The sky was a brilliant shade of blue, as if a blanket of shadows had wrapped the city. Yet, the yellow lights devoured the starlight, leaving only faint traces of moonshine on the graffiti alleyways. Tall buildings stretched like steel spires into the sky, as if wishing to touch the clouds themselves. Cars rumbled along the streets, each embarking on an unending journey. The city’s heart was alive, throbbing melody of car-horns and voices, never sleeping. Beating, beating, beating.
He looked out over the ledge, and he was a giant, the world seemingly at his glorious fingertips. He took in a sharp breath of the polluted air. How long had he been here? An hour? Two? Too long. The wind tousled his golden hair, a caress, but his face was stony. A crowd, lathered in confusion and panic, had formed around him now, friends with wild eyes calling his name repeatedly. Their voices fell on deaf ears.
“Please,” one called, shaking his head as if emerging from a nightmare, only to find he was awake the whole time. “Please, please come back.”
Another crowd had accumulated beneath him, waving their arms excitedly, signaling their unseen friends. Their whispers carried like doves, like pigeons, on the wind: “Will he jump?” “Oh, God, no!” “Someone help that crazy man!”
The police were here now. They split the horrified crowd, rooted to the spot by their fear, their curiosity. They pushed to the front, their gruff voices carrying over the din of the electric confusion.
Their words were empty, leaden, and dripping with the fact that even they were fearful. “Step back from the ledge, man. You have so much to live for, step back.” The jumper did not move, their reasoning was futile, their words pointless. His stony eyes outlined the form of the streets below. He wondered where they would carry him…
A cry of confusion rose from the center of the crowd as someone pushed forward, fighting against the masses, slipping through the hold of the police, who recoiled at the defiance. She sprinted like a madwoman towards the man, her eyes wild. She threw herself at him, locking her arms around his waist, pressing her face into the grooves of his strong back. Her tears, angry, fearful and saddened stained his shirt, running down her porcelain face. His body stiffened at the contact—her delicate touch that he recognized. He hesitated, and a hush blanketed the crowd, the sound of her muffled choking filling the void around them.
His head bowed as a gentle breeze carried her sorrow through the night, around the oblivious city, twisting around the daunting buildings, whisking it through the tires of the cars, letting it cascade through the minds of the citizens, through the street lamps, the signs, rocketing it through the domain of the skies…
“…I won’t ever let you fall…”
Monday, July 6, 2009
Friday, July 3, 2009
A Evening of Romance
The soft roar of a crackling fire illuminates the room draped,
in a mysterious afterglow that permeates the silence.
The softness of a blanket envelops the romance that purveys the night time
of our dreams.
The clink of glass as we toast our love to the night and the fire,
and bless our longevity.
The warmth of you in my arms as the night winds down is all I need tonight
and tomorrow to keep me around.
The love is forever part of us and you,
you will make me happy for
the days to come.
The night is gone as the light envelops the room, the fire has faded, but you are still here and
I will hold you still.
And it rained...
The world stops for a moment it feels like it's just you and me. I can feel it wanting to rain as the two of us both stand there, quiet and still. Everything I had to say I said it, everything you had to hear, now you know. I hear the train pull into the station and the doors open wide. "Last call, stand clear of the doors." calls the conductor. I go to move but you don't stop me...I get on the train and it pulls away from the station. "Why?" I think. "Why didn't you stop me? Why didn't you come after me? Don't you love me enough...to come after me?" I take my seat waiting for my stop, and when it comes I get off. Slowly and amlessly I walk home alone, and now it starts to rain. "I'm thankful for the rain." I think to myself. "Now no one can tell I've been crying."
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Imperfection...
What do you see when you look in the mirror? Is it someone you love, or is it the person you loathe the most? Why must you pick apart the one person who is always there for you? You push them away because you say they're a big imperfection. Man has focussed on this one ridiculous thought for way too many years, without a reasonable excuse as to why. You crave perfection and will do anything for it, but when you think about it... What do you really want? To be flawless, or even expertly crafted? Think hard about what you consider to be perfection 'cause you'll soon realize that nothing in existence can be "perfect" by definition. Nothing can be flawless, it is part of existing. So I don't know about you... So you can strive to be your imaginary dream self that can never be, but I'd prefer to be my flawed self and live. I like being real. It has it down sides, but trust me, the positives definitely out weigh the negative aspects.
Be real, LIVE.
Dear....
I used to have your voice all tied up in my voice mail box, trapped and whirling around in it's four corner area. I loved that voice, that sent joy trip-toeing up my spine and forcing giggles out after my sobs. Sunshine after a drizzling rain with you, you know? But enough time has passed that my voice mail has deleted your messages and burried them under a bunch of other staticy voices that don't know me. I don't know them either.
I turn and look into my little looking glass and see a little me. She's got her hair slicked back into a pony tail, bright blue eyes unmasked by makeup, and a goofy braces-filled smile. And I can see you too, bigger in my eyes than I'd ever thought a person could be. You hold my hand in your best friendly way, and you smile. We scowl sometimes, but it always passes.
I guess you're right though. That's just a story now, and stories are just stories. I can't make your voice filter through my telephone anymore, but I can hear you in my head giving me advice and calling me on my lifes. I was more real with you than anybody in the world. So a piece of me is missing now, It's getting late, I guess. I've written three pointless paragraphs to tell you that I need you and I love you.
I don't know how to go back.
And now I am done.
I am sorry.
I turn and look into my little looking glass and see a little me. She's got her hair slicked back into a pony tail, bright blue eyes unmasked by makeup, and a goofy braces-filled smile. And I can see you too, bigger in my eyes than I'd ever thought a person could be. You hold my hand in your best friendly way, and you smile. We scowl sometimes, but it always passes.
I guess you're right though. That's just a story now, and stories are just stories. I can't make your voice filter through my telephone anymore, but I can hear you in my head giving me advice and calling me on my lifes. I was more real with you than anybody in the world. So a piece of me is missing now, It's getting late, I guess. I've written three pointless paragraphs to tell you that I need you and I love you.
I don't know how to go back.
And now I am done.
I am sorry.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
~ Lost ~
The graffiti is gone.
This only oasis of colour in the bleak station has now been replaced with an off white splotch of some sort of unidentifiable substance.
People struggle to move in and out of the train before the pressurized doors wheeze close again. I step down; hoping for a comforting welcome but the only greeting is the babble of the crowd. The rushing traffic compels me forward.
I follow familiar streets. There’s the same jagged skyline, the same dented lamp posts. What happened to the city that used to be so full of possibility and vitality? Do you remember streaking through the parks and shopping malls, drinking up the air, the people, and the sounds? Those days are long gone, and the life blood of the city has run dry.
My wanderings take me to the old cinema. The footpath at the front of the cinema has an assorted variety of imprints in the concrete, like a little Chinese Theatre. On the day the first of those imprints came into being, we had defiled the wet concrete. Then, dashing away, we frantically searched for some way to rid ourselves of the layer of hardening muck on our hands. The paint is peeling off the building now, sadly neglected over the years.
I continue walking until I reach your apartment block. For a split second I can see you, calling down to me from the balcony. The sun is shining in my eyes, and when I refocus on the balcony you’ve disappeared. There’s someone else’s laundry hanging on the line. A small voice reminds me that you don’t live there anymore, and that it’s pointless to hang around any longer.
Visiting the places we used to go isn’t going to bring you back.
The day had begun with searing sunlight shining through my half window. Not cheering at all, considering my delirium induced sleep deprivation. Still, I would have preferred not to get up, enchanted by the idea of staying in a permanent state of unconsciousness, or at least remaining in my room. I wanted to just lie, safe, in bed for the entire day, watching the dust gather over the treasures you had left me over the time we had together. Leaving the confines of my room always seems a fatal mistake these days.
But time is a merciless task master, and relentlessly I was catapulted into action.
I struggled through work with a sickening ache in my chest. After enduring until lunch, I finally realised what was wrong with me. I had been suppressing any sign of mourning for your absence. A futile activity assuredly, as by suppressing my pain, I was now suffering a physical manifestation of it. My heart is not broken. Hearts don't break from misery, short of stress related cardio-myopathy. Sure if that nifty little organ in my chest starts to malfunction the only thing I can do is replace it with a new one. Or sacrifice a few foetuses for stem cells.
But hearts can bruise. And it could be years, decades, before my heart recovers from that kind of injury.
Instead of promising myself not to think of you, I went to the city. This was my second mistake. Since you’ve been gone, the city has become a barren and desolate hole. Sometimes there are hundreds of people pressed tightly together until it is impossible for me to move of my own accord, yet I still can’t help but feel alone, but maybe that’s my fault. Being raised here meant that at the best of times I distrusted people and at the worst of times I had an utter lack of faith in humanity.
There’s no trace of you left here, no matter how hard I’ve tried to find some kind of clue as to your current whereabouts. You always were two steps ahead of me, and I guess I never noticed just how far the distance was between us until now.
I had stupidly travelled here, looking for someone who I knew would never be able to find again. Still, I’m standing at your doorway. I can’t move on, neither do I want to.
I don’t want to forget you.
Before I have to decide whether I should flee this godforsaken situation I take one last look at the apartment block. The building is surrounded by a multitude of new imposing structures casting the ground below into shadow. The sunlight still shines brightly from behind the building, creating an aurora like effect. As expected of a mid-afternoon near the end of spring, the sun shows no sign of setting. I close my eyes against the light and my internal argument begins.
If I don’t move along with time, the world will leave me behind. If I stay here, then I will have no control left over where my feet will take me next. The choice is easy, really it is.
I make my way back to the train station. After finally passing through the turnstile, I am greeted with a welcome sight. The station wall has been freshly adorned with a contemporary artwork.
The spray paint isn’t even dry yet.
This only oasis of colour in the bleak station has now been replaced with an off white splotch of some sort of unidentifiable substance.
People struggle to move in and out of the train before the pressurized doors wheeze close again. I step down; hoping for a comforting welcome but the only greeting is the babble of the crowd. The rushing traffic compels me forward.
I follow familiar streets. There’s the same jagged skyline, the same dented lamp posts. What happened to the city that used to be so full of possibility and vitality? Do you remember streaking through the parks and shopping malls, drinking up the air, the people, and the sounds? Those days are long gone, and the life blood of the city has run dry.
My wanderings take me to the old cinema. The footpath at the front of the cinema has an assorted variety of imprints in the concrete, like a little Chinese Theatre. On the day the first of those imprints came into being, we had defiled the wet concrete. Then, dashing away, we frantically searched for some way to rid ourselves of the layer of hardening muck on our hands. The paint is peeling off the building now, sadly neglected over the years.
I continue walking until I reach your apartment block. For a split second I can see you, calling down to me from the balcony. The sun is shining in my eyes, and when I refocus on the balcony you’ve disappeared. There’s someone else’s laundry hanging on the line. A small voice reminds me that you don’t live there anymore, and that it’s pointless to hang around any longer.
Visiting the places we used to go isn’t going to bring you back.
The day had begun with searing sunlight shining through my half window. Not cheering at all, considering my delirium induced sleep deprivation. Still, I would have preferred not to get up, enchanted by the idea of staying in a permanent state of unconsciousness, or at least remaining in my room. I wanted to just lie, safe, in bed for the entire day, watching the dust gather over the treasures you had left me over the time we had together. Leaving the confines of my room always seems a fatal mistake these days.
But time is a merciless task master, and relentlessly I was catapulted into action.
I struggled through work with a sickening ache in my chest. After enduring until lunch, I finally realised what was wrong with me. I had been suppressing any sign of mourning for your absence. A futile activity assuredly, as by suppressing my pain, I was now suffering a physical manifestation of it. My heart is not broken. Hearts don't break from misery, short of stress related cardio-myopathy. Sure if that nifty little organ in my chest starts to malfunction the only thing I can do is replace it with a new one. Or sacrifice a few foetuses for stem cells.
But hearts can bruise. And it could be years, decades, before my heart recovers from that kind of injury.
Instead of promising myself not to think of you, I went to the city. This was my second mistake. Since you’ve been gone, the city has become a barren and desolate hole. Sometimes there are hundreds of people pressed tightly together until it is impossible for me to move of my own accord, yet I still can’t help but feel alone, but maybe that’s my fault. Being raised here meant that at the best of times I distrusted people and at the worst of times I had an utter lack of faith in humanity.
There’s no trace of you left here, no matter how hard I’ve tried to find some kind of clue as to your current whereabouts. You always were two steps ahead of me, and I guess I never noticed just how far the distance was between us until now.
I had stupidly travelled here, looking for someone who I knew would never be able to find again. Still, I’m standing at your doorway. I can’t move on, neither do I want to.
I don’t want to forget you.
Before I have to decide whether I should flee this godforsaken situation I take one last look at the apartment block. The building is surrounded by a multitude of new imposing structures casting the ground below into shadow. The sunlight still shines brightly from behind the building, creating an aurora like effect. As expected of a mid-afternoon near the end of spring, the sun shows no sign of setting. I close my eyes against the light and my internal argument begins.
If I don’t move along with time, the world will leave me behind. If I stay here, then I will have no control left over where my feet will take me next. The choice is easy, really it is.
I make my way back to the train station. After finally passing through the turnstile, I am greeted with a welcome sight. The station wall has been freshly adorned with a contemporary artwork.
The spray paint isn’t even dry yet.
*** A smoker's confession ***
“Hey man, gimme a light.”
“Sure…hey, who’s got the lighter?”
“I’ve got it. Here.”
Light up.
Take a drag
Exhale.
Repeat.
~~~~~~~~
I gave it up two years ago. Serious. I know that there are a lot of people who go cold turkey and then pick up the habit again in a week, but I’m not one of them. I really don’t need it.
Shit, of course I’ve heard the stories. You know, the shaking limbs, the hacking cough, the holes in the throat. Heard it all, seen it all before.
Well, of course it’s bad for me. Killing’s probably bad for everyone, but I don’t see anyone trying to abolish wars. It’s not a good point, especially since I know it’s bad for me, you screwball. If I didn’t think it was bad for me, I wouldn’t have quit two years ago, right? Oh come on. There are always special cases.
Why do I do it? Come on. Don’t you ever get tired of this life? Shit, you know about the pettiness that surrounds us, the monotony that makes up everyday life, the sad fact that everything worth having in this life is impossible to obtain without an inordinate amount of work. Don’t you get tired of it? Bullshit, I know you do. I do. My point is, that’s why I do it.
Look…it’s like this. As solid as I appear sometimes, I’m not made to deal with it all, all the damn time. Shut up, I’m not perfect. If I was perfect, you wouldn’t be hassling me about this. Anyway, let me go on. Sometimes I need an escape…yeah, I know it sounds cliché, but it’s true. I need to walk away from this life and spend some time outside it before I can come back in and immerse myself again.
I know it’s killing me. Look, didn’t I say I quit? I’m only having a few. That’s the whole point anyway. Every single time I breathe out, I’m dying a little bit, and that’s what I want. I die a little bit so I can get away from life. You don’t quite get it? Maybe. Sometimes I think that I don’t belong in this world. It takes me out of all of this for a short time. Yeah, I know. I exhale my life every time. Hey, I’m gonna die sooner or later.
What, that? Oh, that’s nothing. I used to go through one a day back before I quit. Probably irreparably damaged my lungs, but hey, no use in crying over spilled milk, right? Anyway. I had a few, don’t get on my case. Look, I don’t want to talk about it anymore.
~~~~~~~~
Last drag of the night.
Watching the moonlight filter through the haze.
And I’m gone.
“Sure…hey, who’s got the lighter?”
“I’ve got it. Here.”
Light up.
Take a drag
Exhale.
Repeat.
~~~~~~~~
I gave it up two years ago. Serious. I know that there are a lot of people who go cold turkey and then pick up the habit again in a week, but I’m not one of them. I really don’t need it.
Shit, of course I’ve heard the stories. You know, the shaking limbs, the hacking cough, the holes in the throat. Heard it all, seen it all before.
Well, of course it’s bad for me. Killing’s probably bad for everyone, but I don’t see anyone trying to abolish wars. It’s not a good point, especially since I know it’s bad for me, you screwball. If I didn’t think it was bad for me, I wouldn’t have quit two years ago, right? Oh come on. There are always special cases.
Why do I do it? Come on. Don’t you ever get tired of this life? Shit, you know about the pettiness that surrounds us, the monotony that makes up everyday life, the sad fact that everything worth having in this life is impossible to obtain without an inordinate amount of work. Don’t you get tired of it? Bullshit, I know you do. I do. My point is, that’s why I do it.
Look…it’s like this. As solid as I appear sometimes, I’m not made to deal with it all, all the damn time. Shut up, I’m not perfect. If I was perfect, you wouldn’t be hassling me about this. Anyway, let me go on. Sometimes I need an escape…yeah, I know it sounds cliché, but it’s true. I need to walk away from this life and spend some time outside it before I can come back in and immerse myself again.
I know it’s killing me. Look, didn’t I say I quit? I’m only having a few. That’s the whole point anyway. Every single time I breathe out, I’m dying a little bit, and that’s what I want. I die a little bit so I can get away from life. You don’t quite get it? Maybe. Sometimes I think that I don’t belong in this world. It takes me out of all of this for a short time. Yeah, I know. I exhale my life every time. Hey, I’m gonna die sooner or later.
What, that? Oh, that’s nothing. I used to go through one a day back before I quit. Probably irreparably damaged my lungs, but hey, no use in crying over spilled milk, right? Anyway. I had a few, don’t get on my case. Look, I don’t want to talk about it anymore.
~~~~~~~~
Last drag of the night.
Watching the moonlight filter through the haze.
And I’m gone.
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