Metamorphosis

Sometimes, the delphiniums appeared serene.

Grandeur gave their dimity a luminous quality, like a starched countryside diffused by an expanse of waltzing latterns' light.

They knew, but I didn't. A thread of laughter trickled to accompany the butterflies as my hand departed with a handkerchief swimming like fish weaving through sudden distortions on water.

Perhaps the omen delivered from their deities proved a true word.

But no prophecy will ever fulfill its destiny.

And nothing will penetrate the origins.

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"Have you ever wondered what it would be like to fly?"

"I don't have to wonder...airplanes exist, you know."

"No, I mean really fly without anything supporting you. It would feel so free, like a rebel on the verge of liberty."

"I guess. But I'd rather stay here, where I belong."

"Why? The scenery never changes...it's always those crooked beeches paired with a charred concrete backdrop."

"Well, I think it's better to be in the middle of things, not up in the heavens where everything is an illusion. Observing isn't the same as actually being there, if you know what I mean."

"Maybe. But you have to change your perspective sometime."

"It's strange doing that. Like you're betraying your precepts."

"Betraying them for the good?"

"Who knows."

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My father once explained to me that everything we see is interlaced with lines that can bind us closer or bring us farther apart. The boundaries were invisible to the naked eye, as choice can only be settled when all the excess ruffles and rosettes have been torn away.

"Remember, Kira," he would say, "that even when all the petals of a flower have wilted or drifted to distant lands, it is still beautiful."

"Beautiful?" I echoed hesitantly in a younger, naive voice. "What can be so beautiful about a twisted stem?"

"Something still lingers." He seemed to struggle to search the right words. "You just have to find it."

Now, years later, bitter secrets overcrowd the last frayed memories I have of what I had believed to be a righteous man. The bottles of alcohol strewn in dilapidated ruins across the dining room, nights awaken by air thick with shrill caterwaul, and the languorous expressions passed so frequently in day still taunt my mind with unforgettable mirages. A fraction of my childhood had been constructed with countless prostheses, some parts even worn to an empty core.

If "something still lingers", is it the dreaded memories?

But I question this conclusion often. My father was, and still is, an idol I worshipped with great respect and admiration. I could practically see through his aura; it held a diaphanous texture that gave onlookers an impression of unlimited virtue.

"Something still lingers", I suppose. And it's that I love him and he loved me back, too.

"Here I am," I murmur to the sky on this dazzling night.

As you were always here for me.ஐ

Twilight by Sunrise

Death is my destiny. You cannot reverse it.

Lethargy clots my mind as blue glass scatters in shards next door. Is my haven really a few yards away?

Like a bird, I catch stray breezes and ascend to the universe, ignorant to the land below. Stars dangle and sway dizzily above me. I pluck one from the sky and toss it below, watching a streak of lightning flare submerged beneath felted clouds. A wish will be crafted and broken.

The sun illuminates itself, feinting bulbs of fire that unfurl to smoking blossoms. Distracted, asteroids fall to the soundless orb, perhaps their last memory a birth of new life.

I feel as if I've crossed into a alternative dimension, like the worlds the geeks in my class often discuss with palpable intensity. Perhaps this is an illusion after all.

But death is my destiny. Nothing will change my ultimate goal.

How will I die? It seems so often like a sylph slipping out of its chrysalis, a shell abandoned to be replaced by one of infinite value. Likewise, it may be an ornery firefly, flamboyant but unpredictable. Unless you seal it in a jar...

A faint glint of a translucent wine bottle glimmers ominously in the distance.

Ribbons of mist lace throughout my limp hair as a shimmering figure emerges from the shadows. I wince as trinkets of glass pound toward the floor.

A whirlwind of nostalgia then pricks the constant dissonance I find in my life. Everything suddenly appears disheveled and groggy, as if a massive outbreak of opium sleep had been succumbed into the world. My mother and father's lucid faces materialize in thin air, their expressions reflecting a banquet at a funeral. Like an oxymoron.

Skidding across limpid nothingness, I attempt to pierce Earth's atmosphere, though an unnatural force repels me back to my original destination.

Death.

Desperation radiates from my soul as another sickening crunch breaks the stillness. Blood-red rain glistens as it twirls down toward the threshold of my body, the one girl bathed in limelight. As my own tears ripple away, crimson stains my skin in an illegible calligraphy. Do they pity me?

I am lost in a forever daydream.

And death is my only destiny.ஐ

Elemental Pulls

Downfall is preying

On blood and flesh alive.

The flame pirouettes,

And finally dies.

Where in the ruins

Has the flower ever thrived?

Its pollen bobs away,

A legacy in mind.ஐ
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Nirvana can never be wrought...
For while steel may be immortal...
It is not impervious to corrosion...
The ghost of russet time...ஐ

 If  it tickles your peach, you may post your own elemental quotes, phrases, and poems in the comments section. Selections of the most original and enticing will be posted.

Inspiration

It can heal, but it can also break.

Capricious as it is, we must take it in our hands and use it to breath. It is the key to discovering our true potentials, our life values, and our soul. Some give, some take. Both are greatly respected.

Inspiration is the flare that ignites when an idea is born. Vivacious and lively, it waltzes to melodies unheard by no one but you. 

Just as it is effervescent, it can also kill with just a prick to the heart. 

Competition will never fade in society. It is a part of the daily chores in life, something tough and burdening, but necessary. Without it, the newfangled cannot be crafted and the future will never be restored.

But there are two species of inspiration. One is constructive - it can assist in learning and helps us to become a better person. The deadlier type, of course, persuades us that we will never be good enough, no matter what awaits. It slows us down with a gradual descendo ending with a faint note of ritardando to eventually becoming a grace note, music filled in a moment of silence.

Sometimes communication is muddled along the lines when we criticize, and that can lead to a disaster with no cause. Dreams are destroyed without blood nor knives, only shadows of perspective, nothing more than a figment of imagination. As we reach for the sky, the horizon seems to be the utmost limit.

Nowadays, cures stand available for almost everything, thanks to improved technology over the past few decades. We find it queer that even the most innovative and intelligent people in the world have not discovered medicine for a broken life. The question that arouses above the deafening chaos, "Why?" If drugs can levitate a soul inches from the claws of death, why can't it bring zen to someone who is perfectly healthy on the outside?

Health, of course, is a word with many interpretations, like the trunk of an oak that diverts to dozens of tessellating  branches. Some own health only perceived from the surface, a mask to a chasm of  the stranger unknown below. Others feel youthful spirit in their heart, whereas their body may be weak and fragile. On the end of a twig, there often blossoms a glistening bulb in vain, questions embedded beneath with no answer.

I, like many others, am an optimist,  feeling seamless hope to subjects that seem to bring the infamous alive and flowers to a wasteland. Inspiration, to me, helps me flourish, finally allowing my mind to soar to other realms encased in secrets. I am secluded in a world where I am the judge of who I want to become. That is one choice that I am certain belongs to me, while the others may be bestowed to others, or no one at all.

My message to you? Let inspiration take you on adventures that are renewed so that they are only yours, but never relinquish your grasp so that it brings you down. Poco piu vivo, a little livelier, and life will bring you all you expected it to deliver.ஐ

This article is inspired by Four Seasons, a novel by Jane Breskin Zalben.

❀Windows to Time❀

Upon the face of Earth,

The divine espy the rare.

Lest the palm gather the blue,

And the sea fall to despair.

Lost in a reverie;

Is life but a dream?

Languishing in the meadows,

For the daffodils now sleep.

From the white-washed cliffsides,

Let the decrepit retreat.

The lingering silence,

Will bring all but peace.

"Forget me not!"

The wind now sighs.

The violets we deceived,

Are now another tide.ஐ

A Birthday Wish

A birthday is heaven's gratitude to a year of success and achievement...or not. Can you say that some have never tasted the richness of life - their golden wish of passing wasted with despair?


We say "success" is wealth and luxury; the greatest highlight in our timeline the day we finally could afford to splurge on a car. Our cup of happiness is filled each day, then finally diluted into other objects, inanimate, or not. I often ask my friends, "What makes you happy?" Their replies are slightly cliche in a way, always the usual "friends, family, lace, bubble baths, e.t.c." But if such charms someday disappeared, would your happiness disintegrate with it? Would the ripples of fire ever reverberate to you ever again?


Birthdays were once the few days in a year when we actually made time to muse and ponder about what life meant to us - the sheer joy we saw through it. We used to allow the pendulum  to unobtrusively slip away because it did not matter. What would matter if you were happy with yourself, after all?


Now, celebrations are held on that cherished date every 365 days, the homage we should be paying muted in the background. The cheerful attitudes presented to the guests are nothing more than a false array of smiling faces, like mist that deceives the horizon. Yet, we are actually giving our energy toward a much undesirable goal -  greed. Extravagant food and newfangled gifts...all to the feet of Want and Ignorance.


When we say that we are "better-off" than someone else, is the truth really lying? The simple are content with a wind-smoothed pebble, the complex need a flawless diamond. But while the two objects are a world away in value, they both, in short, are rocks.


So, have some people never experienced happiness? Maybe, but perhaps it is because they have never found it inside their hearts. May the future dawn brighter and the past guide the way, but let the present unfold its meaning. Forever and always. ஐ