Destruction.

There is no escaping the demons gnawing at your mind, twisting realities into an ever dark abyss - or if there is, you choose not that road. You told me once that you would make it through; after a night on the edge of it all, but here you are again, dangling your toes, tempting the winds and rains to knock you down for once and all.

The poison in your mind has spread deep down to your heart and stolen the warmth out of your smile, and I'm not used to such coldness in brown eyes. You're killing yourself off, you know. Still receiving air but refusing life. Taking in the remedy that destroys you. 

I wish I could coax you out from whatever corner of yourself you've locked yourself away in. I wish I could believe that that corner does exist. 

I'm clinging so desperately to another you, of not so long ago. Oh, how I'm willing that person to claim himself again. Bright mind to bright future -- not this. 

Please. Just. I want to believe that you will be okay.

S.

{Photo: Joe Coleman Flickr}

Release the hounds.

Heaven has its dents.
I'll let you know, you aren't perfection,
But you're close,
and that will do, for me.

I'm finding happiness doesn't come as tidy as it leaves;
It rises from the memory
Of the hundred sorry nights
you just had to survive.

And congrats, you're still alive,
but it's gone again.
A hundred more.
A giant mess stretched on the floor.

You can set the wolves upon us now.
They'll run us down, but we can drive.
Do you know how you will die?
You'll be alone, but not tonight.

S. 

{Photo: Search-the-Wolves Flickr}

Dimmer.

I don't claim to have ever known the love of another. I have nothing but the feeling of my chest caving under the weight of two easy stares to measure against that poetic verb. 

I'm getting better at occupying the chasm, though. I fill it with music and words and empty touches, reaching moments of near contentedness. But too easily does it drain at the sight of ebony hair and a sweet smile dancing in a faultless rhythm, while I clap clumsily on the side. 

Mind you, I am thankful in my own way. My nomadic spirit rejoices - singing a melody of freedom - beside my longing soul. Fall in love with other things, it tells me, with languages and places and people you will never meet, with strangers in the check-out line. Fall in love with the mysteries of the world, with knowledge, friendships, and the perfect cinnamon latte before you let the sun outshines the moonbeams. 

And that adventure is something to behold, when it isn't so distracted by a grin in another direction. 

S. 

{Photo: Adriano Sondré Photography}

Before the dawn.

I am done with my graceless heart, so tonight I'm going to cut it out and then restart.

Florence Welch

{Photo: Viola Cangi Flickr}

Fade to dust.

I stayed up until the earliest morning's gold touched down and unfurled itself at the worlds edge. So sure, I had been, that I could stop tomorrow from coming if I could hold steady my grip on today. But it shifted in my grasp. I have only hours until the world wakes up around me and forces me to accept this movement I'm enclosed in.

You never told me why you didn't wait.

I've guessed that the moments I missed carried you away in the end. Often and again, I remind myself that that's okay - with words so simple to repeat and so impossible to feel. But I will try again this new day: it is good this way. 

S. 

{Photo: Alexander Duvall Flickr}

Damage.

If you're still breathing, you're the lucky ones/ Because most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs/ Setting fire to our insides for fun/ Collecting names of the lovers that went wrong. 

And if you're in love, then you are the lucky one/ Because most of us are bitter over someone/ Setting fire to our insides for fun/ To distract our hearts from ever missing them. 

But I'm forever missing him.

by Elena Tonra (Daughter)

{Photo via: We Heart It}

Daydrifter.

All people dream, but not equally.
Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their mind,
Wake in the morning to find that it was vanity.

But the dreamers of the day are dangerous people,
For they dream their dreams with open eyes,
And make them come true.

D.H. Lawrence

{Photo: Alexander Duvall Flickr}

"What If -"

I told myself I wouldn't write about that night. And even when my mind flits over it, taunting me gently with delusions of grandeur -- placing emphasis on insignificance -- I am quick to correct it. To strip away any romanticising of the evening, and force it to remain as it was: Calm, natural, and - for what counts - meaningless.

 That human part of me longs to pick it apart. To piece together something from nothing, as the saying goes.

But if I know me, I know that the story I'd like to create is a little too enchanting; a difficult one to put down. I know this because I've already had to. Many times over. I spin an small parting word into a soliloquy, a comment into a ballad. I forget that the pair of us are strangers, really. And not good ones at that: continually running from the others life. Or was that only me? (No).

When I look back on the past year, I see how our lives were so shaped by our movements. I - we - could never stand stoic long enough to see anything beyond the moment. There was never time to allow things to unfold. That was our mistake. That - and my insufferable need to bar myself from saying, out loud, what I assumed you already knew. 

You asked a question, before I disappeared again - off to bask myself in the forgiving sun of Italy, and give my heart to France's charm. Almost rhetorical. But I knew it wasn't that. 

I answered wrong. 

In part, because I didn't understand your meaning when the words first broke the silence. But, I think more than that, because it didn't matter. It shouldn't have, anyways. But as it consumes me softly, day by day, I see that it must matter more to me than anything I've known before.

I wish I had been brave enough to let you see then what was inside my heart - 

and what was not. 

S. 

{Photo via: We Heart It}

Advice.

'Never love a wild thing, Mr. Bell,' Holly advised him. 'That was Doc's mistake. He was always lugging home wild things. A hawk with a hurt wing. One time it was a full-grown bobcat with a broken leg. But you can't give your heart to a wild thing: the more you do, the stronger they get. Until they're strong enough to run into the woods. Or fly into a tree. Then a taller tree. Then the sky. That's how you'll end up, Mr. Bell. If you let yourself love a wild thing. You'll end up looking at the sky.'

Truman Capote

{Photo via: We Heart It}

All is quiet here.

I've been moving from one city to the next. And while each change in scenery is welcomed, I cannot help but feel that the weather is following me; pinning me under its spell. A lonesome grip held by the chilled and dampened grey.

I long for the rising of the sun, even just to remind me that it's real. To awake the frozen skin I'm covered in; to reveal the colours of the earth, hidden in plain sight, gone unnoticed without illumination. 

I had hoped that leaving the country would open up the doors to inspiration and revive this deadened piece of me. Instead I still feel underneath it all. Buried deep under some weight I cannot name, apart from even the comfort of words. (My words, that is.) I've found there is no easy stream of language overtaking me. I'm met with silence, growing ever more disturbing to my heart.

The quietness of the land does little to comfort me. What should bring a soft relaxation brings rather a raw desperation. I find I cannot open my mouth to speak here; each sound echoing in this valley. 

And while beauty surrounds me down every bend, it too is burdened by the stillness and the grey. I feel that it longs, as I do, to come alive.

S. 

{Photo via: We Heart It}