Please spare me the time...

I sit and ponder my existence: how I'm here, what put me in these thoughts, these feelings, birthed from a timeless sleep, what it felt like, or rather the lack thereof, to not have been and now to be. And suddenly, I realize how absurd I am to exist. I then wonder why the supernatural, the thought of other beings, of the universe, must be distinctly absurd - by which I am no longer sure. Perhaps it is true that in a wandering head such as mine, one full of wonders and fantasy, the natural becomes supernatural and the supernatural becomes within sight of discovery and explanation, just as the return home after a life-long journey feels, for a moment, because of all the weight of new experiences, foreign and utterly lonely. 

On a highway to never...

Do it for the plot...

This voyage of ours is lonely, 

the more so if we find a companion, 

only to suffer the bitterest loss. 

In truth we are alone.

The suspense: the fearful, acute suspense of standing idly by while the life of one we dearly love, seems to be going in a disastrous direction; the racking thoughts that crowd upon the mind, and make the heart beat violently, and the breath come thick, by the force of the images they conjure up before it; the desperate anxiety to be doing something to relieve the pain, or lessen the danger, which we have no power to alleviate; the sinking of soul and spirit, which the sad remembrance of our helplessness produces; what tortures can equal these; what reflections of endeavours can, in the full tide and fever of the time, help us, help the one we love most?

One more time for all the good times...

When things aren't black and white...

This song has started now,

and you're just finding out,

now isn't that a laugh?

A major sacrifice,

but clueless at the time.

Enter, Karr,

just trust me, you'll be fine.

Carrying the weight of the rift...

I am a believer in the power of endless action and reaction. You know those beautifully rounded pebbles which you gather on the sand and hold in your hand and marvel at their exceeding smoothness? They were chiseled into their varied and graceful forms by the ceaseless action of countless waves. Of a consistent set of giving and taking a way. By workers who never tolerate, without certain rebuke, any contradiction to their wise example. That's why my current inaction is so frightening. For I know that inaction is followed by stagnation. Stagnation is followed by pestilence and pestilence is followed by death.

After the daily grind...

For a fortnight there...

I recognise my surroundings. I'm at the pivotal moment in any story, where I have to actively silence my inner voice. Where I have to push back on my deep rooted fear of failure and embarrassment, and just endure. Then even if I'm stopped in my tracks, even if I'm cast out and my dreams are shattered, at least I won't be full or bitterness and resentment. At least that's how it's supposed to work, right? But is there really any difference in quitting or being told no? At least if you quit, you get to say it was your own choice. Being rejected has a finality to it. The death of ego. And maybe I just want to hold on to it a little longer. 

Windflowers and wild horses...

Once in a dream I saw a snake swallowing its own tail, it swallowed and swallowed until it got halfway round, and there it stopped and there it stayed, it was stuffed with its own self. Remined me of how I only have myself to go on. And for me, that has always been enough. 

I think my entire life I have been drawn to all the wrong things: I like to drink, I'm kind of lazy, like playing video games, and enjoy being settled into nothingness; a kind of non-being. My own little world, with set rules that only I can influence. All of this doesn't make for an interesting person, I know. But I don't necessarily want to be interesting. It just seems way too big of a hassle. So many things to think or and take into consideration. What I really want is only a soft, hazy space to live in, and to be left alone. 

My dreams make a mess of me...

Who wants to live forever...

Don't you just want to wake up, dark as a lake?

Smelling like a bonfire, lost in a haze?

If you're drunk on life, I think it's great,

but while in this world,

I think I'll take my whiskey neat.

Guilty as sin...

One last souvenir...

His life is made up of a collection of moments that are not his to keep. The pain he encounters throughout his days spent on this earth comes from the illusion that some moments can be held onto. He clings to people and experiences that were never his in the first place, and that's what causes him to miss out on the beauty of the miracle that is the now. All of this is his, yet none of it is. How could it be? When will it stick into that thick head of his!? Everything is fleeting. To love and let go, love and let go, love and let go. It's the single most important thing he still has to learn in this lifetime.

Let it once be me...

I'd like to believe that I am primarily internally driven, because I know how different it feels. Instead of being drowned by the the weight of expectation coming down from the outside, I get to suffocate as power overflows my body. External pressure breaks me down, makes me even shorter, and places upon my heart a curious burden. Internal drive fills up every crevice of my body, slows down time and barely allows me to breathe. But within that state, I get to grow and run to faraway places yet not landed in my destiny. And how strange it is that no matter how far away I might float, I always find the way back to me - ready for anything.

The tortured poets department...

Still, there are times he is bewildered by each mile he has traveled, each meal he has eaten, each person he has known, each room in which he has slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond his imagination.

I've dreamed a lot in this life. Of so many different things. Of different worlds. Of different selves. Of fantastical beasts. Of the unlikely hero I become. Of lovers and friends. Of death and sorrow. Of ascendancy and unending existence. I have dreamt for so long that now I am tired from dreaming but not tired of dreaming. I don't think I'll ever tire of dreaming, because to dream is to forget, and forgetting does not weigh on me. It is a dreamless sleep throughout which I remain awake. And despite it all, through dreams I have achieved everything.

Got cursed like Eve got bitten...

The only thing that's left is the manuscript.

One last trip from my trip to your shores.

Now and then I reread the manuscript,

but the story isn't mine anymore.

Hand on the throttle...

Re-do my prophecy...

Oh life ... how often have you laid yourself before him and forced him to see his reflection. And how he screamed enough! Enough of life so much. Not knowing that the cause for his rupture, was his break with life. His sense of unworthiness, his disbelief in his own prophecy. So there he stands; wronged, maimed, spoiled for aspiration. Farewell life! He screams into the void. And then he hides his eyes and thinks it all ended. But there it is, so quiet only dogs can hear it whisper. Life calls to him in some transformed, apocryphal, new voice. Above him, or below him, or around. He lifts his head and tries to name it. Nature, love, the universe. Trying to trick himself, because he is more ashamed of his own compensations than his griefs. Still, life's voice! Still, he makes peace with life.

I look in people's windows...

This self that I have become now as I leant over the gate looking down over fields rolling in waves of colour beneath me gave no answers. And there is no more opposition. No attempted phrase. My fists do not form. I simply wait. And I listen. But nothing comes to me, nothing. So I cry then with a sudden conviction of complete desertion, accept again that now there is nothing. No fins that break the waste of this immeasurable sea. Life has taken its toll on me. No echo comes when I speak, no varied words. This is more truly the downfall than the death of grandparents, than the death of youth.

Wildflowers and wild horses...

There is something deeply authentic about grappling with our fate. It is looking at a long trail of twisted life-decisions that got us spinning into the abyss. So like all things, we have a choice - and for better or worse we spiral. Embrace the chaos. Go to ruins.

It's not fair. It's not fair that he gets a pass to let his ambition take over, that he lets it rule him. He should be better at controlling it. Knowing when it's okay to let it steer his path, and when he must aggressively press the brakes and stop before collision. It's not right that he gets to be two people. The shy dreamer that passes without a trace, and a hurricane that leaves nothing unturned and no one unscathed. And those unlucky to be caught in the wake of his ascension, have to take what he has to give, and pick up the pieces afterwards.

It's been me the whole damn time...

You think you know me, 

but you hardly even know yourself.

I'd bite my tongue,

and let you think I only wish you well.

So go ahead and ruin someone else's life,

go bug somebody else, so I can sleep at night.

I'll take my whiskey neat...

Fireworks and rollerblades...

Smelling like a bonfire, lost in a haze...

Coming back is always so exhausting. Especially when you are now forced to face reality. The burden of imminent defeat. The calamity of unwavering disappointment. My best try is severely lacking, that I can admit. I guess it's my best under very strenuous circumstances. Not at all ideal. My heart's in it, I'm maybe just not willing to sacrifice enough. I'm not even that afraid of failure. The last years have hardened me for any sort of stumble, so this fall shouldn't hurt that much. I guess in a way I am testing my karma. My power of manifestations. Where are the limits? Where does my good grace end? And how far I've come in accepting that some things are just not meant for me.

Follow your heart of gold...

The odds against me were getting higher everyday. There is absolutely no possible way that everything can go my own? Or can it? Is this the moment my belief pays off? The moment I am proven wrong. Where all my self-doubt and hate finally lose against the prevalence of determination and manifestation of good? As much as I am afraid, I am far more curios how this plays out, so here is my pledge and prediction. The next two weeks are going to turn out in my favor. In every aspect in all possible ways. I will love and be loved. I will succeed and offer guidance of my own. I will smile and put smiles on people's faces. I won't hesitate and I will actively quiet the voices in my head, telling me I don't deserve it. For I deserve everything. And if I don't, you'll be the first to know. 

A moment of silence is the greatest sound...

He knows that paradise doesn't come without a cost. And it is expensive, the gate is narrow. Whoever visits discovers that life is beautiful, that the sun can in fact be divided into individual rays. That it's no longer that boring, round ball one can't even look at. He dreads the next month, when he'll go back to work full of people with empty looks, emptier than the looks of the people here. Everybody thinking about getting home, making dinner, and then escaping reality. Who knew reality is this white powder, not paradise.

Here is what I need from you. A very simple ask. One might say even mundane. So here it goes: let me inside your soul. Inside that abandoned paradise. And let me walk on that road to your heart. Let me see through that window you hold inside. Through which I can stare into space, where the waves of oceans, filled with stars are hitting the shores of galaxies. I will seize everything that I see with my words. And I promise you, I will make you immortal. 

The rush of a new life...

Out of the darkness, show me the way...

Deep down under and all I've seen,

beyond the wonders and still I dream.

I know I can make that sacrifice,

what is hopeless and what is real?

I wish I knew how I feel,

I hope I can find that love inside.

Give me shelter, bring me along,

5here's a place where we all belong.

Still I wonder, where's my paradise?

Thinking I might lose it all...

He wants to do the right thing. He always does. But he thinks the right thing is martyrdom. He thinks if he suffers enough for whatever sins he has committed, then he's absolved. That's why he took the fall yesterday. Every time he comes up against something difficult, he just wants to make it go away, and he thinks the way to do that is self-flagellation. He's obsessed with punishment. But that's not how this works, does it? Him going down in flames fixes nothing. Him hanging from the gallows fixes nothing. The world's still broken. A war's still coming. The only way to properly make amends is to stop it, which you don't want to do, because really what this is about him being afraid. 

Set on a collision course...

It's time to go home...

One of my biggest misconceptions in life was that I thought love was a fascination, or a desire to be around someone, or wanting to make them happy. I believed it just happened, like a slap to the face, and left the way the sting from such a blow fades. That is, until I met you, I didn't understand to feel loved, one has to feel known. And that, outside of my family, I had never really loved because I hadn't bothered to know the other person. But I know you, and you know why you're not a monster, but I might be. We are continually becoming and I don't want to go through this world without the one person I can't hide from and who can't hide from me.

The last cold winters I recall...

I have these lines that I won't cross. But then something happens, and I find myself on the other side of them. And turns out ... nothing bad happens. So then suddenly I possess the very dangerous information that I can break rules and the world won't instantly come to an end. I've taken a big, black, bold line and I've made it a little bit grey. And now every time I cross it again, it just gets greyer and greyer until one day I look around and I think, there was a line here once, I think.

Because like the depths of the ocean his path forward won't be easy. But he wasn't brought here for easy. He is here for so much more. Because he wants to push boundaries. To seek truth. He is temptation and seduction and heat. He is a mirror and a sorcerer and inside him swirls the power of the ancients. But in the space of that truth - he must also know this. He also deserves the deepest ease. Someone who will give him grace and know him deeply. Someone who won't ask him to translate himself or diminish himself or quiet his storm or tone down his extravagant love. Someone like you.

How come no one told me...

My whole life waiting for the right time...

Everything is alright,

since you came along.

And before you

I had nowhere to run to,

and nothing to hold on to.

I came so close to giving up,

and I wonder if you know,

how it feels to let it go?

Find the words to stay...

Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. To experiences greatness I must have a feeling for the myth I am in. I must reflect what is projected upon me. And I must not fear. For fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

Can't see the forest through the trees...

By the skin of my teeth...

He doesn't know how to get over it, because at this point he's so tired of himself. He doesn't know how to let go. And he realizes that you don't let go just once. You say goodbye over a lifetime. You might not have thought about it for a couple of years, then you'll hear a song or you'll walk past somewhere that reminds you of a life you could have had - something will come to the surface that you'd totally forgotten about. And you say another goodbye. You have to be prepared to let go and let go and let go a thousand times. Does it get easier? Not much, he knows.

Lead them to paradise...

There's a tornado in my city...

There's a heatwave coming at us,

too hot to think straight,

too cold to panic.

All of the problems just feel dramatic,

and now we're running' to the first spot that we find.

I'll just have to pray...

This life of mine which I am supposedly living, perhaps is not merely a piece of the entirety of existence, but is in a certain sense the whole; only this whole is not so constituted that it can be surveyed in one single glance. This, as I know, is the closest thing I would call sacred. A mystic formula which is really so simple and so clear: This is me. I am in the east and in the west. I am below and above. I am this whole world.

So that means he can throw himself flat on the ground, stretched out upon the soil, with a certain conviction that he will be okay. He is as firmly established, as invulnerable and indeed a thousand times more complex. As surely he will be engulfed by tomorrow, so surely will he bring himself forth anew to striving and suffering. And not merely some day: but now, today, every day he is bringing himself forth, not once but thousands upon thousands of times, just as every day he swallows the world a thousand times over. For eternally and always there is only now, one and the same now; the present is the only thing that has no end.

One step to the right...

My goal for this year is to begin depriving death of its great advantage over me. To adopt a way clean and contrary to the common one. I want death to loose the hold it has on me. I want to deprive it of its strangeness, to frequent it, to get used to it; to have nothing more often in mind than death. Because here's the thing; I am so ill prepared for it that it might ruin me, when it manifests itself. And while I don't know where death awaits me: I must wait for it everywhere. Think of infinite scenarios how it might come knocking, to practice it so much, it becomes my freedom. To learn how to die, and unlearn how to be its slave.

I know I’ve got enough...

I think ... I'm going to be okay. All the no's, don'ts, shouldn't haves, the what ifs, what abouts, the complaints and the noise I make to soften the voices in my head ... all that doesn't change the fact that my manifestations seem to be coming to fruition. At least one way or another. Usually not quite how I fantasised about, but there wouldn't really be any fun if I were able to predict all the outcomes. I'm getting quite old. I know that soon the time will come when I'll have to let go of quite a few of my dreams. But I think that these beautiful things that I've got, will help me through it. They'll help me find my faith, and live a little while, until I die.

I've lost my mind, I'm feeling insane...

Life is plenty pointless, I've found. We're all put here on this plane of existence, such a minuscule thing, really. This tiny consciousness, in the midst of an ever-larger universe. Put here for reasons unbeknownst to us, reasons that may not even exist. And, above all that, we try so hard to discover things, to try to create the greatest new thing, to learn everything, to find answers. But those answers are pointless. Because one day, this world will end. And whatever mark we may have thought we left, will vanish, like it was never even there.

So picture this; a wave. In the ocean. You can see it, measure it, its height, the way the sunlight refracts when it passes through. And it's there. And you can see it, you know what it is. It's a wave. And then it crashes in the shore and it's gone. But the water is still there. The wave was just a different way for the water to be, for a little while. You realise then and there that the wave is one conception of death: it returns to the ocean, where it came from and where it's supposed to be. The good place.

I'd rather be lonely...

I'm going to miss the dance...

There's no going back,

my presence fades to black,

my anxiety attacks,

rim tim tagi tigi

dim tim tagi digi.

Throw your keys up...

Leaning on old memories...

If you think this has a happy ending,

you haven't been paying attention.

It takes so little, so infinitely little, for me to find myself on the other side of the border, where everything - love, convictions, faith, history - no longer has meaning. The whole mystery of my life resides on the fact that it is spent in the immediate proximity of, and even in direct contact with, that border, that it is separated from it not by great distances but by barely an inch. So I take in a few deep breaths, walking forward on this never ending limbo. Never daring to look down, for I have always been afraid of heights. And the fall ... would be too much to bear. 

Red blood, white snow...

It was one of the nights which do not come often in a lifetime, and which I am quite certain I will never forget. The darkness seems full of meaning; the hush, full of sound. The universe is beyond, evidently pulling all the strings, making sure the threads of fate spin exactly as it was foretold. In the meantime, I shall wait. Holding the sunrise in my right hand, holding the sun of my earthly hopes as well; will it dawn in sorrow or in joy? I dare not ask; I can only wait.

Boy, just come along...

These beautiful things that I have...

For a while there, it was rough,

but lately, I've been doing better,

than the last four cold winters.

And I see my family every month,

I found a boy my parents love,

and I think I might have it all.

Shadows dancing down the hall...

I'm here, I said, and it felt shockingly comforting, those words. When I'm in an utter state of panic, I say them aloud to myself. I'm here. Because I don't usually feel that I am. Almost seems like a warm gust of wind could exhale my way and I'd be gone forever, not even a sliver of fingernail left behind. On some days, I find this thought calming; on others it chills me.

He is here. And he comes to you, and he does not speak, and the others do not notice him, and he takes your hand, and you ready yourself to die, eyes open, aware that this is all an illusion, a last aroma cast up by the chemical stew that is your brain, which will soon cease to function, and there will be nothing, and you are ready, ready to die well, ready to die like a man, like a human, for despite all else you have loved, you have loved your father and your mother and your brother and your lover, and you have loved everyone in your fantasises, you have loved beyond yourself, and so you have courage, and you have dignity, and you have calmness in the face of terror, so that he may confront the end. Confront it a little less afraid.

For awhile there, it was rough...

You make a mess of me...

Najdi me, rani me, brani me. 

Dvigni me, pusti me, ljubi me.

But before he could react in any meaningful way, exhaustion had swept over him like a cold gray wave. An exhaustion he had never felt before, or even imagined, deep as a knife wound. His fingertip grip on alertness had slipped, tumbling him into the darkness of his own mind, where time swayed and lurched like a ship in a storm, and she could hardly tell whether he was awake or asleep. He knew that this was a deciding moment. One that would define all of his future steps. If only he'll have the energy to take them.

Burn this goddamn house down...

My whole self is laid out before me like hacked flecks of bloody spittle on a white page, forming shapes I misinterpret as my being. I'm like a monkey looking into a mirror for the first time. I'm shocked and enthralled with my image. I pull at my distended lips and twist my face in caricature. I hiss and bark like an idiot, then weep with grief. But I am the mirror. If you look closely you'll note the mirror is empty. Nothing is here in this place, least of all you. I'll cut everything away until eventually I'm reduced to a single sensation, a soundless scream in a muffled void. My scream connotes nothing - not pain, not joy, not loss, not fear, not love, just the raw fact of my existence, eating itself forever.

It’s been a while but I’m finding my faith...

Better not steal the moves...

If you think you're getting away, 

I will prove you wrong.

I'll take you all the way, 

boy, just come along.

Hear me when I say: hey!

It's been a hard road looking up at the throne...

But he knew that no matter what beauty lay behind, it must remain there. No one could go forward with a load of aching memories. Not even him, with years of training under the hardship of broken dreams. So from now onwards, call him Stargazer because instead of silly stories, he will recite the names of constellations. Those freckles on his face? They are roadmaps to the sky, and the bruises that he carried were supernovas in disguise.

Here's a promise even I myself don't quite believe. But that does not stop me from whispering it every night before I fall asleep. Someday, those aches and burns I feel inside my body will heal. I can't really know when someday will come, or what life will look like when it finally does, but in a way it doesn't even matter because someday isn't what I have. What I have is right now, this moment, when things aren't okay yet, but in a way they are already, because in the end they will be, and as long as that's true, it's enough for me to fall asleep.