The Final Call

Death And Its Apostles

Death And It's Apostles

"I live, I die; the sea comes over me, it's the blue that lasts."

    April 23rd, 2012. Shades of rusted medallion spread across the warm sky spoke to me in blisters and scars. The brisk Autumn winds roared, making their way through the steep Californian Valleys. I woke up to the sound of tempestuous arguments settling in like a heavy storm. There was no gravity; All the words floated mid-air without context. Loose bloody jaws cussed with rage and melted to the sound of breaking glasses in the corridor. Bloody wrists clanked, aiming for perfect ivory-colored walls. All my fears hurled in and formed allies against my beliefs. I was as blue as the stars. 8 ½ years old and on the run. I was a wildflower that grew amongst the blooming rosebuds; I was different. I was free.

We are all kings of our time. We reign for a decade or two until our time comes and we fall apart. We're all the same just with different statuses.

"A throne is only a bench covered with velvet."

    May 30th, 2012. All the kings were falling. Their Thrones were smeared in shades of garnet. What was once brotherly blood is now a broken promise sealed with stitches. What's deadlier is knowing that the scars remain. Each reminding us of the hate that took over our hearts when the moon was full that Sunday evening. We gazed across as meteors crossed over and the sun and moon lay abandoned in the sheltered sky. The gods were falling apart in the same sacred sky. The Titans and Olympians, shattered, into miniscule specs of light. They sat high above us all watching guilt take over sinners who once worshipped the stars. What have we become? The pastors question as they sip on their last shot of love. The nuns assemble, their prayers echo into the hollow chests of those who have had trouble differentiating between sins and tragedies.

    12th May 2012, I lost again. Against myself and the voice that exists inside my head. I made my way to the other side only to realize I had been spinning my way across, through the same maze. I was where I had started. Everything felt heavy that day; from the sound of their arguments to the pounding in my chest. My vision blurred as I approached the dark blue canvas placed in one dark corner of my room. Yet the closer I got, the darker everything felt. The blue on the canvas looked more and more like a crepuscular black. I laid down on my bed, facing the ceiling, counting all the fractures in each corner. I put my headphones on and jammed onto "Cold Little Heart" by Michael Kiwanku. I felt blue again with a feeling of stillness and comfort moving through me. The kind of blue the sky feels when it's raining. The kind of blue touches the deepest wounds.

Growing up, nobody ever warned me about my brutality. The sun was always a star and the stars were nothing but distant bodies. Yet I learned to see beyond what I was told and taught. Therapy never worked for me but there was something alleviating about staring at static bodies, twinkle in the abandoned night sky, that'd bring me to the right state of mind. I witnessed tranquility drift further and further out from my Universe. At a very young age of only 8 years, I experienced re-birth; I was diagnosed with Derealization Depersonalization Disorder. Slowly my past started becoming part of my present and the present scripted sonnets that stretched out to the forsaken future. What I saw was part of a created illusion that only existed within my head. I was tired of holding it back; the pain and the pressure. Yet there was something about holding on that made me want more of what my disorder served. They tell you-you're unusual, not like any of the kids you go to school with. You start to feel uncomfortable in your skin as if you don't belong. Yet all you can do is accept it because there is no escape. You have to learn to embrace yourself for who you are, but part of you denies it. You fear you'll lose yourself in the process but you're faithful.

Fear changes form. I saw fear as an emotional response that was represented to me in the form of Spiders at the age of 4. As time passed it progressed from Spiders to heights to the fear of witnessing my family break apart to the fear of losing the feeling of knowing what home felt like. Yet at this point, I was living my fear. Your fears never leave you once you decide to resist their presence. They remain like every other constant feeling burning wild inside you. I've lost the world to someone I held close. I've lost myself to this feeling of never belonging anywhere. This constant yet eerie feeling of existing only inside my thoughts. Not being ok with moving past that. Now that I look back, I wish I could go back in time. I'd look at myself in the eye and tell me that it really was ok to agree.

Death: the word itself strikes fear in my heart. We look at death as if it is an unfortunate myth we all fear, never take the time to peer beyond the word itself. Death is like a disease that all of us carry. It's a part of us; the stage of eternal peace. It takes acceptance to clear the fear of death out of your heart however it takes wisdom to acknowledge it. I spent my days reading Paul Kalanithi's "When Breath Becomes Air". The relativity of his world and how it connected with mine was poignant. It generates this strong feeling of despondency that is impossible to leave behind. I sat there, somewhere where the sky felt safe to look at, inside my thoughts, trying to understand Death and it's 12 apostles.