Thursday, October 02, 2014

Memories

"The only reason everyone holds on to memories so tightly, is because they are the only things that don't change when everything and everyone else does."

Memories. They're all we have.

Of things that once were. Of different times. Of different people.

We cling on to them, like a hope that never comes. When reality gets too much, we escape into our memories. We go back in time and relive the moments we treasure so much. The fleeting moments in time when we felt joy; when we laughed; when we were at peace; when, in one of those rare instances, we felt truly happy.

We close our eyes and tell ourselves to stay strong. But the memories haunt us, stubborn and persistent. That's when the line between a happy memory and a nightmare becomes blurred. Where does it start and where does it end?

But like the world turns, things change. And memories are all we have left.

A wistful recollection of times that, looking back, seemed as though you were living in a dream. A window into the past that can never be reconciled with the present reality.

The people; the places; the sights; the sounds; the sensations; the emotions. They're all but gone now.

You don't know who those people are now. You don't recognise the place anymore. You don't remember your feelings any longer.

You're crushed. Your memories of those things make it even worse.

Now, the only evidence of their existence lies in the recesses of our mind; faint recordings of life looped over and over again in our mind's eye, until one day the tape wears out and can no longer be played back. Then, they're gone forever, like they never happened. Time goes by, and old memories are forgotten as newer ones take over.

Those people never existed. Those places were never visited. Those emotions were never felt.

You won't even realise that everything used to be different.

As age takes its toll on the physiology of the human brain, our memories fade away into blank nothingness. A silent but malignant force that nobody can ever see coming.

We forget everything; how it used to be, how it all changed, and that it even existed.

Life itself fades before our very eyes.

And no power in the world can save it.

Monday, June 09, 2014

Run

It's in their flaws, that you truly see a person for who they are.

It's the parts of them the rest of the world doesn't get to see. The parts of them they hide, knowing nobody will like what they see should they be unveiled to the world.

Appearances are deceiving.

You don't know me.

You don't know who I really am.

You can't tell my public face apart from my private self.

You don't know me.

And perhaps you never will.

So what do you do?

You run.

From things. To things.

When that's all you've ever done in your life.

Run.

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Hiding: A Poem

It's a mask I wear
A truth I hide
It's a word unspoken
A look concealed.

It's the smile I wear
The laugh I fake
It's the doubt cast aside
The sorrow in silence.

It's where I go
Where fear lies
It's where I succumb
Where catharsis awaits.

It's to the dawn
To reluctant beginnings
It's to the end
To the new world order.

Sunday, February 02, 2014

Tabula Rasa

Blank. Simple. New. Clean. Bright. Malleable. Changeable.

The greatest asset a single living entity can hold. Yet also, the greatest danger.

The possibilities are infinite.

But once a path has been chosen, there can be no turning back.

We all start out as tabulae rasae: wide-eyed, innocent, full of hope and endless potential as we arrive screaming and helpless into the world.

But then, worlds collide; values, beliefs, words and actions clash and intermingle, sometimes with supreme success; other times with horrifying, harrowing consequences.

We scream and cheer with joy, giddy with the good luck that fate bestowed upon us. And we gasp, cry out, turn and run as we witness the horror of the failed courtship that morphs before our very eyes into a dance with death.

Two paths that couldn't be more divergent.

Like a parasite that invades a host, the corruption that corrodes your conscience slowly but surely eats you alive, gradually and exponentially building to a fatal crescendo where choices, fate and destiny brutally collide, with a violence that shatters the worlds of those that hold you near and dear.

You wish you could undo all the damage that's been done. You wish there was a way, way back.

You wish you could wipe the slate clean, and start over.

But you can't.

It's broken. Forever.

Saturday, January 25, 2014

I Have a Rendezvous with Death

By Alan Seeger

1917

I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air—
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath—
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear...
But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.