if you loved it, leave it behind

She walks across cracked sidewalk
back held straight and mussed up hair
striding through sunlight
ignoring the stares.

flashing green eyes
tell of journeys ahead
of places she's gone
of things that she's said.

but what is this place
she used to call home?
the people are hateful
the city's overgrown

so she tosses her hair
and lengthens her stride
who needs it here
with the cold and the snide?

she reaches the bus stop
it soon will depart
best to get out
while she still has a heart.

the then and now

The lights are a wash of color framing the windowpane, a fluid glow, insistent in the darkness. Chain of light comprised of light itself - it is impossible to sleep with this brilliance in front of me. That glass box of memories is bathed in a faint reflection of color, and the scene changes imperceptibly - a change felt rather than heard or seen, a change sensed because nothing has really changed but my own perception. I see the glass box differently, back when the memories weren't memories, but reality. Then the lights were blue 'round the windowpane; that hypnotic blue glow was an otherwordly luminescence, an allure, a pull, the utter impossibility of unconsciousness. I strain to see it, to feel it as it was then, to slip fully into the recesses of memory, but I am deflected against an invisible barrier, and the whole feeling is fleeting. Just a flicker of memory, a fragment. I look for all the fragments in the hope I can put them all together, join all the pieces, though I know I will always be looking. I stand in a place, immerse myself in years of familiarity, and come up with a single moment in a seemingly past life. Funny these fragments are so easy to relive but so hard to find. Funny they come back to me and it is as if I have known them all along. Strange but so, so beautiful, becoming a part of the place as to unexpectedly fall through it into the transverses of time, into the same place, so long ago, into the makings of a memory.

the line

Standing on the line
dividing warmth and cold
a glowing moon
in darkness alight
it could be a contradiction
I could be a contradiction
on this line
but I'm not.
I am simply -
no, it's something else.
Effervescent
here on the edge of night
I am Effervescent

from the realm of letters

Dear You (well both of you, actually),
I don't know what to tell you, really...there is no right answer, there is no black and white or set in stone. I can't tell you if it'll work, I am helpless to time, I can only listen to the here-and-now and hope that's enough. Muddled dreams and aspirations and lost perception...maybe not lost, but replaced by an unfamiliar void in self, an abyss that falls to the depths of humanity. And that's if you give me the words...otherwise I'm helpless even to listen.
Please, stop beating yourself up. You mean more to me than you'll ever know, far too much for that. No one's perfect, if you were you'd be an abstraction. So if you could kindly cut yourself some slack, you'd be giving someone some peace of mind.
Always,
Chris.

how ironic

you remember how you told me something awhile ago?
it was an insight, a
prediction of sorts.
I didn't think much of it then
in fact if I remember right
I laughed.
wishful thinking
but nevertheless
impossible.

and now
after all this time
who would've known you were right all along?

all to pieces.

and so it takes to the air
an orb of radiance
her glowing thought
manifested
so perfect brilliant unscathed
flaming the color of her copperblonde hair
her idea.

it shimmers around the edges
hanging there
a mirror she offers
gleaming talisman,
the answer you didn't know you
were looking for in the
reflection flashing silver.

I wish I could do that.

but alas
the beauty of silence is broken
shattering her image
as I watch glory fade
collapsing from sheer weight of
those prying words,
brilliant silvers and bronzes dulling
to a charred black.
its misshapen form crumbles
sagging to a pile of ashes
she gathers the withered remains
at her feet
for apparently we must not
stray to abstract lands
while we are here.

From All Angles

tearstains?
salt traces?
or is it something else entirely,
that simple act
of shedding tears?
tearstains—
no, they can be wiped away almost
effortlessly.
but how can one
so nonchalantly
wipe off that smudge on the heart?

it's more the flooding
tears welling up
vision blurring as they escape
from our
deepest reserves of emotion—
for is it not true
the eyes
are window to the soul?

No. Anything But That

No
Don't dare
use
that weapon
on me.
You think
I don't know?
You think the knowledge
hasn't already
killed me
inside
ruined me
seeped into me
and
drips
now, only
as poison?
How could you be
so cruel?
I thought you actually
cared.

Just.
please.
No.
Rip
open that
wound
and I swear.
I'll be gone
and trust
that you won't be able to find me.

Trespass?

We run
across neat green landscape
manicured hills
groomed sandpits
trimmed
proper
spick and span
clearly not famililar
with harmless trodding
mild disturbance.

grass is damp
our feet squish
water sprays
we fly
wood block bridge
floating moss
marshy pond of glass
mirror for willows
pillow for horizon
upon which rise mountains
framing a melting
sweltering
buttery yellow moon.

Oh
we dance
through colors of sunset
skip
across rocks
over bibbling
babbling
brook
sprint
the four of us
just to see
whose legs are longest.

We run
set free
by this carefree jubilation
joy unleashed
bubbling over
laughter.

And so we return
hearts filled
and overflowing
with that elation
and they tell us
we've been
trespassing
on the golf course.

In Resistance. but not how you'd expect it

I wade through darkness, a murky, thick muddle of lost aspirations and abandoned dreams, a graveyard of unkept secrets and imprisoned memories. The shallow water laps at my ankles, and suddenly I know I have been here before in this cavern. A wind rises from nowhere, whispering that I'm alone here, that it's dangerous, that I better turn back, but I wade deeper, closing my eyes as the cold rises to my knees, to my waist, to mid-stomach. I open my eyelids, but nothing changes. It is pitch black, there are no discernable shapes or figures, and for a moment I am afraid I've made a mistake, that this isn't the right place after all. I spin around and put my arm out, moving toward the gentle thrumming till my hand hits the rough wall of the cave. I stand and listen as the thrumming becomes a melody I remember from a lifetime past, a song I know I've never heard but that I recognize all the same. My hands grope the surface of the cave until my fingertips find the rust of the heavy chain. I pull hard, propelling my bodyweight backwards as my feet sink into the muddy bottom. The iron door creaks open and with it spring the line of defenses, a flood of temptations, doubts, forbidden desires...intangible as everything else, but I feel their hunger for human emotion, their depth of darkness.

Just beyond the door. I can do this. I close my eyes and with it my heart, focusing in on the black behind my eyelids till I can imagine the light, and when I can I follow it through the door, untouched by evil. This is the place. I can feel it. Warm skin touches mine and I sag in relief. "You've made it," he murmurs, shutting the door with a click as we embrace. They won't find us here. We're safe for the moment, masked in time and darkness. But we both know it's not these wards that will keep them at bay. We have a weapon they don't know how to fight. Love. Love is our resistance.

inspired from "Resistance" by Muse

Encounter

The ledge of the bridge is narrow and treacherous. She walks across it in a straight line, scratching her bare feet against the gritty cement as she plans where each will fall on its next step. She appears as if she could be balanced on the tightrope, perched on the highwire—for any spectator regardless could recognize that iron stability. In truth she feels anything but stable, and it's all she can do to try and find a rhythm in her silent footsteps. It's the dead of night and there is nothing to distract her—well, there shouldn't be, anyway. There are no cars on the road, no headlights floating in air, the water of the bay below ripples as the moon sends shimmers of light dancing across the surface and her hair gleams as it catches an unseen ray of that same light.

It's something about the night, it feels stronger to her now, thicker, stifling in its opaque unknowns and mysterious edges. It's completely calm, so calm that she is slightly unnerved by the general lack of motion. The back of her neck prickles and she swivels around, but there is no one there, and in doing so she almost loses her now tentative balance. To fall one way would mean a set of scraped knees at the least. The other...well, she wouldn’t be so lucky. Her death would be imminent and certain. The drop itself would probably knock her unconscious before she hit the water, but even then…she shivers, looking out at the shimmering blackness below, eerily beautiful, hypnotic, alluring. But she knows. It is terrifying thinking of how cold and helpless she would be as the waves sucked her below the merciless current, thrashing her screaming, writhing form till she was blue and limp, because no matter how hard she fought she would still be pulled under. The agony of five minutes framed in the hysteria of drowning. Death would be a relief. She shivers again, clearing the image from behind her eyelids and focusing on the cracked cement under her feet a mere four inches wide, taking a deep breath. She knows what she is doing. She isn’t going to fall.

She continues her careful footsteps, watching the way the shadows fluctuate on the ground, sheen of light so faint it could fade into the darkness at a moment’s notice. She stares ahead at the solitary streetlamp on the far side of the bridge, a beacon spilling its welcome in a warm glow. But it’s so far away. She walks toward it as if she’s in a trance, as if the streetlamp is all she’s capable of seeing. So mesmerized is she that she fails to notice the pale green illumination that has come to hover directly overhead. She is bathed in an otherworldly luminescence, a light composed of air and stardust and particles from orbit, of the foreign, the unreal, of intrigue and distortion and rebirth. She feels her hair stand up on the back of her neck as her eyes find the skyline from the gaps of the bridge’s structure, widening in disbelief.

A spaceship is approaching, lit up like an entire city in itself. It’s too much for her vision to process, the emanating green blurs into splotches of untamed exposure and she can’t tell where darkness ends and light begins. Why is she here? She needs to get away. She turns to the solitary lamppost, reaching blindly for a sense of direction, any direction, but the light has gone out. Her only flame of hope. Gone. She panics as her vision settles. The blinking shuttle has landed and the door opens a crack, emitting a violet wavelength that triggers a sharp burning sensation in her veins, making her gasp in shock. The door appears to disintegrate into the open night air—it hasn’t moved, it hasn’t been manipulated—it’s simply no longer there. She stifles a bloodcurdling scream as three creatures step out of the interior. There’s no one there to hear her. It’s deserted. The night will swallow her up and no one will know the better. Her heartbeats are crashing, her stomach in her throat. She is sure of only one thing as the distorted forms close in on her wavering silhouette—she must not be taken. She allows one fleeting glimpse toward the glittering darkness below, knowing it will be the last decision she ever makes. And then she jumps.

Nonsensical Dreams

A gust of wind
carries me away
into radiant summer day

I am a daffodil
translucent fairy
never beleaguered
never harried

The whistling sounds
spin all around
dancing prancing
on the ground

A glittering flitting
resounding ring
I see the sprites
I hear them sing

And flying on air
so weightless I'm soaring
bluebells and dewdrops
are never deploring

But I'm out of tune
I'm out of place
I don't belong here
I'm a disgrace

The wind's now a whiplash
no longer calling
my wishing is hopeless
my dreams are falling

As so I wake up
to a blank empty mind
imaginings washed away
sunshine left behind.

Faltering Recognition

The offramp beckons.
Thoughts have been reduced
to a dull thrumming
as the irk of impatience takes hold
as anxiety sets in
like a poison spreading through
seeping veins
the indisputable inkling
We're almost there.
Turn the corner
and we're amidst
the sprawled canal
Sidewalk
and there she is
one girl
nonchalant black dress
a free spirit
in an unfamiliar stranger
But my eyes find the tag
hanging from her shoulder
a telltale identification
and realization
hits me hard.
My hands grip the steering wheel
as uncalled nostalgia envelopes
an unsuspecting soul.
Longing for that month
the world became real
that I discovered the music
and we all
found
the artists in ourselves.
Inspiration
a gradient
and the memories flood me
because exactly one year ago
That girl was me.
I want to go back
For it's such an odd
odd feeling
not being there this
summer
I know how all the others feel
our time at CSSSA is over
expired
came to a complete end
in the clinging fragments
of a year already lost.
Alas
I wish the girl all the best
for her earthshattering month
has only just begun.

On the Road

Her eyelids open to the glorious onslaught of untamed light reflecting off the shards of the window's shattered glass. She throws off the dilapidated blanket, shivering in the brisk morning air, squinting at her surroundings--the battered coffee table, the stained rug and peeling walls, the long-forgotten prismatic fragments. The previous owners didn't even bother taping up some cheap plastic sheeting over the gaping hole. No matter, this was just as good a one-night dwelling as any. Nevermind it didn't exactly feel like home--she didn't really know what she called home anymore, anyway.

Too much thinking, she tells herself. She slides on her red sneakers and glances at her reflection in the dirt-caked mirror left on top the dresser, pulling her long hair back behind her neck with a harsh tug. She strides to the empty window frame without a glance back, leans against the marred steel and looks out at the field of dried grass and weeds eating away at the lonely road. This quaint place, now so utterly abandoned, she thinks, but stops herself. Just another place, can't get sentimental about it. So many places in the world.

She steps onto the windowsill and stares at the ground, judging the height. Nothing she hasn't done before. She gathers the unruly folds of her sundress in one hand, puts the other out for balance, and steps off the edge. The drop is short and she makes a perfect landing, pausing only to brush the stray foxtail off her shoe. Once again she is in motion, walking with a purpose.

She treks through the knee-length grass, edges tickling the bare skin of her legs as the wind tosses her mane free from its messy knot and the sun heats her uncovered shoulders. She turns the corner and heads toward the road. Her beat-up Mustang waits for her in the ditch like a faithful dog. She pulls her wad of keys out of the hem of her dress--what good would a dress be without pockets?--and looks at them in mild contemplation. Yes, she decides, slipping all but one off the keyring and letting them fall into the dead earth as if letting pieces of herself fall away.

She settles herself in the driver's seat, revs up the engine and pulls onto the road while fumbling around for the sunglasses she knows are somewhere in the mess of junk on the passenger seat. No longer squinting from the light of the sun, she opens a bag of chips for breakfast and turns the radio up loud enough so that she drowns out her singing voice as well as her own thoughts. She braces herself. There is a long day of driving ahead. She better start it now.

Masked Sunshine

So falls the rain, and with it, she casts away those heavy emotions, letting them fall from her like a spectacular molting, a mysterious unveiling of all that was and will be as water and sparks seep into the earth. She watches in awe, faces the sky and rain and finds herself dancing like she never has before.

The girl will rise from the ashes as the phoenix of old once did. Though bathed in the moments of sorrow and coated by the outpouring of the heavens, a light still burns inside. That light is the power to defy the chaos of life, to dance to the song of the storms. For every star in this world is forged from an inner chaos,

and in letting go she has embraced that chaos. She wonders where all the light has come from, and in this second of esctasy and euphoria she realizes it is herself. A single flame in the darkness. And then she realizes that's indeed all it is and comes crashing down from the stars. It's dark around her and she is the only one, and to glow is not enough because she is so completely, utterly alone. But then...could it be? Another light flickers from far off in the distance.

The girl may wander in the dark, alone for a time. Many others have traveled this route, it is a part of life. The darkness envelopes and consumes, but the girl will find a way out. She will learn not to believe in others who believe in her. She will learn not to believe herself for other peoples' sake. She will believe in herself for herself. She will always have the lights that shine off the trees in the near distance, that beckon a new day and a new way,

and she will be the sunshine as she has been before and always will be.

(Half the glory must be given to fellow writer and dreamer Steve Sonnier
while the piece itself must be dedicated to my dear sister muse)

Queen of Ice

She’s passion set aflame

Wild free raw

thirsty for all that which

the world

is willing to give her.

She wants to feel that rush of adventure

Thrill of the unknown

Look through the glass

And take it all to heart.

Yet through all of this

She knows that nature

the flaws, the faults, the tendencies

And though she looks,

she has trouble finding

the

Sparks,

the ones for whom

Darkness falls

and still they glow

so lit and burning

are the depths

of their fiery souls.

She recognizes these souls

But in a world so impossible to comprehend

there are too few

and their fight

stands too small a chance.

She realizes this

And no doubt would it be far safer

to simply assume

a hard shell

of empty resignation.

But no

She sees

And with that sight

She feels

And she can’t stop searching

for that spark

a faint glimmer of fleeting emotion

just under the surface

which for so many is clearly

Not there.

She wants no more of it

as she wonders

For what is passion good for

If no longer

Can it be recognized

And if none but she knows of it

How can it really exist?

Yes

She should be crowned

Acquire cold words and a piercing stare

Freeze in wicked perfection

And become

So very very numb.

If only she were

The

Queen of Ice

Standing in the endless downpour

Feeling nothing

As she melts into a flooded sidewalk.

The All-Knowing

She handed over the wafer-thin sheet. Such a cruel, hateful glare it gave her as it left her hands, as if it knew of all her indecision and planned to use it all against her.

Is it real? she heard the other ask.
Yes, she answered, it's as real as it gets.

A Prismatic Hunger

Please, give me some color. I cannot stand the shadows and the deception, the pretense, the false semblance. The same pale, tasteless consent and dull compliance. Tell me there are different shades of gray, that the world is within and without and that it would cease to exist without its painted intricacies. That the perceived can embody both good and evil, but that they aren't the same shade, not at all. Help me see the difference between crimson and red, olive and sage, yellow and gold. Let me unearth the strange intensities, the deluging iridescence, the hues and tints and glows. I'm so sick of black and white. So set me free, let me go.

Rain Through the Looking Glass

Slippery shoes against the marble as we sit on the long wooden benches, looking about us as if we have just been born. Our whispers echo off the cavernous walls. We sense we are intruders on this glorious abyss and our voices instinctually taper off. A silence spreads itself over us, muting our thoughts, our heartbeats, our mindless fidgeting, if only for a moment, but in that moment time stands still. We listen, there is nothing. We strain our ears, searching for something we can use to prove to ourselves that it hasn't all stopped. It comes to us from a great distance, almost inaudible, dampened by the sheer volume of the silence.

A sound like no other, a sound we would know anywhere. The sound
of rain.

The drops, they hit the rough surface of the stained glass, reflecting prisms of color through the silence. That which is so deep we'd have to wade through it. The faint echo of the rain slowly fades away, till we are left with a true absence of sound. And we sit and listen to that absence.

Those Days, So Far Away

That was really insensitive, he said.

Insensitive?
Is that all that remains from the memory that brings back the ecstasy of my childhood? That's certainly not how I remember it--it was always a sort of carefree joy unleashed from the soul, for young souls have the least experience but know the most about the intensity of the truth, even if they can't fully understand it. Me and my sis, twirling around in circles in the white light of the morning, spinning to the music that starts as part of the air and soon becomes a part of us. The elation, the rapture, the wonder of those morning hours. Then, it was as much a part of us as our fingers, our toes, our faces, our hearts. It was what we did, it was what we lived for. Apparently it's now different.

I thought maybe you'd remember those days we used to dance, I reply.

A Knock on Inspiration's Door

Dear You,

You know who you are, and it's been awhile. You've been off capturing the flags of the world, partaking in the grand scheme of this compelling and disparaging race of humanity while I sit in this green room, sheltered from those very consummations and iniquities. I've felt your absence as one can only fully appreciate something once it is lost.

It's now I realize your charm, a mystical sense of acquiescence, where life is just an illusion when time stands still.

But now you're back. I will admit I've missed you, probably more than I should. Please, please, don't go away.

All the best,
Now and always,
Me.

As We Unfold Time

I face the sun
squinting
at the fierce glowing sphere
overwhelmingly so,
the prisms dance
in the raw burst of light
My vision explodes

Dandelions
Oh, the dandelions
A slight puff of air
and the seeds fly
off
on the wind
a wish born in the moment
but into the embrace of the world
It flies

Stormclouds and lattes
and driving in the rain
as sheets
fall from the skies
the sound
so indescribable
Just...the sound of rain

Like the flow of words
these moments
will be fleeting
Recognize
Savor them whilst they last
but then
let them go
for they,
always hopeless to trap
except
In memory

Time never waits
when later never exists.

When Senses Collide

Rain and wind defend the bells and the crickets in the midst of cannons;
Pitter-patter, whir, hiss, chime, chirp, boom.
Fresh air mingles with that acrid burning
And drenched to the bone, the merciless fingers of cold
find the chink in our armor.
Cold, exorbitantly cold
So cold we can't feel the cold,
the word loses its meaning,
just a word,
just a sound, like all the others
Till it becomes warmth.
Lost, discouraged, betrayed
yet awed, elated, empowered
from that which we call
Fearless nostalgia.
That's all life is, really
A continuum of contradictions.

C.S.

The Gift of Illumination

My feet lift off the ground at the sidewalk’s curb, but it is a matter of mindless movement, not awareness. I am a tangle of thoughts and emotions that I cannot seem to make sense of, blurred with ambiguity till neither element can be truly identified. Their struggle resides in me, in the scopeless expanse of my mind, in the tight knot of my stomach. I clench my fists as another influx of thoughts hits me, leaving me weighed down by the feeling of hopelessness. All the best knives, no hope. Why? Why is life so cruel?

I am across the street now, safely on the sidewalk. The query dies in my head with the flood of adrenaline; the insecurity fades away like pixie dust and is replaced with a heightened perception.

There’s something about the night, something that consumes rational meaning. All that turmoil…it is suddenly masked. Masked with this darkness that is somehow so alive and alluring and healing, like aloe on a burn.

The cold brings a stinging sensation to my bare skin as my pulse and heart pound to the same wild rhythms. There are few cars on the road—the night could swallow me up and no one would be here to notice. I become my surroundings despite my locomotion—the black sky, the layered shadows on the sidewalk, the streetlamps. Streetlamps. Under each streetlamp, my vision becomes a blazing glow that fades in and out as my feet carry  me on.

The light comes and goes. Einstein said that because cold is only the absence of heat, darkness must be nothing but the absence of light. He was right. The city below glitters like jewels in the distance. And so I find my real savior to be light, because I wouldn’t be able to run free like this is in total darkness.

My All Familiar Gymnast

You say I'm always there
But then
I am always running
Always wandering
With no patience
A flittering, uncertain thing
An impulse

It is you, my dear
You
Who is always there
My fellow muse
My sunshine on a cloudy day
A day I'm tied in bonds
But with that sunshine
And some tanbark, and some sky
You set me free

And so I thank you
For being my friend
For teaching us all
there's always more
than it seems
For the words we exchange
regardless the language,
For the laughs,
the concerns,
the cough drops and smiles,
And for everything
in between.

Light a Match, Watch it Burn

Clasped hands in the darkness
Lights
Billboards
Endless highway
Time in motion
And with blurred edges
Lines become indistinct.
Heartbeat
Engine's thrum
Thoughts
So many thoughts,
Not enough time.
Is it a dream?
Squeeze of the hand
reassures it's
a moment unfeigned
existing
in the flesh.
Feelings
Impossible to discern
Take to the air
like seeds in the wind.
And the eyes
Mirror to the soul
two flames
smoldering
in the darkness.
That squeeze of the hand
Brings a surge of emotion
a question
a realization
How can someone understand you
if you don't understand yourself?

-C.S.

La Luna

An uneven cluster of frost lines the bottom of the windowpane and the reflection of the glass wall opposite this window lingers as an illusion somewhere in the depthless glass. But otherwise, the windowpane is a perfect extension to what's on the other side, what they like calling 'A Winter Wonderland.' Not really. It feels more like an extension of Narnia, peering through this sheet of glass to a world I don't normally live in, a world almost magical in its untampered beauty.

A white light filters into this room in the cabin, tame and mysterious at the same time. On the other side of the street stand the neighboring cabins, looking smart and smug. Yet they are not in charge. Snow is the one in charge, and he is an absolute ruler. Snow, in his glistening white glory, wraps his cold embrace around the wooden structures. He dominates the evergreens, burdens their branches. Every so often a cascade falls earthward, so heavy is the weight, and it is as if the trees heave a great sigh.

I see the source of the white light. It is the Moon, casting her illumination over the scene. She resides over the forest, keeping watch as guardian of the earth. And I realize I was wrong. She makes Snow look like a blithering fool in her eery yet beautiful presence, outshines him tenfold. She is mystical, she is captivating, she is a mix of the unknown and the familiar, and I can't tell where one ends and the other begins. It isn't a matter of radiance, it is a certain clarity, grace. She personifies all that has no distinct lines or edges, of the undefined.

I turn away for what seems a moment and a golden hue films the snow, the cabins, the trees. The moon has begun her retreat back into the depths of the sky, where she will wait, alone, until night falls once again. For now, the Sun has taken his turn to rule the horizons of this endless stretch of space we deem a central part of our universe.

It's Not That You Finish...It's That You Had The Courage To Start

The cold air stings my skin as I bound down the incline. My feet dance off the ground with the momentum, the wind caresses my face. My footsteps are a dull thud-thud against the cement, my breathing the steady inhale-inhale, exhale-exhale, and when the two lock into place I know I have found my rhythm. My pulse drums in the blood of my ears. I focus only on the sidewalk. I feel a rush of exhilaration, a thrum of energy. I am an oscillation, I swing to the beat of time itself.

And right now, It can't stop me, I have slipped from its grasp. It doesn't matter that it'll always be a part of me no matter the distance I try to put between us, or the stacking of the odds. I just run.

A Short Trip To Musicland

A pile of pages strewn across the table, a sea of black dots. But that's all they are--splotches of ink, hundreds of these dots and lines, blurring into a black and white mosaic of contrasts. It could be meaningless. These ledger lines are a mysterious language unique to themselves.

Laquered wood. Fluorescent lighting, the reflection of light in the laquer of this wood. Metal strings on fingertips. This violin, this music, this path through the garden stretching around the corner. A path, beckoning, pleading.

The bow moves across the strings, but the eyes give away their complete distance from this dimension, the reality that so many people cling to for fear of the unknown. The path comes into focus. Motion, walking. The bow is still moving, but the bow is only an extension of the arm, the arm an extension of the body, the body an extension of the path. And this person, you, is still walking.

You can't tell where one world ends and the other begins.

They Say You Can Always Find Your Way Back Home (No Matter What)

The fog is a thick blanket hanging suspended from the sky, veiling our vision with a film of obsurity and muting the clarity of the image before us till it melds together in an unidentifiable blur of ambiguity. We see the street before us, but there is a certain fuzziness that toys with our sense of perception. The headlights of the car barely have the light crucial to navigate this vague darkness. We stop at the stop sign, turning right onto our street. It is apparent the fog has found its preferred resting place here. It shrouds the houses' facades, expands itself leisurely into the cold night air. It seems to think it has all the time in the world to tuck itself into bed. The street is held captive by this haze...except for, it looks like...a single house. Its hanging icicle lights shine through the opaqueness with a fervid yellow glow, contriving an alluring, mystical illusion. It is a timeworn castle from the Europe of the past, protected by its ever-looming moat (dare you cross?), its needlelike spires, its thousand layers of mist. We pull into the driveway of this magnificent fortress, none other than the place we call home.

The Birth of the Whimsical Mind

The beginning is never easy. There are a million different thoughts dancing on the edge of the mind, but it is another matter completely of which ones will find themselves ink on the surface of the blank page. These thoughts come in the form of words and are curious sparks or bursts of brilliance that we call ideas. Are these words the right ones? Who knows. But they are the ones that make themselves tangible things, and that must count for something. I like to contemplate life, to blend and mix the colors, shade in the outlines, change the perspectives. And part of the contemplating is that the words cannot be distinctly right or wrong, they are simply how I see it all. Welcome to The Whimsical Mind of a Blue-Eyed Violinist.