the curtains were already closed, even though it’s only half past five in the afternoon, it was already dark. i lit a candle, somehow it’s better than switching on the lamp. i’ve been listening to a lot of scriabin lately and although it seems a bit old hat, i slipped into something slightly more verlaine;
dim your eyes and, heart at rest,
freed from all futile endeavour,
arms crossed on your slumbering breast,
banish vain desire forever.
the shard of moonlight that punctured the curtain burnt white in the place i hurt the most. i turned towards the wall, so quiet and solid yet, i couldn’t rest; your breath still uncertain in my neck.
evening would fall, the autumn day would draw
to its uncertain close: our belles would cling
dreamingly to us, cooing, whispering
lies that still set our souls trembling with awe.
as theocritus said: “who burn with love, grow aged in a day.”
the next morning i felt myself aged and isolated and in that moment remembered a rigour which i seem to not have lost; why our physical selves should suffer the decay of age where our imaginations do not?
this seems natures cruel joke on our tender spirits, the same as our youth precludes a wisdom which, apart from few, we recognise only as the years advance.
to realise belongs now as much to a time gone by as the belief in an absolute truth. ours is a time of great incongruence, where what is meant is different from what is felt and even more distant from what is said. cynicism is as prevalent as naiveté and neither serves as a foundation for stability. the place, the rocky place i find myself in has only half answers for my many questions.
the light flickered slightly as you turned, just barely touching but that was enough for me to remember.
it would have been my father’s 72nd birthday today and when i spoke to my mother she mentioned that she can’t remember any reason why she ever got mad at him - and she often did - but that today she truly is mad at him, for leaving her.
the beauty of dementia lies not in the sparks of recollections but in the release of it. our memories though sacred can become a worse prison; both of conformity and of lies. being set free of these is not just a relief but a necessity for sanity. i pray that i’ll be strong enough to forget without having to succumb to that.
as fond as i am of keepsakes and as sentimentalist a hoarder i might seem, i try to release their hold hold on me; these souvenirs of past experiences and emotions which have long since left me.
perhaps i’m not mature enough but i still imagined that some sort of equilibrium will develop as i age, instead i’m confronted with these visions of our rapture; smells and sensations and yet, an abhorrent longing to smother you in your sleep.
