can you help me occupy my brain

I need someone to show me
The things in life that I can't find
I can't see the things that make true happiness
I must be blind

Make a joke and I will sigh
And you will laugh and I will cry
Happiness I cannot feel
And love to me is so unreal

And so as you hear these words

Telling you now of my state

it's what i need.

~

A Theory Of Monsters

The most terrifying creatures are reflections of what they project. Those that only torment us but are themselves tormented.

Monsters who move with twisted limbs or stilted walk, who leap in freakish fashion instead of an invincible bound, who seem to have woken after a decade or a century of untold suffering.

Ghosts with sad faces, vengeful child-spooks with haunted eyes, persistent whispers in the afterworld that come from having been hurt in life.

The tragic Frankenstein who was created and then deserted. The werewolf who howls with the pain of every transformation. The Blade bloodsuckers with split gaping maws who seem to have been made as a result of torturous experiment. Zombies with remnants of their slow, diseased deaths - and echoes of their former selves - clinging to their grey skin.

Without this element of tragedy, a monster is not truly complete. Monsters are more than just our darker sides. They are the dimension where we keep our sorrow and anger, anxiety and fear. And when we fail to deal with those fears, the monster finally bursts forth.

We are them and they are us.

The most feared boogeyman is one who has your face.


~

Trying to get it right

I should be working. I got jobs screaming at me like a two-year-old tantrum-throwing motherfucker in the supermarket aisle.

Instead I'm one inch away from crying and I hate it.

By the way, I've noticed this default position I adopt when I'm feeling screwed up or just don't know what to do with myself. If I have a table or desk in front of me -- which I do now -- I go into a sort of foetal position. Or the sitting equivalent, anyway. Forearms close together, pressed on the desk edge, body hunched forward, head down and my hands clasping my mouth and nose.

It's a little like Rodin's Thinker, but without the grace and panache. A pensive and decidedly anti-social stance that says Go Away, I'm Thinking Dark Wiggly Neurotic Thoughts. No doubt the Thinker was being more philosophical than neurotic when he adopted that famed pose; but anyway. He sure as hell wasn't humming a Care Bear tune, judging by that frown.

It takes a load of facial muscles to frown. And I should really be conserving my energy for something more useful -- like, say, work. Y'know, the stuff that paid for the quality leather jacket I'm wearing.

But before that, I just need to get this out of my head. Else I'll just fritter away the entire bloody day thinking gloomy foetal thoughts.

~

Sit here on the stairs
'Cause I'd rather be alone
If I can't have you right now, I'll wait
Sometimes I get so tense,
But I can't speed up the time
But you know, there's one more thing to consider

I've been walking these streets at night
Just trying to get it right
It's hard to see with so many around
You know I don't like being stuck in a crowd
And the streets don't change but maybe the name
I ain't got time for the game
'Cause I need you
Well, I need you


--

Nothing's Gonna Change My World

Having recently rewatched that fantabulous musical film Across The Universe, I am tempted to muse on a dream I had some three or four years ago. A dream that began in chaos and confusion but ended in a strange, peaceful feeling. And I say strange because I have never felt like that in real life. Yet.

The song began playing about three quarters into that muddled pillow-cradled thought-phantasm. I'm not sure why. I had no particular fixation on it at the time; hadn't even listened to it once that day. But it blew like gentle breeze into my miserably confused psychological opera. There is a wonderful subtle glow of acceptance in those words: "Nothing's gonna change my world." Repeat it, say it again and again, when your hopes and your very self is on the verge of being blown to smithereens like an absinthe glass at the end of a deadshot Colt.

It works.

In the dream I was struck with a semi-realization that I can't, in the conscious realm, put a name on. But I think that all it was saying, was this.

Embrace change, but also embrace what you can't change.

For all things are temporary. (Some Buddhist philosophy for you; if John were alive right now he'd tell it to ya.)

Nothing lasts forever. And everything - joy, pain, sorrow - will pass.

Jai guru deva ohm.

~ ~ ~

Few things are built for eternity. Even Paradise can fall. And it will fall again, and rise again. Such is the way of the great circle.
Serpent 17:19

-

A Love That Lies

Love is a powerful thing.

Love can save the world. Love can save lives. Love can save you from jumping off the edge.

But it can also push you off it.

Because without a little thing called respect, love is a brute force.

It can be blind and ruthless and take things down in its path with no regard for the feelings of others -- even, ironically, those of the ones it is trying to save in the first place.

And perhaps...

...this brute force isn't really called Love. Not the pure and undiluted, unadulterated version that we come into this world knowing and then almost immediately lose.

It's called -- what? Overprotectiveness, maybe. Overbearing; caring too much. An animal instinct to guard fiercely what one holds dear. Or just the dominance of the Ego: an overriding force that gets at what it aims to achieve, and damn the consequences. It may have the best intentions in mind. But it forgets. It forgets that one aim is not everything. It forgets that everyone else, too, has flaws and feelings. 

But the thing with that sort of blind charging fire, is that it ultimately destroys. 

And isn't that the antithesis of Love?

~

Still

'I still love him.'

Those were the four plaintive words on my last tweet. The painful lovechild of a three-year attraction and the inability to let him go.

Ah the curse of this beautiful season, that amplifies both joy and melancholy.

Every endearment he throws casually on me, every smile, every playful jibe, I treat like fragile beautiful things. I am so afraid of letting my more-than-affection slip through. He is an unusually intuitive person; he might well sense it. Might well back away from me, so that I lose even that one thing I have from him: his friendship.

The tender festering flower inside me blooms for him still. Its velvet petals breathe tentatively, half-dead, yet half-awake, and wait mindless for his return.

But there is no return. It would not matter if we were neighbours; if we were roommates, even. I can never tell him.

I can never risk losing him.

I can never...


~ ~ ~

Love that loves alone can turn to hate. That is the damning flaw in the human need: for two halves to be a whole.
Serpent 25:12

Said woman take it slow, it'll work itself out fine; all we need is just a little patience.
G'nR 19:92


-

flint and fire

His voice sets me off everytime. Rolling out word by word in that unhurried, deliberate fashion, tinged with the rasp of fine tobacco.

It so happened I was writing something vaguely sexy when that voice flowed off the airwaves (or, alright, podcast waves...bytes...whatever you call it) and sneaked into my bloodstream. It works much better with earphones. Makes each word more intimate like he's whispering it right against the tender flesh of your earlobe.

And now I'm madly incendiary. I feel like a match in a world of flint and fire.

Hmm. That sounds like a cool line for a song... or possibly a corny one.

~ ~ ~
To love is human. To lust is holy. For without lust, Paradise languished devoid of passion...so began the Age of Darkness and Superstition.
Serpent 10:17

-

Lately

i am scattered.

my head is everywhere and nowhere. my thoughts are neurons blown apart from their nucleus like so much dandelion fluff.

i need an anchor. i need a single thought or act to hold my day together. before i lose it altogether.

sometimes i frighten myself. although this is nothing new. i have always been a freak - to myself and to others. some people learn to love me for it (or despite it). some find it charming a few are just scared off. not that i need to care about those.

still, it would be nice to be somewhat normal for a day. (or subnormal. is that an acceptable state of mind?)

let me be grounded, even as i dream.

let my next recollection be more than a shattered memory.

let me stop stumbling.

Heart On Sleeve?

...I Don't Think So.
I may cry freely at the ending in Armageddon, but that doesn't mean I enjoy doing it. Especially when you factor in the runny nose and ruined eyeliner.

The other day my colleague and dear friend Jit told me: "You MUST watch Aftershock. I guarantee it'll make you cry."

Right. That's like convincing someone to get a piercing and guaranteeing it'll hurt. Sorry, what's the good part again?

Jit is the darlingest person you will ever meet, but he can be strange that way. Or maybe he just needed a good cry that day. (Jit, you know my shoulder is there for you, right?)

He guessed right that I don't enjoy being vulnerable in front of other people. With the exception of my mom and dad, perhaps. I have dreams about being suddenly naked all the time with nobody noticing. Supposedly it's a sign of inner vulnerability.

It's why I don't listen to Seal or Taylor Swift in public (and in my defence, i have exactly ONE Seal and ONE Tay Swift song on my playlist, shaddup). It's also why I'd rather watch Alice blowing up zombies in the upcoming Resident Evil: Afterlife. In 3D, hellyeah.

Aftershock, and the tears it supposedly brings, can wait till I'm alone.