Addiction

^{Image by gwenflickr on Flickr.}

I think everybody is the addict of their own drug. Its identity does not matter — for in addiction we’re all the same. We seek the pleasure that brings us pain, no matter at what price it comes. We spend our sanity looking for it. We lose our sanity using it. But for what use is sanity in a world without pleasure?

In our darkest hours we sit in corners deprived of light, lingering in the shadows, our souls consumed by hunger. That is pain. Looking out windows streaked by rain, we tell ourselves our addiction has gone too far, and that has to end. But walking away from pleasure is near impossible to do.

Especially so as we experience the ecstasy of our drug anew, and are reminded why we keep taking it. It’s because the pain is such a small price to pay for such immense pleasure. And that’s why we persist through the torturous pain — because the pleasure — however fleeting it may be — is what gives our lives meaning.

No-one but the addict may understand the appeal. But it is there, or there would not be such a thing as addiction.

Prisoner

^{Image by Khaalis on Flickr.}

I am a prisoner, free to roam to my heart’s content, but tied down, stuck, unable to move. My body and spirit are clashing, battling. One day mind shall lose to matter.

I hope that day is far away, when I am reduced to nothing more than a whisper in the night, slowly fading as the sun rises to purge the forest of its secrets, when my flame is reduced to a fading trail of smoke, bound to be forgotten.

Tick-Tock

Tick-tock.

The nearer the hour draws, the more I realise I fear its end. It will be gone then, never to come again.

Tick-tock.

Breathless

^{Image by Paranoid Black Jack on Flickr.}

There was frost in the grass, the cold nibbling her fingers, making them blush and ache, as if pins were pricking them, shedding blood. A silver sliver escaped her parted lips, her breath a ghost disappearing into the unknown.

She was waiting.

Under a distant tree, far afield, lay blushing spheres, their rotting flesh spreading intoxicating fumes. Soft and sickly sweet, their whispers travelled silently, waving, luring, urging, for creatures to follow them to certain death.

Slowly fiddling with a thread spun from spider’s silk she was waiting for her prey. The sun rose, melted the frost and turned it to dew rising as misty clouds, wisping in the morning air. She was breathless; the slightest sound and her wait would be in vain.

Tentatively and with great reserve her prey emerged from the woods. Ears erect and with nostrils flared, scanning the world for predators thirsting for their blood. Each step was made as on glass, a foot set down, withdrawn, shiveringly replaced. They inched forward, lured by the succulence saturating the air.

Her heart was beating, the silk twirled round her fingers. Hands shivering with suspense, she watched the creatures draw ever nearer her irresistible trap.

The cider from the fermented fruit moistened their coat as they feasted on her bait. There was a premature twitch in the silk, and within a second they were all gone. Their silver breath faded slowly, tracing their path.

She twirled the silk hard round her fingers, turning them blue. All that wait for nothing. And it was all her fault.

Spectator

^{Image by Zach Bonnell on Flickr.}

It’s raining rivers and my street is a pond. A mallard is watching me from afar, through the curtain rain. I feel invisible, like glass. That stare; the bird isn’t blinking. It’s still. As if it knows all the secrets I hide.

Tussilago

I found Tussilago by the water’s edge. All is well now, on the surface. The clock is ticking in the silence. I wonder if everything I do is wrong.

Poor Little Thing

^{Picture by Giba N.}

Although it had snowed overnight, spring was in the air. The small birds tittered in pinnacled canopies, the sun casting warming beams upon an otherwise bare landscape. In a flower-bed a few daffodils mirrored the glory.

But that was outside the city. Within it, the sun was all that whispered of spring, the golden light causing her figure to cast a shadow upon the ground.

At one point her shadow fell upon what seemed like nothing but a fallen leaf to the thousands of feet that hurriedly threaded upon the crowded path.

But she saw what it was, wishing she never had.

The first butterfly of the year had escaped someone’s notice, it having met its fate beneath the feet of a city-dweller, blinded by the concrete.

It saddened her for the rest of the day.

Freedom

If only freedom was less of a notion unreal,
Oh, how delighted I would be!

I am not foreign to studies, in fact, I adore to read and learn new things; I love the fulfilling sensation to have my eyes opened by novel insights. I do however loathe to study subjects that interest me little, or not at all, as life is too precious to be allowed to go to such waste.

I understand that chemistry is one of the corner stones of science, but as a person whose interests forever shall be enamoured by the theoretical nature of science — which once upon a time was labelled “natural philosophy” — I find the act of studying it a chore best avoided.

I need to say I desire to help push the frontiers of science forward, for nothing less is expected of me. What my heart truly desires, I cannot allow to cross my lips. It’s a notion so foreign it is best silenced; tucked away in the jewelled box of my mind where I keep my most treasured secrets.

Still, as I force myself to study subjects that fail to appeal to my curiosity — by imposing alien restrains upon my own being — I find my mind floating into the vacuum of delight that unsatisfying discoveries create; I find my gaze abandoning the print on the pages to soar into the skies, into my own little world where my mind can be free.

The Last Days Of Summer

Two days ago the mists of November floated with a conqueror’s conviction through the air and the atmosphere was that of a world set on fire by the sun’s very last beams. The world of this day, younger than the one which brought me such melancholy, is more summer-like, but not any more cheerful.

Though the sun blazes with the conviction of the last weeks of summer, the rest of the world had lost its strength. Winter and its hounds of autumn may be gone for the time being, but the wounds it inflicted upon its prey of summer’s fairness still remain. The maiden of summer, the one I hold so dear, she has been hurt and her strength has been lost through the cuts in her rosy skin.

Nature is like a beast wounded for the moment, putting on a face of no concern while suffering in silence. And though the winds played with my hair whilst outside, their enthusiasm was gone; they had lost the motivation they usually prod with possessing, their laboured play was more of a task to be fulfilled than a joyful activity in which to find delight.

The last flowers of the season are beautiful and bright in their colour, but their green is not as healthy as their counterparts several months back were. There is a tint of brown to all aspects of the late summer’s world, scars of fatigue that are carelessly hidden with limited success.

It is with melancholy in my mind that I walk among the riches which have grown tired of their own appeal. I wish for summer to last forever more, and still everything around me makes me realise that summer soon will be gone. Nature knows it, as does all who have felt that their energy is not what it once was, that their stamina has been lost through the passing of time. Though we are tired, we attempt to remain cheerful with an insincere smile playing upon our saddened lips.

Summer will return once more, having rested during the part of the year which now soon is to come. I can however not fully appreciate the promises whispered into my ears by the tired winds as I feel that my acquaintance with summer has been all too short this year .

Weeks ago, summer was everlasting and its aged days were nowhere in sight. Now, I am in the midst of them, dubious feelings residing in my heart. I try to remain cheerful, as does summer, but some attempts are destined to fail; some battles were always intended to be lost.

Perhaps my sadness — concealed by constructed smiles — is a reminder of mine, employed to engage my person in more productive tasks. For truly, my life is slipping through my fingers in vain, as does the viscous diamonds of water when attempted to be gathered from a pond.

My life’s summer has only started, but as this summer already has grown old, so am I also told nothing lasts forever. Though the summers of one’s life are perceived to be long, they are not when contemplated in retrospect.

That is the reason for why no tasks must be delayed and that one must cease the moment and soar whenever the opportunity is given. For is one doubts and passes up on the chance of a lifetime, it may go on to be lost to one for evermore, never to return.

Catch the day without regard for its elusive nature, see it as a butterfly which is to be chased across the fields of life, finally to be caught at sunset in the net of one’s own being’s construction. Everything comes to the one who has the patience to wait, but at times virtues are to be disregarded from and one has to soar from the shoulders of one’s own giants when the time is right — even if it is premature.

All who has the strength of conviction to attempt to attain the goals for which they reach are to be successful. But only so if they ever dare to spread their wings and truly fly.