Pulvis et umbra sumus

Stages of existentialism 

Did Icarus smile when the wax melted on his back, glad for once to have something that helped in his escape glued to him? Did he cackle at the irony of falling to his death on his first taste of freedom? Wind in his hair, quiet chaos, he didn't regret it one bit.

Grief's blackened hands grip Dedalus with his tear stained collar. A fool's courage is what made him live more exuberantly than a wise man ever will. His deft hands shake as he picks up the last reminder of a 13 year old's recklessness, a boy's tunic. It sends tremors through the old man's body to know he wont see his son fight for his place in this world, no parent should ever watch their child slip from their grip into oblivion. Dedalus spent his lost fatherhood with wires and celestial bronze but no metal can lead him back to his son except a knife.

What he doesn't know is Icarus rejoiced his last seconds, the pain heightening all he felt, head thrown back in reckless abandon. There is freedom in crashing when you have wings on your back, there's freedom in drowning when the sea is your dad.

We lay beneath the cypress, breaths coming out in short rapid bursts, legs aching but our hearts smiling, a certain unspoken joy hangs in the air. Playing catch, innocence laced with competition, trying to prove ourselves despite knowing that it won't make a difference, it was never supposed to.

Dawn faded to dusk in a glory of resplendent colors, our games transformed, the exhaustion no longer gave satisfaction, heartache felt nothing compared to the pull in our muscles, at least then we knew that we had stretched it taut on purpose, but the heart wants what it wants. We drunk in the knowledge they poured to us, and it made its way into our veins till it was what we breathed and knew, it was the matrix to the cellular composition of obligation, we drove our chariots, fueled by this, we rode, as we were told to become a star, we rode under the illusion that the end had something to offer us, but it was a one way street.

We once saw stars as celestial and beautiful, as something we wanted to become. But the matrix blinds our reality. Distant and dying are what stars are, burning out on what little fuel they have left.

We reach the end with our chariots in tow, and in front of us, lies the same cypress,

The cypress that saw our mirth and our angst, that saw the innocence getting tainted and twisted, our living force turn into plunging darkness, it saw us idolize the stars, but it also saw the stars wink out of existence.

-Unknown

*

There is a certain satisfaction in standing by the same window each morning, the predictability of yet another resplendent sunrise while the world sleeps. It signifies beginnings, which I've grown to hate. I can't even begin to describe what changed me, because one day I felt the warmth of Hestia’s hearth and the next I bore Atlas’ bane. He was a walking irony, a thousand discrepancies woven in one crooked smile. People speak about love at first sight, but what we had was something beyond, something different, I loved him before I met him. Just as i scribble the last thing on my never ending to do list, my sister’s go to refrain comes to my head, yet another unannounced intruder in this snake pit i call a mind, “Love fades with time, just as everything else” and its rotten cliche clings on to my sanity like an animal in its last throes. I fall in love each day, with everything, I walk down the street, see a beagle licking its owner and there’s a blooming feeling, right beneath my ribcage, followed by unfathomable pain. Books, songs, the lady across the street, the last thing i learnt in chemistry, there’s love. But it's a circle, because it always comes back to him. My sister isn’t wrong about a lot of things, she breathes facts and consumes anomaly like a starved beast, but she’s wrong about one thing, love doesnt fade, it transforms. It transforms into that itch in the back of your throat, that one word you’ve grown to loathe, it transforms from starry nights into bleak mornings and somewhere, you can’t find the sweet spot between self preservation and sacrifice, they blur at the crossroads of your mind, and yet again, yet again, I choose the same poison.

by @bewitchedbypoetry

*

I sit still. The city lights beneath me, a blur of intoxication and impermanence. Listlessness ebbing out, a sense of dissonance. I'd rather be screaming at rooftops and  blasting awful music but here I am, at the ledge. Idyllic chaos, a million unwelcome memories, they blend and dissipate, yet another ephemeral reminder of permanence.

If hope had wings, I know exactly how it would feel to have them ripped off its abstract body, to have the glory of flight snatched away merely because of its wish for permanence. To lie there as ichor oozes, with knowledge that the blood you bleed is just the blood you owe.

Sometimes, in between flashes of reality, in hushed whispers and shed tears, I hear my words echo back.

I wish impermanence meant insignificance.

*

A sequel

Except, Its blood.

What is it you desire?

And why do you run so hard from it?

My hand shakes

He whispers

You can't build a fire in the rain.

I lit my home and watched it burn,

As the flames licked the raindrops.

I burned it down to the last object

that had inflammable printed across in red,

I thought it would bring peace,

But it bought nought but a void

The first words on my walls were yours,

so were the last that danced in the thirsty arson.

I romanticised the crash and burn

The letters that caught fire and burnt

You made me question my religion-

could a verb displace a noun?

Fingers brush against the ice cold grave,

Eulogies and I have a past

We're too far to be scribed on the same page

You could think its because I'm running from its master,

or maybe I need the silence to run towards him

Sammael smiles,

And I fall, and fall, and fall

Into a beautiful pool of cyanide.

*

24 May 2021,

Fear grips,

Streets darken,

Innocence trips,

My sight sharpens.

 Running past reality,

Veracity blurring in my periphery,

Fading fast,

Memories of painless glee.

 Staring at the prison

From within,

Can’t tell between the lock that binds,

And the key that lies, unfeigned

 The lock stays open without the key,

Yet the key is seen as rescue,

I think its time we opened our eyes,

And saw through the dynamite guise.

*

-21/5/2020, Revelation-

*

@writerscreed

The story of light and darkness: Part 1

Light had always been loved by people, she was the positive one, the more loved of the two elementary forces but on the other hand, darkness was never given the credit it deserved, though it instilled fear upon humanity, it cushioned their pain during the night, it was a collection of the whispers of lost hopes, dreams, relationships and lives and other dark happenings that collected and fused to form tangible depth.

Mornings were fueled by strong rays of the sun that wrapped its arms around everything that its light touched, sometimes bringing in the unmodeled clay of hope into the puny lives of immortals and brightening their days up. Nights on the other hand, held the major influences of darkness, it was the gloom that stooped down the narrow lanes and entered windows to calm the raging of souls and instill fear in innocent minds when mortals slept through its powerful daze, as distinct as their elements were, rather than rivals, they were seen as a perfect match and between the day and night, they merged and mingled with each other to recount their hours apart.

 The crimson of each evening symbolized the union of them, the power of their exchange emanated the merging of red to amber and then the gradience of violet, ending with the blues. Together they spawned the creator as well as the destroyer of hope, a dark yet beautiful, an innocent yet fierce force which was timeless, directionless and unforeseen, they gave birth to love.

cryptic and deceptive, 

not one, not two, but them all,

truthful lies and decided fortuity,

It's faulty if it isn’t crafty,

If being perfect is the default,

I’d rather drop my armour,

and take the assault.

But in the end, we are nothing but hostages

in this war they call homage

-22/12/19-

-We were poets before we wrote-

*

*

*

Walls seem to close upon me,

Noises, too loud,

Bustling with activity,

Teeming with noises,

Silence found only in the night,

As I lay alone,

Reconsidering my decisions,

Urban realms are nothing but paper towns,

Held up only by strong memories.

- @bewitchedbypoetry 

.

.

.

.

Words, they bleed,

Words, they breathe,

Said it took effort to say sorry

that behind every smirk, a story

Nothing as simple as it looked

My mind, my words, unhooked

We collided at paths that weren't supposed to meet

but fate is a game of deceit

celestial stopovers

moments spillover

each other

and still, we stay

we stay as our frozen hearts decay

and fracture under all that we can’t say.

*

*

*

@starlitpoems​

*

- @bewitchedbypoetry​

/A million little pieces/ 

I am the jumbled puzzle,

with no one who knows where the pieces go.

.

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