Dark Flute and Lone Star, Jim Guthrie

Open your eyes, ever so slowly. Just a little bit at a time. Stretch your neck, open your mouth, wave your arms.

                                      Awaken.
                                                                 
                                                                   Arise.

You've never seen this place before. It looks beautiful. It looks haunting. Look here look there. Look up look down.

                          "what the fuck?"

Close your eyes again. You might find yourself back in the comfort of your dreams. Get up. Get up already. The sun is rising. You feel it on your skin. You accept the warm embrace. The hair on your arms and the back of your neck stand like soldiers.

                                                                                                                                  "Soldiers?"

You move towards the sun. Always move towards the sun. The sun has answers for you. The sun better give you your answers. Blink, rapidly. It's bright. Look down for a second and let your pupils cower under the suddenly harsh sun.

                                                                           Look up.

You're in a desert. You see a figure stand in the distance. It gets bigger and bigger the close you get to it. You're right there. Almost there. You call out to the figure. You can't. Your mouth is dry. But wait. That figure.

                                   It's you.

Why is there a mirror in the desert? You wonder. The figure in the mirror answers.

                                                                                         "You should know, you made it."

You blink again. A confused expression on your face. "I made it?" Then it hits you. This is the barren, arid desert you've created for yourself. That's when you realise.

                    You wake up with a start.

You smile. You haven't smiled in ages. Not since...

                                                                                         "Forget it. Learn to move on. Learn to Live."

Who was that? That was a familiar voice. You decide to take it's advice. That day, you smile. You laugh. You accept. You feel the joy of being alive in this beautiful world.





You're in the desert again. This time, it's different. The air doesn't feel oppressive. Your mouth isn't dry. Your feet feel damp.

                                                       You're standing in a stream of water.

You look back up. The desert isn't... deserted.

                                                                                            You see a sapling begin to grow.

                                                 

Atlas Hands, Benjamin Francis Leftwich.

Warmth. The very physical manifestation of it. Like chocolate melting in my mouth. Except this wasn't my mouth. It was my mind. It was like melting into a puddle of nothingness. It was just so

warm.

Hues of orange streaked across the sky. The sky seemed to have forgotten to be blue. My eyes began to defocus and everything was a confusion of orange and

orange.

The scene changes to a moonlight night. A full moon hung lopsided in the sky. It looked like a defiant little child, not wanting to conform. Not wanting to obey. A single streetlamp illuminated a deserted garden. Where are the children now? They are asleep. I am not. Sometimes, I get caught in a never ending loop of wanting sleep but being gripped by a familiar

insomnia.

Soft guitar plays in the background, but I eventually sense an alien intrusion in my ears. Or is it just my mind? Probably both. I read a word in some book somewhere

'sanity'.

I don't suppose that makes any sense to me. There is no place for sanity here. There is only confusion.  Orange, gooey confusion. It's a welcome change. I lie back down, eyes closed, trying to close my head. It doesn't work. I wonder what it's like to

dream.

I did dream that night. The first dream that I wanted to remember. The first memorable dream in a long, long time. Two people sitting on a bench in the middle of nowhere. Unconsciously swinging their legs back and forth. Consciously looking into each others eyes. Each others souls. That place seemed oddly familiar. It seemed

warm.

Taxi Cab, twenty | one | pilots

Hollow black sky, illuminated by your eyes. Your radiance. Broken film and a piece of something I remember from a long time ago.

                   Stopping, starting. 

                                        Starting, stopping

A painting made by someone who doesn’t know the difference between black and white, and it's all the same. 

Soft, sweet music plays, but I’m deaf. I don’t know how I’m alive. I don’t know why I’m alive either. 

Except that I’m here. Just a shadow, nothing more. 

Washed away by my insignificance. 

Grave diggers and heart breakers and mind fakers. 

Please, please help me.

I think I’m going mad. 

Or maybe I’m already mad. 

The condition worsens with every word I say. 

It kills me more and more, but it makes me lighter and lighter. 

Please, let me go home already. 

Undo my deeds, and let me fly. 

I don’t want to be afraid anymore. 

I want to be free. 

Save Me, Muse.

After you had gone, I felt like a shell of my former self. All the weight was back on top of my shoulders. The agonising drudgery of an everyday existence stared me in the face. I was beginning to feel afraid that it might stare me down.

I thought I'd hear your voice on the phone, but I had nothing to say to you. You just happen to be so far away. It's unfair how life seems to bring something to you, and you fall for it, believing that it's here forever. You learn to live your life till saturday, and you know, come sunday, that the one thing keeping you from being fragmented into a thousand miserable bits of person, would be gone.

I live with the hope that I'll see you again. Maybe next year. Maybe even the year after that one. It's small hopes like that that keep me going.

I don't know if there is anyway else I can put this, but the fact of the matter is that I love you. No, not the way you think I do. It's pure, unconditional love someone feels for a person just because they are who they are. No, I don't want to 'date' you. I don't want it to be anything more than what we have right now.

I'm in love with you in a very different sense. I'm in love with the way you laugh at me. I'm in love with the way you get excited by strange things in strange shops. I'm in love with the way I can talk to you. I..

What is my point anyway?

Amy, Green Day.

Don't go away. You're the only thing that's keeping me alive. It's ironic that every time I look at you, I die .You smile at me and my heart skips a beat. There's three other people but I can't keep my eyes off you. I don't know where these words come from. I can barely think straight when I think of you. I'd ask you for a dance, except my legs are jelly and the rest of me is straitjacketed.

I've never seen anyone else this happy. I've never seen anyone else this beautiful. I've never seen anyone with eyes like yours that I can't look away from. I feel lost, and everything around me seems like it's moving a little too slow. I'm afraid of walking into something even when I'm standing perfectly still.

And I don't even know what to say to you. 

Tir Nan Og, Alcest.

The breeze was alive. It spoke to me. It carried memories of the past and visions of the future and things I could't understand. Yet it's constant chattering and whistling brought me comfort. I saw a figure fade away in the distance and I began to run towards it not wanting it to disappear, but when I caught up to it, there was nothing. No one. 

I felt intoxicated by your presence. I breathed in the smell of the sea and thought that this is where I belonged. The shore was a mess of rocks and plastic. It was corrupted. Corroded by the greed of man and his never ending desire to have what he does not need. Yet your very existence made it all seem beautiful for that one moment. Like nothing could ever be wrong with it. Like nothing ever was. You exude perfection in your every breath. Your beauty graced the streets and people parted to let us through. I was starstruck. I had gone mad. I was madly in love. 

I am like the moon. I hide away my darkness and show you only what I want your to see. There's a side of me that I try to deny, but without it I would be incomplete. I would be shallow. Half-faced. I wouldn't be able to live without it and that troubles me. I want to be able to be loved, but deep down inside me, in places I do not want to go, I've seen the truth about who I am. 

Perth, Bon Iver.

The beach was the same as it always was. There was, however something undeniably different about it. Something had changed. Something about us had changed.

We held hands as our feet shuffled along on the sand. You laughed. You have such an infectious laugh. It's the happiest laugh I've ever heard. There's no scorn, no cynicism. Just pure, unadulterated happiness. You made me happy. You always have.

I was so in love I felt breathless. My heart and mind and soul, all a confused mess of being. That didn't disturb me. I had you. I had you beside me. I looked at you, your pretty face, your eyes. I was lost. I thought I heard a guitar playing, and I could smell the earth after it had rained. Those are the things that remind me of you the most. I feel something else when look into your eyes and when you laugh and the whole world seems to be turning upside down and I feel giddy and happy all at the same time and I.

I feel alive.