galene

ACT I A halt; her calves brushing smoothly together. She whips around and looks into vagueness. A slight scent hid under her nose. That was where she’d like it. Unseen, unnoticed. But she had been holding her breath without notice. Heave in and out – take it in but don’t let it get to you. Right?

ACT II Remember the cut and fold when mixing while baking? Remember that eagerness as it rose inside the heat? She felt that same sensation watching it wave back at her; the way it sliced through itself and the same return, the familiar hunger inside her pits. It led her here – in the trance that was the repeat of her show. Her toes curled at the sugary feel of the scape below her. She watched it again and again. She wondered if it would ever spill over, or will it ever tire the way her loins did after countless replays. She took her place in the empty audience, still wondering, if it would tire the way the orange faded into indigo.

ACT III She’s still magic. She could tell by the way it surrounded her, bobbing up and down her waist, her knees. Its flimsiness, playfulness, giddiness, almost tipped her over. But she believed she owned it – it belonged to her. For reasons undecipherable, maybe. She hovered her feeble hands gently above the level, and it follows her motions. It is still obedient, therefore she is okay. She is okay even if she can’t make out a plane from a star, even if her neck is caressed and kissed coldly. The cold felt warm from where she sat, she thought. Yes, she’s still magic; she can still make it believe her tricks.

ACT IV The midnight blue settled skyward, a quiet breeze shushing the beach into serenity. The waves tossed and crashed, keeping the humble glowing moon company. She savored the feel of being out like this: alone with the elements. She’s never felt more at home, vulnerable in a sort. Moonlight washed over her, and the sea had grown, in the sense of the word: taller, broader, fuller. The pull of the satellite was magnetic, commanding the tides higher as the night darkens. She asked herself, “What was the moon to it?” “What did it want from me?” “Why must this happen every time?” The moon was the very reason it never let her leave so soon. It wasn’t jealous of her, the sea just had to be, and she was the unlikely victim. And she knew in every step that nothing would change, ever. She just sat there like the boulders coated wet, letting the moon undo the spell she had bounded to the sea. She let the night, and everything beneath it, undo her one more time.

ACT V The truth washed over her in blinding white light, unlike the soft glow of the night before. She counted her steps this time as she made the journey back. Sand still clung to her wet feet, stuck between the spaces of her toes. Her thighs were shivering, but the sun slowly crept onto her skin. It felt just as comforting as being in the water.

“Hey, it’s me. I’m okay, yeah.” “Well, it’s just like you said: you have to just feel it, you know? Just see how it goes.” “I guess I dwelled on it a little too much – yeah, I know the universe owes me nothing, I understand that.” “Sometimes it gets like that, huh?” “I’m okay, just … yeah, I’m okay.” “I’m on my way, I’ll be back soon, okay? Okay.” “I’m okay, I’m okay. See you again soon.”

“It’s okay to be sad. Heave in and out.” She told herself, a calm ushering straight from the sea itself.

Neap tides.

Ahhh, it’s been so long since I wrote again, I just finished my first semester in college! Of course, that had its ups and downs, hence, this piece right here.

I am made of xanthine; an exuberance in passion, a passion in the liberties. Watch the doves fly; my heart wishes the same greatness. Hear the winds sing; my voice desires the same conviction. And in my own miniscule, I can will these for myself. I walk among dreamers’ clouds; I breathe with the sea’s depths. This gentleness - like honey sunshine whose warmth sticks to your skin, or candlelight that flickers behind twinkling eyes - is the beat of my heart.

Cast your eyes skyward and count the colors of the atmosphere; relative are its emotions to the little people clueless to its whims.

Encounter the worst of the tides, swelling with tempt and rage; they will shape the shores, they will soften the ridges.

Livid are the philosophies of restless men, riding carousels eternally; uphold doubt, rid of lethargy, elevate wonder, bury ignorance.

Embrace your bones, your skin, feel the warmth of your own self; build a home inside your ribs and let love pulse around you.

Stillness is a skill against the roaring crowd; be unwavering, counter the flow, shout against the mountain gales.

Towards the end of every ever is a tired pair of captivating eyes, a charming smile that captures your senses; meet the phenomena of possibility often.

Irrevocable are the carvings on the walls, the cracks on the cave, only in depth and damage will they change; speak your name, without pomposity, but courageously.

Allow the lilies to grow in the wetlands, and the trees in the city; those who wilt are they who had no chance given to grow.

I look at her, and she is the one I love. I never knew her. I never really saw her. Or so she likes to say.

This girl, who always stood a certain distance from me, who never but adamantly speaks, who always had a scowl on, who never saw herself either, was loved by me despite me never seeing her.

I only saw the flashing lights I stood little against beneath the city skyline, and how she always cooped herself up in her tiny office working late. I saw the dust and smoke stain the sky, and how I lost count of how many times I caught her cupping her chin in her hand as she loses track of how many thoughts race through her mind. I saw the downpour from gray skies, hurried scampering around me drenching my trousers; while everybody retreated inside, I waited out with an umbrella listening to her heavy cries.

Her light shone as dim as the stars. And it doesn’t compare to Venus, or the slow trail of aeroplanes across the night. But I cared not about beauty or luxury.

I still tilted my head skyward, I still craned my neck to the midnight blue, I still waited for the oranges and pinks and purples to settle south everyday. 

She was my star, a pearl lost in the evening ocean, a treasure. And I never saw her at her best. I never saw her that way, because she says everything is uglier up close, and the circumstances make the chances even blurrier. But she shone with might, every night, even without me seeing. I didn’t need to see her either, I just know that spark is there  when I reach my hand up, clutch at it, and drag it back down my chest.  She was what everyone told me to reach for.

I could be yours. I could tell you that you are worth more than what the universe had made of you, that your heart nestles a million more stars than any night sky. I could tell you the story of the sun and moon, how the sun dies each night so the moon could live, and I’d say I’d be your sun. But I’m not yours that way. I’m not going to sugarcoat the hard truth by saying you mean the world to me, that you deserve the world. Because the world is bleak and cold despite the sun, and it’s too twisted for you to deserve it.

You don’t deserve the world. I’d give you Jupiter instead.

So your lonely heart would no longer feel isolated in Earth’s overwhelming population of seven billion. So the cold of the atmosphere will warm your freezing hands that tremble under the sun’s expectation of some sort of life out of you. So that you’ll never run out of nightshade with over a dozen moons overhead. So that you can rage with the raging of its storm and find an ally in that enemy.

And when they look up at the midnight blue and see Jupiter, they’ll know you were lucky that you escaped the darkness of the Earth. They’ll be jealous of your glow, but I’ll tell them it’s not about the luminosity. It’s about you planting your roots in unsoiled soil and finally being able to grow.

“Too bad it’s jut a concept,” you said, that night we climbed up the rooftop and dreamed a better reality. “But what a mighty concept it is.”

You didn’t even know it, but you had me with that tragic hope in your voice.

The world is ending, we know it, we feel it. And sadly, we got caught in life’s whirlwinds to have been able to stand up for ourselves. I know you deserve someone better than me, but maybe we’ll hold onto each other as the Earth unravels and spins out of control tonight. Under the midnight blue, gazing up at the faint glow of Jupiter.

In a space divided by gravity, were two spectacles gleaming in midnight blue.

They envied each other, the two spectacles in midnight blue; they each had something the other could never have. They ached from the inside, their individual cores cracking the surface.

She was the sea; heavily grounded, ferocious yet soft. She would toss and turn in the midnight blue, with the rise of and fall of the moon. She never tried to leave, it hurt – killed everyone else to have left. And in the midnight blue, close to pitch black, she is feeble and she is left with the forces around her to battle.

The other, endlessly drifting, never landing, she could never stay. She always had trouble at her tail, being an offspring of the dark universe. She never had it in her to stay; the fire in her would burn her out, and the aftermath would burn everyone else to ash. She’d face the cold with her fiery but steely gaze, infinities in the running. In the midnight blue, the shooting star is gone in a blink of an eye.

They’d meet during the reign of the moon, when everything is at rest, and the rest is quiet. The sea moved with the southeastern winds, a subtle roaring in the air and soft thuds at the shorelines.

The shooting star dashed right on by and asked, “In a world engulfed in water, who even are you?”

The sea rippled and replied, “In a sky full of stars, who even are you?”

The universe moved around them; the winds swayed, the moon turned, the clouds drifted between them. They knew exactly who they were; she was a captive, she was a stray. Both beautiful wonder and tragic fates.

In that moment, when the shooting star disappeared into the midnight blue, the sea cried for what she had: escape. In that moment, when the sea faded from midnight blue to pitch black, the shooting star flared brighter and wished for what she had: a home.

She laid on her back, slightly immobile from the weight of the motions. Her tears rolled down her temples and into the strands of her hair. She looked up at the sky and cried at the sight of the stars. It felt like light years, the distance, only because she knew she couldn’t live with hurting him. 

He reached his hand up aimlessly, squinting to stop the tears from making their way out. It hurt him, the distance, like the gravity would never be enough for her to bring her home to him. He drew his hand back to his chest, hoping to be able to get to her.

To him, she was the shooting stars that won’t come down. He knew it’d kill him if she did.

To her, he was the stars that remained in the sky. She knew it would destroy them both to collide.

By all means, don’t wonder about whether or not you should go to college when your heart is set on a sideline hobby after you graduate. Don’t think that you have to stay in a relationship when you know it’s not going to work out anymore. Don’t get too caught up catching up on society’s standards. Forget whether you’re doing something right or wrong, because there is no right way to do something.

There’s an infinite amount of possibilities in a world as young as ours, populated with 7 billion people. You can take the test and get the job, or skip the test and find yourself a livelihood that makes your heart feel whole. You can lose friends and make new ones. You can fall in love an get hurt. You can fight the battle and lose. It is but a struggle, a never-ending tug-of-war for control, but such is life.

I am the captain of my fate, I am the captain of my soul. Invictus, William Ernest Henley

Let it be said that there's nothing a person could ever teach you if you don't open up to the wonders of the teaching. But this isn't limited to the illocutionary act following the generous wisdom being bestowed onto you; because we all have soliloquies, a piece of ourselves that gets a little older and has something incredible that can light up the dark. Maybe they're already in front of us, like stars in the night, waiting to be seen, to be followed.

Creativity sometimes feeds on emotion. Tap into the innermost workings of your heart, unpiece the intricacies of your mind, be utterly naked and write about the flaws you see in your system.