15.9.2016

Periphery

The blank page casts a terrifying shadow.

Foreboding and ominous, like a midnight ocean against the bleak loom of tomorrow under a moonless, starless sky. Who’s to say where the sea ends and the sky begins. One can only bury their eyes in the distance and hope for shadows or lightning.

We are all thrashing about the shoreline, excluded by whim or perchance from the rows destined to drown there tonight. In the lightless vastness where solid ground’s sanctuary and the gaping maw of quietus are but a measure’s mishap and a fumble of a tumble away. From moments to and fro, a whisper’s wingspan out of reach of oblivion’s lips. It is a comforting thought.

Strange things comfort me. I know.

All this flows through me because it is my gift and my curse, and because I need it to. It is life force beyond equal. This conduit draped in skin and fortified by bone is not infused by creativity by mere happenstance. In this I believe wholeheartedly. I do not breathe living fire because I enjoy the taste. I am an amalgamation of bizarre, reciprocal abilities and bestial creative desires because there is always a slant in my periphery edging me onto unknown trails as the mischievous wind pushes, pulls, invades and extrudes, keeping me off balance just well enough that I lose my bearings all too easily. Then I merely… continue.

Those fleeting glimpses dangling haphazardly upon the precipice of disappearance are gentle as butterfly wings and as commanding as a cast-iron anchor around my neck. I will be edged, nudged, thrust and torn asunder. Such is life in the eye of the effervescent storm. Boundless in marvels and horrors.

Windswept and worn, I drag myself onward upon the shore to catch a glimpse of starlight dancing upon the water’s still face. The carefully constructed masque of mundanity I wear dissipates like the last breath of morning’s mist and I am alone again. In a world so devoid and so rich. So worn and yet so untouched. Grandiose beyond compare while so bleak it crushes the heart.

Oh, to be enveloped by shadows! To learn what it is to feel the warmth within their embrace as they suck the air from my lungs. To know darkness as a mother and walk her mysterious lengths with determination and fearless abandon. To see lightning split the sea, take fierce chase after me and shoot through my spine like smoldering violent purity personified. I yearn to drink greedily from all that is vile and from all that is sacrosanct. Why else should I exist? How else could I exist?

I draw fierce breath from the very notion of grasping all these strange, terrifying sights I’ve been bestowed by this jilted, tilted viewframe and grinding it all into pearlescent whispers and echoes. To erect memories as monuments; as vivid, vivacious mausoleums for all these magical inhales and exhales. My heart races to dangerous heights at the mere thought of once again embarking upon an expedition like no other and to return altered and transformed. These are glorious days.

But they require the sanctuary of solitary moments.

We stand upon the cusp of so many a wonder only to halt at the brim and remain petrified upon the precipice. True connection to the outermost would inevitably cause contact with unexplored reaches of the innermost, so we hesitate. Falter into place and wilt into stagnant husks. Embroidered with names and decorated with faces, but still no more than standing stones. Adventure dies under the weight of frail ether like a somber remembrance expelled from stilted lips. Comfort zones are pretty prisons painted over with the gold hues of sanctity and safety, locked from within by trembling hands. This is the world of man in my periphery.

Very few things beckon me as succulently as the simple desire to leave it behind.