Meditations in an Emergency

Of Time.

2011-11-03T17:08:00.004Z

I find myself thinking fourth dimensionally

of wormholes in time and space,

of present, past and future,

of things that are, that never were,

that may yet still come to pass.

I find myself dreaming of being haunted

by a succubus, who visits in my twilight hours,

and with her sweet caresses,

removes all rhyme and reason

and takes away my fears.

I find myself waking in this reality,

where with every second that passes,

minute by minute,

hour after hour,

my thoughts and dreams become one.

Ambush.

2011-10-15T23:58:00.007+01:00

Specks of green and gold in a sea of

blue; bewitching and beautiful and

terrifying to behold,

as an ambush

patiently waits, squirreled

away behind a twisted scar that

hides in plain sight for

an audience of one;

and so it is

that when Fred Astaire comes calling,

this spy cries out:

"merci!"

Secret.

2011-04-24T18:24:00.005+01:00

I think of you.

As you sit up. A memory. Or perhaps the memory of a memory. Those blonde locks that cascade onto naked shoulders. The small of your back. A duvet wound tightly around those right-there, almost, oh-so-nearly places I'm yet to discover. Those emerald eyes. That smile.

"Wait," I say.

"What is it?"

"You're beautiful."

You laugh, almost dismissively, perhaps in disbelief. But you don't see what I see.

"Don't. Turn away."

"Wait," I insist.

I take a snapshot with my mind, trying to capture it forever, trying to prolong that moment outside of its natural lifespan.

I burn it deep within. Where it can't get lost. In a place where time stands still. Where it won't wither with the change of clocks or seasons. Where all those other moments are buried. For a rainy day. In case of emergency. For other moments like these.

It passes. As it should. As do all such moments. But at least I have the memory. Or perhaps the memory of a memory. It isn't the same as the moment itself. It's just a faded copy. But it will do for now.

At least, that is, until the next moment comes.

Fandango.

2011-03-14T15:17:00.000Z

You slowly emerge from your cocoon to find that you are not the butterfly you had hoped for, but the same moth with damaged wings, drawn to a flame that still enchants, a flame that burns ice cold. Your reflection may have changed but the story remains the same.

Yet to be entwined with the candlelight is not a duel but a dance. The steps you believe you already know. You've trod them countless times before. You don't trust your feet to find the right combination. There have been too many missteps too many times. Too many resulting burns.

But it is you who has paid the piper. It is you who gets to call the tune. It's not about trusting your feet. It's about letting go. It's about feeling the rhythm. Only then, as you dance with abandon, will you find the right steps.

It is only then that you realise.

The flame isn't a candle.

It is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Redemption.

2010-09-23T22:47:00.011+01:00

It all seems like such a long time ago.

It began with a plan.

To escape. To adventure. To walk a thousand miles just to slip this skin.

I didn´t leave to find myself. I already knew myself. I didn´t like what I had already found.

I left to lose myself. To runaway from myself. To escape the confines of this flesh and blood prison. To seem beautiful again, and interesting, and modern.

Along the way I made new friends. I lost old friends. I became wild. I jumped out of a perfectly good plane. I drank to oblivion. I got dreadlocks. I broke a heart or two. I even grew a beard:

"I cultivate this beard not for the usual given reasons of skin trouble or pain of shaving, nor for the secret purpose of covering a weak chin, but as pure unblushing decoration, much as a peacock finds pleasure in his tail. And finally, in our time a beard is the one thing a woman cannot do better than a man, or if she can her success is assured only in a circus."

None of it made any difference.

Until I found what I was looking for. What I had been running away from all this time.

Myself.

I finally realised it doesn´t take one year, or a lifetime, but rather one defining moment.

I seized mine.

Yet, whilst the beard may have gone, the adventure goes on.

But...this time, I am no longer alone.

Instead, finally, perhaps I am myself again.

Vow.

2010-09-17T01:02:00.006+01:00

I love you.

I always have, from that very moment we first met.

I always will.

Even when I thought that I had lost you, you were always there. In every thought that I had, in every breath that I took, in every beat of my heart.

I never forgot you even though it sometimes hurt to remember you. I never gave up hope even when all hope appeared lost. I never stopped loving you even though it seemed an impossible love.

I endured.

I waited.

I walked a thousand miles.

Until I found my way back to your door.

Never again.

I have learnt life's lessons.

I'll never let you slip through my fingers. I will never take you for granted. I'll never hurt you. I will never stop trying to be the man, the husband, the father of our children that you deserve. I'll never stop loving you.

Be my wife, my lover, the mother to our children, my constant companion, my best friend.

Measure the rest of our lives together in each flower that blooms in the spring, each ray of sun that shines in the summer, each leaf that turns golden in the autumn, each snowflake that falls in the winter.

Share with me a life of eskimo kisses, interlocking fingers, infinite looks of 'the usual'. Be the last thing I see when I close my eyes to dream of you, and the first thing I see when I return to the wonderful waking reality of you.

Grow old with me, be there at my side on every road traveled, share this lifetime with me. Keep me warm on the cold winter nights, hold me close during sunsets, kiss me for every star in the sky that we see.

Love me, always, until that day comes to scatter my ashes at the Hardy Tree.

Then know that I will be waiting once more, wandering in the winds of time and memories past, until I find you again in the forever after.

Jigsaw.

2010-09-01T21:41:00.003+01:00

There are those who walk amongst us like angels through specks of dust.

She is one.

My favourite thing about her was the words that were left unspoken between us. No sharing our sad stories. For once, I could just be. No bullshit.

Each dare was met with a knowing smile. Each game of chess with a studious frown. Each glass of rum with a happy grimace. Every look from her was like a billion volts of electricity.

We were an odd couple. When I say couple, I don't mean romantically. I simply mean an intimate friendship. Like two pieces of a jigsaw, we fit together.

We explored and watched sunsets together. We snatched sleep on each other's shoulders. I held her in my arms as she sang to me.

I was noticeably sad when we first parted ways.

"You're missing her?"

"Yes. Yes I am."

Reunited once again, I got my groove back, literally.

"I love that guy!" she exclaimed one night to her boyfriend as I danced like a whirling dervish around the room. He fully understood what she meant. He was cut from a similar cloth.

The final time I saw her, she lay sleeping, extraordinarily at peace. I kissed her gently on the forehead. She immediately woke up. Stretched. Yawned like a cat.

"It's time" I said.

"Don't forget about me."

"As if I could."

It must have been the right answer. She smiled and fell immediately back asleep.

I left. I didn't look back. I didn't need to.

If you could only.

2010-08-31T23:31:00.001+01:00

If you could only hear

all the words that I am whispering to you

to soothe you and to caress you across a continent

a lullaby for you alone to hear.

If you could only see

the smile that graces my lips

as I picture you in freeze-frame from a moment

that is permanently seared into my brain.

If you could only know

but all you can do is take my unspoken word for it

although somehow that is good enough

for now at least

until you replenish your ink

by drawing my blood with your nails.

Vesuvio.

2010-08-30T23:28:00.005+01:00

"There's something wrong with this picture" I mumble, my head half-cocked, my finger on a metaphorical trigger.

"I think it's beautiful."

"Like you" I say.

"In fact," I hear myself continue, "it's almost too perfect."

Silence.

"How many women have you slept with?" you ask abruptly.

"I'm not answering that."

"Why?"

"Because it's a vulgar question."

"How many women have you been in love with then?"

"Why is it important?"

"You can't answer a question with a question."

"Then what do you call love?" I sigh.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm a little in love with every woman I see. Then there are those whom I thought I was in love with once, and those whom I still love now, then those whom I love but I am not in love with, and even those whom I am yet to love..."

"Why can't you ever give a straight answer?" you snap.

"Love isn't as black as white as all that." I motion across the gallery, "What do you think of that triptych by Francis Bacon?"

"It's hideous" you complain, burying your head in my shoulder.

"Yes. Yes it is" I admit, contemplating what could be an accurate representation of my own reflection.

"Let's go see a psychic."

"If we must."

We arrive. The psychic is asleep. Some psychic.

"Please come back in the morning" she pleads after we wake her up, "you have a strong aura about you."

"I guess the future is on hold until tomorrow" you jest.

"I guess it is."

Over.

2010-08-27T00:10:00.003+01:00

A Mexican cantina.
A hotel room.
A train station.
An airport.
An email.
The same conversation.
The not so simple truth.

A flash of pain.
A hint of betrayal.
A lack of understanding.
A sob.
A denial.
The sting of hot tears.
Now I am become Death, destroyer of worlds.

Broken promises.
Shattered dreams.
A fragmented self.
Two roads diverged.
An impossible future.
A cross too large to bear.
The beginning of the end.

No more tears left to cry.
No more words left to speak.
No happy endings.
No tomorrows.
Nothing.
Only guilt.
And thoughts of a stranger.

Time to walk like a man.

Cocoon.

2010-08-05T20:44:00.014+01:00

Living is easy with eyes closed. Whispers of emptiness surround you, envelop you, cocoon you in the safety of a never-ending blanket. It asphyxiates slowly but surely, until you no longer struggle against it but accept it, even welcome it as your fate, it being as certain as death.

There are glimpses of humanity from time to time behind those dull and lifeless eyes that used to sparkle like dew drops in the light of sunrise. Yet despite this, you're still an absentee landlord sub-letting your soul to a lodger, who remakes this vacant property into the image of themself. Resplendent on the outside to the eyes of others but hollow and empty on the inside to your own eyes.

You retreat to the cellar, rarely venturing out into a world that you no longer understand, a world that disappeared with your childhood innocence to be replaced by empty silhouettes that are a mere pastiche of what once was.

Yet if you were to take a chance, you would find that there are not just silhouettes in the world, not just black and white, not even shades of grey, but intermittent rainbows of colour.

It can be found in the stories we share with the people we cross paths with on our own lonely journeys...the people that make us feel alive...the people we share comfortable silences with...the people who get under our skin until they are an itch we have to scratch depsite knowing that they will leave a scar...the people who send a billion volts of electricity through us with just one look that only the two of you understand in a secret that is never spoken...the people who blur the rest of reality around them until there is only you and them, trapped in a bubble and dancing endlessly to the tune of a shared heartbeat.

I could tell you all of this, and you would not dare listen, because you do not dare to dream of such impossible things. You do not dare to hope, as to surrender to such desires is a sign of weakness, a cancer that would eat away at you even worse than the despair you feel now. Instead you will return to the comfort of your blanket, cocooned in the familar, not just enduring but embracing your self-loathing.

There will be no pity for you, as you will belong with all the others just like you, amongst shades of mediocrity. When you do at last see a rainbow, it will touch you for the briefest of moments as you try to recollect a half-remembered dream, before dismissing it as a trick of the light. There are no rainbows in your world. There is only black and white.

In years from now, as you face the end, this will slowly come back to haunt you as a dull ache of regret in your bones, and a sigh at the core of your very being. But it will already be too late. The fireflies will have long since vanished, swatted away by your unfeeling hands, by your apathetic soul. You will lament that youth is wasted on the young, then you will catch sight of your reflection, and you will finally see what I see now.

A house where in a distant memory a fire used to burn long ago, that now stands empty as a silent monument not to what is, but to what could have been.

A monstrosity.

Of Pink Elephants.

2010-07-30T23:56:00.009+01:00

A crowded rooftop.
A pink elephant.
A stranger in a blue dress.
A raspberry mojito.
A whiskey sour.
An epic skyline.
An almost full moon.

Stolen glances.
The touch of a hand.
A flirtatious smile.
One of eight million stories.
A laugh like a sailor.
A hint of melancholy.
The beauty of truth.

The blurring of reality.
Interlocking fingers.
The intensity of a gaze.
The biting of a lip.
The caress of sweet kisses.
Little flutters of pleasure.
Time ceases to be.

The regaining of senses.
The man at the top of the world.
Dead foetuses, dead dogs, zombie hamsters.
A lingering farewell in the elevator.
An embrace at the taxi stand.
A parting of ways.
One last longing look.

A hell of a night.

Fireflies and Coach Journeys.

2010-02-22T02:03:00.006Z

Specks of sunlight dance along the surface of the water, like fireflies on turquoise silk, putting on a display of majesty for my eyes only.

Far off, on the horizon, Mount Cook surveys me from her icy peaks...we must seem like fireflies to her, specks of insignificant dust, dancing in the cool breeze. An endless dance of "that's the way I like it".

There is confusion.
There is silence.
There are words left unspoken.

A long road lies ahead, a journey into the unknown, but this moment will remain in my mind's eye forever.

Far from perfect.
Bittersweet.
Beautiful.

The Squall.

2010-01-04T20:58:00.010Z

Sometimes I feel invisible. Or two-dimensional. Like a crudely drawn character on a flickpad, with a life consisting of involuntary movements, without a voice of my own to cry out with. I find myself flailing like a sailor in these moments, my soul gasping for air as it tries to escape the confines of this flesh and blood prison, leaving me feeling something less than solid.

I wonder if others can see that I'm drowning? Does being less solid make me transparent? At times they look right through me without really seeing. They even try to walk right through me with blank looks on faces that can't possibly comprehend. Yet they wouldn't if they knew what was inside. If, as they brushed past me, they touched my core.

It burns like the fire of a thousand suns, a supernova incandescent with a rage and passion, a cold dark storm at its heart as black as the night.

"All your life you live so close to truth it becomes a permanent blur in the corner of your eye. And when something nudges it into outline, it's like being ambushed by a grotesque."

Am I to be that blur, the truth, their grotesque?

I was told today to stop trying to save the world. That not everybody can be saved. That not everyone deserves to be. I begged to differ.

They may shake their heads. They may believe I'm naive. They may even laugh. Yet one of these days a fury will be unleashed through the pores of a skin that already struggles to contain it. My soul will escape, burning an indelible imprint on those who dare to look as it entirely consumes me, leaving only a lonely devastation in its wake.

There will be no mercy.

To whom it may concern.

2009-12-28T04:15:00.004Z

I used to be scared of my own shadow, with nightmares always waiting in a darkness I was unable to escape, a blackness that stalked me everywhere I went. I used to feel lonely, like an outsider, doomed to wander on the wind. I used to believe that it was the end of all things.

These days your words cover me like a blanket, keeping me warm in the cold, striking the fear from my heart. The blackness is still present, but my shadow is no longer just a dark raincloud, it is merely a prelude to a rainbow. I'm still alone, although I no longer feel lonely, or like an outcast. Instead I am a phoenix that is rising from the ashes of the past. I can see clearly now, it is not the beginning of the end, it is simply the end of the beginning.

Yet I desire more.

I want to walk barefoot, feeling the grass between my toes, clasping your hand so it tethers me from floating away in the clouds. I want to feel the touch of your hand on the base of my spine, the smell of your skin as you lean towards me, the warmth of your breath as you whisper secrets into my ear. I want to feel that tingle of electricity between us in that moment just before our lips touch. I want to feel that rat-a-tat-tat as your heartbeat quickens. I want to drown in your soul as your eyes consume mine.

These things I desire may still come to pass in a future yet to be written. Or they may remain as elusive as the dreams that carry you to me like whispers on the wind. It doesn't really matter.

What matters is that I desire at all. What matters is that hope now sits alongside fear. What matters is there is a light in the darkness.

What matters is you.

A Winter's Tale.

2009-12-23T15:52:00.003Z

Sitting on the doorstep, drinking tea that tastes of Christmas, watching the world go by.

Strangers shuffle along, slipping and sliding like Bambi on ice, their faces in deep concentration with thoughts of presents still yet to buy or simply trying to keep their balance. The gentle roar of planes sound over my head, with people flying home to their families and loved ones for the holidays, covering up the distant noise of sleighbells.

The mailman arrives, bearing a card from distant shores, containing photographs and a faint whiff of perfume that makes my heart leap and transports my mind back to memories of a winter past.

This winter seems colder by comparison.

"Hold me"

"I can't"

I may as well have scissors for hands.

Tick-Tock.

2009-12-16T23:30:00.006Z

Midnight.

My toes and fingers feel as numb as my soul. My teeth are chattering like a percussionist on acid. Yet I still find myself on the rooftop, sipping on a steaming hot cup of coffee, inhaling several drags of nicotine. Big Ben marks the hour, pointedly serving as a portend of my own mortality, 'tick-tock tick-tock BONG!'...

Trains rumble past every few minutes, reminding me of home, of adventures once taken and journeys I've yet to take... 'But all my words come back to me in shades of mediocrity, like emptiness in harmony I need someone to comfort me...'

The Girl with the Moon in her Eyes joins me for a moment or two, interrupting my self-imposed exile and causing the temperature to rise with her laughter that chimes like musical bells, combined with a sudden fire that erupts in my loins. Any such thoughts are immediately quenched when her sweethearted nature makes me blush on the inside, replacing sexual desire with a craving for her childlike warmth, a warmth that I lost long ago.

Somewhere in the distance I can hear a male and female screaming. It's unclear if it's from passion, or pain, or possibly both. The Girl with the Moon in her Eyes departs.

It begins to snow as I finish checking my messages. It's been a long cold night but now respite comes from being warmed by whispers sent on the wind.

I no longer feel so numb.

I extinguish my cigarette underfoot.

I should probably go and investigate those screams.

I wish.

2009-12-09T23:48:00.008Z

I wish I had the answers to all the questons. I wish I could grow into this shell. I wish I knew how it feels to be you - if only for a split second. I wish I could stop waking up in the foetal position. I wish there would be silence except for your heartbeat and the warmth of your breath caressing my skin.

But I don't have all the answers. I don't feel comfortable in this skin. I don't know you anymore than I know myself. I'm still a baby in the womb of life. I'm overwhelmed by white noise. You're not here.

I have a pocketful of wishes, each as crazy as the last, as worthless as lint. Yet I still have hope that one of these days they may just come true.

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep...

2009-12-08T23:52:00.006Z

The strains of Pet Sounds play in the background, as perhaps they have always done, like the soundtrack to my life... 'Wouldn't it be nice...'

Winter is here and with it comes uncertainty and melancholy. The air is crisp as people rush like worker ants through the city streets, their faces all a blur...a whiff of perfume here, a smile there, the sound of children laughing...these are the things that prevent the chill I feel in my bones spreading further like a disease into my soul.

There is a tiredness within me that I can't seem to shake. If I could give into it, if I could hibernate, I would. But I can't. So instead I want to scream. But it's been so long that I've forgotten how. Even if I were to remember, even if I were to start screaming, I'm afraid that once I began I would never stop.

Yet there is some beauty to this depthlessness and darkness. A distant light burns on its fringes with an incandescence, one that guides me ever closer, like a lighthouse signalling the way home across the ocean. A home that's just out of reach. For now, I console myself with fond memories of times past, finding solace in the words of strangers. There is a comfort to them and the promise of rebirth.

Perhaps there may even be a place for this weary albatross to rest his head.

...but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep."

A Tale of the Unexpected.

2009-10-14T00:06:00.010+01:00

"Are you a storyteller?"

"I was, once."

"And you gave it up? Ah, that is as sad a tale in three words as any you might have told me. But a life without a tale is like a sea without salt. How do you live?"

"I live."

"Another? In two words, a story sadder than the first. Say no more, with one word you will make me weep."

---

I love stories but I'm not a natural storyteller. Not verbally at least. More often than not I stumble over finding the right words, or I get too excited by the story I'm telling and give away the ending before I've even started, or I fail to lend it the necessary gravitas or humour it deserves.

And so for a time, for that reason amongst many others, I gave up telling stories. In fact I gave up telling stories almost entirely, preferring to keep my own counsel and communicating only when I needed to, rather than when I wanted to.

Instead I buried my stories within me, in the dark recesses that even my inner monologue doesn't reach, until one day I would find them once again.

It's been an enlightening process rediscovering these stories once again. Some I have lost forever, but others have risen to the surface like the bubbles in a frosted glass of beer, making me giddy with pleasure.

Then there has been the joy of discovering the stories of people like yourselves, sharing in the laughter and the tears of your comedies and tragedies, your romances and thrillers, your life lessons and disasters.

It may be autumn and my favourite time of year right now, but for me it seems that the long cold lonely winter may finally be over and like a flower touched by the first rays of sun in spring, I've begun to open up once again.

Such is the power of stories.