Can’t see the light from the dark...

He opens his eyes and thinks he sees the whole world out there. But what has become clear - and really just in the last few months that he's been delving a bit more into himself, is that he's actually seeing just a fragment of everything that's out there. Even though he so vividly believes in the weight of the world around him, it's not really all that significant. So, he sets off to find new worlds with more meaning. Worlds with more tangible consequences. Somewhere, he can be safer and not feel judged all the time. A place where he would stop running from himself and finally lay down his arms. 

It won't pull me under...

He misses you on battlefields, in shadows, in fading ink, on cold ice splashed with the blood from his scars. In the rings of trees. In the wreckage of an existence, slowly crumbling into oblivion. In bubbling water. In bee stings and dragonfly wings, in stars. In the depths of lonely woods, he wanders to pass the time of his increasingly meaningless day-to-day. Yet still, you watch him. You slid back through his life, and he has known you since before he knew you.

Recently, I also started to believe in some sort of afterlife. In another universe, we paddle through the atmosphere like seals, where the air itself is sustenance, and all one has to do is open one's mouth and inhale to remain alive. Maybe there we're together again. Or maybe you are even closer still. Maybe you are the flower that started to bloom in my living room, even though I thought it died long ago. Maybe you are that cloud, that wave, that rain, that mist. Maybe you're still here, guiding me and keeping me safe from the utter disappointment of the world. I'm not giving up. Not yet.

The ladder starts to clatter...

That's great, 

it starts with an earthquake.

Birds and snakes, 

and aeroplanes,

and Jean Karr

is not afraid.

Make ashes from stone...

I am very much conscious of my decisions. More importantly, I take responsibility for the consequences they bring. Or at least I try to. When I'm struggling with the goals I've set for myself, I remind myself to be patient and I don't bail out, until I'm escorted out. I'll eventually get my shot. My grandmother told me so - that means it must be true. She reminds me that not even the strongest of us survive. And that the will to sacrifice the things you love to achieve your dreams is half the battle. The other half are disappointments. Ones that happens over and over again. I pinch myself to remember that there is definitely a pot of gold at the end of that rainbow, it's just a son of a bitch getting there. 

Turn darkness into gold...

Just finding out...

And I can see him falling...

Writers don't believe in goodbyes, for we know that the roads we walk are winding, and we generally tend to come back to people and places we've known and been before, and often at either just the right time or just too late. That's why I smiled when I realized it was over. Because I knew I'd be here again one day. My face might be older, and the adversaries giving me pause will wear different faces, but this won't be the last time I stand naked, at the cusp of getting it all, just for it to slip between my fingers. Oh, no, no, no. The story of this life is a circle. And I think I recognize that tree. 

Just another touch...

I will not drown in shallow water,

not with your love within my reach.

I did not come this far to falter,

and will not rest until I'm free.

You are the sun, you are the flower,

you are the wind across the sea,

and I will kneel here at your altar,

and pray you'll take my soul to keep.

My only memento...

How often do we tell our own life stories? How often do we adjust, embellish, and make sly cuts? The longer life goes on, the fewer those around to challenge our account and remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life - told to others but mainly to ourselves.

As a writer, I remember everything. And especially the hurts. Strip me of my skin and muscles and leave me bare to the bone, and then point to my scars, and I'll be able to tell you the story of each and every one. From the big ones, I'll be able to weave a novel and sustain the conversation well past the point of my own comfort. Being a writer has very little to do with talent. The only real requirement is the ability to remember the story of every scar. Writing consists of the persistence of memory. And one's consistently quiet wish, fuelled by a myriad of addictions, to forget. 

How deep is shallow water...

Truth is the beginning...

He was looking out the window of his cramped office space at his mundane 9 to 5, once again struck by the realization that he is very much on borrowed time and that the lending agency exacts its premium precisely when he is least prepared to pay and is desperately seeking to borrow more. He is not wise at all, it seems, to always be falling for the same traps life sets for him. Yes, he knows books and how to string words together, but that doesn't mean he knows how to speak about the things that matter most to him. Maybe he does, in a way. Quite the same as he lives. In a way.

I need some help...

But this thing that almost surely won't ever be, still beckons, even though I secretly want it to end. Or at least progress to be freed from this agonizing limbo. I know I won't be able to unwrite this failure, never unlive it, or relive it - it will remain stuck here like a vision of fireflies on a summer field toward evening. Could I have had something else instead? Something that would lead me down a more steady path? Where moving ahead wouldn't be false, and looking the other way would be just a fun pastime. I guess what I'm trying to say is that there might be another life out there. Another life that I might have had, but I am having this one.

Can't see the light from the dark...

How deep is shallow water?

How high is too high up? 

I feel it pull me under,

just another touch.

The point of no return...

Still miles away...

This road is like his life; knee deep in shadow. Once, it had been the quickest way home and he'd taken it easily, turning onto its potholed surface without a second thought, rarely noticing how the earth dropped away on either edge. His mind had been on other things back then, on the minutiae of everyday life. Chores. Errands. Schedules. And he hadn't taken this route in years. Just the thought of it had been enough to make him turn the steering wheel too sharply; better to go off the road than to find himself here. Or so he'd thought until today.

The writing is on the wall. All I am waiting for is the final confirmation. An ending I can see from a mile away, yet still, it will knock me off my feet. So this is my proclimation that I will follow my own advice, and not bargain my future with outcomes. I understand what I want and how I want to live, and I will reach for it despite the failures that come my way. Forward is the only motion I have ever truly understood. The only direction that can make sense of the loss, that can perhaps, even one day, even restore it.

I'm the it boy...