Reign Over Me

What do you do when you lose everything that’s ever meant anything to you?
Your wife and three daughters die in a plane crash,
They loved and adored you.

They woke you up every morning singing your favourite Beatles song.
You were the Dad, you were the husband.

Now?

Now you’re the strange fellow who hangs around music stores all day long with your head phones on. They block out the noise. The noise your thoughts create. The memories. Too painful to remember.

You can’t be friends with your friends anymore. They know too much.
You can’t live in your house anymore, the stains of colouring pens are on the walls. You can paint over them. But you know what you’ve covered. You know they’re underneath. You rest your head on the cold concrete, close your eyes and...
You can’t wear that shirt. She always wore it after you made love.
You can’t eat bacon and eggs for breakfast on Sundays.

You can’t go to parks, or shopping centres, or to the beach. Or anywhere where there are children.

You stop working, eating. Showering, sleeping.

What is left for you?

What is your one reprieve?
The music.

All you can do is play the music and get lost in the melody, the lyrics.
They take you away to a place where people don’t ask questions. They don’t talk. You can’t see them. They might aswell not be there.

For that moment you fly with the vibration of sound.
Nothing else matters.

You forget. You experience passion for the first time since the tragedy.
You can’t turn it off. It becomes part of you. You are the music.

So... what do you do when you lose everything that ever meant anything to you?

You play music.

A Model Death

Lying to the camera everytime
This pretentious pout of perfection
What a way to earn a dime
Hiding beneath a lens of reflection
Now she’s learning how to walk again
She’s learning how to talk again
And it’s nice to see her smile
I still see the sadness in her eyes
A shadow of what used to be
Aborting attempts to disguise
She swims in her phlegmatic sea
They taught her how to bleed
But she didn’t know why
This dire need, she had to feed
Just waiting, waiting to die

LOVE

The simplest thing about love, is saying it. Love is not an emotion, but an ability. So many mistake the concept of love to be that which is a feeling, but as we all know, feelings are temporary, transient, and they fluctuate. Love is unconditional, everlasting and permanent. You are either incapable or capable of it. You may think you are one or the other, but it is in your actions that it becomes apparent.

Consider being able to walk or run, or ride a bicycle. It is learnt, acquired over time, developed and progressed. And as these different skills have various levels of competence, so it is with love. You have to engulf yourself with the qualities of love in order to become better at it. Like a runner has a specific diet, trains regularly, and perhaps has a professional trainer.

You need to teach yourself how to forgive, how to accept, how to trust, how to be vulnerable; emotionally naked so to speak, how to think of another’s needs before your own. You need to ask yourself questions and analyse your reactions, dig deep into your mental psyche and search the core of who you are and ask why you are that way, read books, write notes, listen to music, and discuss matters, communicate on an open and honest level and LISTEN.

Once you have learnt a lesson once or twice you need to practice it, at every opportunity that comes your way. It’s easy to give up and ignore what is there, shove it aside in a safe little box of iron protection. It’s difficult and frustrating, even exhausting at times, with the temptation to say “it’s just not working”, “I’ve tried everything”, “Maybe we’re just not meant for each other”, “it’s too painful” and so the excuses continue.

But ultimately, the goal (to be capable of love) is worth every tear, every angry word, and every spiteful thought. If you remain focused and have enough desire and perseverance eventually the concept becomes second nature to you.

Suddenly patience, understanding, compassion and commitment are born. Before you know it you are demonstrating the actions of someone that indeed “loves” and others around you can see it visibly.

You become unwittingly open to sacrifice and compromise, you go that extra mile in every which way you can to ensure the happiness of another, you encompass every bit of a loving nature and absorb as much of the other as you possibly can so as to learn and grow and become intelligibly knowledgeable of the other’s needs, wants, desires, passions, likes, dislikes, fears, dreams and secrets.

But as the old cliché states, love is also a two-way street. It is impossible to achieve alone. In order to obtain love both party’s need to be consistently working towards the same goal. One cannot learn more, or understand more, if the other refuses to be honest, refuses to answer, refuses to share.

One may be “better” at it than the other, but in love comes assistance, encouragement and the selfless desire to help. Love cannot be forced, or brainwashed into existence. You need to have two open hearts full of passion, craving and aching for the other. The thought of a life without the other actively present in it, needs to be unbearable.

It is not indifferent, or arrogant, or proud. The ingredients for the recipe of the ability to love are crucial. If there are not two people who want the one just as much as the other it is like trying to bake cake without raising flour, destined to flop!

That is the beauty and magic of love: the ability to possess all the essentials and combine them, conjure them up, not distort, taint or abuse them, but have them all in perfect harmony, all encompassing unity in a permanent state, remaining unaffected by slip-ups, weakness, or interference.

In spite of worldly worries and concerns, the mundane hum-drum and rat-race society, love prevails. And once achieved, how can anyone possibly dispute its worth, value or importance.

Love is THE ability we ALL want to be capable of, if you think you don’t need it, don’t want it, can have a fulfilling and happy life without it - you are either in denial, crippled by fear, or trying to convince yourself otherwise. And yet so few are.

Ask yourself, “Do I want to be capable of love?” And if your answer is “No”, I then challenge you, are you human? After all, what else is there to live for? What else is there to DIE for? What other ability surpasses the celestial awe of love?

I quote Seth (Nicholas Cage) from the film “City of Angels”:
“I would rather have one breath of her hair, one kiss of her lips, one touch of her hand... than an eternity without it.”

THAT... is love.

Concern yourself with what matters. With what counts. With what nothing and no-one can take away from you. And become capable of LOVE.

You Have To Go Away To Come Back

Take me away from here please
Lost property for lack of a better home
Fireplace burnt memories
No place to call my own
Shaking breaking to cross borders
Seas beyond our Southern shore
Barefoot backpack on my shoulders
Oh I dream of nothing more
We don’t get to know the time
But what we get is faith
Knowing not what knowing is
Who wants the path of safe
Leave everything I’ve ever learnt and loved
Foreign soil between my toes
Sharing the same stars above
Reminiscing friends and foes
I see the moon
And the moon sees me
And the moon sees
The someone I want to see
Jah Blass the moon
And Jah Bless me
Jah Bless the someone I want to see
Absence makes the heart grow fonder
What is destiny I wonder
Build a bridge to my beloved
Where fears and dreams become uncovered

Nowhere To Run

Riding on a rollercoaster of disaster
When’s it gona stop
Hearts are beating, pounding faster and faster
Just let me drop
The dragon breathes fire
And this smile is dire
Stand alone in a room full of people
Shadows dancing on the floor
No one is spared from perplexion
No one is safe from rejection
Give me a box to shove up these words
I want to get them out
Pulling and tugging tearing and twisting
The tip of my tongue
Begging and pleading
Lying deceiving
Holding in their shout
Hose me down with water
Before this rage escapes

The Alien & The Butterfly

A true love story. The Alien and The Butterfly kept apart by borders and dreams. Her memories of their once shared magical moments remain like a stain no scrubbing or bleach can remove. Passion, inspiration, further uncommon carnal knowledge, infatuation, addiction..

Imagine a world where time was not measured by seconds or hours, but the order of occasion followed an intrinsic design drawn by the hand of her heart! Like joining the dots or painting by numbers, unaware of her predestined arrival and carried by the wind of desire, his breathe - the magnet, the particles her figure own, the ions. Their eyes would lock upon her completed travels, never to gaze on a more hypnotic creature, mesmerised by his mere existence.

“I curse the stars for placing your face on my path, only to revoke it and keep it away! An unforgettable face. A face my hands ache to caress. A face I want to kiss until we tire in exhaustion.” The only face that visits her dreams.

Feeling abnormal amounts of deprivation she shivers to scream in agony. Instead, she pauses her pain and abandons her voice, succumbing to the triumph of common sense and resisting the battle of logic verse love.

Being with him is being struck by lightning. One thousand volts of electricity surge through blue veins igniting an everlasting fire. Seduced in vast bewilderment, he holds her delicate, all encompassing essence in his hands. So vulnerable and weak, in trance-like obedience... in the presence of The Alien, The Butterfly surrenders. A Prince of the Night Sky, reminding her she’s lucky to be alive. She ponders how many strikes her fragile organ can survive and anxiously anticipates the rare yet natural phenomenon, begging it to shock her once more!

Petrified, crippled by fear. She’s never felt so much fear. Fear of the answers to her insurmountable questions. Hesitant to ask them, she tells herself not to. She cannot assume. Stuck, lost, she’s frozen by the sound of confusion. A song that haunts every waking hour. A yearning for clarity, deaf to the tones of what’s true.

The realm she envisions, her only reprieve.

Unexplained Silence

We’re not the same
You’re blind to pain
Stains line my cheeks
Couch ridden for weeks
You believe the lies
Wiped away ink drops under my eyes
Cat swallowed your tongue
My feelings are flung
Shoved out the window
Run down the street
Lost black sparrows
Fall to your feet
If you watch the light
You cannot fight
Stop signs bright
In red and white
Ask me your question
And want to know the answer
No rhyme or suggestion
Your crucified dancer
Eyes darker than the night
Laser sharp stare penetrates the sky

Soft By Nature...

There’s who/how you are instinctively... how you would be if the outside world did not exist and you were never introduced to anyone else, the type of person you would be living isolated on an island surrounded by the beauty of mother earth and the wondrous diversity of creatures that walk it. Skipping, laughing, exploring and playing with the animals. Dancing and singing in the rain. Swimming and splashing in the gentle ocean...

Then, there is someone else. The person your parents taught you to be. They told you “The world out there is harsh and you need to be prepared for it.” The person the world showed you to be, by watching the news and reading the paper. The person that has met the ugliest of liars, abusers, and takers.

You try to be your “natural” self, or, you tried, emphasis on past tense! Yet time and time, and time again, you were excruciatingly shown that indeed to be that person is a mistake because no matter how forgiving or accepting you can possibly be, you end up being trodden on, kicked when you’re down, beaten to a pulp, your heart ripped to shreds, forgotten, discarded and replaced.

And you’re taught that actually, people don’t give a shit irrespective of what they said or how sincere it appeared to be at the time, that charm works wonders and leads you to believe all the wonderful things your pure, innocent heart wants to.
That it’s incredibly easy to lie and pretend in order to get what they want from you and once they have had it or can’t get it exactly when they want to have it, you become uninteresting and not worth the time.

You’re taught that “convenience” is the ultimate goal and anything requiring effort is “too much” or “a luss”... and that in actuality there was nothing “special” about you, you just happened to be there at that moment and because you were, you were “wanted”.

But... “Out of sight, out of mind. Absence does not make the heart grow fonder when there is nothing remotely close to a heart there to begin with.

And so you regret ever being the person you were with them, or letting them see you, or giving them what they wanted and being insanely angry for even wanting it yourself, because once again, you were taken advantage of, despite hoping/thinking that maybe, just maybe, this person was different... but no.


Time and action has proven you wrong. You should have trusted your gut. You should have listened to that whispering voice. You should not have given into temptation, remained strong and kept yourself, to yourself!

Because now... all you have is that emptiness, questioning what it is you did wrong, or what you could have done to have kept them interested, or why they no longer want to talk to you... a bunch of pointless questions you will never have the answers to because you can’t ask them.

You can’t ask them because if you do, you appear “desperate”, “clingy”, “emo”, “still keen”... and you can’t do that... you just can’t. If you do, they will just “win” even more because it is apparent that they still have a hold over you, still live in your thoughts, and still haunt your dreams...

You watch films like “He’s Just Not That Into You” and you hate yourself for being “one of those girls”... you thought you were better than that. You thought you were different. But, you weren’t. And neither were they. You were just another notch on his belt and he was just another guy who broke your heart.

So you tell yourself its better this way. Rather sooner than later right? Rather have him forget you now before you ever had the chance to make him really remember you. Rather have your eyes opened to the painful truth now, than to continue trying to blind yourself... blind your eyes from the hardcore evidence that is clearly in front of you.

You tell yourself it was cool while it lasted, but that it’s over now... that “it” wasn’t ever anything official in the first place so there is nothing to be hurt or disappointed about. That you’re being a silly, emotional female and that there’s no use shedding tears over spilt milk.

You tell yourself that it wouldn’t/couldn’t have worked anyway because you’re both too busy focusing on your careers and time, distance and priorities would have ultimately keep you apart. That you’re in a different space... on a different path... and you curse the stars for ever making the two align for the brief amount of time that they did.

You tell yourself to let him go. Wish him well. To not be angry or upset. But to trust in the universe and move on. You tell yourself to give up. And to not contact, think, speak or even dream of him. You tell yourself it’s a waste of energy because there is no way and nothing he can do that is ever going to be able to change this.
The best you can do is to forget about him just as easily as he has forgotten you.
You tell yourself that he isn’t a bad person, that what you experienced was awesome yet temporary, and that you just weren’t “something” enough. That it’s not your fault, or his, but it’s just the way it is and you have no other option but to accept it. That trying to figure out any “meaning” behind any thoughts, words or actions is presumptuous and irrelevant.

That the past is the past and although you are choosing to embrace it and not hold a grudge, he cannot rewind time and act differently. And what has happened has now happened and unfortunately actions, or in his case, lack thereof, have consequences.

The consequences:
Ignore. Lie. Pretend. Be fake. Be “strong.” Build a wall. Resist. Protect yourself. Be polite. Don’t ever say what is on your heart or mind. Keep your mouth shut. Never let your guard down. Never let him in. Don’t care. Don’t remember. Don’t miss. Don’t hope. Don’t admit. Don’t look back. Don’t second guess. Never be honest, true or real. And walk away... never to return.
He will never have you again.

Be the person the world, your parents and he taught you to be.

Soft By Nature. Hard As Fuck By Nurture.

HOPE

If you find yourself hoping that hope is enough... does that not surely mean that it isn’t? Or doesn’t it? If everything in your life is not the way you want it to be, or how you need it to be, and your “hands are tied”, there really isn’t much you can do about it to change it, what is left? Hope.

All you can do or trying to do is remain positive. You have hope. That one day, someday, things will change for the better and everything will fall into place and what “will be” will be what you’d always wanted, needed and hoped for.

The question is how long do you have to be hopeful for, before your life starts moulding itself into a statue that is pleasing to you? Someone once told me,” You can either be the sculptor, or let others sculpt your life for you.” In order to be the sculptor, one requires the ability to use one’s hands. But how does one go about untying and freeing one’s hands, that are so forcefully bound by the strongest of rope it seems impossible, hopeless to undo the knots?

Do you sit, hands tied, hoping, believing, that if you’re patient enough someone with the adequate ‘untying knots’ skills will come along and set you free? Or do you have to wriggle, struggle, and tug, until the point of bleeding, to loosen the grip? Do you have to violently force your way out of the bondage? Fight, be in pain and anxiously search for a knife to make the task just a little bit quicker, easier?
Or ... do you willingly stand up with your hands tied behind your back? Walk slowly and carefully, trying to maintain your balance, through the vast and open fields not being in control of anything, constantly relying on the generosity, time or kindness of others to do things for you? All the while consciously hoping that you will be kept safe, for if danger were to come along, you are prevented from defending yourself.

How immensely frustrating and vulnerable it is to have your hands tied: the lack of power, control and independence. How claustrophobic. Like being pushed into a corner, surrounded by consistent reminders that this is the position you are in and there is absolutely no way of getting yourself out of it. No matter how hard you wriggle, complain, despise your circumstance... yearn to break loose, crave, itch and ache to have the use of your hands, the only thing you can do, is hope that one day it will not be like this. One day, your hands will be free to pick up the chisel and embark upon creating the marvellous work of art you foresee in your heart and mind. The artwork that you have been designing since you were old enough to think. The life you want to be living. Hopefully someday soon. It is the most natural desire, instinct, ability and privilege of the human race to be blessed with a pair of hands.

When they are taken away, it becomes clearer as to how desperately we need them. And yet there are those admirable, rare examples of strength that were born without them, who manage to achieve success and fulfilment regardless of their disability. If they were involved in an accident and suddenly have to learn to a new way of life without them, so the journey begins, ultimately obtaining a new set of skills that enables them to live happily and comfortably.

Why is it then, that those of us with literally perfect and able hands, which are merely metaphorically tied behind our backs, have such little faith? In our abilities, in our strength and in the power our beings possess? Why is that we have such little determination, why do we wittingly give up, why do we use the situations we find ourselves in as an excuse for not being able to change them? Why do we have such little hope? And if some of us do hope, why isn’t it enough?

Undefined Defintions

If words are so powerful (they can bring to life; they can destroy) why is it then that your MOST MEMORABLE experiences are those moments and feelings that CANNOT be put into words?

“Indescribable” “No words will suffice” “No word will do it justice” I just can’t seem to find the words” “I can’t explain it” etc etc!!!
Is it a lack of extensive vocabulary, a language default, I wonder if other cultures struggle to put their thoughts into words or if it only applies to those using the English language, we know the Italians have like seven different words for “love”, or is a loss of ability/emotional intelligence?

Do apt words to describe awe-inspiring experiences not exist? Or have we lost their true meaning and value by using them so scantily, too frequently? Or is an “experience” another entity entirely on its own that cannot be defined?
Why then do we find “definitions” so pertinent to our everyday use of the language? What is the definition of “definition” even? The explanation of a particular term for the purpose of enabling the general person to possess some kind of mutual understanding of what is being said by another?!

Few listen, fewer understand... so what is the point in ever attempting to define anything?

“I know what you mean” “I know how you feel”

Uhm...okaaaaay.... DO YOU REALLY?

Are you me? Did you see what I saw? Feel what I felt? Hear what I heard? No.
And for argument’s sake, even if you DID see and hear what I saw and heard, my eyes and ears are different to yours. Furthermore, let’s say by some weird genetic miracle, we had identical eyes and ears, how can you “know” what I felt?
You felt what YOU felt, not what I felt.

So then, where does this leave us? This human race using a language. Trying to be understood by one another? Do we give up on trying to explain ourselves? Our feelings? How do we communicate our emotions? With the use of metaphors/similes?
Do we use examples of stories you think the other may relate to so they may find a similarity in yours and be able to identify with it? Do you dedicate a song? Do you perform an action? WHAT?!

How many people think and feel no-one understands them, can’t see where they are coming from, or don’t even bother using their voice?
And even if you are in an “understanding” relationship, does the other person ever really, truly understand/get you? All of you, all the time? Or are misunderstandings/misinterpretations an inevitable reality of our existence?
Why is it even important or necessary to be understood? Do you even understand yourself? Why you think the way you do, why you behave the way you do, why you make the decisions you make..?

What difference does it make whether people understand you or not? NONE. Why? Simple. They don’t give a shit.

Definitions are pointless. Useless. Whatever way you look at it. Even if you go religiously by what the dictionary illustrates, which, let’s be honest, no-one ever does... each individual has their own personal interpretation, their own emotional-memory recall of what you are saying and thus formulate their own conceptual image of what you are trying to say in their heads. Chances are, it is somewhat different to the image you are attempting to portray.

But then, I suppose one could argue that without definitions where the fuck does one even start? If there wasn’t a word for “chair” or “book” how would anyone know what you are talking about? The thing you sit on, uhm..ok...couch/floor/table/bed/stool/lounger....I could go on... The thing you read... Magazine, newspaper, Article Online, Email, Letter...you get the point.
But those are tangible things. Objects possessing energy of molecules that vibrate at a certain frequency that is visible to the eye and possible to touch. I am not referring to that particular frequency.

I am referring to that which is invisible to the eye and impossible to touch. The mental-emotional mechanisms that flow through your brain and your being, your very essence...

So many question “What do you do?” “What’s your story?” “What’s your vibe?”
Why? So you can define me? Make a pretty little picture inside your head of who I am and what I am about? So I can make my own little pretty picture inside my own head of who I am and what I am about, what I want you to think about me, and tell you that?

So both of us can have two little pretty pictures inside our heads that we both have designed have made up based on what we want the other to know? Probably the furthest from the truth either one of us will ever come to realise? PFFFFFTTT!!!!!!!!!! BLLLLLEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHH!!!

WHAT THE FUCK IS THE POINT IN THAT?!

I guess what I’m becoming aware of, is there really is no use in trying to define myself. To myself or to anyone else. I am who I am. I don’t need to try to be myself or ask how I can be myself, I ALREADY AM MYSELF. And if I don’t know WHO that is yet, how can I even begin to try and explain who that is to you, or anyone else? I CAN’T.

We all have temporary encounters with others and they will experience you for whatever it is they are seeing at that moment. And every circumstance or situation is liable, if not, vulnerable to change.

So stop thinking that you know people. Stop thinking you know yourself. Nothing that is conditioned or in a state of form is constant.
It is only the unconditioned, and the formless, that is everlasting. And this can never be defined.