the promise

remember

last year

this time

when all of that mattered?

think about

next year

this time

when none of this will.

keepsakes

the song was now tied to her

to the thought. the memory. the sound. the feel.

the scent. the

touch

of

her.

and after today. after what came next

he knew he'd never be able to listen to it.

not even the chords of it

ever

again.

the apology

You knew it was selfish when you said the words

and you felt them drop

echoing hollowly

in the chasm you'd created

And for all that you expected the emptiness,

there were still mascara stains on your pillow that night.

But you'd say those words again if you had to.

Because sometimes, it's not about dealing.

It's about finding a way to let go.

of tao and te

they wandered along

winding corridors. hidden passageways

losing their footing

stumbling...

until they stopped

waited

listened

let their eyes see beyond the darkness in front of them.

and then they knew

that even though they were lost,

they were somewhere.

and in that, they found they were free.

signal failure

she tried. again. to find the words

but they were lost.

like she was back then

like they were to each other now

and the clocks ticked on

and the time passed by

until suddenly it was too late.

she knew the words wouldn't fit

even if she happened to find them

she knew he couldn't hear her from a world and a lifetime away

the regret

And now you're hiding.

eyes screwed up tight, tighter

fingers jammed into your ears

leave me alone!

But the memories won't be blinded, and you can't deafen the screaming when it's coming from within. And you know you made these choices, you chose the path that lead you here.

And you can't run away from yourself.

how flowers bloom from pavement cracks

these words may break in

places. they may

jar and

stop.

they may not always make much sense.

but they always mean something

they mean a depth. an honesty. a resilience. a

hope.

they mean that even when there is

nothing

left

there is still the penchant to

pick up this pen and

say so.

when the storyline began

sometimes, my memory forgets

the lines between the years blur

and there we were (are?)

a hazy snap-shot

hand-in-hand

my pigtails and your mary-janes

leonardo and april

sunburnt on the beach while the fire keeps you warm

and the same song playing in both our backgrounds

my memory forgets

that ours is a new chapter, only recently begun

and your name should not appear on those early pages

and yet, there it is

in a different book

in a different place

in a different time

but somehow

it's the same story.

when learning to fly

fall.

but not like you have before.

fall to find your depth,

to reach the flow that is stronger than you,

that is the true purpose of You.

be like the rain

falling downwards

soaring towards the sea

the ball and chain

And there were choices to make.

There was the blissful carefreeness of it all,

the weight of no world but my own,

burdened by no day-to-day pattern,

bound to no wretched routine.

But it was empty.

And the emptiness had to be filled.

And so I chose this shackled path.

Better bound,

than alone.

the fighting of the dawn

tomorrow

this sun will set

this sky will fade and

life will use our plans to push us far apart.

but for now. for tonight

can we just sit here

can we sail together on this ship along De-nial

the words that aren't good-bye

At the parting of the ways

we turned

paused

listened a while

fading echoes of

the laughter

the whispers

the tears

the promises

the moments that brought us to this one.

Our paths are different now

and where you go I cannot come

but here in this moment

the lifetime we shared

is infinite.

parenthesis

histories aren't made

in years

in months

in days

in minutes

histories aren't even made in moments.

they're made here

in between the moments

in words. unsaid but felt.

in smiles. subtle but understood.

in dreams. unexplained but always shared.

that's where the histories of us were made

and that's where, engraved in time, you must know they will stay

but that was just a dream

and we didn't say a word

and we didn't do a thing

and the world just swarmed around us

becoming a distant, hazy blur

and your thoughts echoed in my ears

and your fingers traced along my skin

and your arms were there to steady me

even before i knew i would fall

the insignificance

"But I'm afraid," she whispered.

"They did not care when I was here; they will not notice when I'm gone."

So you stayed a while, and fought the Loneliness.

And when you left, she was no bigger than before. But the shadows she stepped out of had diminished.

moving forward is the only way back

it's not how you come back from this that counts.

it's how you leave.

what you choose to carry with you

it's who you are

who you'll always be

in this moment

that will make every other moment still to come.

the prism

And when the world starts to fade

and the fiery reds burn to ash

and you can't see the colours anymore

Understand.

That it's not the world that's fading

but you that's standing in the light.

if left unread, this ink will fade

and all she was now

(all she'd ever been)

was a line

in a story

on a page

of a book

on a shelf

in a room

that was locked.

and he knew he'd never have the key.

stage one: denial

Inside of my head, we talk for hours.

All day, and well into the night.

Converse about everything and nothing, stupid non-events, stupider co-workers.

Whisper the dreams we're still scared to believe in.

And we laugh.

So much laughter.

It's just so easy, you know, because that's how it always was.

We never ran out of things to say.

So we just keep sharing.

The connection's still so strong.

Inside of my head.

Of course, every morning I wake up.

And you didn't call.

And you don't miss me.

But we'll talk about that soon, I know.

Inside of my head.

what we lose along the way

back then

a sandpit was your oasis

a dirt road, your wild west

an old tyre, the 4x4 you would use to cross the world

now you have

your island holidays

your flashy cars

your shiny new toys

your things.

now you've bought your dreams-come-true

but really. you've sold [out on] the dream.

the things they'll never see

You saw Me when I couldn't.

My sight is clear now,
so let me show you You.

the memento

he still remembered every detail

the way the water looked

the way the trees tilted in the slight summer breeze

the way, for once, even the hoards of tourists didn't vex her

the way those books smelt.

and now he's alone. but the memory still takes him there.

when the waters move

when the trees dance

when the tourists laugh. and their cameras flash.

when he falls upon a random page

and the scent is like a portkey back

aftermath

She hesitated there, unsure if she could go on.

You stood silently behind, watched her battle the fear. And when the victory came, it was all you could do not to follow.

but...

I'm not attached to you.

I'm just attached

to your attachment to me.

the error

There was Darkness, 
for a while.

And I lost my way.

Beneath my feet the

ground was gone

The earth was spinning

(faster, FASTER)

I fell.

I didn't think you'd find me.

the misstep notes

maybe it's not that we sing different songs.

maybe our words are exactly the same

but we just play them to a different beat.

so

where i'm slow, you're fast

where i'm whimsical, you're strong

where i linger and pause, you rush far ahead

and where we could make beautiful music

we get stuck.

in a clinking. clanging. banging. mess.

dissolving this would-be symphony

into a hum of cluttered riffs

eclipse

She paused for a moment, delicately perched between what Was and what Would Be. So fragile, she seemed; a wee wisp of rainbowcloud dreams, a lifetime yet to begin living.

But the Light shifted and you glimpsed, in that fleeting shadowmotion, the steelfrost core at the center of the dream. 

And when the Light returned, she was gone.

the outskirts of us

she thinks about the first time she met him, and how she thought she saw something there behind his eyes

the spark

the soul

the one

but now she looks at him again and sees it was only a mirrored reflection she mistook for a sign.

it was only him-looking-at-her that made the light

and now that he looks away

his world is darkness

but with a blindness even he can't see.

the choice

so i have

to let go

because

if i stay now

not knowing

if you'll stay with me

there may come a day

when

i won't be able

to find

my way back

alone

the castle in the sky

sometimes we

miss what's right in front of us.

especially if we're always

straining our eyes

constantly

looking towards the horizon.

looking for things we

know will never come.

instead of

reaching out and

holding onto

the ones we

already have.

the mistake

There's a moment when you can't remember how you got here. 

Why you came here at all. Did you make these choices?

So much easier when there's someone else to blame.

But you're standing here, so you must have. And now you can't quite remember how to breathe.

But there's nowhere else to go.

the light that is.

I know we're not there yet. I know that there is still darkness ahead. That there are barriers. And obstacles. And people who will try and stop us.

But I also know that there is a path through all of that. That the island of dreams looms just beyond the invisible distance. And that right now, somewhere, the sun is rising.

the dream

some days

you just want to

float along the swirling waters

drift away on a wisp of silvery cumulonimbus

only to return

with fragments of stardust in your tangled hair

and the fading sunhaze lost too far behind your eyes

afterwards

she came back looking for her chalked-on pavement fairytales,

merry-go-round horses and

supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

dreams.

but this time the story ended before she had time to jump.

only the rain came down.

melting sunshines and rainbows into the grey cement floors that cracked beneath her feet.

the freedom

I'm afraid of the loneliness
if you leave.



But the truth is, I'll be lonelier if you stay.

the long way home

There's a lot that stands between us now.

Years and time

Distance and space

God and science

Expectations.

And even though we no longer look the same

I still have your hands

And maybe that will count

One day

When we both need to reach out and hold onto something real.

the way out

Oneday, they came to a hidden room, packed full of the words they used to exchange. Most were old, softened, worn in all the familiar, comfortable places. And the soft light of a lifetime shared lingered, warming even the deepest shadows.

"How did these get here?" he wondered.
"It doesn't matter," she replied. "We won't need them where we're going."

the reality

We're making a graveyard together, you and I.

For all the messages you're not sending
And all those hours we're not speaking.
A silent tombstone for every day we're not connecting.


Do you believe in resurrection?

those rocks that melt away

sometimes, there are people who leave your life to carry on down the roads they must take. but still, they stay with you, in that special aortic crevice carved out just for them. but othertimes, there are those who stay with you while they leave. detaching. slowlysilently. one string. one notch at a time. taking one step forward but two steps back. going before you can say gone. and leaving in seeming flash, when there's no longer a safety-line you could grip to help you stop the fall.

two sides

She fiddles with the bowl of sugar cubes in front of her, thinking

'If happiness could be cubed and packaged into bite size bits like these, life would be a better place.'

He pushes the sugar bowl away, taking a sip from his steaming cup of double espresso, thinking 'Some things are just better dark and bitter.'

the return

"Your journey will be long," you told her. "You will face many dangers. Some, you will overcome. But the Dark holds much that is Unknown."

"How will I find my way back Home?" she wondered.

"Perhaps you'll no longer want to," you replied.

You couldn't tell her that you were still searching.

And that there weren't any signs.

just not yet

one day, we'll sit beside our flower beds and watch the birds make homes from our trees

one day, we'll be happy with the lives we got to live

the shores that welcomed us

the broken hearts we patched and mended

the smiles and hopes we found

the memories we made into moulds that still hold us

one day when this is over.

and all that's left is a courtyard of windows

and the two of us watching our memoirs float on by

the fear

She pushed open the door, and peered into the Dark.

"I can't see you," she whispered.

(She couldn't remember why you took away her Light, and left her there, faltering.)

"You promised I'd find you here."

(She didn't know you were afraid.)

The door shut quietly behind her.

And you were the one left alone.

beneath it all

The leaves will rust. And they will fall.

They will crumble. And they will die.

They will become part of the earth that bore them.

Just as you and me.

There's a pattern to this madness, if we just could take a look.

There's a circle at the centre. And a meaning to the end.

We just haven't got there yet.

the stories we tell ourselves

I wear this letter around my neck because I need a bit of you to hold onto. And I know it's just reaching. Reaching into nothingness and trying to make alchemy out of base metals that were never even there.

But sometimes we need our lies. Even the ones we tell ourselves.

Sometimes, those are the ones we need to hold onto most of all.

listen

What will you do when they start fading?
When the colours begin to blur, and the lights go out?
There are new pictures on your walls now. And you hear different voices everyday.

But somewhere far behind your eyes, the music hasn't changed. No-one can hear the tunes you play, but that doesn't matter. You don't need them.

But you will.
When the music stops.

waiting for amnesia

Oneday:

I'll look back, and the hurthaze will have cleared.

I'll see the eyes I loved to drown in

(I won't remember the shutters you put up)

The way your smile sounded

(before you stopped calling)

And the peace that radiated from your soul

(until your missing backbone became obvious)

But not this day.

(not yet)

day one

Make it.

Count.