Spring

A back alley in my neighborhood

Spring flows through the open window. I feel the chill on my skin, the last trace of a winter that wavered and passed between fragments. In that darkness I had no premonition of what was to come: the violence, the doubts and hopes which trail away into the future.

At night I take solitary walks. My mind curls up into a warm embrace for myself and the promise I would give, against the wind. The passers by do not see. They brush past me and head towards their stop. A stop that cuts into the night--shaking it, teasing it, like a rocking cradle.

I live a different kind of life. In me there's only the quest for truth. It comes down to a still point of silence, of faith in the unknown. The fires are cold; there are chains everywhere, pulling me back to a time and space where you did not exist. I will not let go.

Ghosts

Through the nights I wrestle with the ghosts you drew on my back. You left your marks on me in a whirlwind of passion and fear. Your frenzy was a disguise of your trembling inside. I had missed it; I looked beyond your eyes, in search of a spark that could have lived in another time and space. You had missed it; in fear you turned me into twisted shadows of who I am and pushed me to the edge of your consciousness.

You and I should not have shared this space again. We let it burn into ashes. That should not have surprised me, I have always known you do not have my game. Yet you had to and I wanted to, so I fooled myself for a moment and let us jump off the cliff. I could have caught you if you had the courage to plunge into the fall. But you do not. You listened to me in the flame but all the while you were turning blind. You refused to know.

Now you have fallen and I have fallen in different places. Neither of us will speak; you do not know that I have understood the conclusion even before you make it. Will you be relieved - or will you wonder - if I pack the monuments of you and me, walk away and never look back? The silver you left me is not a silver of hope. It is a gift I will keep in my drawer, along with other forgotten accessories I have collected over the years.

Now I look into the void that has erupted. I do not know what is going to happen. I will try to stay within silence and wait for it to engulf me, or for the terrain to turn and carry me to a rock where I will lay waiting until you find me.

Another Night at the Circus

Here. Here. Look at this intriguing book cover of Another Night at the Circus, a collection of short stories by fellow writer and blogger Rose Hunter. Rose probably has plenty of fans who follow her blog - musings about writing, bottles of liquor gone bust in the fridge, grunge music drifting in the air in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico - and her latest venture impressed me big time.

Admittedly I haven't read the whole pdf book coz I don't have a printer and it's hard staring at the screen for long, but let's say Rose's writing has its dynamic - even if you feel it's keeping you at bay (I'll save the rest of my thoughts for when I finish the book). It's very brave of Rose to put this book together and put it out there for us to read, when many people are skeptical of self-publishing. I haven't given enough thought to this subject to have a conclusion, but one thing I know is that I couldn't have done what Rose did. While she often complains about her lack of discipline, writer's mood swings and whatnots, she had to have drive and some persistence to make this book happen!

So, kudos to you, Rose, you're awesome. The rest of you can go download her book. Now!

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I've been absent from this blog because, well, I've closed my eyes and let myself go into the night and the ghosts are keeping me--they won't let me wake up to see if it's a trap or if it's my soul springing open.

When I'm living in such darkness I read poetry. So here's an untitled poem by Paul Celan. From Breathturn (1967):

In rivers north of the future
I cast the net you
haltingly weight
with stonewritten
shadows.