Where we come from

We came from the stars
We were born amongst the first fires
Within the processes that have continued for billions of years
we were forged and fashioned
The wombs of suns were our first home
and we stood, side by side, with the fragments of the cosmos
Do you remember? Do you remember the light? And the darkness?
I can still feel the heat and hear the vibrating atoms
I am taken back to the First Moment in my dreams and daytime reveries
This is where we come from
In the cradle of the universe, out in the measureless distance
Our origin and terminal repose

M.M. — 13-May-2015

"Darkness is a strange thing"

Transcribed from an audio recording.

Darkness is a strange thing. It has no real dimension, no possible way of being measured, as such. It seems to have some sort of depth, occupy some sort of space. But...its extent is...difficult to appraise, to gauge. Nightly I stare into the abyss and contemplate within it, both of it and the things that manifest themselves within it, as I sit there, as I am there.... There are things alive and living in the darkness. And not to be misunderstood, but not all things in the dark are dark. There are colourful things, lively with...almost a strange plumage of fascinating colours...or so it seems. They move freely in the dark, like they dart around, like sparks of light coming off, or sparking off, and just as soon extinguishing, or being extinguished. They move around in this dimensionless void. And yet they don't seem to go anywhere, per se. Maybe it's me who goes and they stay, in the same space, the same position. The infinity of the blackness is probably the most salient of things, its most salient characteristic. Its infinity...is represented by the...limitless...thoughts...that are conjured within it. They are so multifaceted, to say the least. Again, not all dark, but there certainly are some quite dark ones.... Sometimes I'm here for what seems like extended periods of time. But it's not really; it's just that time is almost...a void concept, a null concept. It does not apply in the void. As if there were no beginning and no end. Just as there is no width or height or depth. There is simply infinity and eternity.... And it is the most curious thing I've ever come across in my life.

M.M. — 22:52, 02-May-2015

Possibility

Limitations. Today I realised just how entrenched in my psyche limitations are. Lately I've been considering my own happiness and whether I'm doing all that I can to nurture it. I've realised that (for lack of a better word) "attaining" my happiness is blocked by certain barriers. And I don't mean barriers in the physical or external world; I mean the boundaries that enclose me and bar me from going forward, toward all the things that I want and all the things I believe are necessary for my being happy. I can see the man I would be if I were completely happy—or rather the versions of myself where I am replete with happiness and the scenarios that would allow that to happen. But certain things prevent me from becoming that man.

It's unimportant to detail what those things are, rather, it is that I'm now very conscious of how...insubstantial...they now seem to me. These limitations, I feel, could be toppled so easily...and yet they are the most stalwart impediments that I push against every damn day. But to take an example, I'm constantly being torn between my emotional mind and my rational mind. Between my "weaponised" logic and my primal emotion. And although I don't believe reason and emotion to be mutually exclusive (that makes no sense to me), I find it quite difficult to find the right "balance" such that both work for and not against my well-being.

But to return to this idea of insubstantiality: what is it? Why do I feel these limitations in my head could be knocked down with a simple push of the hand? That I could attain this happiness that I so desire? It is the possibility of happiness. That's what it is. It is that it is possible to break through the barriers in my mind, that I can fight for what I want. It is that I have the drive, the capability and the will to become the man I fantasise about. And there it is: the groundwork for the manifestation of the Will. That is, the inherent, and limitless, volition within me—within all of us—that steers our very souls.

M.M. — 06-May-2015

"Everday we fight our battles"

[Transcribed from an audio recording.]

For A.

Every day we fight our battles, each one of us. No matter how small or big, trivial or...fundamental, we all fight.... Sometimes I wonder what makes us fight, makes us continue. Why not just give up? What makes us so strong? Or want to be strong? Is it something that we're taught, something that we learn? Something that is expected of us? I don't think so. I think it's something that is...inherent in us. It is a natural part of us.... In my formative years, shall we say, I was so confused about who I was and what I was to become—or, who I wanted to be and what I thought I would become. But...there was something I always felt to be certain. That was my inner strength. It took me years to fully understand how to harness it. Even now I'm not sure how, how I learned to do that. But, then, that's just it: it's not learning, it's simply becoming. I became strong. I am strong. I know that it lives within me because it is a part of me, and I just know how to...live off it, drink from its source. Yes, I struggle every day—we all do. The reason why we don't just quit or give up is because...it's because our strength forbids it. It does not understand failure or capitulation. It is a foreign concept to it. No. We are not...ones for failure or defeat. We are victors. We are conquerors. And we will always strive against the tide.... Because...because we are...undefeatable.... We will always fight. We always fight until we have won.

M.M. — 22:59, 30-Apr-2015

The Sun Still Rises

I sit upon the shore, at the world's end
I sit upon the shore and contemplate the end
I sit and look up, expecting everlasting night
But the sun still rises

The weight of life, it hangs from my neck
The weight of life presses down upon my chest
The weight of life seems not to lose its might
But the sun still rises

I come in from the cold, looking old as time
I come in from the cold  with the chains that bind
I come in and think the frost better than my fright
But the sun still rises

The stars of the sky, they seem to always shine
The stars of the sky are of my kind, out in this night
The stars of the sky tell me there is always light
That the sun always rises

M.M. — 30-Apr-2015

"I asked her"

I asked her, "What is it that you makes your heart turn into flame?"
"I don't know," she said.
I asked her, "When was it when you first woke from your prison-dream?"
"I don't recall," she said.
I asked her, "Where is it you go when you let go of the world and let free your passions?"
"I don't know the place," she said.
I asked her, "To whom did you gift your soul, all fragile and yet impervious like steel?"
"I don't know their name," she said.
I asked her, "What is it that you would do if I told you who it was that first felt the birth-pangs of love?"
"I don't know what," she said.
I asked her, "What is that you know, then?"
She said, "That these questions need no answers."

M.M. — 28-Apr-2015

Love yourself

For a long time now I have believed that love must begin with yourself: you must first love yourself before you can truly love another. For loving yourself means that you know, and more importantly accept, everything about yourself. And when you know and accept yourself then you can give yourself to another, truly and wholly. Because loving another demands that you submit yourself to the care and keeping of another. True love then requires that your submission be genuine, and this genuineness can only come from submission to, and therefore love of, yourself. Come to love yourself first and love for others will naturally follow.

"When it first began"

When it first began, I do not quite remember
It may have been late one night last September
When first I saw her there in a lucent dress
With eyes bright like the moon and lustrous tress

It was slow at first, I think, like a calm forest stream
But when I finally noticed, I was too far within the dream
My mind, once so structured, ruptured in the rapture
I fell into her, fell into fathomless feelings and her capture

And when came night, each midnight, the dream took hold
As if my body fell into ice and was shackled by the cold
But a cold that was met with an equally fierce flame
Rippling through all my senses, a passion so untamed

Where this would take me I could hardly have known
Unknown like the secrets in her dusky eyes in which I was drowned
What she taught me, of myself and of love for another
Were something I had never felt before, and never by another

She was enervating and invigorating, this conqueress
And if I could have stopped it I would not have, I must confess
The constant disassembly and reconstruction in me was a thrill
A passion-fever, a near-addiction that I could just not kill

She, this beautiful thing, stepped out bare from some fantasy
A fantasy that I indulged in and voyaged blindly on its sea
With but a toss of her hair or an utterance of her voice
I was run through and torn apart, all allowed and by my choice

The bloodless savagery, the calming force—this was her way
A weighty, crushing silken caress, I remember it still, to this day
The dream left me changed, left me a little less whole as a man
But how I wish I was there again, there, when it first began

M.M. — 26-Apr-2015

Joseph Alexander

Joseph Alexander sat in his favourite coffee shop drinking his favourite tea counting the last days of his life. The coffee shop, despite being his favourite, was a place with very little character with very uninteresting people, or so Joseph Alexander would say to himself time and again. But there he sat, in his favourite seat—it was by the window, so that he wouldn't have to look at the décor—counting—day 1, day 2, day 3—all the very last days that he had left. "There will be a day when I will go to the library and read every book," he would say to himself. "And another when I shall go to that beach for first and last time." On he went, counting and listing everything that he planned to do, all methodical and quite neat. "I think one day I will save for a special occasion, to do something just absolutely wild. Perhaps I will go to the zoo!" Joseph Alexander continued like this for a good hour or so, and stared out the window, which had not been cleaned this morning, such that everything outside looked hazy and off. He did not quite know why he liked this coffee shop so much, but then, he did not like questioning these sort of things. He was much better as listing all of his "Last Days", he called them. He was very good at this; he did it every morning for as long as he could remember. When exactly any of these days would happen he would not dare, of course. That was not the point. It had nothing to do with when anything was going to happen, just simply that it was listed in proper order, so that when they did come he would know exactly what to do and how. And so Joseph Alexander kept on with his enumeration. Until Death walked in through the door.

M.M. — 21-Apr-2015

"Love"

Love. Love is what will save us from the darkness.
In the face of invisible onslaught of such ponderous weight,
The relieving light of love shall be the armour we so require.
It shall slash open the veil of night with its gleaming tempered sword;
With its heart of unbreakable metal it shall steady us and strengthen us.
What force within it! what hope!
This seemingly intangible thing we name "love".
But this nothing-thing shall be our salvation,
Our flame, fiercely burning bright—
Deep—deep in the dark of the night.

M.M. — 14-Apr-2015