A Secret Medium

A channel for expression without boundary or limitation.

[secretmedium]

Ad Infinitum

The long days have grown shorter

the stretching nights have pulled close

They slip together into a constant stream

become one continuous day

one endless night

Yet I watch as the clock still ticks

and wonder what becomes of the time

[secretmedium]

Unfulfilled Wanderlust

For as long as I can remember I have wanted to travel the world. The feelings of adventure and discovery are some of the most thrilling in life. The sad truth is that I haven’t accomplished much traveling at all thus far in life. I have lived in Florida for a quarter of a century, my entire life.  There have been a few occasions where I have gotten to travel outside the state, but they are few and far between.

When I was a child, I went with my family to California to visit our relatives. I believe I was 12 years old at the time, maybe a little younger. (12 is one of those go-to ages for guessing how old you were.) I can’t recall what year it was, to be honest. I remember being awestruck by the sight of the mountains and the massive urban sprawl of Los Angeles. I remember driving past where you can see the classic “Hollywood” sign, but not too much else. Some years later, I believe I was 15 at the time, I spent sometime with my eldest brother, in his temporary home in South Carolina, where he was stationed there with the Air Force. There wasn’t much to be seen in Sumter South Carolina but I was happy just to know I had crossed some distance as well as for the time I got to spend with my brother.

Since then, I have traveled outside of Florida a handful of times, once to Alabama, once to Texas, once to North Carolina. Never have I left the United States and I find that incredibly disappointing. There’s so much to experience out in the world, so much culture, history, and perspective. It feels as though I am tethered to where I live by circumstance. I see my peers sharing photos of the places they are visiting and it feels impossible to not to feel an embarrassing twinge of envy. I try to figure out how I could manage to afford traveling abroad while also being able to pay pent where I’m living and it seems impossible to manage. So then is my only option to discard as many of my possessions as possible so that I can take everything I own with me? In a way it sounds exhilarating, if not equally terrifying. 

An alarming thought, one that hangs over me often, is that really I’m secretly just the homebody type that wants to live a safe and secure existence of routine, and that I use circumstance as an excuse for why my life is so mediocre. I want to dismiss these fears but I know I never will until I am able to venture across the hemispheres and experience life across the planet. One who spends their whole life living in the same place must have a sadly narrow scope of the breadth of life, and I fear being that person more than just about anything. I have to do something, I just haven’t figured out what it is just yet.

[secretmedium]

To My Blank Page

Hello again old friend. I’m sorry I’ve left you empty for so much time now. I’ve felt empty myself, if that’s any consolation. I wish I had more to give you, considering how long it has been. I try to gather up all the words I have so I can put them together into something beautiful for you, but I feel clumsy with them. They don’t fit nicely into place like puzzle pieces do, instead they are either jammed uncomfortably between each other, or hang precariously off the end. It is a childlike flaw of mine that I’ll try for a bit and once I start doubting myself or feeling foolish and untalented I just walk away and try to distract myself some other way. However, maybe you can find some hope in the small fact that I always end up wandering back.

[secretmedium]

A new years begins, and yet I feel the same. Begrudgingly the same. I don't feel as though I am yet the person that I want to be. Truthfully, I don't even know if I'm moving in that direction at all. But, nonetheless, with the new year must come a renewed sense of the irrational hope that is vital for life to proceed. Here's to holding on tightly to that little spark. May all our embers catch the muse's kindling and grow into a lasting flame.

[secretmedium]

Hello, once again. I have to apologize for my frequent silence. Maybe it's a side effect of a capricious soul, constantly tugged by the paradoxical strength of fleeting whims in every direction. One forgets how long they've been away from home, and all the little things that require attention. Us wanderers are bound to lose our way some of the time, that's why we make maps for ourselves. And it's only just now that I realize that this is precisely what these words have been for me, a map to guide me home. That place within, removed from the hum-drum chatter of daily life, where I feel most myself. The point of uncanny self-sincerity. Do you find yourself tracing your own map back to the essence of who you are? I now see why we share our words, we're exchanging maps so that we might better find one another.

[secretmedium]

Be mindful: The smarter you are, the more cleverly you decieve yourself. To live authentically we must actively challenge our perceptions. Stop avoiding the answers to terrifying questions. It does not do to live through potential realities. Construct your reality from the truths you find. Become a disillusionist.

[secretmedium]

When I lay awake through the night It is the words we cannot speak That steal away sleep And the sudden, harsh comedown of your absence But every moment spent with you Feels like electricity flowing through my veins I wish I could hear from your lips what I fear is only in my mind Could it be a mere delusion of my love-addled brain? When I look into your eyes (Almost perfect mirrors of my own) I see everything I feel for you Reflected back to me

There is no way to be certain until you speak, all I can say for certain is: You feel even better than the drugs

[secretmedium]

Letters X

I have written undelivered letters for none more than you. Oh, you. You, the one who has been everything to me. My salvation and ruin neatly dressed in the softest skin I have ever felt. There was a time when you knew my every thought and I knew most of yours. A time when the dream of a world stripped from all others but you and I brought me to tears. Now? The question has grown so much harder to answer with months passed in silence. I still care for you, incredibly so. I can never separate that from myself. I wonder if you still care for me, if you care for me as much as you scorn me. You remarked when we were together that I was awfully quiet. I played it off as nothing. The truth is, I was afraid. You have an incredible influence over my emotions, even now, and I have no shield for it. What sort of people have we become? How much of the people we loved remains in us? Will we ever be close enough again to know? Forgive my rambling, I came across some of our old letters and photos the other day and got to thinking. Sometimes it's hard not to like them more, the people we were. There's a boldness to their eyes I have trouble seeing these days. Time can be cruel and confusing. It is impossible to know the people we will become, for better or worse. I hope that we can be more than just the past to each other. Do you remember when I said I look forward to getting to know you again, and again? All my love, R

[secretmedium]

These days I sleep less Yet dream more often Dare to hope In spitting defiance Of life's cruel courtship I see the countenance of bitterness In the dead souls around me And know it for hollow Life is not a decay unto death It is death's upheaval What lives may die But may never be Unmade

[secretmedium]

Grasping at Shadows

I once dreamt that mankind lived in a world of fog and darkness. I began to see the forms of people and shapes followed by objects. Shadow animals began to skitter about and take off on wings. It was then I saw a man reach out to take hold of something, and yet it slipped between his fingers and disolved between cracks in the darkness. If he approached something it would fade away all the same. He could never come close enough to truly know anything. This dream says something poignant about human sadness and our pursuits. In our lives we come to believe it is corporeal things that will give us happines. We fail to realize what we are truly seeking is the essence of things, not the objects themselves. We are chasing concepts, chasing emotions. We seek in possessions that which can not be seen nor fully known, and take in its place poor substitutes.

[secretmedium]

There is something to a low fire. Although it no longer blazes rebellious as it did in its youth, it thrives on with a deep inner flame. The wood glows vibrant with an inner heat. A solid center. A defiance of death.

[secretmedium]

Sleepless in Sobriety

A man lies awake in his bed. A mess of shuffling limbs in the dark hoping to stumble into sleep. He finds himself alone with his sobriety. An uncomfortable bedfellow after so long without without calling. They used to sleep together so effortlessly, before the meddlings of the turbulent years. He remembers himself half a decade fresher, with--what should have been--an indomitable hope for the the future. In the dark, removed from all distractions, imagination comes through more keen. Yet he finds himself unable to connect with that past feeling. He is prone to mull over his own mistakes. Solace comes at high price and poor supply in the early morning hours. When all he can do is think, he thinks. So many questions, so many unknowable answers. It does not do to dwell, but one does dwell sometimes. The future lives as this far and frightening beast, liable to strike in all its vile capacity. He turns over to bury his head in a pillow. However, his eyes are drawn to those first shades of day that fall through the window. To a feeling that is still there, just out of sight, beneath the horizon.

[secretmedium]

So far, I must say, couch surfing is my least favorite sport. I never suspected feeling so ashamed of my lot in life, but then again, I also thought I would be doing better than I am. It's one thing to see yourself as a failure and another to know others see it too. Another side to all things, I try to keep that in mind, especially now when it is so hard to see. Money is not the greatest thing but it is sure hard to get by without.

[secretmedium]

We save the sweetest songs for no one to hear All alone in the middle of night For someone distant A mile is good as a million If it is never breached Each breath nothing to the last If never interrupted by a smile, by a kiss You lose count of the days Their number unbearable in the face Of the many lost in decay You used to reach upwards towards forever With an impossible, unbeatable hope It is not wisdom found in the years since Only the blunting force of cruel circumstance Turning the sharp dull The bright dim Sing on, sing on I pray only you never lose Your voice

[secretmedium]

Eternal Fault Machine

I am a perpetual motion machine of systemic failure a chain reaction of  self-destruction dead loops cycling on a screaming tape-deck screech, screech, repeat goes the eternal fault machine I can’t even break myself The maker seems to have abandoned his workshop and his creations haphazard toys incomplete in their design let alone their purpose

[secretmedium]

The one regret I find myself repeating is

I wish I had done more. 

[secretmedium]

I grow tired of the waking hours The hour of sleep too grows long Yet sleep remains elusive Formless and unattainable How I wish to wake weightless Unburdened, unchained I look back on the days When the future was brighter than The past was dark To close these prematurely aged eyes And see once more like a child Everything new, everything possible