Thoughts From West Egg

I took a drive early yesterday morning to nowhere in particular, just a drive to breath a little. There wasn't much out there so I decided to stop at one of my favorite places in this world. I don't really know why I like it there. Maybe because it's almost always quiet, there's really no people around, but probably because it reminds me of walking around in the setting of one of my favorite books in the world, kind of like a two-for-one adventure. I just kind of sat down in the grass and took in everything around me and how it's changed. In the attitudes of the park benches, and the trees, and the age old houses that sit cozy in their dangerously close location to the water, all the flavor has been sucked out. It's almost like everything kind of left this place. It's been abandoned...by me.

Do memories ever remember us? Does the replaying in some other dimension of all our life's struggles and happiness ever think about where we went or what happened to us? Probably not. They're unaware of everything in a blissful way. Kind of like when someone hits you and it feels like it hurts at first but then goes away quickly, so you forget until later on when it all comes back as this horrid bruise and the person who hit you has no idea the hurt that they caused. They knew it at the initial strike but they didn't see what happened when they were gone, when they were no longer looking. But it's already over for them. They've moved on and there you are with this bruise that you barely even understand the origin of. We've all bruised at least one person in our lives and they're just walking around trying to deal with it. All the while we go confidently about our daily lives. But maybe we're all equal since we've all been bruised. It's kind of hard, making sense of something like that. I guess you just have to do your best not to bruise anyone or at least try and remember everyone. To never forget what they were saying before you hit them, who they were, why you were even standing there with them in the first place, is so important.

Memories can't remember, only we can. Our memories are not perfect even when people wish for one. But, there is a price for having a perfect memory. Everyone wants the memory of an elephant because they think it would help them, but the reality is, it would only make things unbearable to witness. True, you remember all of the happiness and all of the wondrous things that some people have the ability to say, but you can also remember all of the sad things those same people said, all of the things that weighed you down the minute they were spoken. And all of these things come together in some sort of mixed up and crazy way so that in the end you realize, you can't tell the truth from what was a lie. Suddenly you don't know anyone anymore and you feel like the dumbest animal alive. This whole world would make you fall apart in pain if you could remember everything. You would find yourself begging on bloody hands and knees not to be fooled again. But elephants, somehow they live in these perfect societies that are wise and beautiful. If it wasn't for the fact that they still fight, an elephant society would almost be a utopia. Elephants, however, don't long as humans do. Humans have a much more complex emotional range so that mental pain can quickly turn into physical pain.

There's a longing in me as there is in everyone. I can find myself drifting away in thought sometimes and a shower of hurt can fall over me as I realize, something is gone. It's like someone took a huge chunk of my chest and ripped it out, then ran away with it because that was all that was needed for them to go on living and for me, just to survive. It can wake me up in the middle of the night. It can disturb me as I'm reading a book and suddenly all of the words seem to pertain to my feeling, as if trying to draw a map to something I'll never get back. Sometimes it's as if a child has been ripped from me, and I can't ever see it again. There's a word for just about everything in the English language, but there really isn't a word strong enough to describe this feeling. The closest I've come is found in Portuguese: saudade. I think a lot of people have felt at least something similar. If they haven't, they more than likely will at some point in time. That isn't pessimism, it's just wisdom.

In the end, I suppose the only real trust is the trust you put in yourself. You can't lie to yourself, you'll always know the truth, even if you know absolutely nothing about you. You don't necessarily have to like who you are or what you've done, you just have to believe that one day, you may just get it right. People are quick to say that someone depressed has given up, but the truth is, they've fought for so long and tried so hard and believed so much but then found that none of it was worth while and they're tired. They've got too many bruises and can't stand up because it hurts so much. Never forget that everyone has fought a battle, no matter how young or old and those could have been terrors beyond belief. Nobody ever just falls down and says, "I give up." They keep trying until they're so exhausted that they don't have a choice but to lay down in the middle of the highway and let the world run over them. Be consistent in what you believe, it's all the possessions you really have. If you step away from it, you're the one giving up.

I realize that Blanche Dubois isn't exactly a model character to follow, but she deserves credit for the adversity she had to face and for never abandoning the truth about who she was. As they're escorting her away to the mental hospital at the end of the play, do you know what she says?
"I've always depended on the kindness of strangers." In my opinion, it's the bravest thing she does in the entire play. So I suppose I came to the conclusion around 2 am that, you have to remember everyone for who they are. Never forget how you saw someone yesterday, how beautiful they were, even if they've turned against you today. You can miss them all that you want, but they probably will never come back. You can hope for it though, and you become a saudade. But most of all, listen to Polonius before you leave, "This above all, to thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day, thou canst then be false to any man." Thanks, Shakespeare.

Concave Life

"What can you do now?"
As the crust of the Earth collapsed.
A face was no longer looking.
Somewhere in the canyon, a child cried.
And the sun set on today to what it became; yesterday.
There was no stopping that.
Only the words on a poignant whisper
could be heard through the rubble pounding of the war
and the scars being made
saying, "Nothing, nothing is the same."

The Innumerable Hours Of My Soul

The heart, what powers the soul, is like a child. It's small, naive, and hasn't the strength to keep this old soul alive. It beats though, audaciously, as it has no other purpose. And the soul, what walks in a world so frozen in unwavering beauty knows of the withering minutes in its time. but still it will climb any hill for its tenderness, for its love and its innocence. Although it knows, this is a world that echoes to but a whisper in its vacant cathedral halls, it walks among them to envy the hours of the flowers that share the ground, wishing one would match its truths to add mere seconds of bliss to the minutes which are frayed.

Age. It has its numbers and its years to expire. It has its winters and its springs. But nothing lasts as the heart or the soul, nothing is as evergreen and undying. But omniscient, by only the light of a candle in miles of darkness. It lasts and lives. And if it is seen in one of these glorious days, it shines. The music, which sings to bend above the trees delivers words carried on the tips of the syllables, the expanse in the crescendo, the passion in its verses. It lives. And the heart inspires on, calling for silence ahead at the precipice of life, not existence, in fact, different all the same. It is there. In front of me, all around me, it wraps to cradle me in its welcomed warmth. It will not hurt me. It will not harm me but instead may just devour me. It is that of a flame which never fades. It is hope. The only thing leftover. Too many things seen in too few days.

Hope. It lives. The only thing that really does.

The Scarlet Letter

"My heart was a habitation large enough for many guests, but lonely and chill, and without a household fire. I longed to kindle one! It seemed not so wild a dream [...]

She had wandered, without rule or guidance, into a moral wilderness. Her intellect and heart had their home, as it were, in desert places, where she roamed as freely as the wild Indian in his woods. The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers - stern and wild ones - and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss. [...] She had not known the weight until she felt the freedom."

~Nathaniel Hawthorne~

Blind

My eyes are gone.
I haven't lived this way.
I wasn't trained,
but it is the price I've had to pay.

They have stolen my eyes.
I tried so hard not to cry.
Their hands wrapped so well around my throat,
the only thing that was meant to be.
They told me it was better not to see,
they convinced me.
They stole my eyes.

I see only blackness.
When I walk,
I stumble over the things around me,
the things I can't have.
They are not mine,
they are like my eyes.

If I could have my eyes,
I'd look once more on the night skies.
I'd watch light turn dark
and brilliant dazzling bodies,
miles away,
They don't exist by the time they reach
my eyes.

My eyes are gone.
They have stolen my eyes.
I wish I could see you now,
with my eyes.

My eyes are gone.
They have burned my eyes.

Broken Bones & Crying Stones

The whispers through the trees,
and their dying leaves
sing. They sing for me.
And I'll lay in these lush meadows
to see a silhouette
appear on my horizon.

Although, I realize,
the dawn may never come,
this heart never seemed to fail before.
For had life sprung
from the now gone eternity,
I could have stepped into that infinite sea
shining before me.

But my palace
is the castle that falls.
And my pillows see no sleep.
But they dream
of a day when a head
will stay.

I wish I had waited
more patiently for the rain.
But the sun scorched the flesh,
down to my aching bones.

I have hoped in the depths
of a new moon night
that one day I'll lay
under ancient lights again.

And I know my broken feet
walk only on stones
but those stones belong to an existence
far greater than my own.
And I'd walk upon them for miles,
if only for one more smile.

Something Like Drowning

This place seems battered,
hounded and betrayed.
It's tired and afraid.
How much left is there to lose?
When will the clock on the wall
lose its melodic ticking?
Cold coffee on the counter,
went untouched.
Burn all the blank books on the shelves,
to release their words in horrid shrieks.
Migraines of questions unanswered
but too late to ask.
There's no song and no time
to break this fever.
No time in the world.

It's cold, alone, in bitter words but
better left that way.
There wasn't a light on the horizon
that didn't fade away.
And there's no way out of this place.
So reflex kicks in,
can't hold it any longer,
and water fills the lungs,
convulsions stab at the muscles.
And death comes closer every inhale,
the organs, the heart, the mind.
Become a waste of time.