I Am Free

Sometimes to know where you're going, you have to know where you are. You can see where you've been, and you know where you want to go, but where are you, now, in this very moment? Are you somewhere bad, hoping for a better day? Are you somewhere good, afraid of the imminent crash into the bad? Or are you apathetic, stagnant and just praying for something exciting to come along?

My eyes flutter closed, more due to the slight intoxication twisting in with my already tired mind and body, and I try to see with my minds eye where I am.

All my soul wants is peace, for peace is all that will welcome rest, and rest is all that's going to get me going tomorrow. My mind is clouded, and all I can see is the gray mist that surrounds me, cold and muffled, as I stand in the ashes. I kneel, knowing inherently that my little bud is still there. It's grown, I see. Soft, white petals gently sway open in the moonlight as the mist just around me clears. I gently lean down and kiss the petals, giving them what life I can muster within me, which isn't much, but it's enough. The gentle plant begins to grow taller, a soft, white glow where my lips touched it pulsing and coursing through the rest of the plant, like morphine through veins.

The plant is now taller than me, and the petals are each as big as my torso. I can see the moonlight glowing through them, absorbed and stored in those pale petals as the plant seems to sing, a solitary, mysterious voice in the quiet of the night, emanating from the very velvet of the white glow. I reach up slowly, running a single gentle finger over the underside of the plant. Where did you come from, companion? What do you feel? I sit gently in the soft, silken ash and lean my head back against the soft stem of the plant, feeling it sway slightly under the unfamiliar weight.

(As I write this, the song that just started is called "A Place in Heaven" by Thomas Bergersen(Fitting), so if you, Beautiful Reader, would like to feel as I do, skip at the list of music at the bottom of the page to that song.)

I look up into the glowing petals, lit only by the moon of my soft desire, and for just a moment, I wonder if it came from the garden. I run my hand along the stem, now. It's surprisingly smooth for it's sturdiness, and it seems to caress my hand, absorbing what i'm willing to give. In that moment, I know that I will give everything to help this new world in my mind survive. I will protect it from the corruption that destroyed its former self....what I let destroy it. My mind's eye drifts shut, and through the eyelids of my imagination images of the burning world flit forth of their own volition. The red anger glowed through the corpses of the life around, and the trees screamed in pain as they died in agony, the river crying in pain as it dried up and the bed was burned... I'm okay with this...it needed to be destroyed. The only way to kill that amount of hidden rot and disease is to burn it and start anew.

We are all born with a natural evil, a corruption brought by human nature, but in our minds, when we go to our true core and not this thing that we have let grow within us, we can see the purity that we really have. It is our flaws that make us unique, that make us wonderful, and it is with those flaws that we create our heaven.

As I drift my eyes open again to look at my lunar plant, I see the ash begin to move slowly, and from around me, green bursts forth from the dead grey. Grass sprouts, flowers bloom, trees wind out of the ground and the moon begins to glow brighter, bright as the sun until it bursts, and the white glow spreads like a torrential force across the ground. When it crosses the green plant, the plant fills with light, breathing in a new life. I feel the laughter on my lips, the smile crossing my face as the light runs across my skin, caressing my body, comforting my burning eyes.

Suddenly, from the ground rises glowing figures. My friends. My confidants. Those I hurt. Those I loved. They stand before me, smiling gently, their outlines softly pulsing as they step forward, taking my hand and leading me forward to the face of the flourishing mountain. I face the wall, and it begins to morph, moving gently until an opalescent shift in colours begins to take the shape of a man. He steps forward, smiling softly, his eyes still featureless, but I know they are full of caring. (Song shifted to Thomas Bergersen - Promise) He stands before me, his hand on the sloping face of the rock as it opens like folds of fabric, and I can hear a soft voice calling to me within the darkness of the mountain. The scent of fruit and flowers rides the air, giggling, bubbling with the sound of a distant brook as I feel peace surround me. The Flint man places a cool hand on my shoulder, motioning to the world around me, and I look up at him, my eyes full of excitement. This is new to me. This is all new. I have never felt like this before. I feel so free, peaceful, and the happiness that flows through me is no longer tainted by the thoughts of my guilt in the real world. There is no underlying pain, no dread to go back to reality, for now I know that reality is just as wonderful as this world. I look to the flint man, and I smile back at him before I run back into reality, through the darkness to wake up.

I am falling.

I am floating.

I am laughing.

My eyes drift open, and once again I sit here in this chair in the University to which I am a scholar...but this time it's different. What mattered in my mind matters now in the real world. I feel the same peace and happiness, and guess what, Beautiful Reader? I'm finally okay with myself. I'm free. I know that I am far from perfect, but I think i'm starting to love myself in reality as much as I love who I am in my mind, that free, flying, floating, glowing woman with a perfect, slender body and a dress of flowing white. I know i'm not her...but... I know I can be, and I have the motivation to be her. Beyond that... I know that I can be her. This is what I've been searching for. I know now that I can walk forward without fear and I can do what I have been afraid of failing and I can succeed instead. I can look at the world and walk to my classes and know that I CAN DO IT. It's difficult and sometimes overwhelming, but I can do it. I don't have to break. I don't have to continue to be the failure i've been.  I can look at my past, at the people I trusted that hurt me, at the mistakes i've made that have cost me my friends, my education, my opportunities... and I can forgive them and myself and finally let them all go. I don't need to let thoughts of them plague my mind anymore. It's a bright future now. It's full of promise and of new experiences. I don't need the baggage. I don't need the guilt. I can keep going and I don't have to keep them in my life anymore. I can stand on my own. I can now turn my eyes ahead, and the people who will come into my life will come, and I will greet them now with open arms instead of wary stares. I know i'll make more mistakes in the future, and I know that people will come into my life and, yes, i'll be a little afraid...but hell... isn't that the point? You have to decide what is worth the effort of overcoming the fear. You have to decide who is worth fighting for, who is worth your love and your life. And you must be unafraid, Beautiful Reader...unafraid to move on if that person isn't what you need. Unafraid to keep walking if where you are isn't where you want to be... And you must be unafraid when someone comes along your path beside you and remains there with you as you walk, catching you when you stumble, for such is a person worth catching when they do the same...and isn't that the goal? Isn't that what it's all about?

Beautiful Reader, this is beauty as I know it. This is life as I know it. This is what I love.

The Garden's Lullaby

Dear Beautiful Reader,

Are there times when you know the right path, and you feel like you could follow it, but all the baggage you've gathered to yourself where you are and where you've been is tying you down? Do you grasp for the ground, clawing the earth towards that clear, green pathway, enshrouded with archways of trees and flowering leaves, seeking only respite and refuge from this dark, colourless place in your life? Do you see that path as direction, a way to finally make sense of life?

I do. I note each tree in this garden, in this path that has suddenly opened itself to me. I note each fruit it bears, each tree trunk, strong with age... some are twisted halfway up, bearing scars and gnarled, but from the wounded struggle, the tree grew on, determined, growing, until finally it met with the tree on the other side of the pathway, entwining with it in a sensual dance, perfectly woven and bound until it became a beautiful arch, and the fruit it bears exudes a tantalizing odor, one which I cannot resist. I claw towards it, knowing my hands are dirty, stained with the labours of the short journey i've made, and I know not how I can pay my toll to cross this path, but somehow, I feel that it doesn't matter.

When I look at the arch, I feel the peace, echoing to me like the song I hear now. I can hear the voice, breathy and gentle, almost like whispers in the leaves as the garden softly sings to me, welcoming me, though I come unworthy. Calmly, tempered with experience, the garden beckons, but I know it is only a short time before it will stop and let me lie there if I choose not to go...but oh, how I want to!!!

I grab the ground, digging into the dirt as my shadows cling to my legs. These shadows are mixtures of different things. I can see guilt, its teeth sunk into my calves as it looks up at me with accusing eyes. I see the pains of my past experiences, clinging to my ankles like small children, begging me not to go, telling me that, for certain, the same things will happen again. I see fear, its arms wrapped  around one thigh and drawing a long, cold tongue up it and straight towards my heart, its eyes telling me with confidence that I am not going to that path. I feel more than I see doubt, its hands clamped firmly around my other thigh, whispering when it can against the music of the garden that I'm better where I am, that I will never to better, that the grey and charred pathway I traverse is the best I will know, and that I should be thankful to have what I do... the garden smells so good because it's a temptation, seeking to take me away from where i'm supposed to be.

I try to break free of my shadows, but as I claw the ground, cold hands reach up from the earth and hold my wrists firmly in place as a face rises and looks me directly in the eye. I know that face. He looks at me and says in a cold voice, "You think you're going to something better, but you're only going back. The face sneers at me, his eyes cold and a smirk playing at his lips as he fades back into the ground, leaving my wrists bruised and sore. I don't know if I can reach the garden in time. I feel suffocated.

Beautiful Reader.... what do you do when you can't break free?

Sing Me a Hymn of Courage, of Battle, of Defense, of Hope.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live like the wind. Have no purpose. Have no care. Have no rhyme or reason, and be capable of striking every emotion possible... a gentle, calming breeze, a strong, terrifying gust, a cooling breath, a warming pulse, a chilling draft... everything, you can be as wind.

My grateful eyes shut, and finally my mind releases into the loving arms of my mind, of my captor, of my love and lover. Of my Ukala.

My world has become to thrive. It has seen the face of adversity, and it has seen the proof that one can survive the destruction of old and live once more with purpose. It has seen what comes after, and what comes after is so beautifully incredible that it gives my world hope, meaning... purpose.

My world is not a child. My world is not innocent. My world has taken the pain and the bad and the evil and the mistakes and turned them into building stones. I sit in a barely covered field of the palest green. The world has begun to bus in tiny spurts of colour, but I can tell that i'm afraid. That i'm still in need of something. I look up at the dusked sky, at the constant swirling energy that lives forever in my mind, the pulsing purples and blues and greens all intertwining, pulsing and entangling themselves. The colours form the shapes of people... a man and a woman, caught in each other's embrace. The woman's leg traces the form of the man's leg as they stare into each others' eyes, their irises a pulsing, glowing orange. They love each other... somewhere, somehow, I do too. Maybe. Not in a literal sense, but somewhere there's a part of me I must like. Something that makes it all worth it.

I turn, walking to the empty bed of the river that once flowed. No water flows from it, and no water is scented nearby, so I slide to the bottom of the gently grown riverbed, to the green grass at the bottom. I lean on the river wall, looking at the ground. I can see glowing bits of energy flowing from the ground, softly rising through the air like embers in slow motion. They rise and spin with each other, each it's own little life within my own, and they dance over my skin before I tilt my fingers upward slightly, letting the lights go and disappear into the now night sky, up to join the energy up there, after all. To be with their maker, their mother, father both, their heaven. I wish I had that, but no... I am okay with not having it. I  can save myself... I can save it, can't I?

My fingers lightly trace the bud of a small purple plant, and I lean down to breathe gently on it, knowing that my breath gives it hope to survive...

Survive..

I want to be a survivor, to nurse my wounds on the fly and fight the good fight. To be uninjured, to be determined. To have heart and soul and mind and body in sync with one another. To stand, unafraid, in front of my worst fear, this shadow that infects everything that I have tried to save, and to tell it, FUCK YOU, you are not my master. You are not my fate. You are neither my ruler nor my peer. You are no part of me that I will accept. You are fear. You are cowardice. You are betrayal. You are pain, and I don't need you anymore.

I let it in before. It left me scarred, scared, and weak. Never again. I will build this world and I will change it for the better....gently. Peacefully. Without backing down... and I will have the courage to do what needs to be done. It is spoken. It is now true.

Beautiful Reader... do you think I can do this?

Life Rises, Unprotected

It's been a bit, hasn't it...?

Interesting.

I guess I couldn't stay away for long, could I? It's too delicious, an addicting evanescence within.

My eyes flutter shut as exhaustion combines with that insatiable thirst for knowledge of self...

The world is gentle... i'm standing on a soft mountain... seems weird, right? Soft, grey ash lies along a quiet landscape, and I see the ocean. The sun in setting in flashes of slow orange. I can see the photons moving slowly across the sky. . . gentle pulses and swirling orange wisps drift towards me happily, reflecting on the deep ocean as the sun sinks slowing into the world I never have seen, and suddenly, with a final flash of intense light, the world is dark, and I can feel the white light of the moon cool my skin from behind.

I turn around and look up at the soft light, and I sigh as I walk through the calm, peaceful death. I kneel, my white dress brushing against the light grey, and as the moon gently caresses the land, I see it. A single, innocent bud of green, rising from the ashes. Softly, I sink to my stomach, lying with my head resting on the flat tops of my hands, my eyes level with the new life in front of me, and I feel myself smile slightly. I don't know if this new bud will survive, but I know that not all is destroyed, and not all is dead.

I have hurt the thing I love, yes. I have destroyed the monuments and intricacies I built and fashioned within myself, but I know.. I KNOW.... I know they were diseased, dying from the inside out. I needed to purify myself. I needed to reset. This is new. This is the new me. It's scary..downright terrifying. It's vulnerable, weak, and might not survive the harsh environment, but I think I might just have a chance.

I plant a gentle kiss on the top of the green bud and stand, looking back up at the moon. I see myself stand there, grey smeared dress, a world covered in drifts of grey ash, and the single green but at my feet as the barest breath of wind stirs my hair.

A new adventure can only begin when the journey has been built, Beautiful Reader.

A World, Killed. A World, Decayed.

I've exhausted myself, Beautiful Reader.

The world is full of unsurety, of an unabashedly twisted path none can truly navigate. You can never see around the bend, only where you are, with the memory of where you've been. Sometimes, on this path, I turn around and gaze back, longing for the beautiful places where I could rest, but now...lately... I just walk along this path alone, kicking stones along the grey, ash ridden ruins I created.

I see the specters of people, glowing a moment and swirling in ash before they fall to the ground. When they exist, they walk beside me, trying to hold my hand, but before they touch me, they crumble.

Remnants of my rage cling to me like lost children, and I can feel her within me, that woman of violence, myself shrouded in shadowed anger. I kick another rock forward, watching as it skips across the field of barren ash, leaving little puffs of dust as it settles. I continue to walk forward, looking at the charred remains of the trees as they droop, charcoal black on my hands when I touch them. They crumble. They die...they are already dead.

I walk to the mountain, a blackened, skeletal tower of rock. I grab the stones, hauling myself up as my face becomes increasingly charred. It doesn't take any effort, but I can feel its pain as I get closer to the top.

I've reached the summit, and I sit on that flat panel piece of rock, staring at the edge of my atmosphere, scarred with reddened clouds that swirl in an angry calm above me. A dead wind stirs my hair. My eyes scan my world in a bittersweet satisfaction...but suddenly, a morose sadness washes over me. this world is dead. My inside escape has become my inner regret, my death within. I did this. I chose this. I know I don't need this.. right? This obsessed war on perfection killed the peace I had. Did I want it ever before, and do i want it now? Do i regret this mistake, or is this regret itself?

I don't want it back. I can see the tear drifting down my face, smearing through the ash and soot as I gaze with dead, grey eyes. I hate this world. I hate it. I pick up a rock lying convenient to my position, and I throw it as far as I can, watching it tumble down to the skeletal, charred forest that was my heaven. Damn it to hell, to itself, unto me. I get up, noticing only now that I wear no clothes, that the soot has stained my body, making me like the world around, and look up again at the deadly red sky. I think it's time for me to leave.

I sigh, my breath ash and smoke, and I lick my chapped lips. They taste dead. I open my grey eyes again, and I step off the edge of the mountain, letting the ash-laced world suck me in as I tumble through the air, landing gently on my back in the soft ash. I stare up at the grey and red world, willing the ash to just cover me, suffocate me, and as I look around, I see the ash and dying light specters staring at me, making a semicircle. I can feel their sorrow, and I know they hate me, what I've done. I can't feel guilty. Not now. Not anymore. I lie there, and I let my eyes drift shut, coming back to reality.

That world doesn't need me. I don't need me. I don't need anyone. Underneath all their life, lies prevail. A dead world is inside all of us. We can't hide behind the green and the floating drops of water, not anymore. Ash and soot... that's what we make ourselves. That's all. And we don't want to improve. We don't want to make the effort anymore. We're lazy, and we love it. We drink in it, in the sloth and nothing. In the drowning of our consciences, we find a sick, twisted joy. We don't need to feel anything else, do we? Just disgust of ourselves that we lock away so we don't have to feel it.

We're all sick, Beautiful Reader. Aren't we?

Forward With Fire

MUSIC PLAYED - Counting Bodies Like Sheep

Beautiful Reader, I apologize. I'm about to disappoint you.

For once, peace isn't desired.

For once, I want conflict.

Eyes shut.

There's a long hallway, dripping with a dark red liquid, grated floors and the sound of metal crashing against itself in a war drum beat. Someone stands at the end of the hallway, black hooded and red eyed as she stands there, staring at me as her lips turn up in a sinister grin. She steps forward, and my fists tense as I feel the heat radiating off her aura. There is fire where she steps, lighting the blood trickling down as I hear my breaths come in short, shattering bursts. My heart beats to the chaotic rhythm of the war drums, and I step forward to meet her, staring directly into her nearly featureless face, her smile of pointed teeth, and her eyes, as the glowing red within begins to melt into her skin, falling like tears and taking the skin with it.

She leans forward, whispering in my ear, telling me to love her again, and love her I do, taking her hand and joining her with me, taking her essence as she fades with a fiery laugh, and I feel rejuvenated, a righteous fury burning through my veins. I look up at the far wall, and I run towards it, my fist slamming into it, blasting it into oblivion as I see my world, my peaceful, mountainous world with its aurora and mist, and I just stare, willing it to burn, to just go away and let me have my vengeance.

I feel myself smile as the spark starts from the aurora, the blues, greens, and purples flashing into a red and orange, spreading to the mist and consuming it as it rushes down the mountain, caring not for life or time, neither beauty nor filth...all burns, all is destroyed. The aurora blasts out in all directions, consuming, crushing, disposing of all in its path. I step forward onto the melting ground, not caring that my own flesh burns and yields to the encroaching and unforgiving heat.

I reach the lake, a smirk playing at the corner of my lips as i materialize at the bottom of the desolate pit and break through, my world fading in ash as I stand there, letting it swirl around me in smoke and the scent of death in a rampant vortex. I breathe in the smoke deeply, letting myself choke on it. This is what lay beneath the peace. More of the same.

I don't need to hurt anymore. I don't need to calmly accept that which harms me, relying on defensive walls and a retreat into myself to be unaffected. It's about time I try going on the offense, breaking through resistance and forcing myself forward. I will no longer allow myself to be held back.

Eyes open.

I don't know why I feel like this...but I think it's about time that I do.

Breathing Stone? Perhaps...

Stones can break bones, though....remember that, Beautiful Reader.

Second Choice, Second Best

When did you have that moment, Beautiful Reader, when you just realized how bad the people in this world have become?

When did you have that moment where you didn't want to lose that naivety you'd had, when you didn't want to stop believing in the possibility of a first and last being the same thing? A one and only passion, whether it's a person, a hobby, or a career, just coming into your life and sticking? Of you being the first choice, not the one they settle for? Of you finding a career or a hobby that takes such a passionate hold on you that you would be happy for the rest of your life just doing it?

I had a moment like that today. I sat there, thought long and hard, and it hit me how bad the world was...it also hit me that I can't let that make me angry or sad. It needs to make me determined. It needs to be my inspiration to be the best me I can be. Maybe this world I have in my mind of pressing flowers and defying reality is useful for a time, but if I spend too much time in introspection, how can I ever ground myself in reality and go somewhere?

I don't want to be famous, high-up, or anything of the sort. Maybe all I want is to run away from the world, find a peaceful place with someone who wants me as a first choice, and forget the rest of the world exists. Just find a place where there's a break from this trial. A place where we, as humans, can drop the thrill of drama and drink in peace...

And my eyes drift shut.

I'm standing on the edge of a branch, over a forest of evergreens, but right at the base of my branch is this clear rippling vision...like water, but not. As I stare at it and follow its glimmering to the horizon, and as I do, it changes, thickening as the vision of the forest beneath it fades to a shimmering white. Suddenly the water is the ocean, and I can feel the pulsing, gentle warmth of the sunset as the colours wash over me. I sit in the sand and hum to myself with the music, tracing in the silken sand a curving line, and with it comes out my emotion, and I look back up at the sunlit horizon, smiling as the piano plays in my mind. I feel the ocean move as I breathe, swelling and gently cascading over itself as the water rises into a waterfall, the world around me melting into a deep green forest as I find myself seated on a cool rock, my fingers tracing the stream at my feet. There are little fish in the water, and as I see them, I find myself diving into the water without moving, the cool, deep water quenching my thirst and cooling my parched skin as I find myself in a lake, breathing the water like air and twisting around to look around.

The pain in my ribs is gone, the pain from my back is gone, and all the deformities and scars on my skin are gone as the water flows, purifying me. I'm naked, clean, and the voices singing, "While I wait, I remember the sound of your voice" in harmony seem to just flow through my heart as I move through the flowing water. I don't want to leave. I don't need the flint man, or myself, or restrictive clothes, or anything. I don't need to strive to be a good person, or push myself every second of the day to learn more, or to not be lazy, or anything. It doesn't matter anymore, because this is my soul and it's still okay, alive, and peaceful. No one else needs me. I don't need anybody else.

I don't think I ever did. All I ever needed was peace. The others outside my eyelids can take their desires and smile with them. They will never see me, not really. All this strife will go away one day, and when that day comes they'll be happy with what they see in me. Maybe. Who knows, Beautiful reader?

I'm awake, but I need to sleep it all off....

Good night, Beautiful Reader. Be happy.