#midnightstowaway

[onthewingsofinspiration-blog]

Fault Lines

We are the fault lines

The chaos and the fractals

In this timeless reality

In this lost earth

We, with no places in the starry sky

Have no use troubling the angels

That travel the shadow distance

We are the mathematical nature of living

Just the making of monsters

Flesh and Fiend

Our impossible bind is nothing

Like Einstein and religion

We aren't the far bright stay

Nor the nightingales of Troy

And even the mountains we climb

Will disappear

Someday

[the-midnight-stowaway]

Static

Red clouds stained with fresh and dried blood

And black rain of our tears long cried

Swirl through your darkened thoughts

As the jet you fly flees for thinner atmosphere

The swift aircraft they forced you to man

Leaving you no choice but to say yes to the fate of the gun

Streaks across the sky, leaving a trail of terror behind

Those you battle you do not hate

Those you protect you do not adore

I know I’m not the fighter, nor the death bringer, nor the lover

Yet I cry as a missile of death

Explodes, raining the sky with yet more blood

Hitting directly the right wing

It’s over, so clearly, it is over

As you whisper to me

What will be last words

Regrets, lost hopes, dreams, intentions of love

Echoed from your dry mouth

And cracked lips seething venom

To all those you don’t know who made it this way

And then you surrender, speaking softly, till there is nothing

Nothing left at all

Except for your final silence

And radio static

-C. A. 

I wrote this poem a long time ago and didn't think it was really that good, but here goes nothing anyways. It's quite inspired by Keane, as any Strangers will pick up on. It took about a year to get it the way I wanted it to sound. Enjoy! 

[onthewingsofinspiration-blog]

Peak Break

Open air brushed across her flesh. Tears burned down her cheeks and engulfed her emptiness. Just four stories worth of sky and then pavement. Her hands clung to the railing, in a painstakingly slow manner each finger fell off of it as she felt less and less attached to it and more toward the ground that lay below. She wasn’t afraid of height, or falling. She wasn’t even afraid of hitting the ground. No, she wanted it. She wanted to be gone. Every spark that had ever inhabited her body had left. She had wanted this for so long. There was something about the headlights that called to her. They seemed to stare as they raced by. It was so easy to get lost in the glimpses of the cars and lives passing before her eyes.

                All her fingers detached from the railing as she prepared to take her last breath of air and be rid of the planet that had grieved her so. Suddenly, and without warning, the brown haired girl began to laugh, tears streaming from her shattered-with-pain, green eyes. In a split second, a hand was upon her shoulder. The girl was flung backward across the fence, away from the openness of her suicide, and onto the curb that she had abandoned long ago.

                A woman stood, staring her right in the eye.

                “What do you think you’re doing?” The lady barked.

                The girl had no answer, for there was no way to properly explain the emotions bottled up inside of her, pushing at her skin, threatening  to burst her into millions of tiny particles that meant absolutely nothing. When she did not provide an answer, the police woman simply bent down, and lifted the girl’s hand. With one swift move of move, she pricked her finger, drawing the girl’s blood, and placed it into her identifier. The police woman turned around, and analyzed the data.

                There, on the monitor, was a picture of the girl that was sitting on the concrete just behind her.

*                             *                            *

                The lights were dim giving the room a solemn feel. Her brown eyes adjusted to the gloom In the dark she could faintly see the outline of his face. His wrinkles were exceptionally pronounced even in the little light. He sat all the way across the room, not speaking a word, but staring off into space.

                How old is he? She wondered, but a part of her mind didn’t want to know. 

                “Why am I here?” Rose asked. Her voice shook. “What is this place? Who are you?!”

                The elderly man finally made eye contact with her. His eyes were a haunting shade of blue. “You ask questions that resemble a curious mind, Rose.” His words were slow and deliberate. “I am your trainer and you are my apprentice. You shall know all that I know. You shall be the only one in the world after I die. That is your job. That is what you need to understand. You were selected to be here with me.”    

                A slight amount of pain gnawed at her heart.  Rose wasn’t sure if it was curiosity or fright. If the committee had sent her here then it must have been important and worth listening too.

                “What do you need to tell me?”

                “For me, it began 10 years ago. For you, it begins now. It was an sweet autumn day. The sun was soft and amber in color. Yes…it was amber…amber…”

*                                             *                                             *

                It began with a simple pen, laid plainly and neatly across the desk. It moved ever so slightly, rolling down the surface. A soft hand placed it back in its original position, ignoring the small tremor that had caused it to move in the first place. It wasn’t a big deal. It didn’t matter. Within a few moments of being returned to its position, it rolled down the incline of the desk once more. It was such a small shaking that nothing really seemed to be triggering it. Nothing of note, anyway.  

                Once again the pen was returned to its initial spot. The object was still for a moment, but in the silence something went wrong. With sudden force and great magnitude the entire room began to shake, erupting into a violent whirlwind. The windows rattled, disturbing the peace of the thinking man who had been pondering his situation while moving the pen.

                He no longer thought of Amber Hughes. Instead, his attention was turned towards the earthquake that was causing tremors in the ground. Suddenly, the desk became his life line, preventing him from thrashing down to the ground and hurting his bad hip. All of the science that had filled his head was whisked away to a dimension of the universe that could never be seen again. For twenty minutes it continued in such a fashion. The earth kept vibrating, becoming louder and harsher with each passing moment.

                A split second though wavered in his mind. We are in Arkansas. There haven’t been earthquakes here in hundreds of years. This isn’t normal. The plates…the tectonic plates. This is much like the tsunami that happened in Australia yesterday, and the hurricane approaching Brazil. Over the past few months his ideas of reality and the world had become distorted. All because of Amber Hughes and his conducted studies ofthe infinite world. Something was wrong. Minutes passed by in an unprecedented fashion, but still the earth was violent. It shouldn’t have happened, but it did. He counted the minutes and rationalized the fractions of time that floated through his head, till at last it stopped. Limping, the man walked toward the door and opened his office. Outside, the workroom was practically abandoned except for the few people that lay on the ground either dead or unconscious. A metallic taste filled his mouth. Radiation.  There was no way out and there was nothing but blood and the taste of metal on his mind. Everything was changing.

                  His piercing eyes gazed upon the grainy TV screen. It was such a strange situation, the hospital bed. It brought him back to a time before he knew that the molecules that made up his entire existence were universes. He thought again of Amber and how she had jumped off the bridge. The question was: Why?  

                Something in the small universes that made up her existence is happening in ours. It almost as though the world is ripping apart at its seams. A woman walked in at that moment, her eyes transfixed on the bedridden and bedshaped man. He glared upon her after catching sight of her familiar face.        

                “Hello, Ms. Grace,” He growled.

                She sighed and pushed her straightened hair behind her ear. “Hello, sir. I see you have heard the news about how our world is practically falling apart. The government has required I come and ask you for answers.”

                “I have answers. I always have answers,” There was nothing in his voice that detected pride, it was simply a statement of who he was.

                “Then tell me, or we will all die.”                 He squinted at her in the bright light. “You know what string theory is, we all do. That should be enough for you to figure it all out.”

                “You, sir, have the highest IQ in the country. We have no choice but to ask you why millions of people are dying each and every single day after the big announcement happened. None of us have any answers for that. You do. You always do.”

                A breath escaped his lips. “Amber Hughes is the young woman I based my research off of simply because her body was available. A beautiful girl driven to the point of suicide. Yet, even in her fall she managed to prove that there is a set of infinity within each of us. The problem that you all refuse to acknowledge is that we to are trapped within the infinite. Can’t you see how that would play out?”

                “That doesn’t answer any questions!” She hissed.

                “But it does,” He snapped. “Insanity, depression, hallucinations, insomnia, suicidal tendencies, the list goes on and on. That is where we begin. Amber was the victim of knowledge, but not her own! Don’t you see! We have caused mass destruction for a being greater than our own, because we are aware of them and how they affect our world. Someone or something that we make up and are a part of; a creature that our little infinity consists of and is a part of! We are hurting ourselves with our thoughts and new perceptions of the world.  Are you all really that dull that you don’t understand that!”

                Something clicked in Mrs. Grace’s head in that moment. “We are killing ourselves…” She whispered.  “You knew!” Her voice shook with rage. “You knew that this would happen if word got out! How could you not tell us?! We are all going to die. Can’t you see what you have done? What have you done you psychopath?!”

                “I knew what I had done from the very beginning,” He answered with a simple shrug of his shoulders, not denying the fact that he was a psychopath. No one knew his mind like he did. No one knew his thoughts like he did.

                “What are we supposed to do?!” Ms. Grace cried, tears streaming down her face, breaking like the banks of a river in the wet season.

                “Whatever you want,” He answered, turning his attention to the destruction that lay outside the small window next to his bed. “Whatever you want. We are all doomed you know.”

                “But, father!”

                “You are not my daughter. You haven’t been for years,” The words were bitter as they fell out of his mouth.  Her tears were back within a moment.

                “But-“

                “Go away. I do not wish to look at your rotting flesh.”

                                The whispers floated around in his empty mind. There was an answer that they had fiendishly come up with. Can’t they just let me die? Can’t we all just die in peace? Why do they have to live? They had come up with a reason to live. The answer: Forget everything. Forget all they had known. Everyone except for him. A panel of judges had ruled that he would be the one to remember every single aspect of what had happened while everyone else who inhabited the world would forget the recent events or they would die. That was the only way that they knew of for things to return to normal. He wanted to spit in each of their faces, but instead he was forced to restrain himself from doing so.

                He sat very still, waiting for the small children to come up to him and receive their so called “TB shots.” He wasn’t allowed to mention the fact that they weren’t actually shots to prevent disease; instead they targeted and destroyed memories. A little child innocently stepped toward him. He bravely held out his arm to receive his vaccination. The entire family would miss him after this. He wouldn’t remember anything and would be put in ‘quarantine’ in order to ‘protect’ him from those that still knew and remembered. The man shuddered in disgust when he thought of it, but still managed to proceed in giving the boy the injection, and watched as he fell to the ground, no longer remembering how to even stand. Then the boy was taken away, to be retrained in the basics of life.

*                                             *                                             *

                Rose looked up at him in shock.

                “What does this have to do with me? How can I even trust you? That can’t be the end of your story!” She had so many questions boiling over like a kettle in her mind.

                “It is where I went wrong, don’t you see Rose? I am the man who remembers everything while everyone, even you, has chosen to forget. But now that I am ill and won’t be recovering, you must carry on the knowledge and protect everyone from it. You must lead them bearing the secrets you possess. I know this isn’t what you-“

                “You’re mad! What are you going on about! This can’t be right!” She stood in the dim light. The man didn’t look surprised at all. She was becoming flustered and annoyed swiftly now.

                “I do not lie, and you will know all the secrets of the universe as I tell them to you. You are my apprentice now, Rose. You will keep everyone from reaching their breaking point again. And when your time comes, you will be freed just as I have been.”

                She paused for a moment. “What about Amber? What about Ms. Grace? What happened to those people?”

                “Both of my daughters are dead now, Amber and Grace. They aren’t here with me just as I have told you. Amber was the reason this happened just as much as I was. She was smart and sweet, just like you. But, she is dead now, and there is nothing I can do about that. Ms. Grace died too, in a car accident, but I never had heart for my daughter-in-law. She hated Amber as much as I loved the darling girl. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing the one person in the world who thought I was worth something. So I looked for answers within her.”

                “You loved Amber. You still do,” She breathed, almost talking to herself.

                “I’ll always love her, till the day I die. I hope you may love her when you understand everything too. That is your job now, to know and comprehend. You won’t be the same afterward.”

                “So, not even the president knows?”

                He sighed once more. “Bush?!” He chuckled. “No one but I knows this, no one except for you.”

                She considered for a moment, reflecting on her horrible past and her quick temper. She had been so swift to judge him, but there was so much more to it than that. “I don’t think I want to be the same. I want to know the truth that is hidden from every single person I see out there.  I want you to tell me about Amber, your daughter, Amber Hughes.”

[onthewingsofinspiration-blog]

Detail

Life's full with intense movement and constant fear

No one really living for the moment that fills the day

Step outside, onto cracked concrete that looks empty

No one bothered for the upkeep of simpleness

All hope of elongated feeling left long ago

There is no need to see the minor details

Those things have disappeared years before

No one cares for individual anymore

Everyone is all the same, not pieces keep us together

[onthewingsofinspiration-blog]

Low

You say the emptiness scares you

That it rocks you to your core, haunting each foot fall

As though someone is watching over you always

Keeping you close in the dead of night

That's where you and I are different

Each molecule of being strange from the rest

Adapting with the change of altitude

I fly high while you sink low

Beneath the ocean's tides, to the dark of the core

You don't let me help you stand on two feet

You only fear yourself

And the emptiness dragging you deep 

[onthewingsofinspiration-blog]

“It was only a few months ago,” Her voice was soft. It almost sounded as though it had been buried under a thick bed of roses, covered in dirt, but still providing light and hope. “And I managed to get out of the situation.

                He moved a little closer, his breath slowing, until the point that he reached the edge of his seat. Now their focus was not on the project that had been assigned to them for school, but more on the story she was telling. “Go on,” Daniel whispered. “You can trust me, I swear.”

                She swallowed, tears welling up in her eyes, still Clara pressed on. “He was so sweet at first. He acted as though he wouldn’t hurt a fly. I trusted him so much, and he treated me like a queen. I honestly thought that I was in love with him,” The tears began to run down her cheek. “But, things became real so quickly. At first it was just a slap across the face, a punch that left a bruise. I was certain it would stop.

                “But, it didn’t. It kept going. He kept making it worse. Every morning I would wake up with more scars, more bruises, more things to hide.”

                   “How did you get out of it?” He asked, innocently.

                “I was over at his house one night,” She choked. “And he started hitting me again. This time it was in the head, and I began to bleed. But, that didn’t matter to him. Instead he went to look for his bat in his room while I lay on the kitchen floor, drowning in my own blood. I didn’t know what to do, so I called 911 and told them were I was. I just remember the operator telling me that it was okay, to stay with her, but I couldn’t.  I woke up in a hospital bed, scarred, hideous, like an orphan on the streets somewhere. I couldn't look at the girl in the mirror’s reflection. She wasn't me. I couldn’t stand it.”

                “You’re here now, though,” Daniel simply said, shrugging his shoulders and moving away from the desk where their project had been, to the chair in which Clara rested. “And you don’t have to be hurt anymore.”

                Gently, slowly, he leaned in, planting a kiss on her lips. It was a kiss of softness, of tenderness, of meaning. And for the first time in Clara’s life, she was okay with it. 

[onthewingsofinspiration-blog]

I only see you through a screen

My friend of a friend of a friend

A tiny little flash of light

Starring in a video

You feel so close to me

Yet so far away

I wish I could really meet you

And talk about all the things you told

Everything you ever posted

Ideas which you projected

Into a small little camera

[onthewingsofinspiration-blog]

Fog

The fog of the sea

Rolls into the ever dark bay

Haunting footsteps' owners

Into the sweep of the tides

And the gloom of the day's sorrow