Wednesday 27 April 2016

Sunday 24 April 2016

Dear You,



35,000 ft. was pretty high.
And the whole ordeal would have been a lot easier if I'd have been that high too.

That plane was dire.
Full of 'wise' guys, talking about their 'grand' lives.
What a phoney word. Nothing's grand.

The journey made me think of that time you declared me a patient soul. I'm sure you wouldn't have said the same if you'd seen me then.

I didn't feel patient. And I didn't feel 'grand' like my company.
I felt like a phoney.

I listened to every conversation for that torturous hour and twenty minutes.
And I sought a little bit of you in every one.
That riled me up too. I hate you for that.

-

I guess there was a void.
That seems to be the only way to explain the mess we became.

Vacant. Empty. Forceless. Sterile. Blank.

All those words. And 'void' was the only one that really fit.

We did manage to fill it with a few things.

Pride. A sprinkling of ego. Confusion. Remorse.
And a plane, I suppose.

Visiting you that day was stupid. You weren't you and I was someone else entirely.
We absorbed all those bogus feelings and sat in silence - the loudest silence.

It was so goddam consuming that I couldn't hear the goddam tv - you put that stupid show on, you were always doing that. I hated you for that.

I wish we'd both swallowed our pride that day; more so, I wish I had.
It was a rare occasion that either of us owned up to our shitty actions. Damn, it was a real treat if we did.

That's where the void began. I'm sure of it. We both saw it. I'm sure of that, too.

The foolish thing is, when you did fully digest your pride, I couldn't comprehend it. I couldn't get a grip on it.

And I regret forgiving you. It was fear that prompted forgiveness. 

I've been mourning us since then.
Since that stupid day.

And I think I'd been mourning long before it came to a natural end.
I'm pretty sure you were too.

Once again, we were both too full of pride and cowardice to admit it. I hope we can at least agree on that.

That's where the silence became too loud. Too loud to hear the goddam tv.
And that's how it grew. The notorious void.
And boy, did it grow.

This is my closure. I hope it can be yours, too. I won't be enduring any more dire plane journeys, with only a bunch of fools for company. And neither will you. 

This letter will be a crumpled heap on the floor by tomorrow morning - much like me.

All my pride,
always.

Wednesday 20 April 2016

A Poem For Today | 17

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example,'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her void. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her. 
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

- Pablo Neruda.

Wednesday 13 April 2016

Sweet Something



I was struck by a feeling at 4am.
That's usually the way it goes, a big epiphany when I should be dreaming of sweet nothings.

It hit me somewhere in my scatty head and punched me in the gut, all whilst attempting to manage a sleepy daze.

The feeling wasn't a romantic one, but it felt a little like love does.
Claustrophobic. Illuminating. Dangerous.
With a chance of all your dignity being burnt to a crisp.

I've built this up too much.
It ain't so dramatic.

I just want to write. For the first time in nearly a year.

I suppose that is fairly monumental. I know of at least one person that would pat me on the back for this small victory.
Two, if you count my Mum.

My hope is that it sticks. I've got things I want to say in a slightly poetic way again.
That's cool. 
Hey, it's a bloody revelation.

Now that this feeling, revelation, epiphany is potentially here to stay I want to make big plans.

Big plans.
Little plans.
Big little plans, for me.

Days and weeks and months of just me.
Me and my writing tools.

And maybe some wine. Just to massage the cliché a little more.