The Stir From The Deep - Date Unknown

I saw love in their eyes tonight and like some old forgotten language, I could only catch the gist of what they were conveying between one another.  Those old feelings do not take much to muster though, and before I knew what was going on, I was wrapped up in memories of you and the times when we looked at each other the same way.

That was a long time ago, far past needing to be remembered.  You don’t get to chose what sticks around though and there are some things that you just can't shake off. For me, she will probably always be one of them, “The one that got away” they used to say, an old tragic cliche.

At the end of the day, I get it.  I know why thing are the way they are, and even better than that, I know I cannot change the things I would like to.  But that’s the life we live, our only choice in the face of this is to make something of the things that we can still change.  If there’s one place you can look to find this, it’s inside of yourself.  That is a scary journey to take though and even I find myself a coward in times when I should show the bravery my mother used to speak of.

Tragedy is like gravity, it has no morals, and it claims the young and the old alike. It is always waiting around the corner, and he's an unpredictable beast who has no regard for your life when it’s moving along well.  When you’re up against such relentless enemies, you must be just as relentless yourself, even in the face of the most hollowing of sights.

This is where so many people lose their ground, when they are not willing or able to do what it takes, to bear witness to the reasons why fear lives in our hearts.  It is no surprise that their stomach turns so easily at the sight of it, this isn’t the way things are supposed to be after all.  The few of us who can bear the burden of the horror, we lead the scared and weak through the dark with their eyes shut tightly.  Like terrified children they don't stand a chance without a hand to guide them through it.  I know I can't save them all.  Losing her taught me that.  I do what I can though, and no matter what that must be enough.  If it is not, well, then none of us stand a chance out here.

There's a sediment of my love that has been stirred by the look they have for each other.  It’s another reminder among few, another reason why we resist, why we keep this fight going, and why I try to save as many of them as I can.  I have no doubt I try so hard because I could not save her, and every hand that takes mine to find a way out, I cannot refuse.  When our wars are over, there will need to be someone left behind to learn all the lessons it had to teach us.  Otherwise this, all this fades into vanity and nothingness.  Part of me cannot live with that, and though I know that could change any day, I will not stop.  I will not let this fade without a fight for my life.  Even though it may just cost me that, I’m ok with that.

The Meaning - Date Unknown

For a long time now all I have seen down the road ahead is doom and gloom.
With good reason of course.
After all we’ve done to each other, all the awful plans we had in store for one another, how can you blame me?  The future has been bleak at best, and that’s a hard tomorrow to walk into.  But hope lies in the step we take into the unknown, the choice we make to shatter this dark future.

Those who work so hard to hide our salvation always do so behind curtains of fear and certain death.  They aren’t fools after all, they know it works every time.  Too many have been brought up to think their strength lies somewhere outside of themselves.  Many fall victim to these clever tricks and go through life with empty hearts.  I used to see them passing me every day, their sleeping souls floating behind those thirsty glassy eyes.  

Things change though.  Even the big stuff we think will always stay the same.  It is in this where I find my solace, my comfort in a hope for hope.  If this is not a reason to endure, I know not what else could be.

That has been the trick this whole time.
So many people immediately brandished the most violent lashes of their force.  But no one can keep that up forever.  Our enemy isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and his best accomplice follows you wherever you run to, because it hides in you.  The damage is always two fold when you do battle on your own ground, all the victims and pitfalls of its course sink into the mud and permeate the earth of our hearts.  The aftermath stays around long after the rain does its best work, and our scars bear a constant reminder to how deep their hold is on us.

I’m not special, I’ve never thought that somehow I’d end up where I am today.  All I know is that I’m here whether I like it or not, and these days ahead are mine to make.  You have to be patient though, and you must endure.  Fear and horror are the campaigns of their war on us, those who cannot stand the sights of them cannot stand against their tyranny over the human spirit.  That is what this is about after all, holding onto the purest forms of the human condition in an attempt to keep the candle lit as we march through the dark.  Sometimes this means bearing witness to the awful stuff.  After all, someone has to, otherwise it will fade into vanity, a shame indeed.

This has always been our struggle, to bring meaning into this world and nurture it into something that can pass itself on.  We’ve always come up with the cleverest ways of doing this, in the face of everything we've done, we’ve still carried our stories through time. 

As insurmountable the odds seem, nothing’s changed. We’ve always been up against the end, it has just never been so pronounced as it is now.  I’ve seen the weak ones let it rattle their resolve, but those of us who know what’s at stake here, they hold their ground like it’s the last piece of the world they can call their own.  I know that for better or worse, I have no choice but to push on and do the only thing it is I know.

Keep this alive.

The Simple Stuff - Date Unknown

It’s the sad songs we always seem to dance to.

As lovely as that is, even in the undeniable grace of our practiced steps we can’t deny the tune of our hearts beating in unison.  There seems to be no hope in the things I hope for, the ground we’ve rooted  ourselves in is cold and void of the rich life I thought that I tasted on your lips.

I’m not sure what it is about the song of sorrow and its power to bring us together, but I cannot deny the rhythm that it has us trapped in.  I’ve been dancing around for so long now that I’ve started to come to my senses.  We always promised it would never be like this, that nothing would ever let us become so lost.  Now I know, keeping that promise is breaking me, and it is destroying both of us in the process.

Too often we’re willing to charge into certain death just to prove a point.

That’s a great way to get yourself killed, but it’s no way to see something through until the very end.  I have never been content with unfinished business, this is no exception.  I know that I can’t go on anymore carrying your name and all that it means to me.  Instead I have to remember my own reasons for doing this, for going on in the face of everything.  There’s no way I will ever forget you, but much of the memory will have no choice but to slip away.

I suppose that’s one of the catch 22’s that have snuck up on me.  The choices are becoming fewer and farther between.  As difficult as it is to have so much taken, you cannot deny the weight that becomes lifted, the burden of responsibility that vanishes, and how the world becomes so much simpler.  The wrath of the world has always brought us back to basics, but how quickly we can forget such reminders.

I wonder if it just got tired of us not listening, the world that is.  If it got tired of our narrow and impenetrable minds.

So it turned itself upside down and started to shake us off.

There’s no room for disbelief when the sky is falling, everyone runs for dear life.  The trick was giving us something we couldn’t run from anymore.  This didn’t stop people from trying, and they met their end with turned backs and the scent of a coward on their panicked breaths.  The only ones who were left standing were those who knew when to stand their ground.  Though many of them met death, at least they saw it coming and forced him to see the fire that lives in the hearts of men.

This is a long and lonely road.  Once you’ve gone down it enough, that hellfire that churns in a man’s heart is slowly smothered by the landscape of its mirror, the darkness.

We all have different reasons why we go on, why we fight like this, at the end of the day,they do not matter.  All that counts is the courage to walk into the dark.

I can still remember when I was a little boy and terrified of the dark.  I can still see all the horrors I imagined that were waiting for me in the blackness, all those nights I spent curled up in a ball under the blankets, a terrified prisoner of myself.  People rarely grow out of that fear.  Though they’ll never admit it, there is a darkness out there that still sends shivers down all of our spines, that makes us feel like that scared little child again.  This never changes, the only difference between them and I is that despite the terror that waits, I know the only way out of this is through that blackness.

You have to be careful with what you carry in with you and you must forget all that you’re afraid to lose.  Fear is loudest when it echos in the darkness, it never has to lift a finger, it knows our own destruction lies within.

For so long I had been lost in the dark, even now I still wonder if I really have cleared the boundaries of its grasp.  Lost in there I found something very few people do a second chance, a future.
How could I pass that up?

People turn their backs on you all the time, there is no escaping that.  But what you turn your back on, that is a different story.  Too often people are in the clutches of the awfulness and they turn away salvation, hope, and promise.  Seeing one destroy himself is hard to bear, after all we’ve lost, to see us destroy ourselves is beyond shameful.  I always used to tell myself they didn’t know any better, but I know now more that never, that is no excuse.

The Odds - Date Unknown

There is nothing to be found in this world worth living for that does not demand sacrifice.  Many of us choose different things that we’re willing to give up or turn our backs on, but no matter who you are, the piper has to be paid.  

I myself am no exception to the rule, and there is so much that I have lost in the names I keep on the tip of my tongue.  These days there isn’t anything but time to waste thinking about all the choices that have brought me to where I stand right now, the journey with a dangerous path.

The road inside oneself is uncharted and treacherous, many find themselves lost forever, trapped in the never ending maze of questions.  Not many are brave enough to see what lives within, and when they finally do, the scare is enough to make anyone forget anything they ever saw or even worse drive them mad.  The brave ones, they have what it takes to look the devil in the eye and put him in his place.

Despite this, you can’t win all the time, and its days like these that make me question my resolve.  These days the battles are long, and they’re not over until they’ve taken every last ounce of your strength.  Going on in the face of this is quite possibly the definition of impossible.

It’s am impossible world we live in though, and it’s that fact alone that has kept me going throughout the whole ordeal.  If I hadn’t seen all the things I have up until now, this all might have ended for me a long very long time ago.  I’ve seen the odds beaten, the rules broken till they’re black and blue, until I can’t even tell if up is up or down is down anymore.  It’s in the face of this that one can hope to prove them all wrong.

The hit’s just keep on coming, and for so long this is something we’ve tried desperately to insulate ourselves from.  You can only deny such a truth for so long, eventually it will grow tired of your games and come knocking with full force.  I’ve known this since long before all this began, and I know it is one of the very few things I have left from the old world.  When you live on the run, there isn’t room for baggage of any kind.  I’ve spent all this time cutting parts of myself loose to make room for the more critical burdens.

It’s in this sea of loss here men lose themselves.

I cannot let myself be another one of them.