writing blog

Train of thought

You said to yourself that it was too cold and that was why you could barely function. It was either that, or the weeks-long stagnation of the spirit.

One day you will no longer think of your own passing, or that of those closest to you, no longer delving in scenarios of unhappiness out of masochistic urges, or in abyssal streams of consciousness.

The city, oh, the city. Sometimes you are the city, sometimes the city is in you, sometimes the city does not exist, or is something so detached from who you are, even as you pass right through its heart. The city in daylight and the city at night – such peculiar dualism to which your mindset adjusts, and which appeals to different beings within you, with different dreams and different nightmares.

You need success and fulfilment in order to open up. Is it right? It might be ingrained – inherited or caused by nurture. Unfolding at your most vulnerable seems impractical anyway, what a silly thing to do. Put up walls and let flowers climb them.

I ate everything I had in the house -red and purple fruits and chocolate, then I took the first train and stopped at the station where my train of thought decided to let me go. The station was all empty, I smiled to myself, and nature witnessed. There is a journey ahead.

Music: Submerged

Their music submerged my body in cold waters- red, blue, and purple lights piercing into the depths. Their voice embraced me, the melody wrapped me up in a liquid swirl, whilst my mind was surrounded by the haze of the late 90’s when I was a child and the very early 90’s when I was not born yet, but it somehow made sense. The fabric of the universe, the condition of being human and of simply being, were reflected in the icy singing. It could be the soundtrack of a trip to the moon, or a trip into the underworld. Of running and never stopping, following an endless white line on the ground, or running and jumping off a cliff not knowing what is on the other side and whether you will survive the crash. Of brides saying ‘I do’ in glittery white dresses inside Christian churches; of a little girl’s tears on her grandfather’s coffin. That moment extended into infinity, the music encompassed everything, and that is how a thousand experiences enriched my mind in an instant.

Aquarium

On the other side, I see your face distorted among plants and fish; you smile and I’m happy because I know you know how I love rivers, lakes, and the sea from afar, and how I used to take swimming lessons when I was little, yet was never eventually able to swim for long distances as I always ran out of breath. You might also remember that I loved facing gigantic waves during storms, letting myself be lifted up and carried by the motion of the sea. Despite this, we probably talked about how I would not want to live by the sea, rather, I always wanted to find out what it would be like to live up in the mountains for a while, with the people I love, a dog, and a cat, surrounded by the warmth of a fireplace, drinking hot chocolate, watching the snowflakes tracing patterns on small windows. Would it be nicer than getting lost in the chaos of a big city?

A poem: November

The vanishing words,
the vanishing images,
the shedding
of selves like autumn leaves;
of withered lives on wrinkled paper,
dust off the treasure chest
in the desert, next to a snake
regenerating its skin
polished,
your porcelain appearance melting into
the undefined-
does the new verse annihilate
or build you?
perhaps it is the fading portrait
either that, or the smile in between
either that, or the infinite encounters
with the ineffable

You write, you cross out
another identity and over to
another vision.

Poetry

Awaiting ❅

Butterflies spiralled in silver –
petals sleeping on the floor
Eternally moved, I quiver-
Tenderly pressed against the door.

Of the senses ❅

Nostalgia persists
soft as velvet,
sad as lace,
sweet and intoxicating
as your scent sliding down my spine.

The fragrant city ❅

Through the alleys,
scents of old seasons
scatter in the urban rain.
Guided by our roots,
the long-withered dreams of being
seem to be reborn from pain.

Midnight ❅

Weak,
gently wrapped in white
I seek
a cure for the night.

Purgatory ❅

I feel
I love
and then I hate
my fire and my demons,
just before I see your celestial smile,
you icy devil
bringing me back to life,
to an illusion of life
which I knowingly accept as truth.
My complicity – dispersed in time
until it is forgotten
The world – no longer in black and white
it burns
I am only ashes.

Identity ❅

Fragrant relics of the heart
crown you as the faerie queen over
the land of forgotten whims
with a rose delicately smothered in your hands
and pearls hanging from your pale thin neck
A down-to-earth Snow White is what I see in you
when all that matters is how you see yourself.

Elevation ❅

When the past smells like dust,
its enchantment is upon you no more –
The future glows in sight
on the island of apples
where you dwell feasting upon eternity
and upon everything born out of a lavish ground.
everything – corporeal and incorporeal gathers up
and you find yourself among nymphs, dryads, witches,
heroes, mad men of both virtues and vices,
unearthly fruits and singing crystals,
air and waters sprinkled with glitter,
and a crystalline laughter travelling with the wind.

Memories of snowdrops ❅

The snowdrop-scented incense extinguishes
It smells like childhood dreams
It smells like us
in a cornfield
or in our garden
laughing and uncaring
just before I went on the hill
with my kite
laughing,
uncaring.

Carved ❅

Red wine, dripping down your lily flesh
like paper tingled by tears of blood
from the wounds of your carved spirit.

Pulse ❅

You lay on the river shore
Half awake and spellbound
by the water flowing
rhythmically,
echoing the flow of blood,
mirroring the flow of time.
Illusions bewitch your mind and body into acting strangely-
The past creeps up and there you are:
Standing still in the infinite white space
of children unborn.

As below, so above ❅

This place is a crypt and, while you’re all waiting
to go on a long journey,
you admire the countless tiles
bearing the scars of the bodies in front of them-
their motionless, diffuse shadows
never making you wonder what they hide
for, as you see their faces, you can tell
you’re all made of the same substance
and that’s all that seems to matter down there,
on the Underground platform.
No mystery in your flesh and bones,
no light at the end of the tunnel,
no heaven to dream of inside the collective tomb,
you are in this together.

Addiction ❅

My shadow on your wall, crumbling
as you wake up from the shivers
entering you like poison-
slowly, from your mouth
passing through your stomach and
limbs in silence,
then back to the skull
By the moon, my black hair
is cast behind you,
Your sickness now caught in my spider web.

DM, 2014-2017

Transcendence

Red cheeks and fairy dust in her hair.

Fragile lips and bones, pointy ears, rosy shiny skin.

What is our purpose, Magna Mater? What is it with all the human images flashing in my head, leaving this bittersweet feeling in my body, just before they transcend it? I feel the chaos of the sea, the murmur of the trees, the warmth of a sweet dog’s coat, the loneliness of the ruins. I feel all this – it seems to have happened centuries ago.

The aftereffects of the trip…You shouldn’t fear. What is left now is to revel in the delights of the present – to lay on the soft warm bed of leaves, gazing upwards while the clouds become stars. I am telling you this because there is no purpose, not in the way you think. The effects of hurt and human agony are latent – they will remain concealed within you until they lure you in their net once again.

The suffering of the ancient

She awakened only to realise that the echoes of the past were still there. She got up and ran towards the end of the hallway, where she used to tell jokes and laugh with her sisters. The statues were staring at her, from both sides, from above, through hollow, yet somehow luminous eyes. These eyes, both demonic and divine, had been following her every move ever since she was left alone in the house, years ago – centuries ago in her mind. She never knew their verdict. She found herself in front of the back door, never the front door, never on the way out. The garlic was hanging above the door as ever, next to the artificial withered-looking flowers. She never understood why the lord insisted upon keeping such strange, unwelcoming decorations. They used to have many unpleasant visitors lurking around the house indeed, but they were the kind that fed upon her happiness, not upon blood. And the flowers… what was the point? Artificial flowers looking withered – how peculiar!

There it was. The garden where they dwell. Their souls were entrapped in the past – they succumbed to a dreadful repetition of agony; an eternal reenactment of their fate. There was something tragic about the way in which they were displayed: each in their own place, yet all bound by the obligation to keep the Show going beyond time. Like pieces of a living puzzle, or fragments of a graphic novel, or carvings in the Cave of the Making, each depicted one sad episode. They were surrounded by glittering blues – portals through which M. could relive the suffering of the ancient.

Diary entry: library

The pleasure of feeling beams of light piercing through tired, stained windows and caressing the air impregnated by particles of dust. The pleasure of being inside, away from the unbearable, threatening sunlight. Expressionistic shapes are formed on old grey walls holding Pre-Raphaelite portraits of mythical women. A shuttering of a window, a shuttering of a book, a shuttering of a mouth after a hasty yawn. Steps – some confident, some shy, some confused or determined, intermittently disrupting an enchanting silence. Wings cleaving the warm air surrounding a five storey building populated by anxious or dreamy souls. A crow gazing straight into the eyes of a figure that returns the gaze, seemingly bewildered. The sound of the wind shouting at buildings. The sound of nature against architecture. The sound of destruction, the sound of collapse.