When you dance with the devil....

... the devil don't change. The devil changes you.

And when you willingly invite him across your threshold, don't be surprised when he sets up shop.

Why do I do it to myself? Why this incessant, moth-to-a-flame like attraction to that which I know repulses me, and will only subsequently create misery and heartache in the longrun. What dark desires dwell in the hearts of the common man is no secret to anyone with any experience of people, yet I find myself surprised by the fact that I'm still surprised about what I find is truly in peoples souls, that same black roiling river of selfishness and decadent desires that serve to unify us all. Am I thirsting for purity? Clearly not, as purity would not satisfy those same desires that, I too, am a slave to. Furthermore, the last time I had what could be described as purity and held it in the palm of my hand, it withered, died, and the fragments of it blew away in the wind like a dessicated flower on an autumn breeze.

The question is, how to live with it, if one indeed can. Is it right to wander around, pretending that you're okay with the dynamic when in reality there is a rock sat in your gut, a boulder forged from a mix of anger, disappointment, shame, inadequacy, confusion and sadness. I am not ignorant to my situation, I am aware that my investment in my situation is a whole and total one and that should I or it fail, I am truly left fluttering in the wind. So is one to modify (see 'lower') ones expectations and decide to make peace with that which pulls at the consciousness like a loose thread day in, day out? Or alternatively make known ones feelings, disclose that potentially arbitrary issue and hazard the risk of being called out as overreacting, petty and insecure? Is that what I am?

Perhaps I'll discuss it with the devil. He has set up camp, and one way or another, he's here for good.

You are my

Thalidomide

The Marionette

I have been mulling it all over and I think I have had just about enough of you making me feel and look like a fool. You have had more grace than you realistically deserve given your past indiscretions, and I am starting to find being endlessly at the mercy of your whims rather irksome. Say what you might about what the purpose of this period of self analysis and exile from me may be intended to accomplish, I am starting to feel that you think I am some kind of plaything, that you may toy with my affections and take endless liberties with the good graces I give you, safe in the conceit that I will just sit patiently for you to make your mind up (all the while you knowing full well that you will do no such thing) and wait for you to wave your hand, beckon me, and that I will come bounding along joyfully like a lapdog happy to see its master home.

I wonder what it may mean for me then that you are right?

A Looking in View

Well yes, I am sure you are sorry. Like I said before I blame myself for putting my head in the lions mouth and expecting it not to close shut. I knew what I was letting myself in for when it happened so I can't sit there and say I am the victim because I willingly and openly deconstructed every defence I had spent so long putting up in the hope that you may come to feel the same way. In a way you are probably right because things have probably irreversibly changed for us forever in the sense that its going to be quite difficult to be friends when I feel like I do about you, especially now you know. It was easier to pretend before and just enjoy your company and hope that one day that things could be different. Then, for a brief fleeting moment I held you in the palm of my hand and dared to hope that things might just turn out ok. Then, just like that, everything fell apart and I was not only back to square one but also beating the hell out of myself for opening my heart to someone, something which I had long ago vowed to never do again, as the risk of getting ones fingers burned (like I did) is too much to bear. Now things are better but it will not take long to be around you in any way before the ache returns. I was forced to reveal my feelings in a very last ditch and hopelessly desperate attempt to keep hold of you when in my heart of hearts I knew you had already slipped away. Try as I might I could not resent you or curse your name because as I said I looked at it as all my fault. But some things don't change, and one of those things will always be how I feel about you. Because of that always bubbling under the surface it is probably going to make us having any kind of platonic relationship all the more difficult. Because I know it will never change. So once again, more to chew over before you decide to proceed any further. x

An Angel took off and flew away home

18/01/11 - I love you so, so much. I cannot believe you're no longer here, that centre of gravity that I have orbited around my entire life.. We will never, ever forget you, I owe you everything. I hope you know how much you mean to me, and how my life will never be the same without you in it. Don't be scared now, theres nothing to be frightened of. Go off and be with the other angels, I will see you again when its my time to join you. Keep safe, look in on me, Paul and Sophie from time to time. Let me know you're there if you can. I lit a candle for you so you can see me from where you are.

I love you Mum, rest your head now.

Matthew x x

The Shape of Things to Come

Wings over the World. What to make of that I wonder. The much discussed parallels and similarities between H,G Wells's seminal work from the 1930's and events that have since come to pass are staggering. Submarine launched ballistic missles, tensions between so-called 'super powers' leading to social and economic degradation and eventual destruction, various wars and conflicts in the pacific and beyond. What it must be to have such foresight in fancy, to create literature based on excrutiatingly detailed analysis of the ways of the world, with all of its political posturing, religious dogma, social alienation and endless rheotoric.

The Wings over the World. Friend, or foe? A brutal organisation dedicated to oppression of free speech and free thought? Or a forward thinking, dynamic and ultimately benevolent benefactor intent on diverting an errant humankind from its hell bent path of self destruction? I prefer the idea of the latter, though I am certain many would beg to differ.

What it would be to be able to apply a shard of the same ideals to my own future. Both from the authors point of view and from the viewpoint of the characters detailed therein. To be able to see even a few days into the future would be a blessing indeed, to be able to gauge even the tiniest of ideas about what may lay in store the most welcome of tonics. The reality of the inevitability and hopelessness of the situation was acknowledged, accepted, and possibly even overcome, seemingly a good deal of time ago. Yet the acceptance of these undeniable facts have eradicated one question mark by throwing multiple alternatives into its place. How will I feel? How will they feel? Why don't I feel anything? Will I ever? How will we live? How will I?

How to be objective, the wings over my own world, if you will. Am I already my own fiercest protector? Have I armoured myself so comprehensively so as to render myself literally impregnable? Have I, in my eternal struggle to keep the levity in the gravest of predicaments, ultimately lost sight of the gravity of it altogether? I feel nothing but a deep and penetrating numbness. It had always been my idea that the pain and anguish accrued from the years of living beneath the sword of damocles would at this point become apparent, eventually unfurling themselves from that deep dark place in the pit of my stomach where I had chosen to house them, and allow me to cut them loose. Instead, a void has opened inside me, a vaccuum sits in that place, one that I am beginning to believe is permanent. In my efforts to become the wings over my own world, I fear I have brutally oppressed my own emotioanl empathy to the point of non-existence.

The future is a dark and uncertain place.

'Well it's late in the hour
And a few more grains of sand will fall
And the colourful flowers, drawn upon the dust and moss
Now I fear the worst is near
I hold them close and count their years
I pray a ray of light appears
To shine down on us here

Break down in the shape of things to come
But I'm moving on like a soldier
And I pray now, when all is said and done,
Its not ours to break, the shape of things to come'

Taken from 'Shape of Things to Come' - Audioslave, from the album 'Revelations'

Unreliable Narration

I feel like one of those old divers, you know the guys in the metal suits? The ones with the big round helmet with the gridded faceplate and a metal starfish shaped body that was connected to an umbilical which fed the inhabitant oxygen and no doubt other life sustaining gases. Just like one of those, floating around at the bottom of the ocean, totally listless yet connected to something, something familiar. Never quite drifting away, but never quite really being pulled back to safety. Peering through the gridded faceplate into the murky depths, unsure of what could lay in wait, out there in the dark and the cold. The only certainty is that it is definitely dark, and definitely cold.

Outside looking in.

The unseen observer.

The fly on the wall.

The unreliable narrator.

Know what I mean? I am fully aware that I lie in the belly of the beast, I see it with both eyes as clear as day, feel it in my heart and at the very core of my being. Yet something is so hardened to its horrors that its almost as if its not actually happening, like its someone elses life and I am just watching a movie or reading it in a magazine, looking on as the pitiful events unfold right before my eyes. It can't be indifference? So when does the bird come home to roost? When to pay the piper? I ask myself daily if I really am being as strong as I think I am, or if in fact my heart has become so hardened to the harsh realities of things so as to become almost unreachable by them. I cannot think that I am that well prepared.

Many an insulating conceit has proved effective up to now. Best to I continue to shroud myself in those and take refuge in what appears to the outside than to contemplate what manner of foul beast may lurk within.

Yours,

The Unreliable Narrator

Advice for the Cold at Heart

I once heard that the best way to start a piece of writing is with a question. Well my question is this. How to console the inconsolable? And how to repair the irrepairable? When presiding over the wreckage of something so comprehensively annihilated through years of bombardment, how can one contemplate reconstruction? A blasted, barren landscape indeed lies before us. How on earth is anyone surprised it has come to this?

When a nebulous, nefarious individual such as our hapless antagonist dedicates year upon hateful year to whittling down good graces, chipping merrily away at peoples tolerance levels until all those but the ones with the biological and marital ties to him abandon him as the lost cause he has workly tirelessly to present himself as, you tell me how to look upon that man with sympathy and forgiveness. With understanding. For the he lies on a bed of nails of his own making. Irretrievable? Inconsolable. Irrepairable.

Yet despite these undeniable and unavoidable facts, one still feels compelled to fruitlessly pick up ones tools and dedicate time and effort to separating the myriad shattered mirror pieces in the vain hope that one might be able to somehow find symmetry in their jagged edges, find the parts that match each other and in time find some way to fuse them back together through sheer effort of will. A misguided enterprise indeed I fancy.

I heard someone once say that the definition of insanity is the repetition of actions with the expectation of differing results.

We rest, my lord.

Seven Moons and Seven Suns

How long to wait? How much more anguish? How much more pain for you, and for those around you? It seems so long that we've had this in our lives that its difficult to remember anything else. Here we stand under the sword of damocles and its grip on the chain seems more tenuous than ever, yet its difficult to know what to truly feel. The whole situation is such a swirling miasma of raw emotion that its difficult to stop, step back and take an emotional inventory. I think know what I should be feeling, but the biggest thing I sense is a numb ache in the pit of my stomach as I attempt to contemplate a very uncertain future and a nagging sense that something is missing. For five long years I (and all) have wrestled with what the future might hold, now it has come to pass it seems that the future has simply ceased to be.

All I can say at this point is that you are loved more than you can know. In time I will come to find out whether I told you how much enough, whether I did enough to let you know how grateful I am that you bought me up the way you did. I suspect after this analysis I will be found wanting, but I cannot muster any other means of expressing the inexpressable. In a sense, that is the biggest and most onorous of emotional burdens, as those of us who are mature enough to have acepted the inevitability of the situation should surely have by now instead tried to focus our energies on the expression of the sincerest sentiment that can be assembled under such circumstances. But my biggest fear is that you will leave us not ever really knowing what you have been to me, what you have achieved in your desperate battle not only over recent years with your condition but in the wider amphitheatre of life itself, and just how different things could have been if you were not the amazing person you are.

Unfortunately words are merely words. What else....? What else?