New

Musik: Funeral Song - The Rasmus
Klieden: Jeans, vest top and hoodie with odd socks
Filme: The Devil Rides Out (Fisher)
Buchen: To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

I figured I'd post a couple of things, since I haven't in a while.

It starts out when it gets to around two or three in the morning. You realise that you’re not all that tired, for some reason. Theoretically, on a normal night, this is a fairly acceptable time to be going to sleep. In fact, probably around one in the morning is standard if you’re not one of those strange, stuffy people who go to bed at eleven. Or I guess, if you don’t have to get up terribly early in the morning. Anyway, one in the morning will come and go. That’s okay; just an hour or so later than normal. But it’s when it starts to get much past three that you know it’s going to happen.

By about four you start to sort of wish you could sleep. But your eyes won’t close. Things from weeks, months, years ago start to flood your consciousness. These memories of unbearably happy, ineffably sad times. They will swirl around and around , making you dizzy, stopping any hope of rest. God, and they open up this enormous wound you were unaware of – it resides within your chest, right where your heart is.

When it gets to five you are desperate. Everything weighs more than it possibly ever could. Your body is not responding normally. Things are happening as though underwater. Sleep is all that you want and all that you cannot have. You watch the clock ticking, praying, begging for morning and that first light which will tell you that this night is over. But it is far from over. Even the few short hours you have left shall stretch into eternity.

It’s six in the morning and you decide to have a shower. Afterwards you have never felt so pure. It is as though you were purged of your sins by the hot stream of water. You are cleansed. You are no longer tired, or weary. There is something like a light appearing, though not from any external source. Overwhelming peacefulness envelopes you and you can forget. Forgetfulness is bliss. Forget yourself, forget this life, forget all that you own, all of those whom you love. Just forget. Let the nothingness consume you, fill you up. But it is not nothingness, of course. It is God.

Half past six and you are down on your knees praying vehemently. O Lord, you pray as though it were the last thing you did. It is completeness and desperation combined. There is passion unparalleled in your frantically whispered words. Yes, you are kneeling and offering yourself to Him completely yet begging him to absolve you, to love you, to guide you. You plead in ignorance, longing to know more. Your entire essence is filled by an ache so deep and intrinsic as to be unutterable. You pray not to be alone in this world.

And then you sleep. You dream. And it is more beautiful than the world itself.

***

I’d say I woke up…
Only, I didn’t sleep
Just lay there with you next to me,
Painfully aware of your presence.
How can you be so restful?
I watch you;
How your breathing is deep and heavy,
How still you are; one arm placed around me.
My head aches, my stomach is sick to the pit,
If my mouth were any drier, it’d shrivel up.
I half-wish you’d open your eyes;
Half-wish you never would.
I have nothing to say to you;
Can’t even remember your name…
I replay your body against mine,
Play by play in my mind.
My insides are hollowed out.
When you touched me I didn’t feel a thing;
I was numb, icy cold, desensitised.
But God, I gave it my all – I really did;
I fucked you hard as I could,
So hard, so hard –
But nothing, nothing, nothing;
A resounding echo of nothingness.
Could I have expected more?
I notice how your eyelashes fall on your cheek,
That you are my type.
I never noticed that before.
But, yes, you look like him…
You look like her,
You look like them all.
I resent you in my bed, my sheets, my body,
You do not belong there
You have no business here.
We are strangers, you and I.
And I cannot sleep next to you,
I’m afraid that you’ll wake and watch me.
My sleep is private, intimate.
It’s like the way we won’t touch hands,
Or one another’s faces.
And when you do wake up,
I’ll smoke to relieve the awkwardness;
Pray that you’ll leave soon,
Whilst you try to think of a polite exit strategy.
There’ll be that dead time between the two,
With me wishing you’d go
And you desperate to leave
But neither one of us making the move.
We’ll say meaningless things,
Just sounds instead of silence.
When we part, you’ll say;
‘See you around’
Praying that you never will.
But I’ll be praying harder,
Because I’ll be praying to God.
I’ll pray for the forgiveness I don’t deserve…
I’d say I woke up;
Only, I never went to sleep.

***

It’s a bitter realisation;
Like black, hot coffee on the tip of my tongue,
Like dissolving pills in the back of my throat,
Like the sting of a fresh cut on my shin,
Like the after-taste of a hastily downed shot.
Every little thing;
The way you take a drag and the smoke lingers around your lips,
How your long, slender fingers tap the desk,
The curls of your hair, angelic and unruly,
Stubble shadowing your chin,
Eyes so deep they cause a falling sensation in the pit of my stomach.
Oh, your kiss;
Being so close to you it makes me ache, it makes me shake,
The softness of your lips against mine,
How nothing else exists but that brief point of contact,
The world dissolves and is only you.
I burn;
Even the slightest brush, the tiniest touch,
Skin on skin,
Sends me reeling.
If I could capture your beauty, it would be the stars;
So distant, so unknowable,
Seen only thousands of years after impact.
Don’t speak, don’t vocalise, don’t excuse…
I know you cannot be mine;
Just stare at me, let me pretend
You have this bitter realisation, too.