Four of Swords: Forced Rest

And so I'm reading. I'm re-reading bits of my saga, which I wrote in 1999 and 2000. Yellowed pages that smell good, and have water stains on them. The ink I used to write has been smeared and erased in places, and my writing style, twenty years and thousands of pages later, seems too descriptive and overly emotional. But there are parts of me in them that shine effortlessly even now. It makes me happy and sad in equal parts. When I'm looking for a comforting place to hide in and recuperate I hide in there. In the world I brought here in bits and pieces that have never been connected in one, larger body.

I'm tired. Nothing new. Trying to push on, trying to keep walking. I'm terrified of stopping. In this world we live in, where dog eats dog, humans fight over nothing and find nothing to unite them, I am terrified of stopping. I'm chased by a battalion of anger and sadness, people, circumstances, unfinished jobs, unattainable dreams, frustration and tiredness. I need to find a safe place to rest, to put down my burden and sleep. I'm starting to think I'll sleep when I die. I've been chased by Gods, demons and mortals for almost forty three years now. I get bitten a lot, and before the wounds are healed I get new ones. I'm a goddamn geological formation of scabs. I don't even stop to think about it; anyone who gets too close on the other level gets incinerated. The only problem is you can't kill real, actual people without going to jail. Ha ha ha.

I'm tired. I need to rest. I need to hide and live the rest of my life invisible. It's impossible, of course. No matter where I go, they'll find me. I stink. My being is inhabited by my soul, and my soul stinks to them. That small pulse inside called soul colours my entire existence, skin and bone and blood, and it smells of the Other Side. It smells like understanding and forgiveness, taking care of every life from the smaller to the biggest, protecting the weak ones and the different ones and using resources to promote well-being, health and literacy, justice and medical care. It smells like safety and individuality and different families and fucking utopia. I stink of it. I stand out like a flower in an abattoir. And I can't help it. I am what I am, I can't change. I can't stop caring and wanting to protect the ones who can't protect themselves. I can't stop hating injustice, pettiness, vanity, racism, stupid mind-games, cruelty and hypocrisy. It's who I am. I know right from wrong. Loving, evolving, moving on is right. That's what I want for me and everyone else. And those who don't want it, well, I just wish to stay away from them. I don't want to change them, or educate them, or make them change their minds. I can't change them anyway, it's futile. Just want to keep my distance.

This world hates my guts, and I suffocate in it. It will pass. I'll push on. Time is always on my heels, biting me like a hyena, trotting behind me to tire me until I collapse. It circles above me, a carrion bird. And I give him the finger. And I walk on.

I recently came across this poem that pretty much says it all. Enjoy. And if you'd like to support me, please buy me a coffee.

Pursuit, by Stephen Dobyns

Each thing I do I rush through so I can do

something else. In such a way do the days pass--

a blend of stock cars racing and the never

ending building of a gothic cathedral.

Through the windows of my speeding car, I see

all that I love falling away: books unread,

jokes untold, landscapes unvisited. And why?

What treasure do I expect in my future?

Rather it is the confusion of childhood

loping behind me, the chaos in the mind,

the failure chipping away at each success.

Glancing over my shoulder I see its shape

and so move forward, as someone in the woods

at night might hear the sound of approaching feet

and stop to listen; then, instead of silence

he hears some creature trying to be silent.

What else can he do but run? Rushing blindly

down the path, stumbling, struck in the face by sticks;

the other ever closer, yet not really

hurrying or out of breath, teasing its kill.

From “Cemetery Nights” by Stephen Dobyns (Penguin Books: 100 pp., $14.95) Copyright 1997 Reprinted by permission.

Taken from here.

Atonement

"...And it is the people most capable of forgiveness that are the only ones made to atone."

Emi Mahmoud

Fleeting or fleeing

Tonight I miss you again. This song reminded me of you, and how you once grabbed a shotgun to save lives, including your own.

Grief is a strange animal. It resembles an old injury. You think you have healed and then the weather changes, or you make a sudden move, and your body reminds you of the exact places it had been broken. It's the same deal with grief. You think the worst part has passed, and then you see or hear something and sadness pours out with such fierce intensity that startles you.

The funny thing is that lately I am content. I am tired, sure, and vulnerable, and everything is far from perfect. It doesn't stop me from being content. This contentment is not apathy. It embodies a quiet sense of being in the present moment. It has sadness and curiosity and hope and my sense of humour and a generous amount of disbelief for the stupidity of mankind. You can be content and hopeful and sad and dog-tired at the same time. It's not the same as being joyful, or happy. 

I recently noticed that the blog is a breath away from 100.000 pageviews. Well, as blogs go, it's old. It turned 14 years old in October. I don't write here as often as I'd like, and have no idea who reads it. To be honest, I don't know why anyone would read it as it is so personal, and sometimes repetitive. I get no income from it and I don't get contacted by my readers. I never have comments. In a way, it reminds me of a person posting letters to themselves. I write here because I have to, just like I grieve and laugh and eat and sleep because I have to. And it seems to me that is reason enough. 

Take good care of yourself tonight and every night.

Don't be someone's reason for grief if you can help it. 

Good night my dears.

Good night my darling.  
I miss you very much.

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Storming paradise

"From this flesh my spirit longs to break away. 
Did you ever feel this cosmic circumstance was never enough? 
Wake me slowly if ever at all. 
Wake me slowly or watch me fall."

I do long to break free from my flesh tonight. Only I don't want to die.
Desire makes me weak, it makes me crawl, yet dignity wins every single time.
I still need to find the one who won't force me to choose.
I have to keep on fighting though I can barely stand.
It's OK though. I'm used to watching my world burn.
I am slowly regaining my hope, not because the situation is improving. Because it was mine and you took it away.
The rest will take care of itself, fuck you very much.
Desire will pass. It always passes.
Hey, even life will pass, let alone desire. 
I wish I could take a single drop of my longing and put it in a glass.
Then watch the unlucky person who drank it go mad.
You obviously knew what you did when you gave that much yearning to me.
You knew I could host it. 
Not sure who else can take it even by association, and not go insane.
Long ago, there was someone who could take it, and he used it to create worlds with me.
He is not here now, but watches over me.
And late at night I find myself imploring him.
"Show me the one who can take it.
Show me the one who'll manage not to be consumed and pushed into madness
but will use my love as a key to unlock paradise.
We'll take paradise by force, true Sons and Daughters of Lucifer
and our love will burn so brightly that angels will cover their eyes."
I do long to break free from my flesh tonight. Only I don't want to die.
Desire makes me weak, it makes me crawl, yet dignity wins every single time.
Until the night I won't have to choose.

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Indigo jester

Take a person made by their very nature to hope and merge, and teach them
by tribulation after tribulation,
by one death after the other,
by killing their hope,
by crushing their dreams.
Teach them by branding them day by day
with the red hot iron of disappointment
that understanding is an illusion,
that there is no peace, except for the one they grant themselves,
and that there's no escape, nor any destination.
Keep doing that for four decades.
Do you know what you get?
The worst kind of holy warrior someone could have unleashed upon your sorry ass,
the kind of witch priestess who will spit her soul out before she yields, 
a jack of all trades killing with tales, her eyes dripping poison and tears in equal parts.
Me and my army of cats, dead and alive,
are still debating the wisdom of your tactics.

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Winter nights

Some winter nights are tranquil. Masses of clouds travel fast in the sky and the cold is not unbearable. I stare at the moon and distant stars and try to decipher the meaning of their shapes, the hidden stories in the shadows.

Some nights I am happy. Other nights, the pain spills out and covers my skin with goosebumps. I listen to music and remember dead friends and dead pets. I try to wrap myself in the comfort of music and imagine the notes as an ethereal embrace, the ghost arms of those who once loved me.

I'm tired. Two nights ago I re-watched a short film I had made with a friend. He needed to make a short film as a dissertation, and I found myself starring in it. I thought the DVD was lost. Recently I found it again.

Watching my much younger self in the film I experienced an overwhelming wave of sadness. She had no idea what life had in store for her and I wished I could hide her in my embrace and tell her to be strong, because she is someone I love, appreciate and admire more with each passing year. But we can only travel forward one second at a time, and so I watched her and shook my head. If she knew what her life would be like for the next fifteen years, maybe I wouldn't be here now, writing this blog entry. Maybe she would have thrown in the towel and stepped off that building eleven or twelve years ago like she planned. I don't know what kept her going. Hope? Stubbornness? Anger? Whatever it was, I am glad it served to keep her here. I've seen what suicide does to those on its ground zero. It's not pretty.

I'm trying to develop a strong inner core so that the outside doesn't rule my inside. It's very hard.

I wonder what you saw in me all those years ago, my dear Virve, and decided to make me part of your family. We never did meet, but the fact you considered me trustworthy enough to confide in me is the greatest praise I can think of.

I am tired, love. Tired of this life that it seems to run in two modes. One is the crippling routine mode, the second is the kick in the teeth mode. I keep pushing my hand inside, and like a blind person, I fumble about inside my inner darkness until I pull out wonders. I sink my hand inside the river of Lethe to pull out the salmon of Wisdom. I push my fingers into my wounds to study the nature of my despair, the taste of my blood, the root of fear inside me. Then I share my discoveries here. I know most won't understand, and that's okay. The soul's journey cannot be shared. But even if one person understands, that's enough. And you did understand.

I miss you tonight. You, and all my dead pets, and the father I never had, and the innocence I cannot regain.

I miss you. But maybe the music I listen to is the embrace you never gave me in flesh and blood. Now your ashes travel the world, and I'm here, writing and remembering.

Thank you for believing in me when I didn't. I still draw strength from it. I appreciate everything you ever did. I wish you were here so I could say it to you, but maybe you know. 

When I kiss the stars good-night, I kiss you too.

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Same old, same old

Every fucking summer the same old. My blind tomboy died. I had found him last September, sick, blind, about a month old. I raised him, healed him, neutered him and turned him into a glorious five something kilo cat. He was striped, mostly black, silly, affectionate, smart, kind, and now he's gone. No reason, no explanation, just a few days of diarrhea that I tried (according to the vet's advice) to combat with very good quality, specialised food. One day he didn't wake up. And I'm fucking devastated, because I didn't expect it. My stomach feels as if I've swallowed a stone. I thought he'd grow old by my side and die when his time came. Not like that.

Everything tastes like ashes in my mouth, everything reminds me of him. I keep expecting him to show up and ask for treats. He had an excellent sense of smell, and whenever I was eating something tasty, he'd beg to be given a bit. I didn't find it in my heart to refuse him. I keep expecting to find him sprawled on my bed and wonder where he is, or see one of my two tortoise shells sleeping and for a moment I mistake them for him. Then I realise he's gone and my heart breaks. 

And I wonder if my poor, poor, blind boy will find his way to where he's supposed to go now. He didn't have eyes, my beautiful boy, and who will hug him now, and show him around? Who will guide him to where he's supposed to go? Is he perhaps still here, and wondering why I don't hug him and pet him anymore? Will his friend Louse be waiting for him, to take him safely Home?

Fuck summer. Fuck eclipses. Fuck everything. I've had enough of this shit. I don't even want to eat chocolate. Whatever fucking ever. Just leave me alone.

The unexpected visitor of Sadness

 

A few days ago, my kitten Louse got sick. It was a respiratory infection that goes around lately; causes fever, lack of appetite. Another of my cats also got sick with it and got over it. But poor Louse simply could not make it. I saved her life twice in the past, this time it was over in less than three days. 

I knew this cat would not live for long. She wanted to live and clung to life with a ferocity I've rarely seen. She was not growing up properly, she had a heart or lung condition and yet she ran around the house like no other kitten. She played constantly and pulled tricks on the other cats, driving them insane. She was the smartest cat I've come across, and she only lived for less than six months. I had come to accept the possibility of her passing away ever since the vet told us about her heart condition. So when she died, I did not cry. But today that I opened a folder in my PC and came across that photo of hers, I cried my eyes out. She looks healthy in that photo. Healthy, happy and inquiring as to what this stupid human (me) wanted from her.

I only wanted you to live for as long as you could, my sweet darling. And I am happy I offered you those six months. I wish I could have done more, but my hands were tied.

Please neuter and spay your cats. Louse was found on the street and I did the best I could for her. Most kittens born on the streets live in appalling conditions for as long as they live and die terrible deaths. There is too much misery in this world already. Don't add to it.

I hope you are happy wherever you are now, and run around, perfectly healthy and feisty and smart as a whip. Good bye, my darling; till we meet again.

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Phoenix

"Hi ho, nobody home, love nor hope nor honour have I none, yet I will be merry..."

The song of the dispossessed is buried with them, piles of rotting flesh in nameless graves. Then the crows, eaters of flesh, take it back to the Mother who's Unfathomable, Unnamed, Sacred, Absent from this hellhole of a world.

"You know, Lilith has had as much bad press as Lucifer, if not more. It's the same with Kali and Hecate. Kali kills the parts of the self that not only don't serve a purpose anymore, but turn into fully-fledged demons if left unchecked. Hecate was the goddess of witchcraft, but also of justice, eloquence, a protectress of pregnant women and children and the one who in her mercy gathered the souls of the mad and the suicides from the crossroads."

And Lilith?

Luminous shadow of Creation

the left hand of God/dess

Black Moon to Her Black Sun

The Ancient One who walked in the gardens of Babylon

The Second Born and first to give birth

Exalted, revered, sacred

The ones scared of Her power 

called Her mother of abominations

the One who gave birth to Death

As if life itself isn't the first step towards

the embrace of Death...

And you?

I weave. Silently, incessantly, I weave. I write and pray and light candles and kiss my cats and eat and walk and talk and weave. In my sleep I sing the song of the dispossessed and wake up with my cheeks wet with tears. In my waking hours I see the heart of the tiniest phoenix in the flaming center of a flower and go back to bed with my cheeks wet with tears. Cause no-one else sees it, and when I tell them about it, they give me that half-smile we give to children and mentally challenged people. 

If you have money, you are eccentric. If you don't, you're just weird.

I can live with it. 

Dead Can Dance

"Song Of The Dispossessed"

The river is deep and the road is long

Daylight comes and I want to go home

Awoke this morning

To find my people's tongues were tied

And in my dreams

They were given books to poison their minds

The river is deep and the mountain high

How long before the other side?

We are their mortar

Their building bricks and their clay

Their gold teeth mirror

Both our joys and our pain

The river is deep and the ocean wide

Who will show us how to read the signs?

The earth is our mother

She taught us to embrace the light

Now the lord is master

She suffers an eternal night

You blocked up my ears

You plucked out my eyes

You cut out my tongue

You fed me with lies

Oh lord

Oh lord

Oh lord

Oh lord

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Last exit for the Lost

That last exit for me is music. Writing presupposes some kind of coherent thinking, music needs less thinking. Screaming, for that matter, needs no thinking whatsoever. But since it is next to impossible to start screaming in a flat without drawing the wrong kind of attention, music and writing it is.

2018 is here and thankfully I am here too. I have an impressive frostbite on my right index finger, good music in my possession, a wound inside my mouth, lungs full of mucus and a half-insane mother because one of our cats is probably not going to make it. I am resigned. She is not, and she is making me crazy too because she needs company. Oh well.

First blog entry of the year and I set off on the wrong foot. Someone once told me that this blog is always complaining about something. He made me feel I should apologise for feeling the way I did. Then I remembered my friend Virve, the one who died. In one of her very last messages, she told me to keep writing regardless of who loved my writing and who hated it. She said that neither category had anything to do with my writing per se, but the person themselves. The reason this blog was created in the first place was to be an online diary. I won't censor myself. I guess no matter what you write about, someone will be displeased. Then again, there is always the option of not reading what makes you upset.

So I was talking about sadness. Sadness is not acceptable by society. Mourning is not trendy or productive. Being constantly positive is the latest fashionable prerequisite. Everything happens for a reason. Everything is a valuable lesson. Whatever does not kill you makes you stronger. And so on and so forth. Right?

Not everything happens for a reason. Most bad events happen because we are the most pig-headed and close-minded race of sentient beings I have ever had the unfortunate 'privilege' of coming across. There are less than five people I can talk with and not need to explain or be wary of their intentions. I survive by keeping a low profile and feigning ignorance. I survive by listening to music, reading, writing, and minimising the time I spend socialising. Which reminds me...

 

I've done a lot of socialising for my standards since October. Turns out the maximum amount of exposure to a large crowd (30+ people) I can handle is once every two weeks. I refuse to repeat it in a smaller amount of time. I simply get sick. Sore throat, cold, you name it. The funniest thing is that everyone who mets me regards me as super social and friendly. Low profile, remember? And to be honest, I do care about people. I am not friendly and kind towards them because I want to manipulate them.

Music is what makes our souls soar above the mud of existence. Man-made vibrations that express a multitude of feelings. Love is what makes our souls merge with something bigger, leaving behind us every smidgen of pretense and appropriateness. And to quote one of my most beloved heroes, "You don't choose the ones you love. What you do choose is the way you'll treat them".  

If I extend my hands left and right in this small room, crammed with books and CDs and personal items, and with a cat sleeping on my bed, I am alone. Right?

No. Because they open the door of my heart and out they come, one after the other, the ones I love, my characters and creations. The ones I brought here and gave them flesh and blood and other people who love them and hate them and want to see them dead. And together with them my books and my comics and my CDs and my old drawings secretly open too, and countless stories pour out, colourful strings of every conceivable hue. Everyone I've ever loved and hated is here with me, and what I need to do is close my eyes and will them out. Every story humanity has ever come up with, or at least one variation of it is here with me, together with every note and colour and tear ever shed. How can I be alone? I am not. I am never alone. Even in the most desolate, tiniest cell of the whole world I would not be alone. There is a richness inside beyond anything. It merges with me and makes me ecstatic, makes my eyes so full of beauty and wonder that this world will forever pale in comparison. And that is why I am sad. Because my eyes and mind and heart perceive the fullest potential in a world that has gone to the dogs. And the gatekeepers of this world hate my guts for it.

Should I really apologise for that? I don't think so.

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