Where Every Scroll is a New Adventure
I've lived and felt for 30 years but she just smiled at me and I'm discovering emotions for the first time
They say the abused become the abuser. And you have gone through hell.
But what is standing in front of me is this beautiful, fragile woman that holds broken things so gently as she has never been held, who melts her energy into making them intact. Until there is no power, no more love left to give.
I keep waiting.
I keep waiting for a dog so hideous to pass by on our evening walks that you will not pet. I keep waiting for a sunset too plain that you feel it too futile to paint. I look around for a child far too overbearing for you to comfort— But whenever I inquire you, all I hear is that you've been all of those things, and you won't let it happen to anyone else. Too hideous—too plain—Too overbearing—
You love fixing broken things. You attract evil because it latches on to sweetness, sucks it until evil becomes a lovable thing and the source becomes sour and stale.
I believe, sometimes, that is why I am your lover.
But I am no different from when you first met me. You may not have noticed this, but even though you hold me, pour yourself into me, you never attempt to glue me together. You never attempt to fix me. You just bleed into my vacant parts, unafraid of the surrounding filth.
Who did I murder that was so bad, what days did I feed my hungry cat so well that I am held dear to a person like you?
My sweet, sweet Caroline. How could I ever repay your love?
-exerpt from my upcoming villian×hero book🤭💋
The pain is like a sedative/ that kills me; makes me cry—and puts me to sleep/
-excerpt from my book💋💕
I always used to wonder that for how long will we point at ruins and tell ourselves that this is mercy. I thought mercy was supposed to be peaceful. Maybe, I didn't understand mercy at all. I asked myself: What is mercy?
And I realized, there are two types of mercies. The human mercy and the divine mercy. Mercy, my dears, is like fire.
Human mercy is warmth and compassion. It is the fire that warms you, that pushes the chill away during the coldest winter. It is the hand that picks you up after you have fallen and brushes the dust from your knees and tends to your wounds. Human mercy is about healing.
Now, divine mercy, also known as God's/the universe's (etc) mercy, is more complicated. Divine mercy comes in the form of destruction. It is the forest fire that rages and pillages all that is in the way, and you, more often than not, believe it is the end. But, the forest fire is necessary for the forest, despite the initial destruction. That we must admit. That fire cleanses. It nourishes the soil, it is extremely beneficial for the regrowth of stronger, newer trees and it opens a pathway for the smaller, hidden plants that were overshadowed, to get sunlight as well. It allows for growth, for new beginnings. Divine mercy is about rebirth.
~Me
All love is, inherently, selfish. Ponder.
~Me
"When the world shuts down and the quiet shushes and the darkness cloaks, I do the opposite. My small rebellions."
~Me
My tranquil, little moon,
my sweet midnight,
Your saccharine nectar drips from the star dew sky,
And drapes me in a blanket of warmth and bittersweet acceptance.
Your words are silent like a tender droplet of water blooming on a cloth but the formidable, commanding waves in your head bow to no man.
~Me
And the forest hugged me, the moss sheltering, the leaves and vines curling and the wild flowers showering me with perfume.
"Welcome back," the forest whispered in my ear," I've missed you."
~Me
Tired, ancient soul,
What secrets do those eyes hide
That you shelter so close to your chest
A chest that is bursting at the seams
With raw anguish,
But beautiful soul
Pain isn't meant to last
And neither is happiness
These fleeting emotions
Hold not tight to them
Because the only immortal here
Is You
~Me
There is only one victory, and it has someone else's name on it.
~Me
. 3 Above and Beyond
Trudging through the woods, I try to place the majority of my weight on my makeshift cane. Squinting my eyes, I try to keep sight of my path. The moon is of barely any help. If I had known it would be dark I would've snuck out a torch. Pulling my coat tighter around myself and wishing, not for the first time, that I should've worn something warmer above my hospital gown. I buried my nose in my scarf and yet, the crisp air still burned down my lungs. If my cigarettes don't kill me first, the cold certainly will. 'You shouldn't be here', the guilty part of my brain whispered. I squashed that thought down just like the leaves under my feet. Silly Linda, I scoff. She thought she could keep me in the ward by locking the door. Well look now, I jumped out the window. Well the pangs in my leg are almost making me regret. Almost. Oh whatever. To hell with Linda and her false pretenses. She can act sweet and coy all she likes but I know she wants me dead. Not more than I do but it is a mutual sentiment that is reciprocated. She's far too young anyway. A bit naive and very gullible. Very overconfident too but she is under the assumption that she's being 'smart' and 'sharp' and that an old, miserable midget like me won't be able to see right through her. An absolute fool. I despise it here.
I hobble my way to my usual spot, a clearing somewhere in the middle of the woods. The crescent moon stares down at me, as if judging. Sitting down on a tree stump while catching my breath, I pull out a pack of cigarettes that Linda missed and a lighter from my coat pocket. A cold draft rushed and rustled the trees and I held my coat tighter, shivering badly. With numb hands I light a cigarette and hold the lighter close, the tiny flame giving me a semblance of warmth. Sigh. I wouldn't want the fluid to run out. I pocketed it, closed my eyes and enjoyed my cigarette. Deep inhale and then exhale. Inhale and exhale. Finally, some peace and quiet….
…. Which did not last longer than twenty minutes. A sharp, whip like crack sobered me up and I opened my eyes to a terrifying sight. A creature with four faces, more than a hundred wings, taller than the trees, so huge that I can't distinguish the sky from its body. The moon is nowhere in sight. His whole body consists of uncountable eyes and tongues. What on God's green earth is this!? I can't move. Why am I not moving? Its hellish eyes stared me down. The cigarette I was holding had long fallen. I am a stone, glued to one place. I can't tear my eyes off this- this creature. All too soon, it descends and shifts into a shape more recognizable. A man. Dressed in a pure white robe, inky hair curled in every direction, skin the color of rich soil and piercing charcoal eyes, this man would stand out among any crowd. I must be hallucinating. Are cigarettes supposed to make you hallucinate?
"What kind of alien are you?" I asked in a quivering voice.
The man blinked. Then blinked again. Then stared at me long enough to make me wish I hadn't spoken.
"What kind do you think I am?" he smoothly replies, evading my question.
"A shape-shifting one."
He folds his hands neatly behind his back and doesn't reply.
"And who would you introduce yourself as?" he asks. I have a distinct feeling that he's humouring me. Like a cat who caught a canary.
"I, well, I-uhm-I fancy myself a student." I stuttered out. He doesn't need to know where I am from.
"A student of?"
"Life."
The alien smirked. An uncomfortable silence surrounds us, uncomfortable for me atleast. I feel weaker. Sweat beads at my eyebrows. This alien's presence has a weight that is taking a toll on me.
With nothing to do, I whip out another cigarette. I finished smoking it. Then I pull out a second, then a third, then a fourth.
"How long have you been smoking?" the alien asks suddenly.
"A few decades." I say, lighting another cigarette. A hush falls again.
"How do you speak our language?" I inquired, anything to keep the oppressive silence at bay.
"I've been here before."
"Oh?" I ask, hoping for an elaboration.
"Yes."
None came.
"What is it like?"
He raised an eyebrow.
"Your planet. What is it like?"
"It is a human's dream come true. You can have whatever your heart desires. Food, clothing, land, companions. It is eternal peace-"
"Sounds like heaven." I interrupted.
The alien's lips quirked.
"Something of that sort. It can be very beautiful or very terrible depending on the person."
"Why so?"
"Would you wish for good things to happen to evil people?"
"No. Not at all."
"My point exactly."
"What is evil anyway? Is evil caused by a difficult life?You know, I've always wondered."
The alien calmly looks back at me.
"Have you had a sorrowful life?" he asks, a curious gleam in his eyes.
"Sorrowful?" I scoff. "I can barely recognize myself in the mirror anymore. A saying goes 'Let a man walk the halls of sorrow. Whatever comes out, can it be called a man anymore?' " I asked.
"Sorrow is either growth or wasted potential if you have not learned. Power on the other hand, man cannot be trusted with power. It is too corrupting." the alien argues.
"I'll have to politely disagree. Power in itself is not corrupt. Power attracts those who are corruptible. Those who took the wrong lessons from their sorrows."
"And what about you?"
"What about me?"
"You have become a cynic only because you felt your life was difficult. Your cigarette is proof enough. It kills you, yet, you stick to it. Doesn't that make you just like them?"
"You are not a human. You don't, and maybe, will never, understand the delicate intricacy of addiction. I am not defending myself. I am ashamed but leaving it is no easy task."
The alien hummed," If you believe so. You are quite a melancholic person." he says, matter of fact.
"So I've been told." I smiled self deprecatingly, "Look at me, debating about ideologies with an alien."
The alien smirked, as if he was in on a joke I wasn't. Strange.
I cleared my throat. It felt itchy. Must've been the cigarettes.
"Anyway,how does your planet deal with 'evil' people."
"You need not worry your head over it. Our, ah, justice system is very fair."
"Oh. Where is it located? Your planet that is."
"Not here. It is somewhere above all the galaxies."
That most certainly piqued my interest. I have wished for death on my worst days but on my best days, I've always been a curious bug, too curious for my own good. I swallowed the lump in my throat.
"Why are you here?" I finally cave in to my curiosity.
The alien side eyes me and replies, "I'm here to take one person home with me. Forever."
A thrill raced up my spine and anticipation settled in my bones. I licked my frozen, chapped lips. Perhaps I am being selfish. I spent my entire life looking for an escape, an escape from everything, my depression, my poverty, my disease, that hospital and its disinfectant smelling wards, Linda, this wretched world. That is an artist's curse. Escapism, they say, is an art too and I am anything but unacquainted to art. I always wondered about what was beyond, a place where no man had stepped. The golden threads of time, weaved into the fine fabric of the universe, permitted this opportunity to occur in front of me. I will take it even if my hands bleed.
I have no family that left, nobody who loves me. I'm bitter and alone. I deserve to be selfish for once in my life. To take a big leap, a risk. Yes, I will.
"Take me with you." I begged. "Please."
"Why should I?" the alien replied, staring right in my soul.
"You came for me. I know. If you didn't you wouldn't have landed here." I say, hopefully.
"And if I say that is false? What else would you offer?“
"I can offer you beauty and art. I can create for you."
"We have many of those."
"There will ever only be one like me. Just like there is only one artist like them. Themselves only."
Silence enveloped us again while rejection stung my chest again.
"Allow me to prove myself." I plead.
The alien looked at me, questioning.
"Look in my mind, see all that there is." I say determinedly. And I let him in my mind, let him see the world through my eyes and feel what I felt. I let him see my arts, my music, my poetry, my paintings that I crafted lovingly with my aged hands. I let him see what a human sees, something I know that he had never witnessed. Then I revealed my sorrows. Hopefully humanity would appeal to it.
With a pull he left my head. My eyes burned and I felt a blood vessel burst. I dry heaved on the dead ground but the nausea still lingered. I am glad I was seated or my knees would've buckled and I would've been an undignified heap on the floor. All the while the alien just stared and stared. I am getting sick of his staring too.
Once again, I broke the silence.
"I will paint your skies," I continue, hesitantly, "and your buildings and walls. I will write for the children and even for the old. Just please, take me. I'm exhausted ."
My eyes burned again, unshed tears waiting for release. I avert my eyes and let out a sigh. I feel heavy and my shoulders slump. Unexplainable exhaustion overcomes me and my temperature keeps rising, beads of sweat rolling down my face.
"If," he began,then stopped. It was the first time in our entire conversation that I saw him hesitate.
"If," he continued, "if I were to ask you to scream your wish at me, what would you fear more; your echo or my answer? “
"My echo", I reply instantaneously.
"Why?"
"Because it would mean you have declined."
"Hmm. Recite a poem for me."
I gave a shaky, hopeful smiled and offered him my words:
My river by the oak tree
has turned molten gold again,
as the glowing orb of light and life surrenders to the sapphire sky.
The cotton clouds float in shy, pink circles
While the rush of the river awakens a memory I had long forgotten,
When this same tree once bore luscious flowers,
Their scent wafting lazily into the cool breeze,
While I sat and reminisced about the possibility of other lives in the universe,
Under the wrinkled, silver moon.
Silence hugged us again while the impact of my weakened voice lingered in the air.
"Do you believe in other lives? Aliens and such?" he questioned.
"Yes I do, I mean you are here so that confirms it too."
"You are a funny one. No one has ever mistaken me for an alien." it grinned, crooked, as if a gesture it wasn't familiar with.
My body went cold and tremors shook it to its feeble core, my breath coming out in shallow pants. My eyes shut down of their own accord. The entity then spoke with a voice that might have held the weight of a thousand suns,
"Beyond the stars we go."
I don't feel so good today.
I feel a strange, ancient ache in my soul. An aged feel to my rigid bones that once held the weight of the earth and the sky. Now they wish to rest, to turn to dust. They have endured enough weathering. I feel nostalgic for a life I have never lived, for a life I wish I lived. I suppose I do understand this humane desire. The soul was never meant to stay on the earth. It was meant to rise. And here, now, it is bound to, shackled to this body and inadvertently, to this world,held taut by the unyielding chains of gravity. I yearn for the day I return home. Up there.
I don't feel so good today and that's fine.
~Me
"No War"
I looked to the east and there was a war.
I looked to the west and there was a war.
I looked north and I looked south and there was a war.
I looked within and there was a war.
I felt no peace, no safety, no comfort anywhere.
With bone deep, aching tiredness, I looked at the arduous journey before me with quiet, blank eyes.
Whatever my destiny maybe, I started with the war within.
I bled and cried out emotions, pains and fears.
Years of souls haunting me from beyond their graves.
I fought and I fought and I fought.
They whispered sweet nothings in my ears. Their sirens call piercing as they wail and they wail and they wail.
I still fought and I fought and I fought.
And before I knew, their voices grew weak.
They washed over me like sea foam, dull and bleak.
Then I built and I built and I built.
After what felt like centuries, I lifted my head.
I looked to the east and I looked to the west.
I looked to the north and I looked to the south.
There was no war, only peace.
~Me
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.
~Mary Elizabeth Frye
"Desiderata"
Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.
~Max Ehrmann
I lost a bit of you and you lost a bit of me, all in translation.
- reign
The word 'prodigy' never found its way near my name. Yet, all I hear from peers who used to be proud, now concerned, is ' you know too much.' And I ask, and I cry.
Did I fly too close to the sun again, Father? Am I falling?
- reign