A Generation of Lost Dreamers

I think we should always remain as dazed dreamers;
String ambitions like comets in our starry eyes
And follow their trails across the skies.

I think we should dream of the wonderfully impossible;
Hold fantasies like beacons of soft, hopeful glow
And follow their light wherever they go.

 

Picture version:

We’ll fall in love with the memories we’ll make.

And someday I’m going to leave this place and see the world and I’m going to fall in love. Not with a person, no- that kind of love is too bittersweet, too heartbreakingly fragile.

I’m going to fall in love with buildings and pavements and old rusting street signs pointing me to places I’ve yet to explore. I’m going to fall in love with sunsets and sunrises, and those precious melancholy moments between dusk and dawn where reality slips away into shadows and dreams appear. I’m going to fall in love over half-finished cups of coffee and faded musty books that still hold the imprints of fingers stroking lovingly over their dog-eared pages. I’m going to fall in love with the feeling of sand falling through my fingers and the sound of the ocean in a storm. I’m going to fall in love with the creaking of a house in the night-time and the endless patter of rain against my window. I’m going to fall in love with the people I meet and the places I see, the sounds I hear and the foods I taste.

I’m going to fall in love, but not with you, with everything this world can offer me.

‘You know I’d never hurt you.’

‘You know I’d never hurt you.’

There’s something so hauntingly bittersweet about that line. Humans are fragile creatures; we bruise and scar like our hearts are made of paper slowly shredding into confetti. We know how vulnerable we are, but we still clumsily hand over our souls to every open palm, only to be forced to stand and watch emotions crushed and bled through menacing fingers. And yet… there’s still a childish curiosity that lingers between our ribcage, a hopeful naivety that flutters and begs to break free. Trust. Hope. It reminds you of laughter, smiles- those memories you tried in vain to suppress because it’s safer to forget, easier to pretend. Love. Peace. It strokes your poor, beaten heart and whispers: ‘Maybe this time will be different.’

Strain to hear it above the chaos of your cluttered mind. Promises break like rusted chains and sometimes people hurt you even when they didn’t want to.That whisper is the sole reminder that things can be better- wounds heal and people can change. Sometimes you have to listen to that tiny whisper in the dark, and just try. Sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith across the chasm of doubts we call life and pray that someone will be there to catch you on the other side. And someday someone will catch you- and maybe they’ll hurt you sometimes, but you know they’ll heal you too.

I Wear My Dreams

I wear my dreams
Around my neck,
So hope lies close to me.
Slim silver chain
Holds silver tower,
And tiny silver key.

Tower talks of tales,
In new lands where
Real towers stand tall.
Key holds the secrets
Of mind’s wishes,
And silver chain holds all.

Longing of Escaping

I want to read,
Slip from library corners into pools of words,
Feel adventure flood my veins,
As dog-eared, leafed through pages,
Gently beckon me in.

I want to run,
Stopping when paths end and breath falls short,
Exist only as a thudding heartbeat,
The breath of a ragged sigh,
And raindrops dancing off skin.

I want to sleep,
Fall through the arch of eyelids fluttering closed,
Watch as time ticks slow,
Dreams bursting in blooms of light,
Casting shadows on a cold, cluttered mind.

The Smoke & The Dark

Last night I dreamed I was standing alone in a cold, gaping darkness. A darkness that seemed unending until the harsh click of a lighter echoed through the abyss and filled the shadows with its intense light. A single enormous flame spurted upwards and flooded the plane around me with relentless waves of heat, flickering at my body with red-hot tongues. Using my jacket sleeve as a protection for my eyes, I peered forward into the flame to see where it had come from.

Suddenly from behind a cigarette appeared and leant forward into the lighter, thirstily lapping up the fire until the end had stolen some of the flames. Then from behind a face appeared, one I vaguely recognised but in my slumber was unfocused so as to hide from me. Lips latched around the opposite end of the cigarette and inhaled deeply, greedily feasting on the contents within. The embers flared a blood red that gleamed mockingly in the darkness, and as the user exhaled a rush of ash and smoke tumbled out of the edges and surrounded the both of us in a dark, menacing cloud..

A storm of thick ash engulfed me, filling my lungs and pricking at my eyes until I was bent over coughing, tears streaming out of my eyes in tiny waterfalls. My throat wailed and shrivelled in pain from the torments of the smoke, and as I looked up to call out to the looming face in front of me my voice caught and came out only as a raspy whisper. Desperately I coughed to try to clear my throat so I could warn the face of the smoke’s dangers but it simply poured through my throat, seeping through my blood like poison and scratching and scraping at my insides. I forced my eyes open despite the burning hot ash that fluttered dangerously around me so I could watch the huge figure above.

His face was covered in ash that engrained itself like an iron-master forging fiery patterns into his skin until it was gnarled and sunken. The flicker of flames against his cheek gave him an almost skeletal appearance as he suckled ravenously on the seemingly never-ending cigarette. Smoke coiled and curled around his features, creating a thick noose around his neck that slowly tightened with each breath of smoke that quivered outwards from his wrinkled lips. His pupils had nearly swamped his whole eyes and were as dark as our surroundings, filled with a malicious desire for the devilish taste of the cigarette.  He was drawing his own death sentence without even realising it, and as I tried to call out to him I noticed suddenly the smoke held me in a noose too and my throat was clenched so tight I could not utter a single syllable. I flailed my arms and legs around me in a frantic attempt to free myself from its iron grip to no avail.

Terrified, my eyes widened as tears prickled behind the eyelids and I tried to capture a few clean breaths. My body was slowly becoming weak, the smoke infecting me with its slow taunting spread. Suddenly the smoker stopped; lowered the cigarette to stub it out. The last few embers were beaten down, and I felt the noose around my neck tighten one last fatal time. As I felt a last splutter of breath escape my lips, we plunged into a cold, unending darkness and I closed my eyes, waiting for it all to be over.

Kiss in the Rain

Rain falls in time to a quickened heartbeat,

Two pairs of eyes slowly begin to meet,

Wind whispers through fingers intertwined,

Your lips reach forward to touch with mine,

A slow kiss in the midst of a storm.

The Clear Out

In a cold, cluttered study dimly lit by a bulb encased in a thick layer of grime, a man stands surveying old, flaking walls filled with bookshelves and cabinets, head cocked on one side as he impatiently tuts and looks around him. A room once the hub of his home and working life now sits dormant and forlorn in the cold October sun peering through cracks in the yellowed blinds. A room once so lively and loved now seems as alone and lost as the man standing within.

He takes a step forward and roughly glides a finger across the nearest shelf, leaving a bright trail of mahogany standing stark among the surrounding layer of dust. Lips curling in disgust and rubbing his covered finger on his jumper, he sighs. This room, now of no use and an annoyance to him, needs clearing desperately.

As a plan forms in his head, he leaves the room only to return a few seconds later armed with every cleaning utensil he can find. He then starts clearing out the room. Initially, he takes his time, taking each item off the shelves and inspecting it before deciding what to do with it. But as each dog-eared novel and notebook full of scribbles is salvaged from the dust and dirt of the shelves, old memories resurface themselves to mock and taunt him. Memories of days where writing was his life and words tumbled out of him like droplets onto a page, and the world around him held the fascination of a child. But too many rejections from snotty publishers can make a man bitter in his ways, and soon his bubble of ignorance was torn as the world became cruel and unforgiving. Suddenly the passion of the world was gone, and a dream to write died along with this room.

Memories flood back like flames, taunting him with their flickering, fiery tongues. Fury filling his core, he flings out his arms and pushes every item into bin bags, grabbing books, ornaments and ornate ink pens and throwing them to walls, ignoring the glass smashing and ricocheting off the walls. Ripped pages fall like burning ashes to a floor filled with shattered glass and puddles of blue ink stains sinking into the carpet.

His crazed cleaning does not stop until he grabs hold of an old glass photo frame and a jagged edge catches his skin. He curses loudly as it draws blood and looks down towards his cut, only to be stopped short by what he sees.

It’s an old frame, a photograph within that had been blocked and almost faded from memory. He sees himself, a young man of only twenty, standing beside his childhood hero, a published author whose name he cannot recall now. He looks upon the uncontrollable smile on the young him’s face, the eyes shining with childlike eagerness, and that day comes back to him like a bolt of lightning. He remembers meeting this man, and sharing with him the hope of one day joining him with the esteemed title of ‘author’, his love of writing and wanting to write forever. And most of all he remembers the author looking at him with an almost fatherly smile, patting his shoulder and saying, ‘If you want it enough you can do it. Never give up on a dream like that.’

The statement echoes through the man’s head and around the room, bouncing and echoing off the bare walls. Never give up on a dream like that. The frame drops from between his shaking fingers, landing with a dull thud below him. He stops; sinks slowly to the ground. Everything is too much. How could he forget this? How happy he had been then, how full of joy and life… memories flood back once more, but this time like rushes of water coaxing the tears from his eyes as he falls forward onto his hands, sobs rocking his whole body. He balls up his fists and beats the ground, yelling to a man who is not there, who cannot hear him.

‘Never give up?! You can’t even begin to unravel an idea before reality shoots it dead now! I’ve been shot down one too many times, I’m wounded. I GIVE UP. I can’t get back up this time.’

The cold, empty shelves stare at the man sunken and broken in the centre of the room with blank, harsh stares. Tiny speckles of blood spurt from a cut in his hand, but that short, sharp pain is nothing compared to the tearing of his heart, the thumping of his head, the desolate thud as his stomach drops. No pain could compare to that of a man falling apart from the seams. Tears fall relentlessly from his eyelids, and his body lurches forward and back with pain, as emotion floods out of him in a tidal wave of desperation, total loss and turmoil.

‘I can’t get back up this time,’ he whispers, his eyes shut to try to bottle in the pain, ‘I can’t get back up.’

Daydreaming

It’s always late at night when eyes flutter closed,
That hopes and dreams truly show themselves,
In the darkness images burst into life and I see,
For the first time, all that I want.
A quiet café in Paris, late October, I see a girl,
Pen poised above paper, eyes closed in thought,
A forgotten coffee sits untouched and slowly cooling,
A pastry crumbles in her contemplating hands.
An idea strikes like lightning through her mind,
Her eyes dance with delight as she comes to life,
Pastry drops through fingers, pen frantically scribbles,
Line after line floods onto paper.
Finished, she dots the last word; triumphantly drops the pen,
Lifts the coffee and winces at the cold, metallic taste.
Shifted back to reality, she shakes her head, grabs her coat,
Passes the waitress a distracted smile as she goes.
Hands in pockets, she steps through streets of strangers,
Curious eyes soaking in every brick, sign and face she sees,
She walks without conversation, but her mind rambles on,
Every ebb of her imagination filling the silence around her.
And it is that girl I see every time I close my eyes,
The girl lost in a world of her own, caught up in her very own story,
The girl, that when brought out of dreams into reality,
Could maybe someday become me.