Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Hallucinations of Zeus

“…That one can be in love with several people at the same time, feel the same sorrow with each and not betray any of them.”

(Love in the Time of Cholera – Marquez)

You’re sitting there, right in front of me, spitting out irrelevant words on irrelevant subjects as you attempt in vain to escape the awkwardness of the moment. Your face changes, yet it’s always the same. Both of us are always waiting to hear the same words, but you know I simply can’t utter them. I’m distant and detached, as I’ve always been, but my confusion is totally new. A source for Pleasure or Torture; it’s entirely up to you to decide. I still haven’t learned how to interpret my feelings, and it might take me forever to express them. The long feared silence approaches, and you look me in the eyes, pleading me to block its way, but I stay silent and gaze away.

I’m so confused; I have no idea what I really want. I want to see you again, to sit there one more time, silently watching you. I want to hear your voice again, trembling as you try to tell me that you love me, right before your words are choked by my absence. I want to break your heart, and I want you to watch me as I sadistically enjoy your pain. I want you to fear me, I want you to hate me, and I want you to run away. Then, I want to follow you, to run after you knowing that my Life depends on it. And finally when I catch you, I will hold you close, wipe your tears and tell you in the most casual manner “Don’t you get it? It was just a Joke.”

I’ve climbed up these stairs so fast, unaware that they were collapsing beneath my heavy steps. Now I have to go back, to descend along that tiresome path, from God to Man to Wolf. The way down no longer exists, and my only option is to fall. All I need is some of my own blood to push away the doubts and summon up the courage to jump.

We’re sitting there once again, with oceans of wine between us. My mind is buzzing with Thoughts, with questions: “How did we reach this far?” and “"What’ll we do with ourselves this afternoon? And the day after that, and the next thirty years?"”. I’ll start drinking, one glass, then another, and another, till all my thoughts are subdued and my mind is cleansed of their poison. My Feelings will finally surface, strong and unmistakable, and I will know for certain that I love you. And after that, I will drink some more, piling up the empty bottles and drowning my feelings with alcohol. Eventually, only Desire will remain, that overwhelming urge to hold you, to kiss you, to make love to you on that stupid couch. Then, I will drink again, and again, and again and again, drying up my veins until I cease to be, and all that is left of me is You.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Love Song

Just practicing my right of cheesiness, thought Valentine would be a good oppurtunity...

Have you seen the world today, my love
Have you stepped outside your walls
Have you walked amid apathetic crowds
And watched humanity as it falls

Have you gone through empty streets, my love
Past the dead who were lying there
Have you thought of things they loved but lost
Or was it more than your heart could bear

Have you heard the sound of guns, my love
So close, so loud, so clear
When every voice around was hushed
Were you afraid my dear

Have you ran back home today, my love
And carefully locked your door
Were you trying to shut the world outside
Or did you think that could stop the war

Have you talked to God tonight, my love
And asked him what to do
Have you raised your eyes to the skies above
And prayed selfishly for me and you

Have you thought of the past lately, my love
Crawling silently into your bed
The past repeats itself they say
And Devils may rise from the dead

Tomorrow belongs to us, my love
It’s still ours to lose or gain
Let’s make a better future, dear
Then wreck it once again.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Once Again....

Chapter Heading

For we have thought the longer thoughts,
And gone the shorter way.
And we have danced to devils' tunes,
Shivering home to pray;
To serve one master in the night,
Another in the day.

E. Hemingway

Once again, these are the Longer Thoughts.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Preface to a Suicide Note

So this is it…

Why should he go any further, where to, and for what purpose? There was no more purpose, there was nothing more than a deep, painful longing to shake off this whole confused dream, to spit out this stale wine, to make an end to this bitter, painful Life
– Siddhartha, Herman Hesse –

I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.
– An Irishman Foresees his Death, W.B. Yeats –

For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
– The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot –


I’ve been perfectly sober for a whole month now, but as I sit down to type these words I’m pretty sure that they will read like the words of a madman, like the random blabberings of a drunk.

It’s been hard since ever, yet less than a year ago something changed, and it only managed to make things much worse. How did I ever end up leaving my shell and trying to explore this stupid little world? Damn you Moe for all the help you have given me. Hope exists until you actually decide to pursue it, cause then it disappears and you realize it was just a trick your mind was playing on you, it was just a mirage created by the dehydration levels your body has reached. After that you’re left with the nothing you started with, and the nothing that replaced what you were hoping for. And of course, ironically, you’ve outgrown your shell and you can never get back to it.

I have reached an empty chamber, and I’m surrounded by closed doors that cover its walls entirely, doors that I don’t have the keys to, blocking my way to the things that I never really wanted. I’m stuck, and the emptiness of the chamber is driving me crazy, consuming whatever is left of my energy to continue the journey in case any of the doors is unexpectedly opened from the other side. Everything has happened before, and every step along this journey reeks with that awful smell of déjà vu. Thoughts are flowing in and out of my head like a stream, but this rock remains stable in the middle, disrupting the flaw of everything, and I’m just too consumed to move it, or carry it on to the shore.

Before I proceed, I have to confess that I never believed in modesty, seeing how the ugly and the stupid wear it daily to hide their flaws always made me sick. Now I can state, in all modesty, that I’m probably the smartest and the most honest person I've ever met. This is probably why I can’t lie to myself; because I’m too honest to do that in the first place, and if I ever decided to do that I know that I’m too smart to be fooled by my own lies. How can people accept the mediocrity of this life and go on acting like it’s perfect! How can they go fishing in the desert and convince themselves that the worms and snakes they’re catching are actually fish.

I envy the stupid little cripples; they’re so far away from the borders in a way that makes all limits invisible. They can be happy about the tiny steps they take, and celebrate their successful crawling with nothing to disturb their silly little minds. I’ve always felt that I’ve finished the race a million years ago, and I’ve been standing on the borders ever since, all alone, where I can see nothing but the limits.

They say that Christ has died for our sins, carrying our burdens when he was crossed; the idiot must have missed mine. I’ve been carrying the cross since I was born, and I never knew why I was being tortured and punished for God’s own failures. Sacrifice is an ugly thing when it’s forced upon you. I’ve tried so many times to convince myself that “At some point, we must’ve chosen Life” but I never reached that point, and I can’t see it anywhere in my path. This makes me believe that once the gates are open, I might be able to reach that point, as I stand before the almighty and ask him in all humility “Why did you have to create me, you fucking bastard? You had billions and billions of others to toy with… And if you couldn’t resist the urge to fool around with something different, why did you have to give me a mind identical to yours, incapable of feelings that both of us have envied humans for having, and yet denied me any of your powers?”

I’m sick of everyone, my real friends and fabricated enemies alike. I’m sick of you, and you, and him and her, and her, and her. I have reached a point where I can no longer tolerate the Stupidity, the Ignorance, the Ugliness, the Selfishness, the Hypocrisy, the Contradiction, the Carelessness, the Shallowness and Superficiality, the stupid Imitation and Lack of originality that I see everyday. And above all that, I’m sick of all the lies, of all the stupid games, of all the smiles and niceties, of every little stupid detail we use to hide what’s truly inside. Why can’t this world be just perfect and honest, and why doesn't anyone seem to be upset cause it’s not?

This is it…

I have this strange desire to either destroy myself, or to destroy the rest of the world. Sadly I’m too consumed to go on with the former, and I never had the power to do the latter. The pain is too much, but I can’t do anything about it….. I need a break, a serious one; I need a Hundred years of sleep, without any thoughts or dreams. I need someone to toss me back there, among the cripples, so I can start the race again and perhaps enjoy the struggle for a few seconds before I reach the borders once again. Well, perhaps what I really need is a beautiful end to these ugly words, but I’m just too tired and consumed to think of any.

Sunday, February 03, 2008

Unfinished Thoughts

Random Questions

The Word

“There's too much beauty upon this earth for lonely men to bear.”
Richard Le Gallienne (1866 – 1947)

And its Echo

“Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in.”
Ricky Fitts – American Beauty (1999)

“…but it's hard to stay mad, when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst... And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it …”
Lester Burnham – American Beauty (1999)

How original can our thoughts and expressions be when they are frequently uttered by other people? Sadly personal experience can never become part of our collective memory, which means our endeavors are absolutely futile as we struggle hard just to reach a point others have passed ages ago.



“Was it simply the hysteria of a man who, aware deep down of his inaptitude of love, felt the self deluding need to simulate it?”
Milan Kundera – The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“It is alright for people to pretend that love breeds love, but it is not so, the seed of love is indifference.”
Waguih Ghali – Beer in the Snooker Club

How can someone’s life be depicted so perfectly in a novel that he reads? Have we really become “Fictitious Characters” trying our best not to disappoint the authors? Are we really actors on a stage who have lost their touch with reality and are simply performing predictable and predetermined roles without any ability or desire to improvise? We go through our lives trying so hard to imitate an image someone else has drawn in our minds, and we remain so faithful to this image that we become convinced of the originality of our own actions and the fakeness of everyone else’s, when in fact we are all the same.

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Another Helen

She was too afraid of Death, or too attached to Life perhaps, I could never tell the difference due to my total lack of experience. Whatever it was, it made her appreciate every passing second and hold on to it much harder than the rest of us did, trying to squeeze the essence of life out of each moment. Her gestures and reactions were exaggerated and her feelings were magnified beyond my capacity of comprehension. For me she was the embodiment of passion, a sea Goddess on land, turbulent and unsettled,and I knew for certain that my ships can never be able to weather such a storm.

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Butterfly

-- The most absurd laws of physics lie in the field of electromagnetics. With these laws man can prove that Light + Light = Darkness. I have never really given it much thought until I realized recently that the laws of Life are not so different, when I was able to experience how combining “Lightness” unexpectedly yields "Heaviness” --

She flew by as I sat silently watching, so light, so beautiful. And I had no choice but to follow. At first, she didn’t seem to notice me, and later on when she did she didn’t seem to mind. I started getting closer and closer; trying to figure out the source of that amazing power of attraction that she had, but I couldn’t. Was it the way she moved around so lightly, completely self absorbed in a way that left the entire world struggling for a piece of her attention? No, it was something else, fresh and new to my ever contemplating, curious little mind. In a desperate move, I reached out and tried to catch her, and to my surprise I succeeded. I knew that there was no point in holding on, for her secret was locked beyond my limited dimensions. Still, I really wanted to learn how to fly; and I thought she might be able to infect me with the lightness she possessed.

But, I was wrong. Within my hands she grew heavier, and my heart grew heavy with her. Eventually, I had to let go. And as soon as I did, she fled away, filled with fear and confusion. I stood there for a second, fixed with heaviness caused by the lightness of my actions, but once again I had no choice but to follow her. It wasn’t long before I got her cornered, and she stood there armless and confused, unable to fully comprehend the reason behind my actions. For a moment or so, I sat silently watching, and then I had no choice but to retreat. I had won, yet my victory was much worse than any defeat, for it brought about a tremendous amount of guilt that I never experienced before, and from that moment on, I could only watch from a distance.