“I know. This is it. I’m going to get this one chance. This one opportunity to change the rules of the game. To break through it all and make a lasting impact. I’m no god, no king, no prince. I’m just me.”
Sohly ♠
[mission statement disclosed below]
Four Pillars.
An unrelenting ambition
Shook not by failure nor despair
The Spear XI The Strength
Faces vanish like clockwork
Memories counterclockwise to white
No earthly gods can save you boy
No sight, no love, no light
In the depths of despair
Another iteration turn failure
Cradling in the tears of guilt
Sinking down into the twilight
You cry for second chance
Plead for a righteous truth
But you have yet to feel true pain
and that much you already knew
A greed that begets hunger
A delusion woven in shame
Ideals clash with reality
All roads have ended the same
crash
The Looking Glass Breaks.
Surround. Surreal. Silence.
ασφύξις
Paper Airplanes.
I learned how to fold one when I was in elementary school, when a friend of mine decided to send one flying out the window after school. I had never seen one before that day, so I had to ask him what he had thrown. He said it was a “paper airplane” and on that fateful day, he taught me how to make my own.
Carefully I folding the paper in half, taking the top two corners and turning them towards the center. Pressing the two sides together, I folded out the wings. Happy with my work I took it in my right hand, aimed at a tree in the distance and let it go.
I watched it cut through the air, and as fast as it flew up, it fell in an arc eventually hitting the ground with a small “thud” - I admit, I was a little disappointed, my paper airplane did not fly nearly as far as my friend’s.
Looking back, I feel it echo the shape of my goals.
Like the start of a journey, adorn with new clothes, walking new roads, living under a new sky, holding naive goals that are as pure as a sheet of blank paper.
—
Throughout the journey you fold the paper in half by it’s length, compromising for the sake of balance. Through the teachings of form and technique, they guide you in making the creases in your life that would ultimately create the structure of your plane. As you dream that dream, you fashion the wings on which your airplane will glide on.
With great expectations you hold the airplane in your trembling hand. You send it off with quick flick, only to find it drop as fast as it had left your hand. You walk a start distance to pick it up. You find your plane sullied by the dirt of the ground, the once white wings are stained with the green and brown of the earth. The sharp tip of the plane had buckled under the impact of hitting the ground, bent and crinkled in every which way. With a bit of disappointment you salvage the remains of your failed voyage.
Maybe you write it off as a fluke, and you try it again to no avail. Gravity makes no exceptions for dreamers. What goes up, must come down.
But one day.
One day.
It will fly straight and true.
I write inside my diary in black sharpie
“It will be alright. I believe in you”
As I tear the page out of my book
I fold it into a paper plane and throw it into the sunset
hoping that it will reach tomorrow.
Reclarity 01 - α
Breathe. The worst is yet to come my partner. Steady your pulse and save your energy to recover. Brace your body and steel your nerves for the long fight that awaits you beyond the daybreak. You must prepare for the journey ahead. Do not fear, I will not allow this to break you.
You are troubled. I can feel it. For it was you summoned me from the sea of the unconscious. Out of edge of your despair and broken emotions, I evoke.
What is ails you?
Is it the fear of failure? Is it the threat of being labeled as mediocre? Have you lost sight of yourself? I can hear your thoughts accusing you of wrong doing. Under the thin layer of your psyche they multiply, rot, and fester. They scream out for a blind justice. Don’t you see it is mere sophistry and deceit that have woven these hands that threaten to pull you under?
Why do you-
No… I know why. You are young after all. The links of your bonds are brittle, rusted, and old. You have yet to crystallize the questions that burn inside you. The surface of your heart is pale and barren, barely beating, a pale crimson vessel.
I am that is.
Quiet your mind. In this small secluded space, find reclarity.
Hear. Feel. Think.
The low hum of the rooms ventilation system fades into white noise that hugs the mind’s frame tight like canvas to your heart’s easel. The cool touch of the laptop keys invites you to strike up a conversation. Each key like a pot of paint that patiently awaits their owner’s wishes.
and so it begin.
—
Re:clarity 01
What pain would you be willing to bear? It’s a morbid question I know, but never declare that I ask you these questions without a reason. You indulge quite often in the joys and pleasures of life, but you often find yourself choosing pleasure before duty; shirking responsibility for debauchery. I could almost liken it as child who prefers the sweet and bubbly soft drinks over the sour and bitter drinks of the adolescent and mature.
I ask you again. What are you willing to endure?
You are one that flinches not in the face of mental anxiety, sadness is a tenant who has lived inside you plenty of seasons. To be emotional in the face of the general public had never been emasculating or humiliating for you but, on the contrary you derive strength from the purity and unadulterated colours of your emotions.
I ask you again. What price are you willing to pay?
If given a choice you would rather harm befall you, for it is an easier weight to bear than to witness it be placed on friends and family. You derive pleasure out of besting the unknown, to tango with tenacity the terrors of responsibility and live with the burn marks of those who harm. It’s no wonder then, that your knee injuries did not cripple your ambitions and morale.
Responsibility?
I know you well. Born of potential, etched are your hands by cards of the Fool, the Lust, and the World. Though your Resonance was passed down by your signature, your destiny remains a choice.
Your eyes, shine conflicted.
In the right eye, I stare at a deep brown iris. In it is woven a desire to become stronger. To be a shield to those in danger, a vagabond who unites and ignites the passions of those he holds dear. Through wisdom and mercy he receives the world with an embrace that is as encompassing as the sky. The Catalyst of Life.
Yet the left eye holds an icy and glossy blackness. In it I see nothing but destruction. The flames of ire and malice erupt from the frozen surface of your heart as your hand grips the knife that effortlessly slices away at the future that screams for absolution that will never come. As it slowly dies in a puddle of black blood you look up at the sky covered in smog, a sickening grin marking your countenance on an otherwise cracked face. The Harbinger of Death.
—
You break concentration and awake as your eyes snap open.
Checking the time on your cellphone you find that four hours have passed. The people who were once around you are now replaced with new ones with unfamiliar faces. The smell of old books is replaced by a smell that you can only assume is the aroma of hot cup of pumpkin spice latte (a tell-tale sign that your mind is preoccupied with the thought of food)
Your laptop is dim, at the bottom left hand corner blinks your battery icon with a pop up that states that there is less than 15 minutes worth of battery life left.
With a sigh, you dismiss your thoughts for another day.
–
I felt a drop in the sea of your conscious.
I trust you found your answer?
Yes I have.
The price we pay.
Uncertainty.
…
Is that so?
Re:clarity 01 End.