Tales of the Dreaming

  Looking from up here, it's as if each flame were a small dream, for each person. They look like a bonfire of dreams, don't they? ...- But, there's not flame for me here. I'm just... a temporary visitor, taking comfort from the flame.

  The day is very cloudy and I feel only cold and emptiness as I walk through the streets. I pass dozens, maybe hundreds of people, but none of them means anything to me. Just strange on their going on with their lives.  My footsteps leave a mark on the snow on each step I take, that crunch sound reminds me that I'm still walking and that I'm getting closer, one step at a time.  Then I see you next to the frozen fountain and all of that goddam emptiness disappears. Each little part of me starts vibrating, full of energy when we hug and I just melt when we kiss. And just like that, I feel like it's summer again, the cold gone, kept away by the warmth of both your eyes and embrace. I hate the cold. We just walk while I tell you how the last couple of days went, all the stresses and problems and during all of that, you just listen with your big sparkling eyes while sometimes giving some helpful advice. None of this is news, of course. We text each other all the time and I know

  One more step. I take one more step, leaving another footprint on the ash that covers the ground. Everywhere that I look I see only mirrors, some big, others very, very small. Some are unbroken while others lay in pieces shattered a long time ago.  Only I walk among the ash and mirrors, and each mirror reflects my image an infinite number of times, the image bouncing from one mirror into the next. An infinity of me. My own personal hell. A gust of wind raises some of the ash to my face, and in another life, I would have cried, like any other person would have cried, but my tears have gone dry a long time ago.   As the ash rises, I can hear the sound she keeps from me. Laugh, joy, screams. The sound of my people. They are gone, but the ash that remains remembers the sounds and when the wind allows, those sounds come back for a very precious split second.  I take another step. Each second I feel heavier and heavier, the height of silence and loneliness falling upon me. Each time that I

Have you ever been in love? Horrible, isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life … you give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like "maybe we should be just friends" or "how very perceptive" turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. Nothing should be able to do that. Especially not

"Walk any path in Destiny's garden, and you will be forced to choose, not once but many times. The paths fork and divide with each step you take through Destiny's garden, you make a choice; and every choice determines future paths. However, at the end of a lifetime of walking you might look back, and see only one path stretching out behind you; or look ahead, and see only darkness. Sometimes you dream about the paths of destiny, and speculate to no purpose. Dream about the paths you took and the paths you didn't take. The paths diverge and branch and reconnect, some say not even Destiny himself truly knows where any way will take you, where each twist and turn will lead. But even if Destiny could tell you, he will not. Destiny holds his secrets. The Garden of Destiny. You would know it if you saw it. After all, you will wander it until you die. Or beyond. For the paths are long, and even in death there is no ending to them." - Seasons of Mist -----------

Sanity is a fragile thing. A little egg with a frail shell in the eye of a storm made by all feelings that we go through, and as soon as it gets thrown around it will break and shatter to never again be restored. The only way to keep it intact is to protect it, to reign in the typhoon, and store it in little boxes. Each thought has it's box, ones as little as grains of sand, other so big that they block the horizon. Some fit perfectly and just lay there, waiting to be used while others are violent, always trying to get out. Those are the most troublesome, all the things that I don't want to feel, but what I want is irrelevant and they break free from time to time. It's never easy to control them again. Those are the ones under lock and key, and normally the key gets thrown out, with the hopes that this lock will remain closed forever, that whatever is locked inside will just wither and die with time. Unfortunately, they rarely do. But this is something that I nee