The Art Of Imagination

Valkyrie; Long-time reader. Long-lost writer. Eternal dreamer. All works tagged 'Midnight Valkyrie' are mine. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 Australia License.

[ladycrappo]

Inspired by Alicia Mozquiera’s otherworldly paintings.

[blood-hands]

[midnightvalkyrie]

i. There's a longing inside my chest that keeps nudging me, rattling my breaths and tickling my throat, reminding me of you. I think it's trying to remind me of how much we've grown (apart)... which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's probably just nostalgia wrapping her arms around me, shielding my eyes and telling me to deny the space between us. I can't pretend I don't feel the cold, though.

ii. I wish we lived closer so we could go to lunch as easily as an impulse. So I could try out yoga with you and you'd laugh at my surprisingly poor sense of balance. So I could drag you along to more clicking-filled poetry slams. So we could catch-up and binge watch movies and walk to the local park in the mornings and cook for each other at night and not worry about anything else.

iii. Sometimes I see you like I do streetlights with squinted eyes - distant and bright but fading, dream-like. Are you real? Sometimes there are cars that drive too fast for the music in my ears, but they continue to speed into oblivion without me. I watch as they fade, as the last of the fairy lights disappear with them. You exist outside of me.

iv. I loved you, and I think I still do and will do forever, but not how I used to. It's not the same. We're not the same.

v. I hope this longing doesn't disappear before we do.

[hipster-and-thoughts]

[starkovingsmoved-blog]

“The sea is the cruelest lover.”

[midnightvalkyrie]

Dear Universe,

How do you kiss a person? Last night I saw people kissing as casually as drawing breath. They were whispering secrets into each other’s lungs and inhaling the other person’s soul, heads tilted and fingers curious as neon lights flashed and threatened to outshine the brightest of your suns. Even my best friend was lured into locking lips with a sandpaper-tongued-boy hoping to quench his thirst before leaving. 

I ask because I am 19 and have never kissed anyone before. These facts together seem worthless to you but they feel like they should mean the world to me. I ask because last night I met a dark-haired boy who shook my hand and didn’t feel the tremor in my fingers or hear the uncertainty in my voice. He danced badly but smiled kindly and, looking into his eyes, I pondered the possibility of him being my first. 

We spoke with short sentences, trying for a decent connection by shouting over the music. I leaned in so close that I could smell his aftershave and feel the heat radiating off his body and I wondered if this was why they turned the music up so loud - to drown out the white noise of horrible singing and give people an excuse to move nearer without actually touching.

But after a while I began to doubt myself. My movements became rigid and I pulled my arms in, dancing closer to my friend and looking anywhere but at him and his friend. My throat closed up and I pulled my guard up like it was a straitjacket keeping me from making a fool of myself. He eventually lost interest or was pulled away by his friend and regret was there to replace where he stood, a mocking ghost of my indecision.

Dear Universe, last night I could have kissed a boy. That’s what people do at clubs… right? You don’t meet people there, you make out with them, as my best friend said the next morning. I’m just not sure if I wanted to. I’m not sure if my nerves were closing my throat or if that wasn’t the right place for a first kiss or if I’ve built my expectations up like unreachable dreams.

And yet I still wonder... what would it have been like if that doubt wasn’t there? If I continued talking and didn’t close up... Would I have kissed a boy and have a story to tell? Would I have found an answer to my question?

Love,

Me.

[midnightvalkyrie]

i. I stepped into the void  wearing curled hair and a flowy dress light make-up under dim lighting and a confidence that threatened to outshine  the strobe lighting flashing in our eyes.  ii. The harsh light of day against my bare face - you see me in a new old dress  darting around, speaking breathlessly, trying to push away the nerves  growing around my wrists and up my throat like climbing vines.  iii. A familiar darkness with flashing and smoke and sleep dragging my concentration  away from your face. A place where the air smells timeless  and the dance floor wears its own spread of stars  pinned above the swaying bodies. iv. Lunch between two strangers no make-up, no exhaustion as an excuse.  I will sweat and complain  as the humidity chokes the maturity out of me  and the hurricanes rage on in the grey city.

[midnightvalkyrie]

Unfocus

Let your eyes unfocus, dear. Let them rest on the soft grass outside your window. Don’t squint and don’t be scared; look without looking. 

The wind outside blows as if it’s a world away from you - untouchable - but the skeleton trees try to scare you by throwing their leaves at the glass. Focus on the grass, though. See how they look like faraway reeds, glittering in the afternoon sunlight? If you unfocus enough it’ll look like the ocean. Or summer heat shimmering, shivering, in the cold of an almost-winter.

We are old fences leaning on empty air, tired of standing up straight. Sometimes we forget to rest. Some days gravity feels a lot stronger than other days. But soon the shadows will grow longer - playthings hiding in the background of your backyard. 

Go to sleep earlier tonight. For now though, just look at the grass and unfocus. 

[midnightvalkyrie]

Dear Golden Boy,

What do you think of the girl who hides stars in her eyes and who stops mid-step, mid-sentence   to listen to the siren call of the void.

Who has different costumes that fit her like a marionette's dream from fancy to floral to daring, each popping candy character dissolving with a soft explosion in your mouth.

Dear Golden Boy,  

With your restless eyes and quiet smile, what did you think of yourself your face flushed pink standing against a fighter.

A girl who would take dancing warriors over brute forced battles. Who isn't afraid to throw a punch and take a kick to the teeth only to wipe the blood off   using the back of her hand and get back up again.  

Dear Golden Boy,

What did you think of the day that wrestled your hair for brilliance, seeing summer through rose-tinted glasses without blooming into romance.

The girl who'll hug the half of you that isn't turning away and played with the romantic idea of kissing you good bye but won't play the damsel in distress to anyone   and will not go silently with the night demons   unless she is wearing the cloak of sleep on her shoulders.

Love,

Me.

[midnightvalkyrie]

Dear Golden Boy, There's so much time between now and when classes start that I wonder how you fill your days.   Are they filled with an unblinking focus in a haunted room?  A hundred ghosts hovering over your sketches  like a hundred shadows dance over my unfinished stories? Are they filled with cold white marble skies?  Summer barely a whisper beyond the glare of early morning clouds  and the shock of the pavement on your ankles? Are they filled with fickle friends?  Nameless and faceless figures that have taken you into the wild  and brought you back stained with dirt and exhaustion? I'm sorry to disappoint you if you had been hoping I was filling my days with thoughts of you. I have been busy with distractions and responsibilities. Love, Me.

[midnightvalkyrie]

We take our place in a two seater too small for our bodies too big for our minds. You have the window seat I have the aisle seat. You look outside with your soul somewhere in the clouds and my ghost still hiding in my bed. You don't flinch when the trains hurtle towards you but I recoil at the baby's crying, a ringtone chiming, people's voices in the corner of my ear - men who speak in profanities and chuckles and mumbles school girls chattering and singing ghosts silently tapping on their phones. We both travel alone.

[midnightvalkyrie]

She was so immersed in the story that she became the words on the page the paper and the ink were her home the space in between what she breathed

[midnightvalkyrie]

Grey

Her voice is gravel crunching under your feet, skinning your knees and scratching small scars into your skin.

She’s loud whispers in dim-lit rooms, dark eyes and a darker heroine - a thunderstorm growling in the distance.

She’s summer air  like a lie - heavy and hard to swallow gaze now flickering whispers now breathless; drowning in an unseen haze. 

Her voice is rainfall against patio roof tops rattling in your ears and dragging across your tongue.

[wnq-writers]

The universe will either open you up, or swallow you whole.

learningtobefearless (via wnq-writers)

[worshipgifs]

[midnightvalkyrie]

Relief like a great catharsis - pleas becoming demands becoming indifference. No more regrets or fists hanging like dead weights beside my dying body with dead lights blinding my dead eyes. Laughter despite the sadness  staining my cheeks staining these people like watercolour - plum bruises healing into apricot. I haven’t once moved I haven’t once touched you. Still quiet. No more death no more silence. My hands are not shaking my eyes are not leaking my heart is not breaking.

[midnightvalkyrie]

Where is she, if not inside me

What happened to the girl who emptied out your pockets without once moving who seemed to catch the wind's freedom in her laughter who was one song away from dancing away from you turning and twirling and shaking hair that should have swung at her shoulders who dared life to prove her wrong speaking quickly and closely always breathing and yet with-  out a sound.