Of Blank Pages

The blank page before me is a white ocean of melancholy. Do I dare fill its expanse and deprive it of its gleam? For it is a mere mess of words that I have to offer, the scribblings of a pen. As I sit here in this park, starring at this page, a strange automation takes hold. One where one's mind is beset with the relentless emotional spectrum of days gone by.How laughable it must be, at the age of twenty four, reflecting upon life as if it's zenith was an exclamation mark that I never caught sight of. Or perhaps it is the inevitable damnation of the thinker's soul, to examine fruitlessly, the beauty, the pain and the deficiencies of the past. Yet it is in this arrest that I often feel more alive, more so than when called upon by my name in this peaceful but stagnant present.

This bench has known little but quiet accommodation and these blades of grass are green with purpose. The afternoon sun's dreamy glow filters through the canopy as dust dances through its beams. The air is patient with me, keeping me company with its gentle cooling motion.

I am not detached from this beauty, at least not as much as I suppose. Contentment is the colour absent in this palette and I miss it's serenity with each passing moment. In these moments of stillness, when honesty fills every pore...I contemplate the source of these shades of dark that render me so desolate. And it spills before me, in a wave witnessed by no one but this page, no longer blank.

It would be easy to imagine. How my heart could cease to emanate love as it does in my daydreams. For what we call a heart is a mere space in our minds and our minds are volatile. If love is sealed within us, protected from harm, how many cracks does it take? Before it leaks out and that sacred space is parched and replaced with sorrow? I know not...I tremble at the thought of such things. I see my bruises, they are in my eyes as they glisten and my voice as it softens. I can speak of the toll of years and it would mean little to anyone but myself. But life is such, our stories beneath the skin.

I want to love another without refrain, how plain it sounds, but inescapably true. To feel alive as I did long ago...no..more so...but free of my shortsightedness. I feel it bottled inside me, caged in suppression, oh the passion beneath. I smile to myself, a smile of self defeat. How strange it is, how the intensity of your own confined passion can constrict you, to the point of utter desolation. A desire to love another that escapes rational comprehension...with the sole hope of them realising...that this is the pinnacle of life. That come what may...there's a center that holds firm. Yet there is no trace of a recipient, is this caged luminosity so far hidden....clearly so...as I walk alone in wake and sleep.

These afternoons, I hear it clearer, the cries that missed my listening, speaking through the calm. I feel a lightness of being as when the truth is surfaced before your very eyes. The very truth that I have concealed in seek of strength. For to admit to sorrow and loneliness would seem to be a sign of defeat. But if the truth is defeat then I am lost...for I cannot bear this self deceit, this race I run, sullen on the inside. If I were to have my own time, if only. But time is but a mechanical measure and it has no command over my emotions.

These memories may never fade but I long for new ones, a cerulean sky I can touch and remember for an eternity. For a kiss that is immaculate in recollection, free from the reach of regret. For my words to have substance to another upon reading.

I dream...for that is all one can do...I dream of these pages I fill being the light through the catacombs. and the sun through summer. That upon their reading, an understanding so powerful is reached...a deep gaze of recognition would follow. Bound to each other as these beams are to the sun above them. These blank pages will hold me till then, or till my passing.

May I never forget the gracious space you allow for the shades of my soul. I am a host to words - no more, no less....they are my surface and my center.