Two people, faces on
A screen, and two
Voices telling us how we should be
What’s new in the world, why we should
Avoid doing this, avoid doing that
What’s in, what’s not, what we should all do best

I see some nods
I see disapproval, approval
I see shifty glances in eyes
I see mouths start to move and talk
I see phones, many phones
I see the consumerism kicking in
I see unwavering doubt

I see lies, a mirage
I see the contours of deception
I see material eyes and material hearts
I see heavy minds and empty heads
I see people wondering about how they should look instead
I see people dreaming of a better life
I see people forgetting their own beautiful life
I see insecurity, stinging idiosyncrasy
I see flaming ******* media hypocrisy
I see romanticization of all things ugly
I see faces that look so young and glossy
I see big lights that cancel out all the imperfections
I see makeup that covers all the unwanted
I see ivory and I see bone
I see a curated life that I’ve never known
I see this image stitched up
And I never see it become unsewn

sometimes, i feel so infinite
until i remember all the times
i felt a nagging sense of shame
and the times

that i thought were so carefree
manifested into burdens
of resentment
of misery.

let me find my fate,
let me love somehow
lift me up, carry me
in your loving hands
when i'm falling down

i see a glimmer
a hope of reconciliation
help me pave my way
to this final destination

but i've rendered it all invisible
patience, invisible
trust, invisible
everything, invisible.

You still exist in every room and space.
I still feel your presence, I feel it always.
In the power, and in all the helplessness it holds,
in the silence, and in the loudest of noise.

But now all I imagine is your
grief as a river, deep as my own
weightless, though you are sinking,
falling deep once more.
I never thought that
I would have to let you go.

And on this blurry june evening, everything
unfolds out in front of me
heavens collapsing, a fever dream
I sit in a state of confusion, here

I am mindless:
do not confuse it with
any kind of absence.
because the only absence in this
planetary void, growing always,
is you.

Isn't it beautiful how we know what is right for us after too much of the wrong energy, after too much time spent with the wrong soul?

Admittedly, I sometimes think that if I  had persevered, everything would have been 'love'. But I was blindsided. And I was trying to pass this denial off as a form of 'love' - but it was absolutely far from it.

A spiritless kind of love.

do you ever just realise you are going to miss people? miss their words, their advice; miss their support and their love and their presence?

and all they have done for you, you try to describe it in terms that you cannot just simply define; in words that have an intangible meaning but simultaneously hold the weight of the world.

and then you have that realisation, that epiphany that burns cold and clear. it isn't until near our end when we truly start to value all the passing people in our little lives.

and you realise that nothing matches the exact mood and time; whether you feel utterly amazing or utterly ****, whether your mind is all over the place or you are completely sane. let that dawn on you, let it seep in and let it
wash, wash, wash
back over you.
you can't ever get that moment back.

please, it is important to let others know how much they have inspired you. how much they have guided you. don't hold back. tell others how you feel, in the midst of all madness and meaning.

and if you are lucky to see them again, all these memories will come flooding back; everything and anything and everything.
it all will.
and it will all be glorious.

and you will find it to be an emotional release in the beautiful swirling catharsis of it all, fluidity and freedom, all meandering within and throughout the ripples of time.

it is a release, a pure release.
rendering all things equal.

If I saw you again, I wouldn’t care about things that were so petty, like whose plates and cutlery lay idle in the sink...who didn’t take out the *******...who forgot to water the plants, or who forgot to do this or that.

The only sounds I hear now are our splintered voices down the phone. Every night. They grow. They break. They hover, they drift ever-so, and they try to fade. But somehow, they are always there. Lingering. Over and over again.

And as I look out at the morning’s rusty dream of dawn, a thin film of moisture condensing on the windscreen, I pause.

It isn’t the first time I’ve tried to take a film noir journey through my subconscious.

It isn’t the first time I’ve tried to pull moments and memories together to make some utter sense of what’s happening. My thoughts seem to always unravel themselves. And I struggle with them. They don’t effortlessly slot together anymore.

I often think to myself: isn't it funny how our impression of time changes? God, reflecting back on a fading memory now seems livelier than life itself.

Now I sit here, thinking all these sad and strange thoughts – that everything – time, work, effort, money, affection – are moments that will, one day, crumble and fade – that they won’t be there forever in the physical world.

Because everything we had once cherished with such love, I still remember. Still.