And the storm raged. Sheets of rain are illuminated briefly by the flashes of silver lightning, their crashing against my windowpane smashing apart my half-formed dreams. I lie awake in ruffled sheets, twisting, turning, unable to drift to the Sandman's realm. The urge grows, slowly but steadily in my chest, twitching my toes, my fingers clenching and unclenching. I cannot take this any longer.
I jerk bolt upright, ramrod straight amidst a maze of confusion. The pattering against glass grows louder and louder, parallel with my burning desire. I grip brass poles lining my bedstead, knuckles powder-white, trembling, trembling.
it calls you. it calls you to leave. safe havens crumble beneath its siren song. she's out there, in the storm, in the white. she's waiting for you. go. find her.
And my legs move with a force not of my own, I gasp for struggling breath as I crash through my oaken door, my fingers fumble for the key as I open my front gate. I run.
I escape into the white. It pushes me back, screaming at me to return to my cove, to my paradise. I push forward, raindrops, teardrops slicing into my exposed flesh, beating me with minuscule fists. I stumble, I slip, I crawl. I lose track of how long I fight upon forsaken roads, with only the company of madmen, of those who seek what I seek. Water gushes past my shivering feet, its icy cold threatening to overwhelm. The roar of thunder drowns out my chattering teeth.
And then I see her.
Resplendent in midnight black, raven hair streaming amidst the howling gale. She steps demurely, tentatively, but to me it seems like she is dancing in the storm, her form contorting almost mystically in the white darkness. The trees bow down before her (or is it merely the wind?), the grass parts before her every step.
I realize that the drops streaming down my face come not from the clouds. I love her. It feels as if she had known me since before I was born, had watched and waited for me all my life, and will be there with open arms to embrace me, when I breathe my last. She is the one certainty, the one inevitability, the one reality in my life. She is what I seek amidst the storm.
As she dances beneath the blood red moon, I fall in love with ________.
Saturday, 11 June 2011
Words that tumbled, fast but true
I know you have flaws. I accept that. And it's true, these flaws hurt me, they hurt me sometimes so badly that I can't sleep. And yes, sometimes I get angry, sometimes my temper gets the better of me. But I've realized something, even amidst the anger and the rage. I love you. I still love you, I will always love you, no matter how much this love hurts, no matter how much I have to endure. I will love you as long as I am me. I love you, and with all my heart I proclaim these words to be true. I love you.
Tuesday, 7 June 2011
Falling in love with the music of words
Sit upon the snow-laden ledge, lightly brushing aside the setting snowflakes. Let the sight of snowfall upon countless trees wash over you, envelop you, release the tension and darkness pent up within. It is washed away by the pure white crystals that seep into your hands, transforming in a blink into tiny trickles of icy liquid, leaving a trail of cooling moisture as it slides down the contours of your fingers.
Break. Crash upon cold, hard cobblestones, cracking miniscule pebbles beneath your bulky, unwieldy mass. Contort your body in pain, howl like a canine in distress. Control over your mouth bursts apart like a dam, a flood of imprecations roars through the body-hole.
Calm interrupts. Pain subsides from a blazing mass of agony, leaving a smouldering sensation that dissipates in the breeze. Soothing snowflakes evaporate upon the heat emnating from your soft, smooth skin. Time slows, shuffling from one langorious second to the next, almost halting in its inexorable progress. Breathing stops, you feel as if you are entering the sweet embrace of death.
But your senses, those damnable senses, they whisper to you with a smirk on their face, 'You're alive.'
Break. Crash upon cold, hard cobblestones, cracking miniscule pebbles beneath your bulky, unwieldy mass. Contort your body in pain, howl like a canine in distress. Control over your mouth bursts apart like a dam, a flood of imprecations roars through the body-hole.
Calm interrupts. Pain subsides from a blazing mass of agony, leaving a smouldering sensation that dissipates in the breeze. Soothing snowflakes evaporate upon the heat emnating from your soft, smooth skin. Time slows, shuffling from one langorious second to the next, almost halting in its inexorable progress. Breathing stops, you feel as if you are entering the sweet embrace of death.
But your senses, those damnable senses, they whisper to you with a smirk on their face, 'You're alive.'
Saturday, 4 June 2011
Good hurt
I miss her, so friggin bad. A week without contact, and I feel like a rabbit that's dying from a lack of it's loved one. I know it's pathetic, but... eh, whatever.
My days now are a blur, reading good novels, enjoying beautiful comics, writing, running, starving and missing her. All these hurt, in one way or another, whether it be anxiety from studies, to a creative pain that emanates throughout the soul, to a burning sensation amongst the legs, to a hole in my belly, to a emptiness in my heart. Yet, it's a good pain, a good hurt. It helps me understand the wonder, the joy of good things happening in my life, allows me to appreciate the small, good things that is so easily taken for granted. Light conversations with friends. A tiny snack of dark chocolate, taken early in the morning. A simple conversation with the one you love.
It scares me sometimes that I write so much. No, this isn't a stupid way of trying to boast my ability to be a prolific writer, the opposite actually. I fear that I simply churn out trash, that I write without thinking, without crafting, that the product is simply beautiful for a moment in my eyes, before it turns to waste. I fear that my writing is masturbatory, for lack of a better term, that I write to appease the muse standing behind me with a hammer in her hands.
My work isn't good enough, I feel. I don't think it ever will be. Not as long as I write for myself, not as long as my art is selfish. I write simply because I am in love, with that indescribable sensation, that intense satisfaction that roars through the body when words fall perfectly in place, as if into slots where they had always meant to be. I write for that brief high, that period of time where the world fades away, and it's just me and my muse, whatever form she chooses to take, in that white room, which changes and warps in accordance to my imaginations, to my dreams. I write for that small voice in the back of my head, saying, "Even a ruin, a wreck is still something, is still existent. Even that is beautiful. Anything is better than nothing." Sure, I'd love for my work to be great for everybody, for it to awe, for it to have the same effect on others as their works have had on me. I would love for it to bring people to their emotional extremes as Pratchett has done, for my readers to laugh amidst tears. I would love for it bring the same sense of wonderment that Gaiman brings, the insatiable urge to consume the next page that GRR Martin brings, that lyrical intricacy that Le Guin brings. The sense of "I know what you mean, I feel you." that Craig Thompson brought to me that magical night in Botanic Gardens. Maybe. Maybe one day I will, one day my one wish that burns greater than any others in my chest will come true. Maybe one day I'll inspire others to write too, I'll leave trails across the hearts of even one person. Maybe I won't.
Maybe that will be alright.
A little piece written, in the darkness of a setting sun, aboard a bus headed home, across a plastic table amidst a crowd, under the harsh laboratory lights during biology class. In the middle of the night, where all sane men are asleep and the wonderments of the world come out to play:
I stand at the side as I watched the adults, black-booted and midnight-clad, jangling with insignia and well-oiled machinery, march into the dimly-lit doorway, trampling inwards from the cold, rain-slick streets. They were joking, smiling - at odds with their purpose - and I wait for the screams. They do not come, to my surprise. Their hazy silhouettes, outlined momentarily against the frost-covered windows, movement dispersing the gathering gloom of silence, sounds of crashes and careless men, of broken lives and broken china.
They trudge out, slow and reluctant, wretches with eyes wide as saucers, fear - primal and basic - etched across their loathsome features, mouths babbling in strange tongues, hands tied behind their winged backs, red skin burnt even redder by rough ropes. I, of course, felt no pity for these infernal scum, scuttling about like rats, not one shred of emotion was lost on these devilspawn. Not one bit.
Then things turned ugly, without warning - in the blink of an eye. Rifle-butt struck out against one of the elders, against his reddish flesh wrapped in wrinkles, his fail frame collapsing to the ground as he was struck across the face. A soft cry was clenched in behind jagged teeth. The devilkin knelt upon the cobblestones. Everything turned silent. The soldiers ceased their merriment. They had business to attend to. Time seemed to slow to a halt, second passing by as if hours. A gloved hand landed upon my shoulder, my brother's cold expression examining mine. I probably looked like a frightened deer. A comforting squeeze surprised me, as he lifting his other, and made a quick, cutting motion.
Cold iron barrel, attached to an instrument of death, was placed gently, almost soothingly against the back of the old devil's horned head, the executioner, the soldier, the angel caressing the trigger. His face was set, icy emotionless, his grip rock-firm, his movements absolutely stilled. His target was as if a statue, resigned to it's coming fate. Red lips moved, strange sounds spilling out, "Y'n vodran, 'ry ond yr raorar - "
I mouthed the translation, my lessons in the infernal script coming back to me. "Our Father, who art in heaven -"
The trigger was pulled. The singular gunshot rang out in the dark, forsaken street. Carmine red sprayed across grey cobblestones.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The still-warm body slumped to the ground in one fluid motion, hitting the blood-slick street with a sickening squelch of ruined bone and ruptured brain matter. The angel nudged the corpse with the still-smoking barrel, before, apparently satisfied, withdrawing into the ranks of soldiers standing by my side. A grim look was plastered across his divinelt handsome features, the acrid stench of death hung off him. He wore it like the Grim Reaper's cloak.
I've met him before, the Midnight Stroke. He wasn't pleasant.
A child begins to cry. Not short, quiet sobs, but a rising wail that bursts forth, increasing in volume and intensity, gathering strength as if attempting to push out the sorrow within. Wordlessly, my brother motions with his head, flowing golden locks swaying slightly. Two soldiers step out of the line, reaching into the huddled group to pull out the devilspawn. Gloved hands wrench the child free from it's mother's grasp. Her pleading cries mix with the siren wail of the struggling form held between the two angels. Maternal instinct gets the better of survival instincts, and she leaps forward, raining ineffectual blows onto my brother's medal-laden chest. A look of disdain flashes across his face, before he strikes her to the ground with the back of his hand, ornate rings of silver drawing a light arc of blood across the air. Some splatters across the white feathers of his wings, staining them a deep red. The mother ceases moving, sprawled across the ground.
The child is brought before me. With a jolt, I realize he is about my age. Green eyes stare back at me under auburn hair, wide with fear. His wiry frame wriggles beneath iron, vice-like grips, whimpers interspersed between tearful sobs. A couple of years ago, he might have been a playmate, running about open fields. We could have chased each other through winding streets, shouting, laughing, regardless of language. We could have explored vast caverns, made pretend as sky-pirates, been the greatest of friends.
My brother unholsters the matte-black pistol at his hip. His wide strides bring him before me. He places the instrument of death gently in mt hands, guiding my fingers close around the psitol grip. He looks down, the stern face in the sky matching my father's perfectly; lips pursed, a sombre expression etched across his angelic features. "Don't disappoint Father."
Time slows to a crawl, as if a man dragging himself forward on two broken legs. My heart crashes against its cage, threatening to leap out of my mouth. The barrel of the gun tilted upwards, raised and pointed itself straight at the struggling kid. Beads of sweat curl down my face, tracing the barrel, dripping onto grey cobblestones stained with blood. My hands shook, knuckles powder-white from the tightness of my grip.
Those three words. That face in the sky. Rage, fear, sadness, hatred poured unstoppered into my small heart, and it burst open like a ripe fruit. My finger tightened. I looked into those green eyes one more time.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I turned, barrel aimed at my brother's wide chest. My father's face stared at me, incredulous, confused. I pulled the trigger.
My days now are a blur, reading good novels, enjoying beautiful comics, writing, running, starving and missing her. All these hurt, in one way or another, whether it be anxiety from studies, to a creative pain that emanates throughout the soul, to a burning sensation amongst the legs, to a hole in my belly, to a emptiness in my heart. Yet, it's a good pain, a good hurt. It helps me understand the wonder, the joy of good things happening in my life, allows me to appreciate the small, good things that is so easily taken for granted. Light conversations with friends. A tiny snack of dark chocolate, taken early in the morning. A simple conversation with the one you love.
It scares me sometimes that I write so much. No, this isn't a stupid way of trying to boast my ability to be a prolific writer, the opposite actually. I fear that I simply churn out trash, that I write without thinking, without crafting, that the product is simply beautiful for a moment in my eyes, before it turns to waste. I fear that my writing is masturbatory, for lack of a better term, that I write to appease the muse standing behind me with a hammer in her hands.
My work isn't good enough, I feel. I don't think it ever will be. Not as long as I write for myself, not as long as my art is selfish. I write simply because I am in love, with that indescribable sensation, that intense satisfaction that roars through the body when words fall perfectly in place, as if into slots where they had always meant to be. I write for that brief high, that period of time where the world fades away, and it's just me and my muse, whatever form she chooses to take, in that white room, which changes and warps in accordance to my imaginations, to my dreams. I write for that small voice in the back of my head, saying, "Even a ruin, a wreck is still something, is still existent. Even that is beautiful. Anything is better than nothing." Sure, I'd love for my work to be great for everybody, for it to awe, for it to have the same effect on others as their works have had on me. I would love for it to bring people to their emotional extremes as Pratchett has done, for my readers to laugh amidst tears. I would love for it bring the same sense of wonderment that Gaiman brings, the insatiable urge to consume the next page that GRR Martin brings, that lyrical intricacy that Le Guin brings. The sense of "I know what you mean, I feel you." that Craig Thompson brought to me that magical night in Botanic Gardens. Maybe. Maybe one day I will, one day my one wish that burns greater than any others in my chest will come true. Maybe one day I'll inspire others to write too, I'll leave trails across the hearts of even one person. Maybe I won't.
Maybe that will be alright.
A little piece written, in the darkness of a setting sun, aboard a bus headed home, across a plastic table amidst a crowd, under the harsh laboratory lights during biology class. In the middle of the night, where all sane men are asleep and the wonderments of the world come out to play:
I stand at the side as I watched the adults, black-booted and midnight-clad, jangling with insignia and well-oiled machinery, march into the dimly-lit doorway, trampling inwards from the cold, rain-slick streets. They were joking, smiling - at odds with their purpose - and I wait for the screams. They do not come, to my surprise. Their hazy silhouettes, outlined momentarily against the frost-covered windows, movement dispersing the gathering gloom of silence, sounds of crashes and careless men, of broken lives and broken china.
They trudge out, slow and reluctant, wretches with eyes wide as saucers, fear - primal and basic - etched across their loathsome features, mouths babbling in strange tongues, hands tied behind their winged backs, red skin burnt even redder by rough ropes. I, of course, felt no pity for these infernal scum, scuttling about like rats, not one shred of emotion was lost on these devilspawn. Not one bit.
Then things turned ugly, without warning - in the blink of an eye. Rifle-butt struck out against one of the elders, against his reddish flesh wrapped in wrinkles, his fail frame collapsing to the ground as he was struck across the face. A soft cry was clenched in behind jagged teeth. The devilkin knelt upon the cobblestones. Everything turned silent. The soldiers ceased their merriment. They had business to attend to. Time seemed to slow to a halt, second passing by as if hours. A gloved hand landed upon my shoulder, my brother's cold expression examining mine. I probably looked like a frightened deer. A comforting squeeze surprised me, as he lifting his other, and made a quick, cutting motion.
Cold iron barrel, attached to an instrument of death, was placed gently, almost soothingly against the back of the old devil's horned head, the executioner, the soldier, the angel caressing the trigger. His face was set, icy emotionless, his grip rock-firm, his movements absolutely stilled. His target was as if a statue, resigned to it's coming fate. Red lips moved, strange sounds spilling out, "Y'n vodran, 'ry ond yr raorar - "
I mouthed the translation, my lessons in the infernal script coming back to me. "Our Father, who art in heaven -"
The trigger was pulled. The singular gunshot rang out in the dark, forsaken street. Carmine red sprayed across grey cobblestones.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The still-warm body slumped to the ground in one fluid motion, hitting the blood-slick street with a sickening squelch of ruined bone and ruptured brain matter. The angel nudged the corpse with the still-smoking barrel, before, apparently satisfied, withdrawing into the ranks of soldiers standing by my side. A grim look was plastered across his divinelt handsome features, the acrid stench of death hung off him. He wore it like the Grim Reaper's cloak.
I've met him before, the Midnight Stroke. He wasn't pleasant.
A child begins to cry. Not short, quiet sobs, but a rising wail that bursts forth, increasing in volume and intensity, gathering strength as if attempting to push out the sorrow within. Wordlessly, my brother motions with his head, flowing golden locks swaying slightly. Two soldiers step out of the line, reaching into the huddled group to pull out the devilspawn. Gloved hands wrench the child free from it's mother's grasp. Her pleading cries mix with the siren wail of the struggling form held between the two angels. Maternal instinct gets the better of survival instincts, and she leaps forward, raining ineffectual blows onto my brother's medal-laden chest. A look of disdain flashes across his face, before he strikes her to the ground with the back of his hand, ornate rings of silver drawing a light arc of blood across the air. Some splatters across the white feathers of his wings, staining them a deep red. The mother ceases moving, sprawled across the ground.
The child is brought before me. With a jolt, I realize he is about my age. Green eyes stare back at me under auburn hair, wide with fear. His wiry frame wriggles beneath iron, vice-like grips, whimpers interspersed between tearful sobs. A couple of years ago, he might have been a playmate, running about open fields. We could have chased each other through winding streets, shouting, laughing, regardless of language. We could have explored vast caverns, made pretend as sky-pirates, been the greatest of friends.
My brother unholsters the matte-black pistol at his hip. His wide strides bring him before me. He places the instrument of death gently in mt hands, guiding my fingers close around the psitol grip. He looks down, the stern face in the sky matching my father's perfectly; lips pursed, a sombre expression etched across his angelic features. "Don't disappoint Father."
Time slows to a crawl, as if a man dragging himself forward on two broken legs. My heart crashes against its cage, threatening to leap out of my mouth. The barrel of the gun tilted upwards, raised and pointed itself straight at the struggling kid. Beads of sweat curl down my face, tracing the barrel, dripping onto grey cobblestones stained with blood. My hands shook, knuckles powder-white from the tightness of my grip.
Those three words. That face in the sky. Rage, fear, sadness, hatred poured unstoppered into my small heart, and it burst open like a ripe fruit. My finger tightened. I looked into those green eyes one more time.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I turned, barrel aimed at my brother's wide chest. My father's face stared at me, incredulous, confused. I pulled the trigger.
Wednesday, 1 June 2011
Odyssey
Wow. Just went for a run, 8km in 80 minutes. From me. ME!
Heh, just goes to show how far I've come. Not by my own strength, not by a long shot. Amanda, Marcus, Frenchie, all the people who've helped me come this far, helped me cross this half of the ocean, I'm incredibly indebted. Yet the journey is not over. There is still more to go. And I see the storms brewing before me, with trepidation in my heart, as I stand at the wheel of my ship, I am tempted to call down to the galley, telling my oarsmen to stop. I'm happy here. The view is nice.
But no. Not yet. Not when I've come this far. Rather I crash upon the stormy waves and drown than to stay here and stagnate beneath a calm blue sky. I look back upon the distance I've traversed, the shore I left behind out of sight, a clear horizon emblazoned across rolling waves. I've come this far, when I once thought I could not. Now I'm going to finish this. Not even to reach the ending any longer. Simply because I have to uphold, have to live up to, the beauty, the wonder and the power of this voyage.
This isn't a journey of the body any longer. It's a journey of my soul.
Heh, just goes to show how far I've come. Not by my own strength, not by a long shot. Amanda, Marcus, Frenchie, all the people who've helped me come this far, helped me cross this half of the ocean, I'm incredibly indebted. Yet the journey is not over. There is still more to go. And I see the storms brewing before me, with trepidation in my heart, as I stand at the wheel of my ship, I am tempted to call down to the galley, telling my oarsmen to stop. I'm happy here. The view is nice.
But no. Not yet. Not when I've come this far. Rather I crash upon the stormy waves and drown than to stay here and stagnate beneath a calm blue sky. I look back upon the distance I've traversed, the shore I left behind out of sight, a clear horizon emblazoned across rolling waves. I've come this far, when I once thought I could not. Now I'm going to finish this. Not even to reach the ending any longer. Simply because I have to uphold, have to live up to, the beauty, the wonder and the power of this voyage.
This isn't a journey of the body any longer. It's a journey of my soul.
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