Illusion

This happens to everyone, or so they say. You jump into a pool of waterlilies and lotuses, the pretty flowers floating on a silver film full of mysteries. Walking through the dense forest of your life, you spot the pink purple flowers reflecting back the sunlight that you don't see coming in. You wonder if it really is as it seems. You turn around and look back at the deep dark forest you have trodden. 'Salvation!,' you think to yourself. 'How can it be?,' you ask yourself the next minute. A step forward, two steps backward... three forward, four backward... Just then, a waterlily bud blooms as you watch in rapture. 'This can't be real,' you tell yourself. 'Let me go closer and touch it!'

And then you run... you run toward this mystical pond so fast that when you reach it, you are out of breath. Right at the edge, you fall on your knees, still looking at the shiny surface of the fresh flower in awe. It looks like velvet. You yearn to touch it. Still short of breath, but high on the adrenalin rush, you get up and walk closer. You pinch a petal of the flower between your fingers. You close your eyes, and drop your head back in ecstasy. With your eyes still shut tight, you step into the pond... you magically hop from one waterlily leaf to another... shaky, it still holds you up. You tremble inside with fear... it's almost a dual consciousness that you have entered. All too aware that the delicate leaves beneath your feet may crumble at any minute, but at the same time, you have surrendered to this rescue that came your way from nowhere... at the same time, a strange faith in something that you can't name emerges and rushes through your blood. And the faith takes over. You stop hopping, and settle yourself on the top of a rock in the middle of the pond. Surrounded by the heavenly silver and pick and purple...

And then it drops. The rock, steady as it looked, it sinks into the pond and disappears. Underneath, you are soaked in mud. 'Of course!,' you tell yourself. You struggle to get out, and of course you do. But as you walk past the muddy waters, you can't help but look back every now and then... to figure out if you made a mistake, to see if the waterlilies were real, or if the mud was, maybe you took a wrong step... but most of all, you want to know if you will still be allured by the illusion.

And so, you retrace your steps...

And no, the sunshine doesn't allure her anymore... she sees the hollow beneath the promises it shines!

Rant

One day, you wake up and your face feels different. The smile lines are gone, the tension of a repressed laughter in your mouth disappears, and you don't feel the urge to even yawn anymore. You don't rub your eyes, the light of the morning doesn't seem overwhelming or welcoming anymore. It feels like nothing... just light coming in through the chinks of your curtain. You get up from your bed, widen the chink, look at the endearing sky of the dawn, and your body doesn't urge you to stretch. You don't even feel the desire to take a breath of the fresh smell of the morning.

You walk into the kitchen, make your cup of morning coffee... nothing... the aroma doesn't make you feel any different anymore. You open the door to your front porch, pick up the newspaper, leaf through it like you've become too used to the everyday blood and gore... it doesn't disgust you or frighten you or shock you anymore. You finish your cup of coffee.. and you still feel as morose as you did when you first woke up. A faint voice inside your head tells you that the shower might help... but you find yourself involuntarily, almost automatically, shaking your head to the invisible voice. Of course, actions speak louder than words... especially words that noone can hear. You dress up, wear you favorite perfume, paint your eyes... but the kohl that once made you feel exotic only highlights the darkness in your eyes... A sigh, a deep breath and you're off to work.

Nothing much changes. It's your friend's birthday. You go to the party because he had been there at yours. The only thing that you still believe in - the karmic cycle. The stillness of your face overwhelms you, but not enough... The party's over now. You sit in a cab... plug in your ipod and listen to the song that screams the despair of your life, that circles the stains on your innocence that never was. You roll down the window because the wind in your hair makes the drama of your life more real. You're home now. You open the front door, the staircase is too intimidating. Ten steps up seem like ten morbid lives to endure. You take one step and your body gives in to the fatigue of your mind. The tears still don't come out... if only they would, you would be happy.

Life.

Fear

A lifetime of bittersweet numbness, of swirls and whirls, a hyperalert body, a comatose soul... puffy eyes, from the endless sleepless nights... blood rushing through the arms, too high?

The faint nausea makes you feel real... the dull heartache makes you feel alive. True, there is no happiness without unhappiness... but if there's too much bad, do we recognise the good when we see it? Or do we seek out the bad because it's too comfortable. Dysfunctional patterns. The comfort of pain, of solitude and everything that makes you cry inside. But the tears never come out. They always turn around and retrace right at the brink! The quiver in your lips battles with your fears of falling apart. That is what it is. The utter fear of falling apart... the fear that if you jump off the ledge, you'll crash right at the bottom and die, even though you have the parachute tied to your back, you don't trust yourself enough to be able to open it in time. Fear.