Stay

He’s where all the wicked reside.
He’s with who all the holy abide.
To his own will, a scarecrow, ruled still,
Defenseless, for the winds to kill.

Stay by him, stay by the night.
As a desire to remain shall fight
A wish for death to arrive
Discreet as he is, he is to come alive.

With his eyes up, and his face down,
A gaze and a smile born of a frown,
Dancing, dripping from beyond a past
Disappointing, forcing you not to last.

But, stay till the dawn, stay for the sight
Of him burning for you, of him burning bright,
Of the face in the wreath of smoke to come,
Of the face of what you are to become.

The Falling Castle of Glass

A solitary avenger, set to believe
Less in gracious lies than those who kill,
The awed truths; He, so naive
Shall do so at his peril.

As incredible is this last while,
And though he could deny to try
To forsake his castle of glass, fragile.
At no cost shall he try to deny

To ask himself for he’s so wise,
To stab his mind again and again,
From a deathlike slumber he shall rise,
Only to fall, and so forever remain.

How could he be the creator of disguise?
How the thoughts prevented from fantasy
Could have spun an object of despise,
To worsen the imperfection, an unreal reality.

The Birthday Girl, Part 1 of 2: The Melodica

It’s the impression of truth in your dreams that’s underrated, not the falsehood of reality.
She had somehow slept the whole night, and had woken up to the sound of melodica. Everyone would remind her time and again that it wasn’t the best way to start a day. But to her, this was perfect, as perfect as it could be, better than anything. She fiddled through her stuff on the night stand, arranged flawlessly to a degree that could redefine flawlessness itself. In a rush, she reached down to a book, spoiling any possible pattern in the way, displacing anything placed over it, producing a muffled noise every time, perhaps the only sound other than the melodica, which was still piercing its way through a damp silence.
Her eyes, as always, were profound, and displayed an extraordinary sense of fidelity, sure and rather tenacious of anything she would do or say. Right now, the same persistence dwelled on resisting and rejecting any impulse to say anything at all. There was no one in the room to judge her, but she made a constant, conscious effort not to utter a single word for she was alone, and talking to herself didn’t quite appeal to her saner self.
In a moment of condensation, she seemed to be looking through the cover that read “A Bottle of Sand, Dream Journal, Madeline Phyn” All set to make the final, most beloved entry, once again she rushed in hunt for a pen.
“I’ll forget it. I shouldn’t forget it. I can’t forget it. I won’t forget it.” Her short held control over unspoken words, to her surprise, had betrayed her conscience, yielding to a deeper splendor instead. But she let the feeling pass with an understated laughter. Deliberately, she flipped one page at a time up to the last, which she knew was still unwritten, forming words and sentences through the way.
But there was already something scribbled on the last page, “They say that the dreams you can remember are more likely to come true. I know what I wished for, last night and in my dream I got…” This wasn’t something she had written earlier but what she was about to write. It didn’t say what she had wanted, just that in this dream of hers, she had got whatever she wanted. The melodica, playing serene until now, echoed through her, from head to the feet and then back.
Agitated, she half-closed her eyes and reached out to the clock in attempt to turn it off, but she couldn’t. Decisively, she returned to bed to read the rest of it. The journal was nowhere to be found. For the very essential commonsensical reasons, she was convinced that she hadn’t woken up yet, that her dream hadn’t ended. She observed the sound of her breaths dropping, then of herself dropping back on the bed. Sure, persuaded by herself, but still filled with fear, she looked back at the clock. She wanted to go back to sleep for the most paradoxical reason- to wake up.
The intensity of the current dream made her question the remembrance of any other she’d seen hitherto. The melodica was now to serve its greater purpose, to consume the melancholy and reproduce it in a form acceptable to a troubled mind. Before falling back to sleep, she revisited her idea behind the title of the journal. She had called it ‘A bottle of sand’ for it was a collection of sharp, reflective, and authentic desires of an innocent mind, wrapped up in timid, awake, and believable words.

Green eyed demon who stole a part of my soul

‘You’re gonna do fine kid’, said the demon with green eyes. How would I ever forget those eyes, and those hands that stole your thoughts, your feelings with a mere touch, cold down to the bones. Fierce, the way he walked, saturnine was the way he stood. His feet burning, a crater of ash flicked on this land with every step of his. Wine he drank, out the winery he did maul, his hobby to steal parts of the passing soul.
“I owe you my dear, you’re gonna do fine, except for the parts when you need the part that now is mine.” The fight was fair, I agree, for except he was a million times bigger, beheld my kryptonite and knew when to pull the trigger.
“Everything you hold back there, every bit you want to flip, is who you are, is what that matters, and makes you different.” How does he live with himself, with those stolen half-souls, I could bet the other half of mine, to the fact that he doesn’t.
I did go ablaze, with a mighty sword onto his throat, spun him down to the ground right in the middle of the town. Retorted he, so wisely, “I don’t know you lad, but with this fire of thine, I’m sure you’re gonna do fine.”  I could though go on and slay his weary skin and slit his blunt horns, reduce him to a single skull with a few dozen cross bones.
“Let go of reasons, befriend the alibi, and I’m sure, my dear, you’re gonna do just fine” I followed him into silence, silently, saw him rip another soul off its dearest, ah! my strategy, curse you my prodigy!
I left his ground for good, left his desert to himself, left that part, of me behind me for no good, that no angel could do right, no elf. And so I sleepwalk in a reverie, and I live a dream. In a desert of ice, in between the pine, I blow into the wind my song, of dries verses, filled with witty broken curses.
Half of me is still ablaze, the rest frozen, fumes of the first lifting, the other melting, sinking in itself. Countless parts have I lost in search of that one, the one he stole, he the demon, dark as coal. Countless of those lost are counterfeited in remorse, for the sake of the one part that was to hold the rest together, tonight I lose a few more, to this never-changing weather.
I wouldn’t lie to you, even if I lived for it, looks like it got to me, and now I’m always gonna want what I can’t have. Tell me that someday, you’ll be here with me, up, here, look me in the eye. Perhaps we’ll take a stand then, you and I, not to kill or to win but perhaps to die. Say, we’ll be seen, as we emerge from within the scene, inside-out to dissolve back in. For what it’s worth, I hereby confess, I am a part of the moon tugged to this earth. I speak the truth, but I do not moan, and that’s pretty tricky, ‘coz I just can’t do it on my own. No, without you I may never shine, apart from that, I guess, I’m gonna do just fine.

Invidia

Through your soul it shall burn,
In a sunny day, like a placid nocturne.
From the ashes the dearest shall rise,
A sweet melancholy you cannot despise.

Should it then crush, should you refrain
Should you not let the tyrant be slain,
And burn out your last lucky star
To realize, that wishes only go so far.

A brighter light shall darken the rebel,
Like the shadow of something invisible.
You shall fall with its rise.
Then, my dear, who will call you wise?

But, should the cynic ever sing along
This sine qua non, this dark song,
And wear this armor, thick, of stones,
A skull for a face; for arms, crossbones.

Upon the world shall the mayhem turn.
And when nothing’s left to yearn,
To only fall again, you shall rise.
Even then, my love, none will call you wise.

(I wanted to try something darker this time and so picked this.
'Invidia' is latin for envy, described as one of the seven deadly sins. And the above is about the two ways out of the basic state - to surrender and to fight it. And about how none in fact gets one out.)

The Story

Have we not all,
A story to tell?
Be it of angel’s ball,
Or of demons and hell.

Quite different this one is
With characters who lack verbs.
Of her and a few of his
Feelings short of words.

Of too many chances
And a few surprises.
Some unrealized fancies.
Some unclaimed prizes.

A few miracles and magic
And of just those few.
Of jokers so tragic,
The end, they already knew.

Of hopes too high,
And of fears higher.
Of burning ice in one eye,
Another with frozen fire.

Of worthless secrets,
Safe down the river bed,
Painted memories, regrets
In the colors they shed.

Of faces, so expressionless,
Could only look numb.
Of steps, so effortless,
Sounded dumb, dumb!

Of an empty space in between.
Of the pitter and the patter.
Everything that emerged within,
Of best things, just not better.

Of a few frenzied curses
Disappeared, as they fell
In a song of silent verses,
Unsung, for an undone spell.

Of fists opening limply,
Of fingers letting go
A story that lately
Its characters only know.

The cycles and circles, in spheres of chaos.

…Given a choice, every time, he would choose to choose, but would never make the final choice. This, you see, was inevitable. One of the million times he had to find out. The longer he paused, the heavier they got and eventually sunk in. What happens to the sunken choices! Well, they wait, and pop up again at the worst possible hour, when you’re in no state to decide the color of your hat (like you wear one!).

So, anyway! Now that all the cycles and circles, trapped in these spheres of chaos, are for once back at where they started, which as I said was inevitable, what does he do? Choose to choose again? Or just sit back this time? Wait… wait for the wind to change direction?

What would you do if you had this choice? What if every last piece of your experience and every last fraction of your conscience narrated the same story? What if every new beginning had taken you to one, same ending? And what if, today, on this particular day, you just stumbled on all of it altogether. Would it in anyway change your waking thoughts tomorrow? And what about those stifled whispers before you go to sleep, would they be any different tonight? Or would you be willing to choose, to try to break free, to try to find a corner in a circle?

Imagine this. You enter a diner every day. The owner gives a free fruit pie only if you pick the flavor one still left in bulk. But he gives you only one choice and you blow it every time. Or, he says, you can wait and have the piece that is still left over at the end of the day, which by the way will still be damn good! But you just can’t wait. Well, that’s just a billionth of the problems you actually face, right? How about an actual situation? Can you relate to one? I’m sure you can. Would you even consider the “offer” of starting again, when the highest odds are that you’ll be back… back here?

‘Coz in the end, it’s like this… what if all over that I burden you with a load of misguided conscience, with a firm but narrow sense of self-righteousness, with a deep but faint expression of emotional intellect? What if I make you the master of all trades and a jack of none? What if I tell you everything, and do not teach you to speak? What if I make you think that you think, but in fact never let you think?

Would you still make the apparently stupid choice of choosing? The answer supposedly is different for everyone, dependent on whether you derive your power from acceptance or from denial.