Expressive Explorations

They told him he was beautiful and, until the sun dipped behind the horizon, he was. They told him he was strong and, until he became weary, he forced everyone from his path. They told him he was an explorer and, until the cold winds became too strong, he went where he'd never been before. They told him he was a man and he tried to work out what they meant.  When he asked himself what matters, he crumbled. When enough had fallen away, they rebuilt. When they told themselves they were loveable, they were. When they told themselves they were beautiful, they were. When they told themselves they could cope, they did. and when they stopped to listen, all was transformed. 

 

I am staring at the embers, of a fire that I didn't sustain. Now it is just a fire I remember, which will never come to life again. When I try hard enough, it almost begins to leap and crackle somehow, to warm all that is around, and light the chasm between then and now. But I am being pulled away, and no longer resisting or trying. I left that fire, when all it needed was a branch, and I could have avoided the dying. So I remain frozen still, with no motive core for my warming will. I have forgotten what I once remembered and I am staring at the sourceless embers.

Whispering no more, silent now. I am stifled and breathless. All time is creeping, to stand still. Prey is poised, absolute zero, I am, stuck and stapled shut. Everything is still, still, for now. In the void, there is no motion.  I am alone and lifeless. Determined cipher, now unknown. With lips sealed, shouting but unheard, I am straining against life, like a net scooped fish for the sea. Maybe a breeze, gently this way comes. I am waiting, breathless but calm, and not quite silent, but whispering. 

I am drifting, in nothingness. All I see are fireglobes; one that I've left behind, shattered, one tomorrow, I'm channelled toward. It is decided now, every fragment, everything I find, and everything I don't, determined this motion. Like blossom that has poisoned its tree, floating serenely, gracefully, down. Towards the earth that is no longer. No longer than that blossom. Subsumed by charcoal ash I drift.

This is desert. The heat drains my energy, until it feels like my soul has been pulled through my crown. When I try to look around, all I feel is my body churning, my head still, as if fixed on a screen. I rub my eyes and they fill with sand. The dunes rise, and lash at my body. I'm simultaneously elevated, to break down in the same scene, and also buried; smothered beneath the weight of sand. This eternal cycle. I rub my eyes and they fill with sand, clarity failing, horizon constraining, I am the water that takes the shape of what is around, and here is shapeless shifting. This is desert. [Inspired by the music of Ben Howard and John Luther Adams]