following the treacherous moon and its light
Only to leave myself somewhere too far behind.

And now the embers falling from my skin
from all the places we have touched
are all I have to light my way of sin
Not enough, but always too much

I like to believe I’ll catch up with you sometime
Before going up in flames, or melting out of sight
And if being too weak to help you was my only crime
Then I hope at least my pyre provides you with light.

 

Bleeding Light

In the arch of her back,
At the corner of his mind,
With all the things they have lost
and dare not hope to find
lies one last chance at redemption
flickering slowly out of sight
But he resolutely faces the other way,
while she stands, blinded by the light.

It was so much brighter once,
before her eyes grew used to this dark
whilst he nourished the flame as long as he could,
until the constant vigilance left its mark
And now he stands, unmoved, decided,
even as she begs him to reconsider
As the flame of all that once was lies dying,
promising to leave them both embittered.

Why won’t he listen? Why won’t he save it?
Girl, wipe those questions of grief off your face
What you weep for is long long gone
nor will this once raging fire leave a trace.
Except that scar, around your heart,
where the wire cut you deepest
There is no shame in falling down,
when the height you chose was the steepest.

I know you won’t stop wishing for miracles,
nor stop needing the way he breathes
I wish I could show you the truth,
because, in the end, everyone leaves.
But you know that, my dearest girl,
Isn’t that why you bleed yourself to sleep?
Ah, you’ll miss the pain when the numbness starts,
Remember not to go too deep.

Fire and Ice – Evolution

~~~

I must stop being so charming,
she breathed in earnest
and humble, he added
earning himself
an icy glare.

But even in that snowstorm,
there was always this fire
in their eyes.

Have you ever seen any one
as ingenious as I? he asked
One in a million, she muttered.
He grinned until realizing
what she had just meant

Ice can choose to melt in a million ways
And only one of any, of all, of those
would do them any good.

Are you both absolutely out of your minds?
is best answered with maniacal laughter
rising into the light of the full moon
in perfect synchronization
— the past.

Now, the darkness whispers secrets
that the moon wasn’t made to keep,
and I’ve heard the darkness calling
and I know it’s calling out to me
— the present

I’m tired of howling
at clouds that won’t even budge
for what is stone but a stubborn cloud?
Sooner or later, it is everything that has to end
— the future?

Even when the Earth has frozen over
and the wind, disappeared from the skies
Know that I will come to you when you call.

~~~