Can’t sleep again

But that is ok.

Because the music is still playing and I can hear the waves. I can hear the splash and the crash, the cacophony of being alive. Despite everything.

Perhaps I am glad that I am still here?

And one day, as I float. Carried by Poseidon to new places and people. I can think back to the times I was on land and wonder why I wanted to stay there. Rooted.

Why would I be a tree when I can be a boat?

Sliding carelessly into a void

An elfin star, spires of lost thoughts shooting across the heavens like a scattering of glowing angel blood in the darkness

Bright rays of light that etch and scar a message for the myriad creatures below to look up and ask

Why and what

and where did we come from?

And more writing in the trees, in the rivers and the stone. The story is everywhere for us to see, but I’m illiterate.

Because I’m a fool?

Or because I’m a child?

My beautiful friend

An emptiness follows me,
a shallow remnant of a lost soul,
flickering and wavering,
like an ice cold flame,
at the summit of the universe

I can’t recall the moments,
the triggers and changes,
that stopped the darkness chasing me,
and made it walk by my side,
out of breath,
exhausted from chasing all through my life

But still there

I turn to face the nothing,
and I reach out with something other than,
the anger, the sadness, the pain,
I hold it close and express my love,
of who it was and who I am,
and how we’ve become,
together

I walk into the light,
and the darkness holds my hand,
I whisper reassurance,
it will all be okay,
and I drag and cajole and encourage the shadow to come with me,
to give me the context I need

The shadow in the light
The darkness in the sunshine
The one that makes this brightness shine
Intense
Free
Alive

Four days is forever and 13 years was nothing

A random cacophony of noise. I’m back to the static, enraged flies crashing through my mind. Angrily shredding the air with their filament wings.

My tattered insistence that there must be my honour. And I can’t reveal or allow what I want. Because there’s that noise, that shouts I’m not worthy. To scuttle a ship, burn it in fury.

Adrift for all those years. Some part of this knight wants to be a pirate. Dreams of the day that a ship would rescue me from this barren piece of wood on the burning ocean.

The ship comes, the ship comes. A figurehead with beautiful eyes.

A rescue, salvation.

Burn and take.

I promised.

I’d forgotten the chaos. I’m in love with the chaos. The fury and the pain. And without it I’m just a lost poet without a pen. And with it I write my words with my blood as my ink.

Some place in the middle.

There’s just black and white.

My fingertips beneath the edge of the surface

My feet won’t reach the bottom of wherever it is that I’m swimming. My fingers tickle the underside of the surface, reach up and try to break it. To pull myself up like a man trapped beneath the ice.

But there’s nothing to grasp and I can’t reach the surface.

And all I want is for someone to reach down and grasp me, grab me, pull me into a caring embrace. To warm me and reassure me and tell me it will all be okay.

That I’m safe now.

As I conserve energy, to keep myself alive longer. I only lengthen this process of drowning. Because no one is going to save me. I have to save myself, but I don’t have the strength and I’ve no idea which way the shore is. And these weights around my ankles are dragging me down.

They’re not even weights anymore. I can feel their finger grasping and grabbing and clawing at my skin. Pulling me down to join them. Every failure, every thought, manifested as demons that want me to die, want me to join them.

Because I’m not good enough and I’m a burden. I’m not really human. I’m not right, I’m strange. And every day hurts.

I’m just this sticking plaster held over the people I love.

Quicker to rip it away than slower let it fall off.

But I just keep treading water.

Because the seas might dry up. The waves may throw me to salvation. A boat might find me. Or a whale might swallow me whole and throw me somewhere safe. I don’t believe it.

But it might.

A cycle spiral epiphany of the end

As if held by a conscious force, I lie waiting on the sands. Ready to be pulled back by the sea and then discarded again on the shore. Wondering which wave will take me and if the next one will drag me down to the depths.

Into Poseidon’s caress.

A crushing and lifeless hold on me.

So cold, but I was never used to the warmth.

Perhaps I just need some sunshine. As I lie on the beach. Waiting.

Is it a cycle? An even and controlled pattern. Am I on the rails, or road or sea. Or path. Is there a path? How is this woven together?

I’m assuming a logic.

I’m assuming an outcome.

An answer.

Instead of embracing the moment of quiet. Accepting that there may be no outcome. That I may just have to wait for the wave or the light and take what I can from what I have been given.

Dancing in circles in my head. More shapes. Everything’s a shape. And I’m back to the beginning. There is no shape, there is no pattern.

I’m back at the start. At the end. Waiting for the beginning.

Somewhere along the Way

Actively, I’d look out and try to find the Reason.

I can remember vague and distant memories of being in a garden, playing with mud or sand. There’s a familiar sensation of the grains of earth rolling past my fingers, the pressure of the grit pushing under my nails. The grain and the gristle of what should have been filth.

Digging.

A tunnel. A fort. A mound. A castle. A mountain. A landscape. Or just a pile of mud. Uncovering a hidden truth from within something else.

And then I wrote. Learned to write and from that I had abstract thoughts. Or maybe the other way round. That the abstract thoughts pushed themselves from my spirit onto paper. Because back then, that’s what I did.

Pen to paper.

Instead of the pecking of my fingers against plastic.

The tap tap digging of my fingers into a keyboard. The now remembered noise that reminds me of who I am and who I had lost. Along the Way.

I’m so lonely.

Ish.

And as the days go by, am I more content to just tap away? And find a way to remember I’m a human, without the need of a touch or caress, or a love the kind only a lover can give.

I miss it. I don’t. I do. I don’t miss her. Do I want someone else? I don’t know.

And the chaos consumes me. The tunnel, the mound, the mountain, the fort. It all collapsed around me. And all I have left is a pile of rubble. Some remnants from before. And I don’t even know if I want another castle.

All I’m doing now is digging myself out of this hole.

It has to be enough. To get out of the hole before the water floods in.

Then later for the questions.

What should I build next?

I want all the pieces

I remember a song that stuck in my head and a lyric that followed me since. I know the pieces fit cos I saw them fall away.

I can’t remember when or where or how the pieces fell from me and scattered. I feel like a scavenger on a crowded beach, trying to find my belongings whilst the masses trample and stampede over the golden ground.

And whilst I look, my mind wanders further than my legs and thinks of the the pieces that might be drifting off into the future. I need them all, so I can see the tapestry or the puzzle, the shape of what will be and what I am.

Perhaps knowing the destination will ease the burden of the now.

If I knew that just soon, I might find a place to set it down. To rest a while and relax. That someone might help me carry it, for a little while, so my back and my neck won’t need to bear the weight.

I’m so tired.

All the time.

Then the thought strikes me that the pieces might be a burden in themselves. What parts of me do I carry that I no longer need? Which parts of me can I discard safely? Can I save before trying? Just one more reload.

Am I past halfway yet or am I close to the end?

I beg to be shown.

I could cut out my eye and crawl to the Norns.

But I’d just be half blind.

Keep walking. Keep walking. Keep walking.

Keep looking.

Because one day I might find that piece I’ve been missing. And maybe it will click and I will beam in satisfaction. And just know.

What all this was for.

I’m just a song away from despair and a step away from tranquillity

A snake is dragging its tongue across an ancient LP. Hissing the same song into my ears and telling me the same lies it said in the beginning.

Twenty-seven years from thirty-eight. Why have you been following me for so long?

I look into the garden. The place of peace and innocence and freedom. And nothing. There was nothing there. How could a person thrive in Eden? Why would a person push themselves? And how could they recognise the beauty of the world they were in without a glimpse of the misery. Without a sense of the pain.

Just it feels so long sometimes. For me to still be having this.

Counselling hasn’t worked for me. Medication has been a disaster for me. Eating right and exercise do help, but can’t fix this awful pain.

The insistent, repetitive voice that this might be the day. The last day. Rope or pills or car or knife, I’ll never know. Surprise. I’m just a passenger.

Until I close my eyes. And refuse. I refuse to die.

I take a deep breath then look all around me. I’ve just fallen down the mountain again. A few scrapes, a little pain. It’ll be gone in a while. Then I gather my strength.

I need to walk again.

There’s a mountain to climb.

And on the other side. There might be another garden. A place we can all meet. Because I know I’m not alone.

If you’re out there. Dreading the next day and the next and the next. Hoping it is your last. Just take another step and think of me, and all the others. You’re not alone. We’re walking together. We’re one.

Don’t worry about keeping on fighting for now. Just keep walking. One little step at a time.

There’s a light beyond the leaves

I sometimes feel I’m a ship on the ocean. Subject to the tempest. Victim of the elements. In some ways I am, and I have enabled myself to be, if not a ship, a cork floating on the water. I’ve lost the perception of control.

As I ground myself from that feeling of helplessness. As I find a path to start walking again. I find myself trapped on a road. Feeling worse than when I was trapped on the ocean. Because I don’t even feel I can step away from that road. I’ve become caught in the mindset that I can’t leave this road, there’s barriers to each side of me.

And I can’t go back.

So there’s only one Way. Forward.

And I’m trapped in the darkness.

This is true. I’m living in this cold dark world of emotional torment and darkness. I feel lost. I feel like I will never see the sun again. That this canopy above me is enclosing me like the lid of a coffin.

But the light is still there.

Beyond that canopy is a bright light. A loving, life-giving, beautiful radiance. And I can’t go left. I can’t go right. I can never go back. And I must go forward. And forward, right now, there’s only more darkness.

And some days I feel I don’t have the energy to keep going.

But I must. And I will. I’ll keep walking. Because one day I’ll step forward, and a light will strike me through the leaves. I’ll feel the warmth again. I’ll feel the love. I’ll keep walking until I reach the edge of the forest. Until I find the field beyond the darkness. I’ll keep walking until I can bask in the glory and the love of a beautiful sun.

I’ll keep walking.

Because if I stop. I’ll be trapped here forever. Left in the forest. Cocooned in the darkness. Entombed beneath the leaves.

I can’t see it. Maybe you can’t too. So walk with me a while.

The light is there.