"A fool": A Dialogue

"Maybe I'm a fool."

"For what?"

"For believing. For wishing. For hoping. For dreaming. For... being kind, to myself. For... letting my guard down. But just, for allowing myself... grace, I suppose. But that's what happens when you allow a hardened heart... to soften, I suppose."

"Do you think you shouldn't have, then?"

"What?"

"Soften. Your heart."

"I don't know. I really don't. I guess I'll never know."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to know. Because I don't know how much more of this I can take."

"Of what?"

"Of being let down. Of being...let go of."

"So holding on is the problem?"

"Not for them. For me."

"What makes you say that?"

"It's not something that...people can see on the surface. They don't realize... how... how fragile I am. Until perhaps, it's too late. Too late for me, that is."

"I guess that's true. I've never seen you as someone who'd... let things like this, affect you that much."

"Well, now you know. Now you know who, or rather what, I really am."

"And what would that be?"

"Well, what do you think?"

"Don't say that."

"Why not?"

"It's the chances we take. The mistakes we make. That's what counts."

"What does it matter, when you can give it, but you can't take it?"

"But they're two different things you're referring to now."

"And I've only ever been on one side of it. The losing side."

You weren't there

"I needed you, and you weren't there."

"Where were you, when I needed you?"

"I just want you to be happy."

"What about all those times you could've made me happy, and you didn't?"

"I trusted you, and you betrayed me."

"I meant everything I ever said to you."

"That's a lie."

Things we've all heard, or said, at various points in our lives before.

Moments of heightened awareness.

Of the fragility, the vulnerability, of the moment.

Of the precarious position you've placed yourself in.

You can feel it happening. The inevitability of it.

The heartsickness coming on, setting in. The numbness that follows.

The bubble of the moment bursts, and gives way to reality.

Whether right before you, or across the oceans and the stars, there's no way it doesn't touch you and leave you with a scar.

Lawless, faithless

"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you."
- Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

Caught between two worlds of polar opposites.

One where you roam free, and follow your heart's desire at every whim, where you live in the moment and go with the flow and your instincts, with not a care in the world of the consequences that come after.

One where the line between independence, and recklessness and stupidity, becomes ever more blurred, more often than not melding into one and the same.

One where brute, affectionless force is used to make your way in a dog eat dog world, in both your public and private life.

Where the end result of the achievement of your goals justifies the means by which you pursued them.

And then, there's the Other.

Where you pause at every turn and corner, hesitate and think twice.

Where everything is a make-or-break decision from which there's no turning back; for once you gaze into the abyss, it gazes back into you.

It's anarchy, on an invisible plane, on an incomprehensible level.

You're caught between the rules of the two; you're lawless.

You're caught between the beliefs of the two; you're faithless.

And you can't reconcile them, no matter how hard you try.

One wrong, foolish, impulsive move, and you become the very thing that you fight.

Down the road to perdition. The path of no return.

Where you lose yourself, and you can't find your way back.

Since I Saw You Last: A Poem

Since I saw you last
The façades have faded
I know you've realized
You don't like what you've found
And we can't go back.

When I saw you last
We gazed beyond
To the horizon
Where all was silent.

Since I saw you last
Grace found us
By the side of the road
Wishing, waiting, wanting
Will you let me go?

When I saw you last
You asked me if I believed it anymore
No, I said.
No, I don't.

Since I saw you last
The sun still shines
The stars haven't dimmed
But the moon is gone
And I can't see anymore.

The terror beyond

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

Dangerous territory, where even the most divine of beings wouldn't dare venture.

They know what's coming. What lies ahead.

Maybe so do you. But you take a leap of faith, anyway.

But it's one too far.

An act of trust, too fast.

A line crossed, beyond the point of no return.

It's too little, too late.

The fearful pause.

The tense moments where you can hear your heart thumping furiously against your chest.

The sudden, overwhelming silence amidst the cacophony.

The cries of despair as the world falls in around you.

Where time slows to a halt.

Where it's too late to stop what's coming.

To new shores

"Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore."

- André Gide, Les faux-monnayeurs (The Counterfeiters)

Technically, that's a misquote, but the sentiment is nonetheless the same.

The courage to lost sight of the shore. 

That courage, that independence, is a muscle, worked and built up over time and effort.

It's what led me to where I am now.

Far from "home", if I can even call it that in the first place.

It's not the first time.

Will it be the last? Who can say.

But it's a brave new world nevertheless.

Decisions and sacrifices made years ago under somewhat different auspices have culminated in a will possessed, and a way found.

May it lead to a life, made.

Wonders

A familiar musical motif from the soundtrack of a favourite or childhood film.

A song that harkens back to a time long gone, or a culture you wished you knew.

A picture of a landscape that makes you feel small, yet on top of the world. The wanderlust that ensues.

The little wonders that take your breath away. That transport you far, far away. That remind you of all that is good in the world, in spite of what's going on in it, or even in your own personal world. That make life worth living when the drudgery of the everyday weighs you down.

The little wonders that make you smile. That make you happy.

Memories

"The only reason everyone holds on to memories so tightly, is because they are the only things that don't change when everything and everyone else does."

Memories. They're all we have.

Of things that once were. Of different times. Of different people.

We cling on to them, like a hope that never comes. When reality gets too much, we escape into our memories. We go back in time and relive the moments we treasure so much. The fleeting moments in time when we felt joy; when we laughed; when we were at peace; when, in one of those rare instances, we felt truly happy.

We close our eyes and tell ourselves to stay strong. But the memories haunt us, stubborn and persistent. That's when the line between a happy memory and a nightmare becomes blurred. Where does it start and where does it end?

But like the world turns, things change. And memories are all we have left.

A wistful recollection of times that, looking back, seemed as though you were living in a dream. A window into the past that can never be reconciled with the present reality.

The people; the places; the sights; the sounds; the sensations; the emotions. They're all but gone now.

You don't know who those people are now. You don't recognise the place anymore. You don't remember your feelings any longer.

You're crushed. Your memories of those things make it even worse.

Now, the only evidence of their existence lies in the recesses of our mind; faint recordings of life looped over and over again in our mind's eye, until one day the tape wears out and can no longer be played back. Then, they're gone forever, like they never happened. Time goes by, and old memories are forgotten as newer ones take over.

Those people never existed. Those places were never visited. Those emotions were never felt.

You won't even realise that everything used to be different.

As age takes its toll on the physiology of the human brain, our memories fade away into blank nothingness. A silent but malignant force that nobody can ever see coming.

We forget everything; how it used to be, how it all changed, and that it even existed.

Life itself fades before our very eyes.

And no power in the world can save it.

Run

It's in their flaws, that you truly see a person for who they are.

It's the parts of them the rest of the world doesn't get to see. The parts of them they hide, knowing nobody will like what they see should they be unveiled to the world.

Appearances are deceiving.

You don't know me.

You don't know who I really am.

You can't tell my public face apart from my private self.

You don't know me.

And perhaps you never will.

So what do you do?

You run.

From things. To things.

When that's all you've ever done in your life.

Run.

Hiding: A Poem

It's a mask I wear
A truth I hide
It's a word unspoken
A look concealed.

It's the smile I wear
The laugh I fake
It's the doubt cast aside
The sorrow in silence.

It's where I go
Where fear lies
It's where I succumb
Where catharsis awaits.

It's to the dawn
To reluctant beginnings
It's to the end
To the new world order.