Alive

An auburn tree makes a sound in the breeze, its crackling leaves like fragments of glass. What does it mean to be in limbo, and does this term apply to phantom dreams. A thousand leaves rustle together, two shards of glass chime together.

There is something mathematical about making headway up a tree, breaking spaces. The mess of branches down below, the mess of glass that magnifies, that cuts.  

There is something methodical about running wild. The sound of a guitar set in a corner, the sound of breaking beats set with the sun.

The stark contrast of red against fading leaves.

The sharp intake of breath as it leaves. 

On growing up.

Because I can't put my finger on the specifics of our conviction I could say that we are simply spurious, with timing and distance as the preeminent factors preventing the takeoff. 

We are exceedingly independant, geographically challenged, incapable of even nursing the idea of codependency, unsure about commitment -- these are the litany of excuses for our demise. Unusual, just like we are. 

Any day now. I am anticipating some insight. Something about the meaning of life, about screaming a ripple into smooth calm waters, about being the deviant that will never fit in, about fitting in as a misfit. Clarity.

In youth, every day you might come to some new conclusion about yourself and about the reasoning behind your behaviour, and you can tell yourself this knowledge will make all the difference. But in all likelihood, most will keep on doing the same thing old things. They will still be the same person, clinging to delibitating habits because emotional ties are so strong. 

But we grow up, and reality severes the ties. 

That's the problem with reality. Revelations are not a fallacy. They don't only come in the form of status updates and tweets. 

In real life, I would bow to insight and call it my master, O transformative force. 

O transformative force, I have grown. I have grown to be incapable of clinging, crying and caring. It's not what I wanted for myself. 

O transformative force, here's to the notion that time travels in tandem with you.

Moonbeam

I went to the stove and turned the fire on under the heavy black pot. Every night Mum has soup for supper. 

I stood and watched the fire, dim. Was taught never to reheat soup on a high flame. The best soup in fact, should be made over hot charcoal, patiently fanned, elbow grease for at least two hours. When the lid leaves the pot the flavour of the soup should waft over. 

Such are many things that come to us carelessly. Some burning so bright it blinds, but some, maybe once in a lifetime, treads over like moonbeam. 

The latter may seem lackluster, paling in comparison to fire fire burning bright. But in this night, I carefully reflect. 

In the absence of a crazed fascination, a heady steam rose in its place. A simple smile, a glimpse of a giggle, a chirpy chuckle, a delinquent desire -- as these ingredients lay in a pot, one comes to realise it has become a staple sustenance. 

The days go easy on the mind, the days go weak at the knees. 

The fire burns fixedly.  The air redolent of country flowers.

Voice, vapor

There is a groan of daylight, and the murmur of condensation. Of dancing ghosts in the air. I reach out for one but as soon as my fingers twitch they are gone. A small rip in the paper-smooth walls of sleep gapes. I peer in and my eyes open -- a right hand over my left wrist tugging me awake. 

My right hand.

Invisible moisture in the air holds images: a boy chokes with laughter, head on the table in dream city, mouth full with rice. A still silent slot in a loud bar. Intrepid eyes made of delight and pickled notions stare, perpendicular.  

To sort out the stares of square intensity from shapeless frolic is when one looks fixedly in abandon of reason, in search of purpose. 

Past and present melt into a muddy pool, my reflection runny. 
  
I part my lips but I am trapped in a bad dream where I try to speak but have no voice. Silent screams evaporate in view of a darker future.

Continuing resistance to theories of an afterlife

I was brought up in a committedly agnostic household, as the firstborn of two polar opposites who placed religious belief somewhere on par with the provision of warmth and joy on Christmas day and the Chinese New Year.

The warmth understood, but never felt. The joy percept, but never recept.

Born as the sun went down, I grew familiar with darkness. I recall being reduced to tears in an attempt to dislodge my modestly held notion that a reclusive god might dwell somewhere in the universe. I was ten years old at the time. I harboured clandestine religious sentiments, and I begun to regard them with the sort of pity more commonly reserved for those diagnosed with a degenerative disease.

In my teens the sentiments took form. I attended church, led worship sessions and prayed constantly. That feeling of being displaced trudged on but I paid no mind, there was a physical awakening with all the singing and reading of Bible verses. I could put my finger on it, and that's all that mattered. Parents began to worry, Mum called me "obsessive" - I'd be desolate if I had to miss a sermon.

I was not particularly swayed by my parents' attitudes, or anyone else's. But in my early-twenties I underwent a crisis of faithlessness. My feelings of doubt had their origins in listening to Led Zeppelin, were further developed in the presence of non-fiction pages and became overwhelming with an introduction to natural disasters which killed hundreds.

I have begun to face up to the full scale of my ambivalence regarding doctrinaire principles which I had inculcated in childhood. I have never since wavered in my certainty that God did not exist. I am simply liberated by the thought that there might be a way to engage in morality and mortality without having to subscribe to its supernatural content.

Blue.

My earliest memory is of falling. Through a greying cloud awaiting complete puncture. I can’t remember how I felt at the time, but it must have been somewhat nice.

I trawl the same cloud for identity.

Sometimes the bed is familiar. Sometimes I must start from childhood and work my mind through bed after bed, beds in the homes of relatives, beds slept in while passing by, beds I've only imagined. I turn my head, expecting to see dark blue sheets - but that had past, and in my mind that was some time ago. With this minor epiphany, the furniture hurries back to its normal position, the cloud darkens. The books grow thicker and their dog-eared pages unfold, creases smooth out. An outdated identity, cut from nostalgic fabric, dissolves unseen.

I have woken up in other beds, with other stings at their flanks. A time-lapse video of involuntary attachment unfurls, watched some time ago carelessly and remembered in metaphor. A crumple of bright color, deliberate like a flower. The petals unfold, neat and charming – only to be released to the ground.

I have woken up the first morning, intact. The bed moves and with every slight movement it aches from a lifetime of agony. Clouds pressed into my back. In a blue bed on the other side of the dream, velveteen, I opened foggy eyes. I filled and drank a glass of faith, forgetting where I was.

I burrow my feet into blue - a smooth, clean movement like a letter sliding into an envelope. The feeling is an electric fire which starts at the feet and climbs a tree of nerves to reach the brain.

But the blue is fading, replaced by the strange feeling that comes with waking up before your alarm.