A black vanilla ink upon musky pages. Suitable for all. A perfume to stimulate the heart and mind.
The initial scent of salty tears fades gracefully into whispers of a freshly healed heart. The dark odour of pain and sorrow is harmonized by the spice of anger that bursts from gleaming swords.
To soften it, wafts of sweet smiles and honeyed laughs.
And finally a top note of hope that soars with each page turn, released with a crinkling sigh.
Self-loathing secrets, fighting so hard against their name.
Locked away, they yearn to be released. They wail against the walls, louder and louder until they are heard.
Rarely are they content to sit, quiet, reserved. To linger in the recesses like meandering ghosts, unseen, unheard, unknown but for the occasional shiver of unease.
Secrets hate their very nature. They rebel against it. Imprisoned, they’ll scream through the bars until their voices join yours and they leap to freedom.
You stretch your fingers, white across my skin. Happiness, pain, networks of thin branches.
You remind me with jagged lines what life has brought. Edged, numb in the aftermath of pain. You allow me that small reprieve, that shield.
I used to hide them. Because at one point in my life, I took the wrong class, and learned the wrong material. I had to unlearn it with your eternal patience, your guidance. Never did you let me take a step back.
Now they stand, proud against my skin. My marks. Classes, passed with all the colours blended into a white, stark in contrast with my skin.
I turn around and see your face in the words on my page. The ink twists until your name forms, wet upon the page.
How long will I be stuck, caught by your web, spinning my words from your silk? When will I step free to write without your hand upon mine, directing the lines?
When will I be able to turn to you and smile. Look you in the eye. With the threads you have spun on the floor around my feet?
I long for your sweet serenades. Your claims that peal like bells from the tallest towers. Awaken me with your melodies. Fill the air with possession.
Winter was long and silent in your absence. The air had not the warmth of your sound, the world lacked the colour of your songs. The sun could not break through the clouds without your calls to guide it.
Come home now. Bring with you the blossoming flowers and green winds of life. Let spring smile upon our faces.
—-
I started painting a couple weeks ago. Now I have all these ideas to go along with them.
Art sourced from my deviantart account.
“Photograph me,” she said with a secret in her smile. So I did, to immortalize the moment.
“Photograph me,” she insisted through tears and red eyes. Her face was blotchy, her lips turned down. So I did, because I thought that perhaps it would make her smile.
“Photograph me,” she said with cold eyes and thin lips. A thin flush traced her cheeks as she looked down at me. So I did with the barest tremble to my hands.
“Photograph me,” she said through coughs that seized her whole body. That drove blood from her lips, so dark in contrast to her pallid skin. Her hands, skeletal, gripped my shirt. So I did through tears that blurred the images until I could not see what it was I had taken.
Photograph me, I remembered her words as I stared down at her lifeless features. Her words drowned out the sobbing that surrounded me. So I did. But only a cold detachment allowed me to raise my camera. Only bitterness allowed my finger to press down. And only longing kept the rolls and rolls of film hidden away in boxes, cobwebs like memories draped between the canisters.
Rain falls, Earth’s poetry. Creating bursts of brightness and colour beneath its rhythmic cadence. Life.
It is, at times, disrupted by unruly winds that force it against the ground in pounding roars, building until it escalates beyond the gates of blood and bone.
But eventually it settles. The darkness thins to a sighing wisp that, for now, can float free of the weight it once bore.
—-
April is National Poetry Month. I don’t write poetry, but I do love to read it. So here is a short tribute to its beauty.
The snow fell heavily for four days, weighing even the tallest of trees with sighs of white. When finally it stopped, all was still and silent. Even the wind fell into taciturn contemplation.
It was the sun that blossomed sound to back to life. Starting with the smallest of drops, it began the arduous task of coaxing the world back to life. Slowly the snow’s white glare began to melt away, slumping from branches and grumbling its way into streams. Steaming from branches and raining its last breaths, it faded to life.
And the noise was what brought the plants to sleepy awareness. Yawning, they stretched upwards to relieve the winter stiffness. Smiling in colours, they greeted each other in brightness. The wind chuckled through the air at last, spinning a dizzy dance of warmth.
—-
Spring is here at last!
Anger flared its wings, bright and burning, consuming thoughts with the rapid hunger of fire. And so it roared, vengeful, spitting past lips, a torrential flame. It burned its way outwards, seeking, reaching as far as it could.
Only then did time step forward with whispers of water that rose like the tide to slowly, slowly soothe away the destruction and pain. Left behind were charred remains, and the sprouting signs of healing.
Silk-covered fingers and pearls for teeth. A mothering smile. And above, an endless gaze that soars upwards upon Pegasi wings, over the Olympus of your mind. All reaching out to you, offering.
Flowing, translucent cloth embraces your mind, soft as a whisper against your thoughts. Follow. The word flutters in glimmering threads. But for every step forward that you take, she takes one back. And you fear to go any faster, for the thought of her forever retreating stutters your breath.
Once, perhaps, you might have stepped away. Turned from her singing steps and susurrant smile. But now you know you will not stop. As much as she tries to evade you, you know that you have but to reach out and grab her ever shifting threads and pull her forward until you meet.
You find your regrets as they trickle down the bottle, the last drops at the bottom of your search for relief. The clink of glass as it hits the table was supposed to mean bliss. But instead it’s the thunderous clap of unwanted memories exploding in your mind. Fireworks with colours that fade into bitter, black smoke, lingering in the stagnation of your thoughts.
Perhaps, you think as you open another, it will only take one more. And as the air hisses free and the foam spills, you hope your thoughts will do the same. Forever away.
Every day my face is burdened with lenses upon my nose. They’re small. Too small. But heavy. I can see the borders that separate clarity from haze. Dark, angry limits. All around the edges, my vision wavers, uncertain. Thus I walk past, never seeing, never thinking to turn my head and look.
I hate them.
No, that is not true. I do not hate them. I hate needing them.
In fact, I love them. Because with them, I can see. Not everything, but enough. Sometimes they show me the wrong things. Things I shouldn’t see, or don’t want to see. Sometimes I see darkness clawing its way out of blood-red lips. Black tar slugging past gleaming teeth and porcelain skin.
But ultimately, they are a blessing. Because they show me the wonders of the blue sky and the butterfly’s struggle and the ocean’s rage. Beauty that even the mind cannot fathom. Because with them, I can see you.
Silence descents in flakes of white. Covering, smothering. It’s heavy. Tired. It has been falling for far too long, and now it looks for the gentle reprieve of Spring. For the slow warmth that creeps with buds exploding in a floral fireworks.
Weary, it lands with a dissipating sigh. It does not linger as it once did. It does not grow, all encompassing as it used to. Instead it fades into grey with wishes of green.
It’s ready to sleep. Ready for the dreams of warmth, of blossoms and lush grass. Weary, winter yawns out the last of its cold, slowly settling down, closing its eyes, not to wake till the last shivers of fall nudge it gently awake.
—-
This idea actually came from Canada’s Olympic slogan ‘We Are Winter’. When hashtagged, it looks almost like Wearywinter, something that one of my friends pointed out. Thus spawned this post.
They stand, serene sentinels of the land. Old as time, they move to the whims of the earth. Looming, they watch, seeing all.
Unfazed by the winds and the fires and the raging waters, they are silent and still. Stone.
Ever gazing, immortal dwellers undaunted by the passing of years. By the ravaging fires and the trembling ground. By the rise and fall of cities. Of civilizations.
They are there, scattered upon the land, almost haphazard in their placement. Chains of them. Others lone. Peaks pointed like a wolf’s crying maw, silhouetted by the tranquil moon.
And when they tire, they gather the clouds, hiding the world below from view. And they rest their weary eyes for a while till once more they are ready. So they allow the clouds to rain down. They smile in trees and gleaming snow. And year after year, life after life, they watch, dedicated, guardians.
They rained down furiously, splashing, streaking, smearing. They left trails, thick, slowly began to blend together in attempts to dominate, their shrieks immortalized in red and black. They wailed with harsh strokes, edges sharp and biting. And they sang with long breaths of yellows and greens.
Louder they surged upwards, outwards, so keen, so eager to express what even words cannot say. Look at us, they cried with glistening tears of the softest blues. Their arms swept wide, flashing wildly for all to see, to take notice.
They beamed as eyes fell upon them, as eyes listened to their voices, seeing what was not there, hearing what was not said. When eyes gleamed with emotion, they soothed with soft pinks and smiles of white.
And when the brush ceased and left them forever, they stood strong upon the canvas that they had forever claimed. They launched themselves forward into the world. Young and ageless and ready to face the world’s sorrows.
