The Price That Must Be Paid
At times, I wonder if I am to be an inheritor of so many beautiful memories. Beautiful, and yet that is what they all are, just memories, bits and scraps and crumbs that could never make a whole, that could never satisfy the hunger. Memories, only memories, colorful and soft pieces and shapes that time could easily crumble, grind to dust or distorted by the forces of longing and wanting and loneliness that feeds on its own self.
At times I wonder if the greatness of my poetry would demand the highest price out of me, a mere mortal, and a man as such. I wonder if that, for my poetry to remain and be remembered and be kept so close to the chest of those who need them and find solace in them, I, the poet who is first a man, would have to be away from a woman. Until the moment my eyes would shut their windows one last time, until the moment my breaths would forever be lost to me.
Will that be the price that I have to risk paying, that I would be remembered and kept in so many pages of memories because of my poetry, and never to be taken as the man with all of my fears and shame and tears?
I wonder if I have to lose the love of women from where I gathered my purest and strongest ideals, the love of women who is the earth, sky, sea and air since the moment I claimed my own space in this universe.
Where do I begin of how the love of women flowed into the arid wasteland of my soul, bringing its elements that seeds long since buried by ashes of my life sprouted and broke through the surface to bask under the warmth and caress of the endless fingers of the sun, seeds who bore flowers and fruits and scents that pervaded the most silent and cold of nights, leaves swaying to the music of the night, resting until the sun would rise again? The years have been full of it, and I would not be foolish enough to attempt telling you in a few words, when I know that no words could ever suffice.
But perhaps I could tell you that somehow that, with regards to the flow of the waters of love into my former wasteland turned garden, the end had already began. And perhaps I was a fool indeed, blinding my own eyes and soul to the inevitable.
The land is dry. My eyes do not shed tears as they used to.
I miss my tears. Whenever they burst from the lake of my eyes and flow downward through the hill of my nose, and into the cave of my mouth where my tongue soaks in them, it reminds me that I am still human, and warm. The taste of fluid salt reminds me that I know the taste of sugar because I have tasted salt.
I wonder. Perhaps I should not wonder at all. For however or whatever it may be, I am willing to pay the price, risk everything in the name of my poetry. My poetry is all that I have, and my poetry is me.
It would have been beautiful, and I would have been willing to pay my poetry as the ultimate price and sacrifice if only I would have one love.
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A Letter for My Sisters...
I became your brother beyond blood because you saw me as the fire who burned, so that corpses and bones would turn to ashes and blown away by the wind, so that the cold arms of loneliness and despair would open and move away, so that dark places could find a slice of light and things could have their own shadow.
I call you my sisters because even before I became your brother, women such as yours nurtured me, protected me, fed me, gave birth to me.
I would always be your brother, and all of you shall always be a sister to me. Nothing changes between us, I am and will always be the brother you longed for, the brother you found, and I shall be a brother that you could always keep.
And because each of you is my sister, I have to let you know. I have to let you know that I am no longer the brother with warm burning fingers. I have lost my kingdom of summer and spring.
I no longer shed tears, and each of you knows that I am strongest when the salt of my tears singe the wounds of my pain. And as I have said, and will do, I miss my tears.
I miss my tears, who is my warmth, who is my water, who is my banner and my shield, who is my sanctuary.
Please do not worry sisters.
I am now an Ice King.
An Ice King, and I could never even shed tears for what I have become. The mere though of shedding tears are frozen in my soul, they then turn brittle then into mist as if they never were. This is the only way I know so that pieces of me that you love would not die. This is the only way I know so I would never lose each of you.
I am responsible for the creation of two Ice Queens before. They were my lovers, each one could have been a sister to me and yet in my pride I lost them. I wanted to know how far my talents would go, and I snapped the threads of their compassion for me.
Perhaps some elemental force in the universe has not forgotten nor forgiven me for my sins. And perhaps this is just one of the small price that I have to pay for being me. I am tired, my sisters, and each of you knows I tried. I tried to live and believe that I could create something for myself, that I could find love again if only I believe. I believed, I believed. But no more. I am tired. The youth of my face betrays the deep scars of my wounds.
Perhaps one day, someone with burning fingers would come my way. She would lay siege to the walls of my kingdom, melt its frozen corridors, burn away the cold from my earth so that seeds could awake, an end to the winter of my despair, a birth to the spring and summer of my gaze.
Perhaps. Perhaps.
sisters, understand that each and everyone of them left me no choice: they all left me. they abandoned me. they fucked with me, and i shall fuck them all seven ways from sunday. in time.
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