Never say ever

It never ends, but that’s the point isn’t it?

I often find myself at odds with the sincere inability to reconcile these two opposing forces, the want for a future and the want for the pain to stop. You can’t have both, and this is why we sling our burdens over our shoulders and carry them with us into these lonely nights.  You either let the weight grind you down until it breaks you, until you can’t take it anymore and just give up, or you grow stronger from bearing it until you can’t feel its gravity anymore.

It’s far too easy to give up, to just let your defeat become your end.  This is why so many lose themselves, because the way out is painful and difficult.  I suppose I’ve always made things harder on myself than I have to, so needless to say I’ve prepared myself well for what lies ahead, but it never gets any easier, and it never gets any less terrifying than to walk the road into the darkness on your own.

This is the price of redemption though, the price of adventure and discovery.  And to say no to that is to give up on the amazing gift we’ve been given to be a part of this ride through the cosmos.  I keep reminding myself of this as often as I can, a mantra to distract me from what can sometimes feel like the crushing weight of my most profound fears. 

You can let the terror of the dark paralyze you, let the bumps in the night stop you dead in your tracks while you sweat bullets and wait for something awful to come out and grab you.  Or you can lose yourself in the void, let it take you until you become that bump in the night, that terrifying memory of the things we dream up in the blackness.

Or you can be the terror, the thing the dark is afraid of letting in.  A lost boy holding out the hot coals of his burning desire to light the way.  You can demand that this future has your name on it, insist that it belongs to you and no matter how hard this world tries to take that away the fight will only come to an end when I find mine.

The Storm

You don’t have a choice.  This is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to come to terms with.  The narrative of our lives has always been one of choice, choose what flavour you want, choose who you want to look like, choose your path, choose your destiny.  You can be anything, do anything, go anywhere, as long as you want it bad enough and work even harder.  We trudge along this course in irons against unrelenting wind of circumstance, and despite our best efforts and undying unwillingness to accept the nature of this world, there is no stopping the storm, all you can do is brace yourself, and too often we trade vigilance for false comfort in thinking we have a say in any of this.

This is my sin.  My admission of guilt.  That I let myself get too comfortable in this beaming brightness to remember what the dark even looks like.  But the moon is as unstoppable as the sun, and eventually a reminder of its coming becomes a looming truth, a time come, a falling darkness.

I can’t kid myself, pretend like I didn’t see this coming.  I’ve always been one high up on the lookout knowing those rolling clouds will someday come for us, ready to scream and shout at the top of my lungs to warn us all to remember what is always waiting.  Even in my deepest ignorance there was a voice in my head screaming, dying to be heard, warning me that there wasn’t much time left.  But I was too scared to listen to him, to admit the truth he told.

I suppose I thought it was finally time to rest my guard, to lay this burden down on the ground, to tuck away my vigilance somewhere I know it would be waiting for me when I needed it.  My vision tunneled, my restless thoughts took ease, and that shimmering beautiful thing let me see myself in a light I’ve long forgotten.  Such a sight is one you get lost in, you forget yourself, the world around you dissolves into a void and all you have left is this beautiful golden shine, the very thing we fight so hard to find our whole lives.

The storm is clever though, it has nothing to get lost in, no love to cause it to dither, it only has time to lie in wait for moments like these, and it knows exactly when to bear down on you, when it thinks it can break you.

Some give up in its wake quickly, they bend and twist, they break and cower under its violent lashes.  Others stand up tall like a proud palm as if to say to these winds “give me your best shot”.  Both are fools, because sometimes the only way out, is to know when to run…

New ends

There’s comfort in the end…

A sense of senselessness.

Knowing there’s nothing left to be known.

The end can always be found, there are many roads that lead to many ends, and some are shorter than others.  But the end we choose counts for something, and the road we take counts for everything else left behind.  Sometimes it’s as easy as giving up, just stopping where you stand and saying “I quit.”  Other times we carry ourselves till we’re broken, old, empty and lost, left to die holding onto the one last thing we have in this world to call our own…  Regret…

When you’re hurt, there is nothing on your mind but a short end, a quick road, a jaunt down the path to a place foreign to suffering.  You grasp for anything within reach and clench on for dear life.  More often than not we grab the things we keep closest to us when wounded, things like anger, self-deprecation, a baseball bat with the word hate scrawled into it.  Not long after we start to swing, to lash out, to hope for the strength to beat this awful intangible burden off our chest so that you can breathe again.  But this is always our first mistake, because it is too easy to destroy, and more often than not we smash the things we keep even closer, the ones we love.

To build, or to rebuild I suppose…  Is the long road, the hard road, the one we so desperately do not want to find ourselves walking down when having to carry such a crippling burden on our shoulders.    You can tell yourself over and over again that it’s the “right” thing to do, that the only choice is to crawl out of the awful feeling in the pit of your stomach and free yourself.  But it never makes it easier, and it never makes the dark path ahead any less terrifying.  This is the price of discovery though, the toll of exploration, finding a new place to give you the peace of that word “home” we use so frequently but could not understand any less than we do ourselves.

It’s a hard price to pay.

I cannot blame my brothers and sisters for their lack of will to concede to such a cost.  But this is a road that leads to an end I can live with, one that doesn’t mean the end for me.  Even in the blistering moment of anxiety and terror that greets me every day I wake up, I cannot lose sight of this,  I cannot ask myself for anything less.  At the end of these hard dark days, I will sleep better knowing I gave as much as I could and got as far as the road would let me go…

Gone

My heart doesn’t just break…

It is obliterated, atom by atom, a while hot searing light permeates every depth of my soul and leaves not even ash to lay somewhere in sentiment.  As if it never existed, all that I’ve thought is false, gone, and the life I have been living is not one I understand anymore.  Like a terrible nightmare that I cannot wake up from, each time I think I escape it for a moment, when sleep is kind enough to bring its silent night and let me fall into a sea of awful dreams and a battlefield I wish not to go back to again.  Each day I wake up, I remember where I am, alone, lost, cold, not any closer to finding an answer or rational for why this might be ok, why going on even makes sense anymore.

Times like these people would tell me to just “keep going on, take it one day at a time.”  But how many days do we wait, how many of these unfair mornings do I subject myself to?  How many mornings to I wake to an anxiety that makes me sick to my stomach before I can even think of the reality I am waking up to.

How many times can I say it?  In how many different ways can I tell you that I miss you?  I have lost the stars in my sky and the way to my heart.  I have watched the sun set and has yet to come back up for me even though its been days since I’ve seen it.

Every night I rest my head, I try to get rid of the sick feeling in my stomach, the knowing, the not knowing, the constant wonder of direction and purpose.  Asking what tomorrow will bring and how I am going to find my way again.  These are the things that keep me up at night, that keep me wondering what the future holds.  

The road ahead is dark, its lonely, it is terrifying.  But I walk.  I walk because I have no choice, I walk because of those who have taken this road before me, and the stories they have brought back with them. 

This is the only salvation I can hope to find for myself, that someday I will come back down this road to the place I once stood, the place where it does’t hurt to just be, the place where I finally belong…

The loss

My gut takes a hit and turns over onto itself.

A rolling sick twist that kicks all these feelings I’ve buried deep down right back up into my chest, the last place where I want them.  That is the horror of this awful thing, that it poisons the good, it tarnishes the once golden, and those memories you looked on to bring you the strength you so desperately need right now, just bring you to your knees in pain.  A sick sad reminder of what you will never have a chance at again.  This.  Is.  Loss.

There is something very human about letting loss take its toll on you, to let the sick wild fever run its course and make you heave up all night in an anxious sweat that does not take a break, despite how loudly your body is begging for rest from these sleepless nights.  But like any fever, any awful sickness you catch out in this cold dark world, it has to run its course, and each day has to start with a step towards a day where the sun will finally decide to come out and remind you of why we let ourselves go out into these dangers places.  Without this, without hope, there is nothing but a consuming darkness that will let us destroy ourselves in its cloak, or find sad comfort away from the light we all deserve to fight for.

But still, the fever rages on…  No amount of logic you can throw at it will find you safe quarter, it will find its way into your day and remind you of its pain, and that for a long time there will be no escaping its awful face.  This is the terrible battle we live between the two sides of ourselves, the bad and the good, the sad and the delightful, they are constantly tearing us between their grasp, and as familiar as the struggle is, it takes its toll on us and it doesn’t take long to just stop caring which side wins, just as long as you can finally have one or the other...

Darkness and Co.

The darkness has always had a good way of sneaking so many other things in with it.  I suppose that’s why so many make a good friend of the dark, because if you wan’t to get somewhere without being noticed, she’ll more than likely oblige if the price is right.  

That’s just it though… The price is what matters, and some of us are willing to give up the very thing the rest of us could never dream putting on the line.  So we continue our casual dance of misunderstanding, our inability to try and see through the stains on the glass we’ve left after pounding our hands on it all night trying to get the others attention.  We let the rhythm of this awful dance take us up in its arms and rock us two and fro, after all it is just so easy to take it’s hand and give up.  Giving up has always been the easy part, and I’ve never been one to make things easy on myself.  

I suppose that’s why I am so surprised.  I thought that the only person more stubborn than me was going to be you, and that even when I was at my wits end, you’d be the one grabbing my hand and pulling me up from the creep of this deadly night, the one that wants so desperately to bring me back to her dance of floor.  The shock of it hit me as soon as I reached out my hand, only to realize that yours wasn’t there, and for the first time, it sunk in that I was going to fall, and you would not be there to catch me.  That hurt more than the sudden stop at the end.

It starts with a sting, a ringing, a complete sense of disorientation that slowly gives away to a marching band of terrible pain, screaming its way through every ounce of your body until you are certain there is no escaping its song.  Crumpled, fractured, I lay there realizing not that my body is broken, but despite the most brutal pain and a promise of days to come where I know nothing else, I still can’t stop myself from asking “where were you?”…  

There is no question that is harder to ask than this one, because there just isn’t an answer, and even if there were, it is so far beyond our reach that we have better things to hope for in our lives than ever finding what it might be.  I’ve never been ok with having a question that I was told I had to give up on, that I had to walk away and just forget I ever asked.  Doing so is an injustice that I do not bear lightly, and I struggle and hurt myself with the fact that I even try to bear it at all.  

Saying Goodbye

I can remember how tight he held my hand.

How fast he pulled me along, the sound of the old leaves crushing under our feet, the panic in his breath as he yelled at me not to look back and just keep running.    “Just like we talked about remember?  You stare straight ahead, you run, keep your eye on what’s in front of you.”  I knew we were in trouble.  

This wasn’t the first time we’ve had to get somewhere in a hurry, and we’ve run from all kinds of things before.  But this was different, whatever was behind us scared him, and the fear dripping from his every breath terrified me enough to do exactly as he said and not take even a moment to see whatever horrible thing is finding its way towards us.  

I tripped, he pulled on my arm, I feel behind, he pulled on my arm, I ran out of breath, he pulled harder on my arm until it felt like it was going to come off.  I knew he wasn’t trying to hurt me, far from it, he was doing everything he could to stop what at this point felt like the inevitable.  The more we ran, the more terrified he seemed to get, as if that that thing behind us wasn’t getting any further away, but instead minute by minute closing the gap as we stumbled our way through the thick.  

The only time he looked back was to look in my eyes and try to reassure me we were going to make it, but each time it only made me realize that this was bad, we were in trouble.

One last time he looked back at me, with a face I will never forget, and said “Remember what we talked about?” My gut sank instantly. “You run, you don’t stop, even if your blood boils you run until you can’t run anymore.  You do just like I told you.”  His face changed “This is it..."

He let go of my hand screamed “Don’t you dare look back!” and let himself fall behind as I ran harder than I’ve ever run before.  He didn’t need to say anything else, I knew exactly what he was going to do, and as much as it made me almost throw up as I ran for my life, he taught me right, and I knew what I had to do.  So I ran, I ran and I listened to him fall behind enough until they were right on top of him, that’s when I heard the screaming, and that’s when I ran even faster, desperately trying to escape the sounds of him being picked off by that awful thing so I could have enough time to make it, maybe just far enough to lose them.  He taught me well because he knew me well, he knew I had ‘the something’.  That ember that never goes out despite how hard the world tries to snuff it from existence.  

After running until I collapsed from exhaustion, I was far enough away, I lost them.  I was so tired, I couldn’t even cry, I just laid on the ground and let tears stream down my face as I desperately tried to catch my breath.  I was alone, but nothing had changed, the world was still just as awful as it was, it just had one less good guy fighting in it now.  The only words that ran through my head over and over was “what am I going to do?”.  What am I going to do?  I’m alone, lost, and in some deep shit that I was no where near ready to cope with.  “Ready or not, here I come!” says the world, and in that moment you have two choices, fight or die, get up or give up.  He taught me well because he knew me well, he knew I could get up again, even if I didn’t believe it myself.

I could have laid in those woods forever, just waited for death to come and show me where it just took my friend, but that thing inside of us won’t settle for that, and so before nightfall, I found my way to a tree I could climb and set up my nest for the evening.  Just like he taught me.

Treasure

I guess I've been dead for some time now…

How could I keep this up for as long as I have if I wasn't?   

After losing everything there is to live for, going forward seems more than pointless, or blatantly foolish, but an insult to the sanctity of the world I've lost.  I've never been one to do what I’m told though, so I’m sure it’s no surprise to see me out here, walking in the face of all the good advice that I was once the kind proprietor of.  There’s a good reason why I find myself walking alone, though “good” might not really be the word for it.  I’m alone because no one should have to see all that’s become of us in the face of this great tragedy, none are meant to see the worst of this through till an end so bitter, I can taste it getting stronger and stronger with each day that passes into this ultimate unknown.  So why am I so special?  I’m not, and I guess that’s the point…  It’s not without her that I find the will to endure another day, and had I not made that promise to her, I would have ended this so so long ago. I suppose that is the only thing alive left in me, and that ember, that spark, deep deep down keeps me lit to carry it on into the darkness of another day.  I suppose it’s enough to carry me on, after all, this world has so little to give anymore, even the smallest things can become treasure…

White Lies - Date Unknown

I tell her a lie to indulge her sensibilities.

Something to hold the questions at bay long enough for me to think of something to say.  The days are hard enough as is, and now isn’t the time to burden her with the awful truth.  Though I’m sure she’ll be furious with me for not telling her sooner, she’ll also know why it was probably for the best, after all, there are some things that are just belter off unseen.  That’s the world we live in, and some of us have to bear the burden of witness, the whole truth and nothing but…

The others, those who can’t stomach it, we do our best to hide them from the abyss, the void that goes so deep it stares straight back into you.  It’s not a matter of if they can handle it or not, it’s more about holding hope that some of us can grow up and live in a world without having to know the terrible price it comes at, having to see the truth behind these walls.

It’s not like it used to be, these are no longer matters of choice, we do this because there’s no one left who can, and unlike those who can keep running with their backs turned on the world, we can’t go quiet into that good night, we cannot give up without a good fight…  Sometimes I wonder if perhaps I’ve already lost everything and that this struggle is all I have left that I haven’t given up on or had taken away from me.  Maybe that’s why I lie to her, because I can’t stand to see what little innocence we have left to be taken away by this, just another casualty of war….

This shelter I try to keep over her head is a reminder of the way things should be, and how much they’ve changed in so little time.  Even with all the doom and gloom in my heart, I never thought we’d turn on each other so quickly and so viciously.  Our only saving grace was my equal viciousness in holding on to what was really keeping us going.  Not just the food or the water, but a reason, a hope, a way out.  Anything that came between us and that saw just how awful and ferocious a man can be when he’s backed into a corner.  It’s that same panic that I’m feeling now as I try to figure out our next move, how we’re going to find our way out, and how much longer I can keep lying to her until I finally need to tell her the truth…

April - Date Unknown

She always carried herself with the grace of a goddess, as if she took the breath out of every room she whisked her way into.  That’s how I knew something was wrong, not that anyone else would notice though, not unless it was someone who knew her well enough, someone who could see that freighted look in her eyes, someone like me. 

We can’t keep up the act forever, eventually the burden of living this fight starts to break through, and all that leaks out are our desperate attempts to hold it all together just a little longer.  Few can keep it up as long as we have, and even we know our time will come, but what scares me is I thought she was like us, the ones left behind to tell these tales to the young, so hopefully someday they can stand here and do the same.  But those eyes have a different story to tell now, and it’s not the one about the girl who had it all and lived happier ever after.  Instead it’s the same old story of the fallen and defeated, the ones who let the sadness take its hold and drag them through the mud of the awful truth.  A good soldier knows when to leave the wounded where they lie and press on, do or die…  But despite all the sharp edges this world has carved into me, she still brings softness to me and reminds me of the most important reason for why we fight.  So that even the hardest of hearts can find that grace to let themselves melt, if only for a moment. 

It is this softness that I cannot simply abandon… 

I can’t turn my back on the one thing I have left, on the very reason I picked up this sword in the first place.  I can still remember basking for hours in the glow of the fire in her eyes.  Those first few times seeing such unbridled passion, and one that wasn’t turned within.  It’s far too easy to be selfish with such radiance, but for her, for us, freedom was the only language we spoke , and neither of us could get a good night’s rest until that was the world we were all living in. 

How things change….

How the fight changes us….

Perhaps like martyrs we bear and absorb these burdens so that the light we once touched can stay lit in this dark world, and like the muse, we get none of it for ourselves. 

But is it a price worth paying? 

Or is this loss what I have left to give?

I may never know, but it’s the choice that makes us human and that’s all this has ever really been about.

Though we’ve lost sight of that, maybe this cold lonely look in your eyes is exactly what I needed.  A reminder that the end is always nipping at our heels, and much like her, I have too much unfinished business to give up now.  Though I’d love nothing more than to stay behind and kill myself trying to drag her out of the truth she’s chosen, I’d do no justice to those cold nights when her eyes kept me warm….

Don't Look Back - Date Unknown

I've never been very good at letting go, but then again that’s why I’m so good at keeping things together. 

I suppose I’ve lost sight of that for some time now, and the longer I’m caught in this grasp, the more I start to wonder if it’s finally time to loosen my grip, to give up, to finally break a promise I never thought I would break.  I've become like those foolish old men I used to admonish for their stubborn ways, lost, chasing a world dead and gone long before they are.  Some are lucky and they find their time in the world, their place in the mix of it all, but so many more are standing on the shores of time waiting for the impossible to return.  Like good patron saints their dedication is unquestionable as they stare into the void of what used to be and wait for death to take them away from this world they can’t cope with.  Unlike them it’s not too late for me to find a new way, to cut these losses and move on without the burden of what will never be.  But the only way is forward, and maybe the only hope, is to let go and never look back.

Thunder - Date Unknown

The storm always brings a lot with it.

More often than not, it brings along thoughts of you, thoughts of how we used to dance around in this rain for hours without little care for much else.  Now I'm standing out here alone in this darkness waiting for the thunder to come, so when it finally fills the air and shakes me to my heart, I can call out your name and hope it will be carried across the sky to somewhere you might hear it.  Part of me knows you’re out there listening to the sounds of the rain, listening for that faint whisper of your name…. 

The other part of me though, thinks I’m a fool to bother, that even if this whisper could reach her, you wouldn't be listening anyways.  Still, like the young boy I once was I try to carry the best of my hopes out from my dreams and into the real world.  I try, despite how much better I know, to hope that someday you might be brought back to me.  That perhaps like the shamans of the old I can summon you back from the dark, back to where I need her most. Have I just become a victim to the delusions of this dark magic?  The false sense of power it brings to us in our times of need?  Or do I keep coming back out here because I can’t stop thinking about you, and that part of me knows, more than anything, that you're out just waiting to hear your name.

Virtue - Date Unknown

There’s a simple reason why men like us carry these burdens on our shoulders. 

We simply can't bear the sight of virtue lying in the mud when there’s no one else left to carry them anymore.  It’s sad, but the truth usually is.  What happens when even the most dedicated of saints can’t keep up the fight anymore?  When the pointlessness sets in and leaves our foundations in ruin?  When not all the good will left in the world is enough to lift us up and carry our way of life any further?  I suppose it then becomes a question of dying by virtues side, or going on in a world without it.  Some things we’re willing and able to do without, now I am left asking myself if this is really one of them or is the road ahead one I’m just not willing to go down?  How long have I been here asking myself this?  I guess all that really matters is the journey towards the answers, trying to figure out the awful mess so that maybe still, even after all this, something good can still be found.

Restlessness - No Date

Restlessness… 

That’s the only word I have for it. 

The night has left me sleepless, alone, and that sweet soft drawl that always makes my eyelids heavy, is nowhere to be found. Instead all I’m left with is emptying thoughts rattling around my head like thunder in the night. Questions that scream so loud I can’t even sit quietly in the dark and try to find my way to some rest. 

This thirst has me tossing, turning, pacing through these halls until I can’t take it anymore. It truly is a maddening feeling to be a prisoner to your own head like this, to know that I have little choice but to face the fact that this thing won’t put up with the games I've been playing anymore. 

Cigarettes don’t really help, but they give me something to lie to myself about. After a while I’m out on the streets watching the city while it sleeps. I can’t help but be overcome with a sense of jealousy in the stillness of it, how even the most awful of beasts can find peace… What does that make me? Something worse? Does it even matter?  At the end of the line I am still just a lost boy out in the night trying to find his way to a home that isn't there anymore, wandering with pockets full of false purpose. 

Despite this, the twilight always takes me in with open arms. Maybe that’s why I keep coming back to her like this. She never cares why I’m here, or judges me for the sins that keep me in her lonely embrace, she’s just content another one of her children has found his way back to her. Like any comfort though, the night comes and goes. She can’t be here for me when the sun sends her hiding for cover, then I am just left to another day, exhausted and no closer to finding any answers to keep the nights like these at bay.

The Wings of Hubris

Sometime I wonder how we ever got such stupid ideas in our heads.  

How we ever thought that anything could ever stay the same, or why we even want it to for that matter.  Life is flux, and it’s meaning lies in taking your new house of cards that you’ve spent all this time building and sending them crashing to the ground.  The same destruction breeds opportunity, it is only out of our ashes where we can rise up and find the heights that we crave.  For so long we’ve built pedestals and platforms to pull ourselves up so we could climb higher and higher without having to fall.  But nobody beats the crash, eventually it comes calling to bring all of it back down to the ground.  Except this time we’ve build the whole world up here in the clouds, generations of us, some who’ve never even seen how deep it goes down.  You can kid yourself for as long as you want, eventually the truth comes calling for us all.  Only this time it didn’t want just us, it wanted to take away everything and anything we have built for ourselves.  Our penance for trying to live in ignorance of our own nature.  Some lessons are harder to learn that others and some bear greater weight if you do not learn from them.  This was our undoing, our great hubris, and like the sun, when it comes, none of us will find the shade.