A scent of familliar yet exotic flavor grips my senses. A touch warmer than three suns, enervating and igniting beyond words. I see a silhouette approaching these two weary eyes stapled to the thick, headstrong skull of your storyteller. An approach fargone, for it had already happened. Time was left to stand still ages ago. Ages? Minutes? Hard to say. My cluttered viewpoint is cleared by pearly limelight, encircled by hues of fragrant azure. We are surrounded by warm shadows swimming in vibrant green. A seashore, perhaps? A haven, a sanctuary, a hiding place? I will never know.
We are in a dream and so we shall remain. She is a dream and so she shall remain. I awake in the arms of black stone and feel deprived and nourished in equal degree. Given aplenty and viciously stolen from. This was what I craved for and needed to replenish of, this is what I was drained of and left without, no more and no less. Acceptance is half the battle - winning and losing are unrecognized concepts on this battleground.
Rainbows burn through the skyline where words once took to rule, and with the passing of their reign, all is without as all is overabundant. I am fire and water - striving higher and running further. Red as my burning blood and blue as my dreamscapes. Balanced by complete chaos as the stone I was set in weathers all storms, every minute upheaval we fleshlings come to awaken. You can cast a stone, break the water's flow, but this river will always run, it has no home. Written upon succulent melodies and sung in heartfelt harmony supported by rapturous rhythm - a crude confession none the less.
This is how I see the world. Through colors. I see it in the music, the note upon note upon thought upon a foul growl of the soul upon the wind of sin of your kin, of hearts aflame hiding the shame that cleanses us all like neverending rain, defining our domecile like a painting's frame surrounding each grandiose spectre of passion and bliss plagued by the neverending and never forgotten kiss, screaming songs of lost beauty and a secret world never bested, in the fiercest fire tested, no matter whose yesterday calls for your tomorrow to rise in whatever way. My world through my eyes, wide and warm, frail and worn.
There is disharmony and contradiction in all that surrounds this house of shadows and savagery, but I am nothing if not a skilled sleeper in the fire. Catching a glimpse of beauty beyond comparison fills me with strange sentiments and release beyond reprieve. Disappear, says my soul, and I agree without hesitation. Run run run away from them, run run run away again. Heart sinks deeper, edge grows steeper. By twilight I will swing at the gallows of my own creation, clutching the executioner's cowl with a death grip equally severe and serene. This I accept.
Acceptance is key, for it grants me clarity without needless embellishment. Strikingly beautiful skin draped over foul flesh - and worse - is an entry in the beastiary I know all too well. Those decorating its pages will no doubt have a chance to bury their fangs in the marrow of 'morrow should I step over the treshold, so to bother with the trivialities of shadowplay would be to dive into the pit like a witless waste of air. The languish of disappointment stares back from the void beyond the everclear in every direction, so I will simply forge a way through the pitfalls as best I can as I chase strands of sunlight to whatever end this earth has to offer. To journey to the end of a path only to discover more affliction is a laughably fruitless endeavor. A lesson already learned. Ahead and around, my dear entrapments - know that you are noted in my journals, marked with an X of glorious sanguine and reminded to steer clear from each new dawn. I will do my best not to deter.
The winter is kind and gentle to those who embrace her touch rather than reject it with scorn. I am an agent of winter, serving but one goal, dedicated to but one end. One you need not trouble yourself with, for its machinations of manifestation are shrouded in secrecy I protect lavishly and forcefully. Ostara may have scolded this stone to red-hot splendor during her brief stint of bewildering dominance, but her throne has shattered and the spirits of Samhain now reign over the land. Frozen in the bittersweet honey of this everlong enclosure I will remain, endure and flourish.
I will pass, passively, in passing. Reveling in revelations cruel and mournfully truthful. Thoughtfully fruitful, even. I am no one, for I am no one's and no one is mine. A faceless world. It is both a poisoned dagger as the wamest embrace, the soft hand of the most tender murderer before feathers fall and the killing blow is struck. Questions remain unanswered, but the questionnaire remains hidden and its rich veins untapped. A quiver of arrows flies high, one by one and side by another's side, seeking fresh flesh to penetrate and end their skybound travels in, ascending against a backdrop of skies bathed in darkness. But they are one and all denied. They will find a home in the hard earth.
Simple and mazelike, tattooed and pierced, loud and proud. Here I stand. Simple to comprehend, mazelike upon closer inspection, awaiting a touch to burn through this thick skin, pierce the surrounding glass, smashing the slumber of loud and shattering the veneer of proud. Were it never to come, I would accept this cruelty with a bold stance and plow through to whatever lonesome destiny I am able to craft for myself. The possibility of the impossibility of contentment has been vigorously considered, I admit, but I have too much faith in the undiscovered to succumb to such bitterness wholeheartedly. Closure of any degree is always denied, but it is a fate one learns to carry with strength, clarity and backbone devoid of the bittermost sentiments. Believe it or not, my optimism is hard to quell and impossible to extinguish.
As noted time and time again, I seek comfort and release. Though often denied, I am a traveller who settles for meager surroundings and humble nourishment. But among friends I feel like a king, the highest of servants, an unassuming enricher of the better in us all and virtues hidden so deep. For what are we if not gophers and kings, each role we take filled in spectacularly mundane fashion as we stride upon the grasslands of perpetual sorrow and momentary bliss. Gleeful jesters and harbingers of woe one and all.
Love saturates and envelops even the world of mine, but I recognize warmth's deceptive nature with a keen vision and respond to its advances with cold forethought. I can't change who I am, nor would I want to. We may share a palmful of water at this oasis, exchange a story or two with a wink and a smile, but we will all leave to chart this desert alone as night falls. Taking or leaving anything substantial from our momentary exchanges feels superficial at best and were I to allow them a foothold, I would eventually find myself burdened with yet another quiver of questions. So should one who knows better partake in the masquerade for no more than a pauper's pay for a attempt at mastery? Of course not. There are enough lies and deceit in this sorry world. I will say what I mean and mean what I say and let the downfall concern those who find such concerns the least bit inviting to begin with.
While some poor wretch may call the undersigned a wordsmith of some
note, know this: in the company of people whose light shines amidst,
afar and through and through, I am at a loss. When words of praise and
promotion should fly unhindered and become specks of illumination left
to linger in the recesses of another's memory, I am at a loss. At a loss
for words and appreciation, unable to push through to the surface. The
toymaker lost in his own puzzle of senseless elaboration and eloquence. For
that I can only apologize.
Yet who is there to speak to, to share with? No one. An absolute, an abhorrence, an absolution. Argumentation upon discertation for the weighty sum of butt-fucking nothing. I have acquainted myself with distance once again, tied myself down to detachment and burned away the desires that plague most others, and find immesurable treasure within the deceptive depths of solitude. In service of this I will succumb to being the buffoon, the scribe, the incidental. Some say they wish to know me better. To them I say: you do not know what you're asking. The measurements are sound and encased in crass reason - it is better to be alone. I am not weary like Miller, depraved like Bukowsky, enraged like Carr or bedazzled like Thoreau. I haven't been tested like Lawrence or strengthened by strife like Henley. I am excluded, estranged and erroded like the Ward that I am.
There are sentences and sentiments that will never escape these lips.
I know that now and appreciate their clandestine nature such as it is,
indifferent and irreverent of how much is left without utter or
approach. Perhaps I am a lesser man for not being able to conquer the
elusive nature of what I keep hidden and refuse passage to the light,
but perhaps these cracked jewels were never meant for this world. I
wasn't. This, if anything, I've come to know and accept beyond any
shadow of a doubt.
Heed these words not as a manifesto of ego or self-indulgence; they paint a picture, yes, but one of vanquish rather than vanity. I have played the games of others to the absolute ends of tedium and come out a sore loser, so from hereon I will create my own pawns and boards. Unconquerable puzzles they may be, but only my fingernails will leave a mark upon these hallways stretching to immesurable lengths under a concrete sun. Entrapment can be a choice.
All absolute. All devoid. All fulfilled. All empty. What a life. What a lie.
