the fractured night

As I alternate between Nickleback's Savin' Me and Jars of Clay's River Constantine I sit here on my bed unable to sleep.

The drift to the other side is almost non-existent, I feel no pull. I am here, centred and unmoveable. Monolithic in appearance, these are my thoughts. The sound of music brushing against my ears does nothing to fracture the wall of cerebration I've created. No external stimulus seems to get through. I hear it but can't seem to process it, a back log created by my already innumerable thoughts.

The flavour of my one recurring thought is melancholic. I can't catch my breath. My slowed cognitive process won't allow me to express myself. My mind is dull, diffused and untethered. I can't catch my breath. I think we're spinning, I can't relate on this the fractured night of impenetrable thought. I cannot discern, I can't catch my breath.

The sun has long since fallen from the sky,
I am a traveller but I have not travelled far,
The sun has long since faded into the horizon,
I know where I am but I am lost,

The sun has long since settled west
I am looking up but I cannot see,
The sun has long since passed from interest,
I am standing still but falling free,

The sun has long since fallen from the sky,
I am breathing but I cannot catch my breath,
The sun has long since faded into the horizon,
I contemplate but I cannot comprehend,

the echoes' triumph

Echoes of the past call me to dreams of a life fate ordained in such a way, that I cannot lead. The voices remind me of a beautiful kiss that stained my lips in the waking world and still haunts me in shadow, from this road where do I go? Where do I go?

In the waking world I am pensive. The shadows were my refuge, my oblivion but now the voices of remembrance overruns the shadows taking over me, forcing me to submit to the bitter sweet memories of a time long since past.

I wake. The cool air that blankets my room lies undisturbed, yet nothing about it is calm. I wake with one thought, the echoes' triumph. The echoes have pierced the shadow and I remember.

I remember. I remember. I remember.

goodbye, goodnight

goodbye, goodnight,
i tried in vain,
even in my ears it rings trite,
now i wait for the pain,

goodbye, goodnight,
i say once again,
to this fight,
my will is all but waned,

goodbye, goodnight,
time to purge you from these veins,
not out of spite,
only so you fade from my heart and mind,

goodbye, goodnight,
i say for the very last time,
turn off the lights,
and with a sigh walk away.

self destruct initiated, where is my deus ex machina?

a disembodied, unnervingly neutral computerized female voice says repeatedly

Self destruct initiated.

(This statement sums up the sad but true story of my life)

We're at red alert and have no plan of action, life is once again spiralling down the tubes and as per normal my willingness to absolve myself from blame and have my dear friend apathy shoulder it overwrites my sensibilities. Such is my modus operandi.

I often find myself wondering where I lost my sense of responsibility for my life and the direction it is going in. When did I take my hands of the wheel and say to my life, drive yourself? This is one of those times, the wonder of it all is compounded even further by my willingness to sit here and blog about it. Here I sit expounding my brilliant yet pointless theories on why my life is about 3 paces away from the gutter and about a light year away from any form of normality. The only constants in the differential equation that sums up my life are these, I am shit and I basically have death and taxes to look forward to, provided I have money to pay taxes and if I don't well I'll still have death. Oh the sweet bright side.

How did I come to be acquiescent?

In my mind I've deferred living life by shifting myself into neutral and have allowed myself to roll down hill, a hill that is slowly getting steeper. It seems to me and contrary to Robert Frost's argumentatively ironic poem of two roads that diverged in a yellow wood with the possibility of neither having any truly consequential difference, I've managed to find and take a third, the road with the steep decline. Aided by my lack of effort I can't retrace, I look back to see the incline as insurmountable, the shear scope of the task at hand threatens to deplete my already underpowered strength of will. What now?

Where is my deus ex machina? My exit to salvation? Where are the breaks on this confounded vehicle?

The evidence of my fall into the ever darkening abyss is incontrovertible. To cope the mind constructs possible ends, mine hopes that oblivion is at the heart of the abyss and the annihilation of care will bring freedom. Though honestly speaking, I highly doubt that idealistic outcome. The acknowledgement of idealism inherent in the wish for oblivion then renders the statement sophistic. Which then alludes to the sophism and irony that is intrinsic in the nature of hope or the act of hoping. The desire that an outcome will be different and better than what you know to be statistically correct is a fallacy.

My mind also proposes that nihilism is at the heart of the abyss, the belief that nothing exists. One could theorise that from the perspective of the abused mind at the end of the fall nothing will, as everything will cease to matter not even self. However the question is if relevance is removed from an object or person and no longer have a purpose do they then cease to exist? Do things need a purpose in order to exist? My minds sees that even if a person was hollowed out and they're ethereal self or soul was obliterated their shell would remain. In some form they would exist. Unless the shell has no meaning in comparison to the destroyed soul. Then it would seem to me the only way to cease to exist would be death. Now go tell a pebble to die, I dare you. The argument is cyclic and without end.

And as I sit here thinking and theorising, it dawns on me that I am still falling and for all my brilliance, I'm no closer to a resolution then when I started. In fact my seemingly impossible situation and my reflection on it has only served to unnerve me further and so now we come full circle, which begs me to ask myself, what keeps me on this path? Myself, a fairly obvious answer. And why? I wish I knew.

Frankly, my mind is not a pleasant place to be right now, I don't remember the last time it was. Well actually I do but those times are brief and sadly I'm usually too distracted by my lack to enjoy them for long. So today, I'm going to step out of my head for a little while and maybe when I get back things will have settled down. Maybe.

pass me by

If you see me, pass me by. Don't stop to ask me why, why I sit with my head in my hands and cry. I beg off you not to stay, please go about your day. Don't stop to ask me why, why I'm failing to articulate the storm swelling up inside. All I can do is sigh, so please don't wait, go about your day. Don't stop to fix me, please don't try. I've tried and look at me now I sit here watching the world pass on by, so please don't stay, go about your day. Don't stop, please don't stop, please for your own sake, I beg off you don't stop, you may stall and have the world pass you by. If you love yourself, I urge you to pass me by, just pass me by. Because I can't have you sit with me and cry, I can't watch as someone I love commits the same cerebral suicide. I can't have the world pass you by. So if you see me, please pass me by.

Pass me by.

pardon my distraction

Pardon my distraction your eyes have caught me in remission, from a disease which laces my life with dissolution as every line I trace is erased while the world around me fades to grey, I can see extinction on my finger tips, this disease that stains my lips. For I am trapped within a prism, the prison of a life filled with self created schisms. This is my mechanism, the vehicle my life will take to its final destination. Here exists an allusion to illusion as everything that exists in the minds construct can be written off as delusion. I am afraid my mind's division has taken almost all my attention.

Even so through my distraction, I note your eyes are cool but not cold, steeled but not icy. They are faux nonchalant, their armour wavering ever so little belying that inside you are affected by my attention's diffusion. Please pardon my observation and its intrusion as I am prone to assume, perhaps your eyes are speaking in a different language or to a different person.

I pull myself back to the world for a minute to vocalise my thoughts of you but all that I can manage is a feeble statement of something arbitrary almost non sequitur, it is vapid to my ears. Still you manage a smile, even your eyes. I could ask you why? but I know you would probably answer with, why not? and smile again. You intrigue me and perplex me, they seem to go hand in hand. My minute ends. Once again my thoughts are like light diffracted, rarefied the entirety of the situation derisive. Somehow you remain constant. Pardon me in this seemingly torpid state. I am not lucid, it is evident that my mind is not placid. But for that brief minute I was eased.

A calming slice of sunshine amidst a terrible storm, my boat threatens to capsize in the high tide of a world I cannot control, I've fallen down the rabbit hole. I've dragged you into my twisting perception, I've burdened you with my locution. Shown you the gaping wound I'm nursing from choices of my own making. Perhaps it is time I stopped making excuses for my life's failings. Trimmings of the disease that stains my lips tonight.

Pardon my distraction, your eyes caught me as I was falling.

the monash ball 2008

I wrote this last semester about the Monash Ball for Monga, the issue was never published, so I figure I might as well post it. Enjoy.

Bright colours, lights, music, everything is so fluid, bodies swaying to a rhythm euphoric, this is our pantheon and for a moment we are the Gods, we are Zeus, we are Hera, we are Morpheus, we are Aphrodite, we are rulers. A pantheon designed for us, a pantheon for the people. Our pantheon, the Monash ball, the highlight of the university’s social calendar for us the students of this university, organised with the students in mind, themed, coloured, purposed for a night of memories, good ones at that.

The theme: Mardi gras or Fat Tuesday as the interpretation from French goes. The last day of carnival, a 3 day period before lent, the Christian fasting period similar to Ramadan. As Zhen Yao and Shazeea the MCs for the night quipped it’s not what you get after playing football on a wet field, muddy grass. No definitely not muddy grass, Mardi gras is a celebration of colour and music and dance and so the night was themed that way. The Mardi gras theme was brought to the students in the form of decorations and performances, the performances most of which by our own dance fusion club gave you a taste for the flair of a culture alien to us. A fashion show to highlight the sensual styles of carnival further opened eyes to a world far removed from our own. All of it being very pleasing.

The man behind it all, Manil De Run the activities chairperson. This writer knows firsthand the amount of planning that went into the ball. Preparations were being made as early as June and months of planning culminated into a night of brilliance.

Though what made the night were not the decorations or the music or the theme. The people, the Gods of this pantheon made the night. Their presence made the night, for without them all we would have had was an empty ballroom with pretty lights. Everyone was dressed to kill; the men looked sharp in their suits and the women enticing in their dresses. Every colour of the rainbow was represented in a glory and grace splendid. The students of Monash had never looked more beautiful.

When the dance floor opened, there we were dancing the night away. This writer had the privilege of rocking out the night on the dance floor with a very beautiful woman, one who knew how to sway her hips to the beat. And the scene he saw before his eyes was being played out across the dance floor. Boys and girls were dancing the night away, beautiful in their own right, graceful in their sway.

A night of memories, indeed memories were made with every conversation, with every passing smile, memories were made at the tables the students sat at and memories were made in the sway of the bodies on the dance floor. Memories were what the night was designed for and memories it gave you.

Although the night existed only for a moment and faded from the corporeal world, as time ever progressing forward took it from us, it continues to live on in our minds and our hearts with the memories we took from it. To quote a song by Eve6, “here is to the night we felt alive” and alive we were, we the Gods of this pantheon.