The Impossible Dream

There is no pleasure without the pain.
Those words run through my mind, again and again.
With three other words that I'm aching to say,
That end up unspoken at the end of the day.

The pain that I suffer makes me want to die,
To leave this cruel world and go touch the sky.
To leave behind what I know and embrace the unknown
Because they say that the future isn't written in stone.

My tears fall in silence in the darkest of night.
I try to hold back, though I have not the might.
I dream that a day will come to me soon
Where I'll be held in your arms 'neath the light of the moon.

Dreams are the essence of the lives that we want.
They torture and tease, encourage and taunt.
I would live there forever if it meant you were mine,
To hover in warmth until the end of all time.

Your touch is a whisper that brushes my mind.
Your kiss is a treasure that I'm struggling to find.
Your smile is a diamond that shines with the stars,
And I stand alone, forced to watch from afar.

I reach out to touch you, to stroke your long hair
Yet my fingers find nothing and brush against air.
And my heart cracks and bleeds and it echoes my scream,
To know that our meeting is the Impossible Dream.

(Old poem from November 2003. I would definitely have made a few changes to it if it was written today!)

Sweet Dreams

This is my nightmare.
Tried, tested and true.
I built it with the remnants
Of my memories of you.

This is my nightmare.
Hope you'll stay a while.
I've got loads of nasties
That won't make you smile.

This is my nightmare.
Founded from regret.
Of the times that we've lost.
Of the day that we met.

This is my nightmare.
Tried, tested and true.
I hope that you'll like it
Since I built it for you.

Sweet dreams...

(I actually wrote this in October 2004. I really like it so I'm putting it here!)

Set the World On Fire

I stepped through the smoke
Into a world forgotten
Expecting to see you there
I gasped and choked
Standing alone
Adrift in a sea of insanity

I'm drowning and lost
What can I possibly do
The sands of time
Have taken their toll
Quills and ink are my only refuge

You've left me alone
Choking on smoke
I'm drowning at sea
When you once carried me
Over the water
Your strength was my lifeboat
Now you'd leave me to die
And I refuse to understand why

It won't ever be the same
You've probably forgotten my name
When I remember the rhythm
Of your heart when you slept

Now as I sink to the bottom
Of my ocean of sorrow
I'll have to get through tomorrow
Somehow in some way

I need to rise from the ashes
Of the pyre you built for me
And fly up on the wings of flame
If I fly in too close
And set you on fire
Then you'll only have yourself to blame

(This is purely fictional from a character's point of view, not mine.)

The Ghost and the Shade

One summer night within the Reach
'Twas then their fate began
Some claim she was a woman once
Some say he was a man

Drawn tightly by ethereal strings
To each one they were bound
'Twas long ago their living forms
Were buried in the ground

Such sweetness in her deadened gaze
His shadowed form stood tall
She was the Ghost of love denied
He the Shade and though he tried
She would not remain at his side
She would not speak at all

Her silence echoed through his mind
She never spoke a word
A voice that once sang like the breeze
Forever now unheard

He asked her name at every night
The shadows were his home
She'd never say but come what may
He'd never be alone

Such sweetness in her deadened gaze
His shadowed form stood tall
She was the Ghost of love denied
He the Shade and though he tried
She would not remain at his side
She would not speak at all

-WORK IN PROGRESS-

It's Just A Dream

Why is it that when I sleep, in those moments when I dream, I am a completely different person? The lack of confidence, of self-worth, either rises or fades and I am another being, an individual unlike the person I am when I am awake.

I am not lonely, never lonely, in my dreams. You're there, so close and so real, like sunlight on my skin after a gloomy day of rain and cold. It's just a dream but you're with me. We do those things we can't do when I'm awake and there are no limits. A trip takes an instant but the memory of it is still full and rich like the real thing. We went to the museum the other night, admired the paintings of ancient masters, laughed and got lost, questioned the visuals and asked each other "What does it say to you?" while trying not to giggle over how stuffy we sounded.

While we thought it was ridiculous, we still shared how the paintings made us feel, what we saw, and learned more about each other.

A blink of an eye later, we were in the park. The lighting was surreal, gold and silver blended to illuminate the flowers, giving them an ethereal glow as if they were all haloed angels in a rainbow of colours.

Then we were kissing and the swelling emotion in my heart paled in comparison to the emotions of real life. The love of dreams has no boundaries and no deception. It is love in its purest form and you can fall in love every night with a different person...or so it was before I met you. Now it's all for you.

It's morning, we're lying side by side in your bed. "Mmmmemory foam," we keep saying to each other and laugh, how we laugh! This is more memory than dream but it's not real. There's more light than ever before, drifting in through the window. There are no dust motes in the air, just illumination, our laughter, our skin touching as we cuddle and I'm left to realize, in a part of my mind, that it's just a dream.

There's no time, no schedule.  There's just us; you and me, close like we can't be in life, closer than we were before. No limits and no boundaries.

Dreams are the lives we want most for ourselves and the instrument of hope.

The List

I was re-watching a favourite video of mine just now and it reminded me that I have yet to write a list of things I want to accomplish.

I've said so a few times but I'll reiterate it here: Neil Gaiman has been an idol of mine for quite a while. I've always wanted to be a writer and now, in most ways, I am that. I've been kicking myself lately because I'm supposed to write something every day and I had convinced myself that I'm not but, in truth, I write more often than I realized.

In most of the computer games I play, I've rolled characters on roleplay servers. This means that I plunge into the lore/storyline of that game by creating a character and playing its role accordingly. There's lots of improvisation involved as you often don't know what the other characters around you--controlled by other players--will be like.

I feel roleplay in MMORPGs  (massive multi-player online roleplaying games) has given me a lot of insight on how various characters work. I've used my imagination and attempted to create interesting characters while following and remaining true to the preset lore of the game.

So yes, I do feel like I write often.

As for a list, I thought about it for a long time and here's the things I want to do:

--publish 5 short stories
--write a fiction novel
--write a true crime novel
--write a movie script
--become a regular writer for a magazine

It's a short list and while I fully intend to keep looking for a job, I want to work on these things in the meantime.

Here goes...