Monday, 28 July 2008

Not an hour ago I was being backlit by flickers of electric blue in the sky, like a character in a film reel running out on itself through a projector. Every third or fourth footstep was enough to shake the air, it seemed, and the rain traced the veins in my arms, slowly gliding down my warm skin like a lover's touch until it reached my hands, and my knuckles, and my fingertips, and then finally my pockets.

And here's where I don't think the storm becomes what you think it's going to be. The choice to take it and use it as a hackneyed illustration of some internal conflict, some emotional dilemma rendered microcosmic by it's surroundings, is tempting, but this is a place for truth, and the truth right now is that I haven't got any duelling choices tearing me apart. Instead, seeing all the chaos which, you know, isn't chaos, but as natural as can be, taking place around me, cut loose a different animal, a new bull in my own private china shop.

If it is. (The other Three Words which turn me on). If it is natural for such things to happen, then, gosh, its meant to be. And if it is meant to be, then who am I to deny it. I'm no-one, really. Nothing. Just one in two hundred million who spent nine months waiting to be one of six billion and counting. So if it is just the way of the world that the air can roar and the sky can spit sparks of their own accord, I don't really think there's much I can do but to accept that. It's like how I was talking to friends this weekend, and the question came up about whether we were all scared to die. I was surprised that everyone was, that everyone dreaded what was inevitable, except me. Because if it is unavoidable that we are all going to die, the only thing to fear is not doing enough with your life. And in the face of all the things that are natural and meant to be, I don't for a second believe that myself, or anyone else, can't do precisely what they want with their life. As much as we all exist on this canvas, we can fill in the brushstrokes ourselves, however we want to. If we can do that, we haven't got to be afraid of death.

Maybe the storm has ended up being what you thought it would be; a metaphor for a collision perhaps. And maybe this isn't the best-explained piece on here, there are holes in my argument, and there are flaws to be chipped away at, but this isn't something based on logic. This is something based on feeling, born from the heart and not the head, and spat on a page like the sky with its sparks. This is from walking home in the rain and thinking everything is how it should be, and yes, things are going to be alright. Because I will make them alright.

Wednesday, 16 July 2008

I did it. And it would be a lie to say I didn't wish you could have seen me, that your smile had greeted me, but it's alright because you were there, because I was there, and I am nothing if not an ever growing sum of your parts.
I play on the instruments you passed down. Every time I sit and lay hands, I hear the same notes that grew from your touch. When I was a child, I watched you, I heard you, and before I knew that your love would become my love, I was in awe of you. And now I cannot form a chord without feeling your hand guide mine, and hearing your patient voice conducting my stuttering melodies.
They have not gathered dust, your toys. They have become mine, and they are no longer playthings as I once saw them. I understand why now, and how. How they saw you through. They are keys that I can work, but they are also keys that can work me, and they have opened parts of me that few other things are able to. From them, from you, I have found something to spend a life on.

It was a dream but I felt your arms.

I am your boy.

And I hope I make you proud.

Thursday, 10 July 2008

We have both become each others parasites, now we are becoming each others everything and surely this will only end in blood and tears. The way we've interweaved is something quite unnatural, a blessing from the providence I don't quite believe in yet. A mirror, some kind of reflection. The glass is not cracked, it's a perfect double. The fracture is inescapable but no longer insurmountable, and for that, I let hope smoulder in the base of my mind.

A chasm which cuts to the core of the characters we play. We are our own rocks, suspended in nothingness, frustrated, anxious and aimlessly circling, alive in the dark.

We are intertwined, we are choking each other in our sleep as a reflex brought on by the words we share. At the same time hands made out of syllables tighten their grip through screens, at the same time our lungs are filled with each others sounds via telephone wires, we know we will share a single heart whenever yours or mine gets broken again and so we close our eyes and we wake with the sun. This is our comfort, this is our trap, sometimes I think to myself this is an accident waiting to happen. But we carry on. We persist. Because this is what love is. This is what love is. This is what love is. This is what love is. This is what love is. This is what love is. This is what love is. This is what love is. This is what love is. This is what love is.

Monday, 7 July 2008

I actually really need, need, need, something good to happen soon.
You're a fucking fraud, the worst kind of liar. That's right, I am spitting venom for the first time at you, and I hope it hits you right between the eyes again and again. Living anxiously inside your straw house you built in the hope that someone would blow it down, so you could put pen to paper and so you could profit. Then repeating the process.

The knife was in my back and it took days, weeks, months before I felt it, it just took the right twist for me to bleed. Persistence gets me nowhere, gets you everything you wanted. It's only fitting you put on so many masks, you act with such abandon, in such an old fashioned way that we've all forgotten how to pre-empt the narrative.

How will I EVER get back to where I was? If my fire was set to the tiniest grains of your sand, I know we would only grow into glass and become able to shatter. But the shards would be beautiful, they would be sharp, they would be something I'd hold onto until they got under my skin like you did.

The movies told you anything but the truth. They wanted the worst for you because it was best for them. Populating the child with hollow men and women, empty words born from bankrupt ideas. I think you should feel like the biggest star of all. I am your audience, and I want my money back, and I want my time back, and I want so much back, and I want you gone right now.

This is starting to feel like a set up. Clue me in, I'd laugh if I got the point.

Friday, 4 July 2008

So, this was originally written a little while ago, and while it might not reflect where I am now, it certainly sums up how I felt when I wrote it. I sort of think it's one of the better written things I've done. I don't know, I just like this one, and felt like fucking off modesty and being a little proud for once.

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Oh I know they're made of cards but I'll still wish a plague on both your houses.
Get myself clean by infecting the king and queen of this fucking scene.
Oh and so it might sound hard but I just want to say to you your death rattle's gorgeous.
It will lull me to a decent nights sleep for the first time in weeks maybe months maybe years.

And I could dream
Of spotlights and searchlights and highlights and lows.
And I could scream
Or I could keep it all shut up and locked up and silent.
Quiet like a snake in the grass, like a snake in your heart.

Attention, seekers, I think I have found just the stage you were looking for
I know you've got a social ladder to climb but give thinking a thought.
How do you feel about life, love and literature?
How do you feel about another drink when you pick your white face off the mirror?

The king and queen are ridden with disease, taking applause, taking whatever they need.
The priorities of pointless hierarchies come to the fore at the coolest parties.

Playing dumb isn't cute anymore, so just as well you're no longer just playing.
Bring out the vultures.
You bring out the vulture in me.
We pick the meat from your bones, we're eating, but you're paying.

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I'll try to make the next one not be a song.

Wednesday, 2 July 2008

Don't look at me now with different eyes.
I can still be all I was.
I will still be all I was to you.
I never ever told you lies
I just didn't need to say
I never needed to say the truth

Father, mother, sisters, brother, friends, lovers
How do you like me now
That I am standing tall and proud
With my head in these black clouds

They are my halo
And so I think I can get away with anything
They are my halo
And if it slips down it can become my noose.

Father, mother, sisters, brothers, friends, lovers
I am what has become of the boy you knew,

And I don't mean to break your hearts
But there's nothing I can do.

Nurses, doctors, listeners, talkers, ghosts, survivors
I have heard you all but I have not learned.

How will you like me then,
When I have become your son again.
When I am a brother, a lover, a friend
When I have made my way to the end
When I have made it.
Home.

How do you like me now
That I am standing tall and proud
In spite of all that should pull me down
My head is in the clouds
And they are my halo
I'm coming home.