i have

so many words and so few
they scratch at my skin from within
weigh me down as stones on ankles
beg for release from the prison of me
course jumbled through green veins
and make a resting place of my heart
but i open my mouth
and not a thing falls through
not a jumbled sentence
not a soaring tumbling why
not an anger-filled mouthful
not an unspoken longing
none
so many words and so few.

have you ever searched? the way you combed the house for that one memento, like the long-forgotten scene in the memory that you impulsively feel had to be brought to the surface.   i have searched too, for that one lost hairpin, and for a dog-eared leaf that had been swallowed whole by the book i had been reading.   what i really wanted to find, though, was for something that i had never seen, nor touched, nor grown fond of, nor felt.  how do you recover something that was never misplaced? i wanted to draw a map, to this place of found things, of things you might want to find, and things you never knew you wanted to find.  but where would I begin?

there are many dangers with searching for something you've never seen before, like not knowing whether it'll be blue as a cloudless sky, pretty like a dream, or as ordinary as any other thing that you take for granted.  but the scariest thing is when you start looking for it in things that are not.  when you think you see a deep hyacinth blue, with cerulean undertones, a concoction of midnight and the essence of cornflowers.  but in split-second glimpses, in moments of truths, in instances of self-honesty and sadness, you realise that all it is is a common- such a common, common blue.

on second thoughts, i think i lied. i think this thing that i claimed to never have seen, nor touched, nor grown fond of, nor felt, i've already painted in my dreams. a deep hyacinth blue, with cerulean undertones, a concoction of midnight and the essence of cornflowers, I have painted. such rigid strokes, such sure lines, and impossibly certain slashes.  but so seemingly right to me, and necessarily exact, even now, when all there is is a common, common blue. 

life is a paradox
how can there be so little, and yet so much, so much and yet so little
how can there be such saddening things,  and yet the two good things that keep one on the fence
how is there such pleasant things, and such immense loss
why do fate and unjust reside in the same world
why should one breathe, and eat and live
when tomorrow will be another day of the same questions
my eyes cannot see, and my mind cannot see, and my hands cannot see
how beautiful it could be, the place where bodies are whole, and the eye cannot tear
but one has to believe in those gold-paved streets