Known to be agile
my mind runs away
leaving me with the mess
of a heartbreak.
‘Do you think we can drink there?’
‘No I heard it was cursed.’
‘But surely a small sip wouldn’t hurt.’
‘I wouldn’t but I can’t stop you.’
‘If anything happens, tell my mom I love her.’
‘Don’t do it then, Gareth.’
‘I can’t help it, I’m very thirsty. We’ve been walking for ten days now and we barely had enough water to quench our thirst.’
‘I heard if you drink from it you will be faced with your biggest nightmare. There’s another stream up ahead, can’t you be patient a bit more?’
‘I’ll try. I just hear it calling me, like a siren. Gaaaareeetthhhhh… Gaaaareeetthhhhh… so softly and gently. Can’t you hear your name?’
Silence…
‘I hear it!!! I hear it calling me too!’
‘Do you think anything that is cursed can be so beautiful?’
‘Yes, let’s try to block out the sound and walk forward.’
The walk towards the lake became harder as the mountain got steeper. They knew it was best to turn to the left side, to take the road most sane people would take but the call cannot be ignored. Gareth and Liam heard their names being called over and over again, a sweet Siren singing and waiting for her loved one. They both were best friends and archaeologists who got onto this adventure in attempt to find out more about a temple built in the 4th Century A.D. There were numerous rumors about such a temple and the village people all said that they would see the temple rise up to the top of the mountain every forty days. It was then that they would lay their offerings of fruits, vegetables, meat, and poultry at the bottom of the mountain and initiate a dance of pledges to the Gods of the mountains and the holy temple within. They also knew that the lake was cursed, and that nobody should drink from it and that when a person does, he is struck with madness.
Gareth and Liam didn’t pay attention to the folk tales and were determined to see the temple rise. They arrived in Odes just one day after the supposed rise and were waiting anxiously for the days to pass. They were reluctant, skeptical, and finally hopeful and never gave up. They started the walk and had no help from Odesians who held onto each other in fear.
The lake was calling them. They heard their names so clearly as they reached near it and their thirst increased tenfold with the dry air. It was Liam who saw them first. Creatures that looked like mermaids splashing in and out of the water with their long hair.
‘Mermaids!’
‘No nymphs, they don’t have tails.’
They decided to hide from sight and watch the magic they were meant to witness.
The sunlight shone directly on a golden rock situated in the middle of the lake. Each of the nymphs entered the water three times, her skin turning from a subtle yellow to a pink, a blue, and finally to lilac. She would then sit on the rock and brush her hair with a wooden comb into a side braid tied with a piece of grass. Finally, she would walk on the water towards the big olive tree and sit down, singing. It seemed to be a method of cleansing, a baptism of sorts, as each nymph did exactly the same. When the final nymph took its place and formed a semi circle of beauty, the earth shook and the lake opened. From within, twelve men wearing white robes marched up stairs that weren’t there before. They approached the beautiful creatures and each took one in his hand and led her to the wide opening in the trees.
The singing continued and it seemed like it was coming from all around. The sound of a harp and a flute playing light music. They started dancing. Smiles and laughter filled the air and suddenly, they felt themselves rise above ground. Gareth and Liam smiled at each other in disbelief as the lake with its surroundings rose to the top of the mountain. They could see the lights of the village below, see the offerings next to the three torches, and were wondering in awe. It was spectacular.
A few hours of dance, the temple, they realized, started to descend. The men went back in the lake and the nymphs walked into the dense trees behind them. All the magic was gone.
‘What was that!?’
‘I don’t know. Let’s go back and tell everyone’
‘Yes.’
They walked in silence, repeating what they saw and reliving every moment. They tried to reach conclusions as to why this happens and who are those men but didn’t find the answer.
A few steps towards Odes and all this will be recorded. Yes, just a few more steps and we will be famous! Gareth and Liam.
Gaaaaareeeetttthhhhhh….. Liiiiiiiaaaaaaaaaaaaaamm….
‘I don’t want to leave.’
‘Leave what?’
‘here.’
‘What’s here?’
‘hmm.. I don’t know. Why are we here?’
‘I think we wanted some water. Let’s not drink from this lake, I heard it’s cursed.’
‘Let’s just go back down, there’s no rising temple.’
‘What a waste of time.’
Image from https://www.zerochan.net/2104818
Last year, I posted my Gratitude post wishing everyone a happy new year and remembering all things I am grateful for. This year, I would like to dedicate my post to the readers of my post who have been a big part of my life.
I write because I want to be heard. Sometimes it is hard to say something and other times it’s harder to find the right person to talk to. So when I am sitting behind a laptop I enter another world. A world of words, a world of sentences, poetry, prose, and stories.
Thank you for the likes, the comments, and the follows. Thank you for the prompts, other blogs, and for the reblogs. Thank you for your support.
And finally, 2032 views, 1368 visitors, 354 likes, 50 comments, and 60 posts later… thank you, 2017, for being kind.
Wishing you all a happy and prosperous new year 2018.
Confess yourself:
let my eyes see what they long to see
and my ears hear your innermost desires.
Open your soul to me
watch closely as I tread into the folds of your being
and pick memory after memory to read.
Confess yourself:
let my being merge with yours
and my hands touch your unfulfilled dreams.
Allow my entrance
into the make-believe life you created
and water the flowers on your bed.
Confess yourself:
let me understand your deepest thoughts
and my soul drink from the lips of your eternity.
Allow my intrusion
for I have lost everything I am
when I found you.
‘Are you a frog or a prince?’
‘A princess actually.’
‘I was just kidding I didn’t expect you to talk.’
‘Why not?’
‘This is not real!’
‘Define real’
‘Anything that is tangible. Anything we can use our senses to identify’
‘I beg to differ. There are intangible things that are real too. Things we know in our minds which cannot be clearly conceptualized’
‘Such as?’
’The truth’
‘Is the truth real?’
‘It depends. Is it my truth or your truth?’
‘My truth, of course.’
‘Your truth is real for you but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s real for me’
‘Give me an example’
‘Flies, to me, taste good. This is the truth I reached have used my sense of taste. I don’t think you would prefer flies over whatever you had for breakfast this morning’
‘Why isn’t there one truth for us all?’
‘Because that means we have to conceptualize things the same way, but we don’t have the same senses nor do we share the same thoughts.’
‘How is it that we need to use our limited and subjective senses to conceptualize and define our personal intangible truth, and then hold onto it without questioning the lack of logic behind our theories? If we need to define the truth with our senses does it mean that our senses are superior to the truth?’
‘It means we are blessed with the tools to think but what we do with these tools are entirely up to us. Some people use these tools to live their days and some use these tools to find out more about what we are doing on this world and the truth we all seek.’
‘Do all living creatures seek the truth?’
‘Some already found their truths and are living happily’
‘What truth should we be looking for?’
‘A good truth to start searching for is why you stopped to talk to a frog? What truth are you coming from?’
‘Ah but that is not the question here, princess. The question is why do you consider yourself a princess where I can clearly see you as a frog’
‘Is that true?’
‘It’s true for me’
‘If I see myself as a princess then that’s my truth regardless of what you see’
‘You are a frog’
‘And you think so because you see that using your subjective biased and limited sight?’
‘Yes’
‘And you are basing your theory on your subjective, biased, and limited senses?’
‘Yes’
‘Then, my dear child، you have learned nothing’
With the bombardment of young, skinny, and tall girl pictures on every conceivable media, we normal people start questioning ourselves. The idea that these images are photoshopped just helps us sleep at night as we try to ignore the gorgeous girls we meet face to face in reality. Well, guess what? It doesn’t matter how these women look, it matters how you perceive yourself.
Right? Isn’t this what we are told to teach our daughters? Aren’t we supposed to show them that inner beauty is all that matters even though snapchat filters are great for your pride? Images of 14 year old girls then vs. 14 year old now are hilarious and yet, so not hilarious because of what they represent. Maybe she’s born with it? Maybe it’s makeup or maybe it’s plastic surgery.
In my brainwashed mind, I’ve come to perceive tall and skinny as beautiful and elegant. When a tall and skinny lady wears a dress, it looks good. It basically falls on her with so much grace that the short and stubby will never have because when she wants to wear a long dress she needs to have it first altered to be her length and then she needs to buy grandiose heels to compensate for the lack of height. She also needs a corset or a ridiculous diet for a few years in advance.
Also, tall girls have longer legs. Do you understand that? They have more “leg”. They also have more “arm” and more “torso”. So their weight gets divided around and the 150 pound tall girl looks great but when it comes to the 150 pound short girl she “needs to lay off the carbs.”
Well, in my mind, I am tall and skinny. I will always love to eat my carbs and I will always have less “leg, arms, and torso” to distribute my weight. Because of my predisposition towards elegance being for the tall and skinny, I think I have altered my self perception to that of a model because I don’t hate myself. I actually like myself very much and don’t mind the extra pounds around.
Yes, in my mind I’m tall, skinny and elegant. #grateful
The world is vast and the opportunities endless. It is our perception of values that keep us planted into areas we no longer wish to be. Roots that no longer exist in this age where every person watches out for himself. Gone are the days where neighbors cared to watch over your children as you get yourself a haircut and gone are the days where you can expect people to care about you.
Family ties are weakening. It is the naive who think otherwise and who hold onto the hope that Sunday family dinners make a difference. What difference when we are distracted by the outside on the tips of our fingers? Children stopped visiting their mothers and don’t ask about their fathers anymore. Days go by, weeks pass, and months turn into years if we let them because we think that we can easily relocate into somewhere with less responsibilities. Yes, the world is vast and the opportunities endless, but where would you relocate? And if you choose to relocate, would it really make a difference where you go?
Humans are social creatures and the lone wolf cannot survive without a pack, one way or the other. We are not sole survivors nor can we delete all roots that connect us to our past. We can relocate our bodies but can we relocate who we are in the midst of the hazy lines between cultures, races, and countries? Are we turning into global citizens or are the homogeneous clusters we see around a representation of the roots we ignore? Can we really merge or will we always have our differences?
Are we ready to relocate our minds before our bodies or is breaking new ground the hip thing to do? Yes, we are not trees and we can move but we must move our perceptions to understand that sometimes relocating does not necessarily mean forgetting who we are.
Crumpled paper covers every flat surface of his room, he can’t get the eyes right. He is usually very good at sketching portraits but the eyes were haunting him. It all started one day in his dream. He dreamed he was sitting next to the lake hand in hand with a lady dressed in a light blue dress. She had her head covered by an over-sized hat and her delicate fingers wrapped in pink lace gloves. Her brown hair did not move. It was propped and primped into soft waves that cascaded around her face and framed her small features. She was looking down at her hands and her long thick lashes set themselves ever so gently on her cheekbones.
He wondered who the lady may be but didn’t know how ask. He was afraid to speak lest the calmness be disturbed by his voice. He wanted to whisper her name, but what was her name? He studied her face and the bridge of her nose while her eyelashes fluttered with the breeze. She was exquisitely beautiful, perfect in every way imaginable to man and he wondered what she was doing with him.
He coughed gently, trying to get her attention and to feast his eyes upon her face. He saw her cheeks rise in a smile and the glisten of her teeth between her rosy lips as she raised her face to look at his. That’s when he saw her eyes.
He tried to sketch them again and again but nothing comes close to the captivating spell of her lashes. Nothing comes close to the arch of her eyebrow, nothing comes close to the glimmer reflecting in her iris, and no shade of blue comes close to the depth of her inner sea. He was mesmerized at that moment, captured in her jail and transferred to eternal salvation. Or is it damnation? He knew that it was then that he lost all sanity and no longer became a free man. He knew that it was she who held the key to his heart forever.
Crumpled papers turned to canvases and walls filled with pencil sketches, oil paints, water colors, chalks, and markers. Nothing of the ordinary seemed valuable to him anymore as he continued his search for the perfect eye. He looked forward to sleep every night just to see her again but sleep became scarce and hope disintegrated into madness. Madness that consumed his soul and he was left with nothing but crumpled papers and a dream.
Life takes us forward for a reason. Things that happened in the past should stay in the past; you should only carry the lessons you learned forward. People you once knew and no longer know shouldn’t be thought of, you are just wasting your time paying attention to a minor detail that no longer matters in the course of your life.
Seize your day. Be happy where you are and live in the moment. There are many things we take for granted and cannot see because our eyes are focused on the rear view mirror. Life is a one way street that needs to be treasured. It is the journey that matters, the only journey you will have, so make it count.
Laugh with your loved one. Don’t let your pride stand in the way. Apologize when you’ve made a mistake because nothing matters. Hold values in the center of your being and make sure nothing alters what you’re truly made of.
A one way street, focus forward.
Bedoor Bluemoon 