Capricious

27 - Pandora's Box

"We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world."
- Siddhārtha Gautama

I said I wouldn't, but I don't dare refuse. As soon as I do, the boulders are lifted from my chest and mind. It's the fastest and surest way to lift off and fly, gliding through valleys in my own impossible world. These surreal plains that melt the rigid, oppressive worlds that I have no part of, stumbling along constantly, never understanding a thing. There I do not know, here I know it all. It is all mine. You cannot capture me here, you cannot suppress me here, you cannot torture me here. Here I am not confused. It all means something different. The night is dark and full of terrors, but the day shines bright and I can yet be free.

Surging through brilliant trippy dreams all night in a lucid haze of comforting escape. Somehow it all means more. Alive and living by no rules at all. Effortlessly lounging through time without a care. Sleep rescues me from the darkness of days, tiredness fades, I have recovered all I need. I find myself welcoming the day. If only I could stay so distant.

An explosion of excitement, almost too much to bear. Witnessing beauty of the eye and ear and mind, dribbling with delight. I put off lonely things to embrace all these others have to give. Snapshots of fascinating and glorious wonder, delicacies of far off worlds, sounds shaking an avalanche deep within. With those unprejudiced, that allow me to be whatever I am, they make it all better, to share these things with them. Our minds melting in caressing, in secrets, in chemical bliss. I stop caring of the power that beseeched the previous spells of my ever-changing existence. This is my life.

Hard-hitting personality shifts confused by the change of environment, slowly adapting to become something else, a residual mood left behind perhaps. Too busy to think, too busy to write. I can't feel those dreamy worlds as I used to. The power of my imagination feeding into reality rather than expressing the depths of my mind. I'm moving on from this, prioritising time of life for new enchantments. But do I dare escape it entirely and forever?

Am I only a collaboration of all I know, everyone I've met, all I read about? Do I extract from every source? Is that why I'm so confused? Why I change so often? Am I not original in the slightest?

It's only building up to this, yet when it finally arrives the dream fades from existence, never to be realised. For life is a constant journey without a destination. But I'm back in another world now. She strokes me so promiscuously, we playing as friends, once more unto the breach. But then I lose her, I lose them all, found by my wake instead. My sleep may be distorted, but my dreams are lucidifying still.

Thick dark shadow looming over me, swelling and spoiling and possessing me. It steals time. It breaks me. I hate myself, more and more and more. My future disappears. My present disappears. There's nothing left. No emotions. No thoughts. Just this dull, empty, lifeless ache. It's all I have. It's all I have.

I'm apart from myself, living in a broken machine. What I do, what I feel, what I live, none of it reflects who I am, what I want to be. It does things it shouldn't do. It's not me. I am not me. I know what I am doing, but I cannot stop it. I am simply an audience to my mind, my body. So I must be something else, a soul, a ghost, a consciousness. Or else it's all in my head.

I am who I am. That's fine. Others' opinions do not matter, they are a reflection of them, not of me. But still I'm scared, still I do not know who I am, yet I cannot waste my time in sorrow. I must stop hating myself. If I live just an average life, that's okay too. All I can do is appreciate every little thing, not expect anything, not try and force the unnatural, take a different perspective on who I am. I have to make sure I am not being oppressed by the scars left on my mind, just go with the flow and never regret a thing. I am who I am.

It was brilliance. To see sprayed out my love of what I now adore. Hand crafted symbols and colours and tastes. Mad beauty created by those who do endeavour to be weird and wonderful, and in that I love. The simple fact that they are who they are, their lives all so at the prime of dawn, they have found their identity. So beautiful. I admire it all, love to appreciate such creations they are, such wonders they sell, and share with them just a little. Walking through it all on tightrope swaying, ready to fall into any world if only if it chose to take me, and I do so want one to. I bask in it all and smile with joy, prancing from one stand to the next, seeing others that appreciate the same as I, they share that with me. It's connection, that's all that matters. I'm not alone in this. If I just be me in all this then maybe I will be seen, maybe by lovers as pure and open and loving as me. Maybe I will catch an eye, a stare, a smile. Maybe I will catch a life in mine, each and every one beautiful in every way.

Now I am becoming this, what I am, and I will show you in every way possible. This is who I am. Truly so different. I am happy, I am confident, I am blooming more than ever before. I see your beauty, I wish to live it too, but only if I am right for you.