Reflection

Who invited you in? You're a master of melancholy with your unflinching gaze and your black, black eyes. Your eyeballs roll like marbles over my pale white skin as you size me up and down. I feel your harsh words twisting up through my hair, reaching deep into my ears where no one else can hear but me. Your looping speech knows just where to pinch and sear me like vinegar to a cut. Sometimes you draw tears, other times I fight. Most days I lose, and you stand victorious over me as I lay broken on the ground, your foot wrenched deep in my gut where you know I feel it the most.

Who opened the door? It was me and I've regretted it ever since. I heard you knock one day, but I ignored your call. Then curiosity got the better of me, so I ran back quickly to the door and opened it just a sliver and you seeped right in.

You were not welcome. I just wanted to take a small peek.

You descended on me and clouded my colours with greys. You hushed my voice to a monotone. Slowly but surely your footprints stood strong upon my toes, and you pushed me deep below the surface. Some days I sank like quicksand, treading water for my life, the grey lines moving up and down and all around, swirling in a terrific haze. You chased me and I was caught. You spun your vicious web around my arms. You held them tight in your black embrace, digging straight into my ribs as you left me lying hostage in futile disbelief wondering how you caught me so off guard...

You promised me nothing, but I hung on to every word as though it were the truth. You were a politician of lies. You masterminded every strategic move. You kept your whispers light like smoke, so as quickly as they drifted in, all traces of you were gone. You reflected back on me like shards of mirror, tossed to the ground yielding nothing but bad luck and a bloody mess. You cut straight to the chase leaving behind no fingerprints or sign of your existence besides your indelible imprint on my impressionable mind.

Why did I ever believe you, this stranger, this thief of my own self?

Because I paused for a moment and I went back and I myself let you in.

I slammed the door hard and ran back into the empty room, alone and desperate to exhume you from my life. I picked up every tiny shard of mirror that you left behind. And as I assembled them all in the middle of the floor, I looked hard into each and every jagged piece.

I dropped to the floor as though every bone in my body had been stolen when I saw that the shattered stranger staring back was me.

Happily Ever After?

Why do you choose to fill your cup with hate? Love leaves a much sweeter taste. You were thirsting for something so you took a swig, eager for relief. You tilted your head back and drank it all in. The words swirled around on your tongue for a brief moment, but rather than swallow them, you spewed them out, each drop leaving behind an impenetrable stain.

Your words sliced through the once-calm air. They gained strength as they traveled and then sprayed out with a vicious fury heading straight towards your target. You thought only she would hear them, as your speech was intended for her alone, but you were wrong. Some of the residue landed on all of us and we would be forever watermarked as well.

She put her hand to her face in disbelief. The mirror showed each one of your words cascading like teardrops down her wrinkled cheeks. The words seeped deep into her veins, traveling quickly through her system, heading straight for the heart. They found a small tear and let themselves in. You hurt her in the most in the most demeaning way: by spitting words of hatred into her heart. They will remain in there forever, your words.

The heart is both good and bad in that it stretches far beyond its capacity for love, yet it can never truly forget when it’s been broken. Each time it gets broken, it’s harder to fix. There is simply no glue that works.

Where did all of this come from? Who gave you the right to step on a human soul? One day the same may happen to you and then where will you turn? Maybe one day a different synapse will pop. Maybe someday you will realize that the path you have chosen is full of wolves.

If you could take it all back, would you?

Maybe you forgot just how powerful a string of words can be. They look only like lines and loops and they fill the air with noise, and in a certain moment, one can forget that they, in fact, beat with life. They reach far beyond rhyme and reason. They pulsate and conjure and capture. When strung together, they can wrap around a heart and complete it or they can go straight to the epicenter where it’s raw and tender and it hurts the most.

Maybe you knew exactly what you were saying and chose each word carefully from your book of thorns. It's impossible to take back your words once they’ve emerged. They pick up speed and gain momentum the moment they pass the lips. They hold so much weight for something so invisible.

Your words will never be forgotten. You can’t just ask for them back and drink them back down your neck. You can’t pretend that they never came out. Things will never be the same. I hope you remember from now on that your words have power. Someday you may need to eat them and they will leave behind a bitter aftertaste. I hope one day new words will re-write some of the old and that at least part of the hurt can be erased. There is only one word now that can break the spell and change the end of this story.

Are you brave enough to say it?

Siren Song

When I'm in the city, I walk really fast. My stance is as follows: shoulders back/eyes up/ear to the ground. A fusion of scents wakes my senses as well as any good jolt of caffeine as I wind my way through the mazes of pavement. Italian, Greek, Japanese, Lebanese, Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Korean. Raw and cooked and barbecued and braised and stewed and skewered. Meats and chickpeas and yogurt and coconut and garlic and coriander and chiles and cumin infuse the air. Vivid colours and smells and flavours and goodness all marinating together in a single city block.

Book stores. Market stalls. Fountains. Tattoo parlours. Traffic lights. Gastropubs. City buses. Coffee shops. Apothecaries. Shoe stores. Delis. Corner stores. Gas stations. Street lights. Subway stops. Buskers. Luxury hotels. Bakeries. Hair salons. Record stores.

The people that pass by me are diverse. Languages, accents, fashion, gait, stupors, struts and shuffles are as varied as the faces I look into. As I walk, I ponder this way of life that consists of brushing past people and spending just a second or two in the same place at the same time. We are all on our way somewhere to gether and then in an instant, we pass each other and are gone.

The shadows that jut out from the feet of giant structures hold me in their protective grasp. I look longingly at the architectural details of old apartment buildings with their fourteen foot ceilings and original hardwood floors and views of a parking lot. Grafitti catches my eye, beautiful as a rainbow as it cuts through the grey. I fall asleep to the siren song lullabies of the streets that surround me as the city embraces me and lulls me off to sleep.

You can walk down the street where I live now and some days not a single person will pass you by. There's the familiar grey barn to the left, the invisible animals who find their hiding spots nestled among leaves and hollowed out trees, and drunken beer cans resting on the sides of the road folded inwards on themselves in the dusty gravel. In theory, you could run down the street stark naked for a short moment hooting like a banshee and chances are fair to good that no one would be even the wiser. You might see the odd car, receive the odd nod of the head or the two-finger dashboard salute, but in general, this place is pretty quiet.

Bullrushes. Ducks. Fresh air. Horses. Manure. Regulars. Mailboxes. Empty roads. Sunshine. Frogs. Tractors. Clouds. Treetops. Open spaces. Squirrels. Vegetables. Woods. Quiet.

Too much quiet.

I sit in my backyard and it's just the forests that surround me on either side, the crackling grass under my feet, the gigantic garden plot in front of me, the sun on my face. The birds flitting to and from the feeder are more or less my main vein of visual stimulation.

To some people, this country life would be paradise, but to me all of the quiet makes me too instrospective, too aware of my own thoughts. It's all too much contrast to the noise in my head. It makes me yearn for a taste of my heart's true influence: the city.

Sometimes I walk for miles out here. I'm haven't quite figured out if I'm trying to find myself or if I'm running away. I was on my way somewhere with everyone, and then in an instant everyone was gone. Maybe I went too far.