Shelly's Violet-

"The odour from the flower is gone
Which like thy kisses breathed on me;
The color from the flower is flown
Which glowed of thee and only thee!

A shriveled, lifeless, vacant form,
It lies on my abandoned breast;
And mocks the heart which yet is warm
With cold and silent rest.
I weep – my tears revive it not;
I sigh – it breathes no more on me:
Its mute and uncomplaining lot
Is such as mine should be."

Fell in love with a balladeer.

“One word of explanation already misses the mark.”

-Ejo

I was listening to the radio today while driving past a gothic-style church on the way home today when a song came on the radio that pulled me from my body and put me in another place, another time, and another life.

That moment means the world to me, and that’s not the only song that does it. My strongest memories are tied to music, and I would weigh it against practically all of my other ethereal possessions in the balance.

A Selfish Death.

“You often say, ‘I would give, but only to the deserving.’ The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture. They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.”

-Kahlil Gibran

Flash.

There’s this idea that always stays with me. Always, it works away in the back of my mind, not coming to conscious thought until just the right time, like illumination on the bad guy’s face in Hollywood. The idea is the question of what a person is. Do you define a person by their thoughts? Or do their actions tell you who they are? My stock answer is always affirmative to the former, which leads to the latter, but now, today, here I think differently.

I’m never satisfied with myself. I see myself as a constant emotional wreck, a waste of talent, an unpredictable, unreliable mammal. I catch myself lie for respect or credibility and hate myself for it every time, because it is unnecessary but invariably the shortest path to a given destination. If I am defined by my thoughts I am a sorry sort indeed, and not worth the paper I’m printed on.

But to you I am reliable, I am beautiful, I am thoughtful and kind, I am virtuous. But to you I am good.

From your lips, and from my eyes, I have seen affirmation of my new faith. I live to be the person that I am, in spite of the person that I am. And you should see what I see in you.

My escape-

To dive into a lake of gold,
To swim the azure sea.
Under a sky of painted flame
These dreams will carry me.

To my friends.

It seems as if we all go through a period of shattered trust – when you put faith in someone completely and they abuse it, taking all of the forward progress we make as human beings and erasing it. Insulation is not the answer, because trust is a beautiful thing. Acceptance, then ignorance, is the only way not to lose.

The dreams that weave, from wisps of wind, a wonderland.

"The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you; Don't go back to sleep. You must ask for what you really want; Don't go back to sleep. People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch. The door is round and open. Don't go back to sleep."

-Rumi

Some kind of triumphant return.

A break, from writing and from the part of my head that the writing comes from, was just what I needed – the bad guys were closing in and I needed to reload my Kalashnikov. But I’m back, reloaded and revitalized. The last week has been a strange and distorted trip down memory lane, in addition to being a crunch week for school and things. I let my coursework for this term pile up for two months and am now finally diving into this veritable bath of formulae. Wish me luck.

The test.

“A poet can survive everything but a misprint”

-Oscar Wilde

Nothing in this post is true but it's exactly the way things are.

“Gray mornings destroy the soul”, I think as I open my eyes to the rain, falling down my window pane like liberated tears. The mornings always start the same way, progress the same way, and end just as uneventfully. And as the days disappear I begin to feel the color is being bled from the world. The sun doesn’t glow like it used to, the trees I used to love driving past on the way to work are gone, paved over for a new car dealership – the peaceful greens and blues replaced with shades of concrete and neon. I miss the stars at night, I miss the sound of wind blowing through a tree’s leaves, I miss lazy days on sunny beaches, but mostly I miss those trees, and the way they could pull me out of myself for a second that seemed like a very long holiday.

The ship.

There are periods in your life where you start to let something go – a friendship, a relationship, a vivid memory – something that you’ve clutched for so long because you didn’t know how life could go on without it. And then the world changes and distracts you, a moment here, a few minutes there, until this intangible idol gets set down for a minute while you take care of something, then looked after once or twice a day, and so forth, until you realize that its leaving you forever, slowly fading from your grasp, no matter how beautiful the thing, all you can do is watch it disappear. All you can do is shed a final tear and forget.

My attempt to change.

What I have to tell you that you won’t hear anyway? You get more than one chance to love something – unreservedly, unabashedly, utterly – but you’re stuck in this antiquated convention that there is only one true person. Open your eyes. We are all imperfect parts with which to make perfect machines. People don’t shake your hand and see your soul; they shake it and see your perceptions, your façade, and you can make it any shape you want. Make it fit and you will find love, no matter where or how many times you need to.

Your stairway or tomb.

What lies do you believe so you can continue to survive? I say survive because the moment you take a falsity to be truth you’re not really living your life, you’re just surviving and living your dream. The lies always catch up, they spread like crystals in freezing water throughout your life, feeling their way into every aspect until one day you’re forced to accept them, forced to step back and look at how the ice crumbles the foundations of your life. Solve your problems now or later, but the higher you build the more likely you’ll drown in the rubble.

The map to your treasure.

Lying here: on my back, in the dark,

On a bed wrought of dreams and tears.

And all I can hear through this hole in my chest

Is the piano softly singing,

And all I can see through these now open eyes

Are the stars softly shining,

I am the one speaking cantos in your ear; I am the siren leading your ship,

Imploring the winds to take you away, to take you away to Utopia

Where the stars softly shine and the notes faintly sing,

Where the cherry trees are in blossom.

Your marionette.

Smooth silk on soft skin elegantly enunciating every inch of innuendo. The fire flickering and reflecting the roaring blaze, casting shadows in all the right places across her face. And in the dimly lit room deception is the game, suggestion the play of choice, and you are leading me along with invisible puppet strings, and I: resisting just enough to make things interesting.

-

This collision may have been just enough to put me back on track. I've had breakfast for the second day in a row, and am strangely wishing I had a cat, because they are the only animals that i know of who can wholly appreciate the constant warm sunshine cast upon my pillows here. And my flatmates - let's just say leading by example is the only way to communicate with the ignorant deaf: a classification to which I belong. Also, on a side note, I'm starting to aphorize in realtime conversations, I don't think it's a step in the right direction.

Black and blue and eyes of two.

I missed a day. Now this phenomenon doesn’t occur much, and I have an excuse: I moved yesterday. And when I got here, with all of my worldly possessions, the first thing I did was set up Compy. The internet situation was a little confusing and by that point I was exhausted and slightly inebriated, so I collapsed at a responsible hour. Nothing particularly exciting or insightful to relate aside from the concept that roommates who are morning people means the rediscovery of breakfast.