The Hermit

Dear Unthinkable Times Dear Unthinkable Times, Too many days, I wonder what trajectory or shape you'd take. I do not mean to awaken you from a dream you've not yet had, nor from a journey you've not yet walked. I've gambled with sleep to live in the delusions of when you'll possess me, baptize me, and mollify me into you. See, I've made bets with worlds that paired through my retina. The other day, I had slept with you, tugged between my collarbones. I seek him for him, and seek him that you may soonest come, so I can clearly see him for him. Reality has become bibbidi-bobbidi-boo, but I'm no Cinderella searching for a prince and glassy shoe. I am searching for me, but this magic wand is a broken piece. It will not manifest me to me, and I'm yet to reckon with giving it up, with giving you up. If I awake before I sleep, may it not be I turtled out of being. If I rise before I fall, may I not remember only the fall. If I fall and never rise, may I be awakened by a God. If I rise and only rise, may life not be a tasteless fate. — Myra

Petitio Principii If life were served on a plate and tasted with the tongue, would you retreat at the first touch? Would you spit it out with vigour, summon the town crier to warn that none should drink of it? Would that small taste burn your tongue, crawl to your belly, and leave something in you hollow? Or would it be heavenly incomprehensible? Would you taste the wind, sand, rust, and everything dissolving slowly on your tongue? Above all, would it be good? Would you glimpse your whole life in it and choose to live it still? If life could be served and tasted on the tongue, would it make us understand ourselves? Would life even have a single taste, or a set of different flavors served in different bowls? And because no one has tasted yours, they tell you it's not real, that it's not okay you feel that way, or look that way, or think that way? Will they load up the gun, Hold it over your head, until you sound like them, until the blood from your skull is smeared through the kitchen wall? Would you scoop these brain cells, serve them to your children, and tell them it's all the world offers? Or, in realization of different flavors, would we call it kindness when we allow another a taste of ours? Would one say yours is bitter, another say yours is good, and someone else say it's just the right amount of both? If then, would we praise the one who cooked, would we acknowledge the one who served? Or conclude that it all materialized from thin air? — Myra

Tuesday, April. 20th What brings me peace this time is that my return to solitude carries no bitterness. No disappointment, no wounds, no grievance against the world. I have simply found, remembered rather, that I am not myself without it. And I've had this rotten character for sometime, which I boasted about, found pleasure in my ability to turn it on: how the best chance anyone who has hurt me has to redeeming themselves is to apologize when I'm still angry or sad, but when they don't, and I plead with them to stop, stop doing those things, and they keep at it, something in me quietly closes, and never opens up again. And how much I've always hated repetitions. I'd appreciate a change of routine, a change of place, a change of outcome. For some reasons, repetition sickened me. The only thing, as it stands, that hasn't bored me in life is art. Thus it comes to a point where I do a reset. I stop being mad, as well as stop communicating what is wrong, or being sad. I delve into indifference. I love them still, smile, care, but one understands the underline emptiness in all of this. In the way I say "it's okay, I'm not mad anymore, we just can't go back to how we were." I'm too far gone that even the greatest apologies cannot bring down my already raised face, raised spirit. And for a while, too long a while, I prided myself on the ability to kill the killer: my ability to go against my heart, my body, to sever any attachment that distorts my undistorted self. I wouldn't say no one can hurt me, in all honesty, it is that no one can hurt me for long, because I'm unable to hold any grudge, as I see this too as harm to myself than to the world. So I let it go, as fast, even when I'm unable, I let it go. Somewhere along the line, I took "forgive and forget" to forgive, forget, and forget they matter. How could I? For all the wrong I've done, how could I never give a second chance, when I exist as a testament of a second chance happening? In my meditation last night, after my spirit fell into the benign of solitude, (I am starting to believe that solitude is a place),I saw this character for what it truly was, cruelty dressed in the most saintly garment, and I don't want to wear this no more. I do not want to pride myself over what is not worth priding over. I do not want to live by such vacant reason, such beastly beauty. In solitude, I'm able to turn myself over the sun and smote away every shadow that has settled on my soul, In solitude I see clearly into the world and into myself, In solitude, I'm not a performer, rather, I am both the pulley and the pull, the process, never finished, continuously refining over time, until the sky kisses my skin, until the earth purges me out. ~a note in peace with myself — Myra

The Tool That Does Not Exist I carried the premonition in my teeth for several days, a quiet, gnawing instinct telling me to reach out to you. I failed, of course. Then you stepped off the fourth-tallest bridge in the country—the exact steel construct where Vin Diesel jumped a Corvette into the void in the movie XXX. You left us behind in the sudden quiet, and we swallowed those distinct, hollow maybe if I had only done this echoes that people are said to get after a traumatic incident. Later that night, in the immediate aftermath, you slipped into the theater of my sleep. It was a perfectly nonsensical dream: your hands dark with grease, teaching me how to take tires off a car. You handed me a tool that does not exist, insisting we had to use it because it was important. They can be recycled, you told me, which is also important. But the lucid reality of your disappearance snapped the illusion in half. I realized I was dreaming, and panic set in. I knew you had left us. I knew I had failed you. I knew we weren’t recycling car tires, using this magical tool that doesn't exist, because that’s crazy. I woke up crying so violently into the dark that my girlfriend at the time had to wrap her arms around my shoulders just to hold me together. I remember forcing myself out to that bridge for the first time afterwards. Me and heights don't mix well, and I was entirely incapacitated by the dizzying altitude, the sheer drop freezing the blood in my legs so badly I couldn't cross much farther than fifteen feet from the dirt. But, out of the thin air, a flicker of ridiculous grace: a butterfly, fluttering a staggering seven hundred feet above the gorge. It hovered, unprobable and fragile, and gently guided my wobbling feet across the span. In that space, a relief washed over me – one of those unexplainable introspections where some form of God, spirit, or a unified tissue of existence was real. I knew in the most ancient part of my soul that all I had to do was make contact, and I would find my answer. To this day, whenever a random butterfly stutters its way over to me just so, I feel that exact calling. I am instantly reminded of you and that moment suspended on the bridge. Even today, trapped in my own head and stressed out by the static of living, I was visited by a butterfly. I watched its lofty flight patterns, thought of you, and knew that everything is going to be okay. ፕᏒı‌ᎮᎮყ

Give me the cunning of kings, and the fever of those who kneel. the knowledge sealed in holy chambers, and a heart that has not learned restraint. Grant me the scattered beauty of the earth, and the abyssal bleakness of space. the lucid gaze of one who watches, and the dreamer’s reckless grace. Offer me the dampness of a saint, and the brutality of a tyrant. the damnation of a sword, and the endurance of a swordsmith. When my heart takes the throne, let my body stand witness. when my body seizes power, let my heart keep the ledger. Let me know the cost of things without paying in blood. Let me live fully without being reduced by living. — Miracle Ididi (Myra)

I won't just stand here watching you fall and if I'm not capable of holding you, to steady the ground beneath your feet then I'll take the fall with you, plunge to the depths you're willing to go and embrace the gravity of risks. I can't let you go where I won't be, I won't allow this distance— where you're whispering to yourself and they can't reach me, only silence I know nothing to do with, letting you survive on your own, helplessly. If anything, I'll reside in your calm as well as your chaos, shoulder the tangled mess of your head until you softly slip to slumber, from your nightmares, to your dreams and everything in between, I'll stay, as long as you need me. #love #poetry

Stream of Consciousness The soulless face the world sees often hides a turbulent, ambiguous, daunting, sometimes beautiful, sometimes a madhouse world within. She, like many a woman beautiful in all the right places, with hair as dark as clotted blood, born of two races, belonged to nowhere. She knew from quiet earlier on that in a world so big, with fringes, mountains, and hills, you could never truly know what misfortune is. You learn that everything is so intertwined that one could mistake one for many: escape for failure, escape for happiness, escape for freedom, escape for bondage. Things all around you seem singular, but they aren’t even a double. They aren’t twice a double. You could never know if the world stopped to observe its wreck, its great frenzy. It is hard to say. But beyond her many thinking, she found a man who fancied her, not in the manner of love, of course. You could never love such a woman. But most days… nights… she drove him to savagery. And she was contented enough that she wanted to die. Because you don't get this lucky twice, not when you learn things before you're ever taught, not when your mother never looked at you, not when the Eden at the back of your house was watered by hatred, and mostly not when you're greatly misunderstood. She wanted to die because she knew, and it is very bad to know. She was haunted. They asked how one could discern such, but you simply get it by a single glance at their eyes. Bulging eyes were always more evidence of being haunted than of madness. She was haunted by nothing and everything, and she could never get out, for this house was her own self. Born of two races, your body fails to forget its first cry. She didn’t want to be misunderstood, for that would mean she were alone. Nor understood, for she feared she would become undesirable. Nor thought of, but loved, that she had imagined long before the first screw had gone off, and still imagine. The hourglass proves a better friend, but too distant, too cold, like the world one lives in. The lit candles, the ceremony, and that red dress, such an important detail. The overgrown bushes, and silent, too silent streets. The dead frail child. The white negros and black Englishes. Days that don’t remember their yesterday, for things die out quickly. It’s unfair, and unfair to say it’s unfair. The earth is such an uninhabitable place, and I cannot think nor speak of what I’ve seen, what I know, and I'm not quite sure I truly know. I weep quietly and tremendously to the dark cloak that lies over us all, waiting to drown us, before we bite the rock, while we bite the rock. And by morning, I’ll awake to smile at this condensing world. — Myra

Not so long ago, a boy was born in a huge town, with bright eyes that shone like the sun spilling through clouds, and a heart that stretched out from his chest, ravaging through the town like millions of octopuses. The trees bowed at his presence. Where his legs couldn’t reach, the wind carried through, and soon after he had grown to be favoured by the townspeople, and the elders gathered up and suggested, “We would have him make a wish, so his life would become great.” The little boy, in his eagerness, chose a good life. Later, he would go to his stars and find out they were dead lights. He will grow a foot taller but would never be bigger than the trees in his town. His journey would take him to some faraway forest with lost boys like himself. The beasts that protect the forest will come to feast on their skin. Each bite and each flow of blood leaves them less, less than the person they came as. The lanterns would be trimmed, the warm meals would be rewarmed, the soil will travel and return. But the boy would sit still, with eyes closed and arms outstretched over the stove. He says there is no future, so this is an attempt to keep his past warm. This is an attempt to make nostalgia a God. But here is how the story ends. Soon enough, the boy finally opened his eyes. Soon enough, he remembers the God within him. He never grew old because old age is but an illusion, it is the slow agreement to shrink. Within everyone remains a child. He tamed the beasts and walked out of the forest. He searched for his stars and breathed life into them. He found his old town, deserted, the elders gone, homes torn apart, and streets littered. He picked up every branch and spoke life to the fallen trees. With a snap of his finger, he returned the town to its old look. And before his smile could fully spread across his cheeks, he heard noises and feet that shook the ground. He turned to find the townspeople returning from every corner of the world. He could not contain his joy, and when he found the elders, “You deceived me,” said he. And the elders, in response, told him, “Everyone has their own ability to choose, but each choice bears an interpretation of one’s own view of life, one’s own thought which creates a life of its own. But the world doesn’t go wrong with one wrong step. The world will never fall into itself with a plethora of wrong steps. Yet one little turn from such ways can reform one’s life. The world isn't fragile in the way you feared, it is fractured, and fracture is it's nature. The world is made of broken pieces, and each piece reaches out to the next to be formed, even though it will never be fully formed. The world doesn’t know it is waiting for you until it sees you in action. Then life makes more sense. Then the cycle of life began its way to meeting points. And sometimes, to make a good life, one has to live a bad one to know what good is.” So yes, this is where the story ends — not here, but here, where the boy remembers his bright eyes and brimming heart. The story ends to begin the chapter of a tale that never end, because lost boys are a warehouse of lives and stories, and a loop with straight lines and lanterns that never burn out, so they never have to worry about dying. Wholeheartedly devoted — Myra

Good Sadness There’s such a thing as good sadness. I tell you, there is. It is sometimes a result of the mixture of different emotions. It sometimes occurs when you hug a toddler. It is the coldness sitting on your chest amidst your prayers. It looks like you when traveling a long, long distance from home. It feels like emptiness with a rainbow. It makes you feel light, as though the world is a vast space and you're flying, only this time with your mind. There is such a thing as a good sadness. I know it. It looked like Friday, on my way to night reading class with my friends, when one was attempting ballet in the middle of the road while listening to God knows what. It made us laugh. The one by my side was in his earpods too, lost in his world. The three behind me, I do not know what they’ve dived into. I do not care to look. We fell into our steps while I sang an inaudible song, my lips laced with a knowing smile and my eyes a ball of stilled ocean I refused to let swim. I love people who can achieve what they want without hurting anyone. I love gentle people, reasonable people, whom you can be yourself around without trying to be yourself. I counted the fallen dry leaves as we passed along the trees, and it was a good sadness, as it sometimes stems from knowing good moments come to an end too. And good sadness isn’t dark. It isn’t anxious nor depressing. It is knowing. It is painstakingly aware. It is knowing that all knowledge comes to be futile. It makes your heart contentedly calm while stinging a bit. There’s such a thing as that, and it does no harm to the one who experiences it or to the world around them. — Myra

love your kids while they are young. Build sandcastles with them, teach them kindly. buy them gifts, sing along with them, read them bedtime stories, and kiss them tenderly to sleep. love your kids while they are still yours. assist them to nurture their growing wings, and teach them to love themselves before they step into the world and they are told what they are not, before they start questioning everything, before they become a dump house because they came up empty, and there wasn't a force within them. love your kids if they're but two or ten. treat them the same and teach them to love themselves, so they would not someday cross paths like familiar strangers, so at your departure they wouldn't be scattered sheep with no shepherd. love your kids the way you would have wanted; and if you were loved as much, give them twice the love. Love them as a duty, as a human to another, as a kin, as a lover, as parents ought, and never make them feel as little as they are. love them while you can still hold them and carry them with so much affection, before it is your turn to be carried and their only reason was that they came through you. love them not for your latter benefits. love them, for it is right. Love them because they carry generations within them, and you'll be doing the world so much good. Love them. love your kids while you still can, before the only act of love becomes tolerating them. because kids grow up to be adults, and adults become many things— that includes the bads. they become bitter, they sit to plot wars and put a gun to the next kin. they hurt themselves and hurt the world. and worst, they become bad parents. love your kids, and love them loudly, so if everything goes wrong in the world, they would remember that they've been loved, and they'll have a home to return to. — Miracle Ididi (Myra)

On Behalf of Myself and The Rest Dearest brain eaters, please refrain from using the AI abbreviation bar (or whatever it’s called) sitting at the top right of every long piece. It doesn’t understand perfectly, nor does it summarize rightly. You will begin to lose your foresight. It will offer you stones for bread and empty, plain shells for beauty. It will reduce your sugar level to below average, your heart will beat slower, and you will come to forget the subtle art of inhaling art. And you might be committing murder too, because every piece has a soul, and limbs, it is a life form of it's own, and where is the beauty when everything is reduced to nothing? I understand perfectly well: I could read a book with million pages, yet I can’t help with a poetry that stretches far too long. So it is okay to scroll past the long ones and settle on something different, but please do not kill every valuable piece of art with that one click. Thank you for understanding. Selah. Yours, Myra.

RELIEF Oh my, it's a beautiful morning! A bird is pissing on the rooftop. I hear its sigh as he flies across, and I know it's a goddamn relief. My hand deep in the dishwasher, searching for never-finished spoons. The bubbles—a goblet of colors. What a spectacle when things are beautiful without trying. This sight is a relief. I attend meetings to contribute my opinions, not because I love talking. I'd rather lie on the grass or practice fish catching, but I’m learning to empty the world inside me onto a table like spilled glass and maps. Attempting is a relief. My first day at the university, I watch people making friends, trying to start a conversation and laugh when it's not funny. They ignore the anxieties and struggle out every word. Watching humans being humans is a whole world of relief. I pass by the science lab. They're trying to find the answers to life. I don't let on that I know the best way— experiment on everyone you meet. I eat fried rice and watch—It's a Wonderful Life. The noise outside is the ambulance hauling an almost-dead neighbor, and that, I tell you, is a painful relief. It's celebration! There are fireworks in the sky, and somewhere not too far a war plane just blew to smithereens. The war, the stolen persons, and rapes in these frequent times— my heart aches like smashed ribs, I've walked a distance of fractured bones and crimson carpeted lands. I listen to the trees, and the songs of blooming flowers, and the slow sprouting of plants from the soil. I've attended the weddings of goblins, and I know for a fact that the world is ending, and this too, is a relief. — Myra

Live To Remember That life happens when strings fall That you'll never be too far gone That you're an imprint, reprinted over time That you're you, in every mising line... — Myra

Did you all read a manual or something? Because I swear, I do not know how to live this life. I do not know how to pretend as though the world isn't collapsing into itself. Neither do I know how to feel freely, as though that wouldn't mean I've given in. My friends tell me to calm down a bit, that the world isn't a cooking volcano. But no — I am the erupting volcano, because burning myself is the only way I know how to stay alive. I'm walking back and forth because it seems the world structured itself with me outside of it. How do you fall in love and not hold back even a bit? How do you live in eternal fantasy without imploring a bit of this bitter reality? How do you live in perfect ecstasy as though tomorrow is a certain certainty? I'm sorry, but is there an archive of these lessons? Because it seems I've not been following. They say there's not a man who's without a dream. But honestly, I know very well how to wade off my monsters. I know how to spit in the face of what I don't want. Yet my dreams sit like strangers in my house. I do not know how to make what I want want me. Were you all taught how to feel the weight of your own cross? Because I swear I've never felt the pierce through my heart as that of the world around me. My shoulders only strain from the sight of the loads on someone else's. My eyes only gather tears at the sound of someone else breaking. I am here, but never fully here. I breathe, but it feels more like an internal turmoil. I imagine moments like one in a field with landmines, doing her best not to get blown away. To not give in to misery, neither to joy. To neither life nor death. To exist in the corner and view life from the center. To live forever torn in double possibilities even though I would not have it any other way, I still do not know any other way. But for a moment, even if it's as fleeting as the moment a soul is hijacked from life, I'd like to know; Did you all read a manual or something? Because I swear, I do not know how to live this life. — Myra

When you come to a point where nothing moves you anymore, do you call it being full of yourself, or being emptied of yourself? #contemplations

Even thoughts offer no better interpretation for what my soul feels.

Later, he would go to his stars and find out they were dead lights, glowing only because distance is merciful. Excerpt — Myra

The foe a man sees in "time" Is the lack in himself. — Myra

How To Win A War You were the beautiful song across everyone’s lips, the praise that flowed like connected streams, beauty with perfectly cut edges, the soothing voice that made everyone sigh in relief. but she learned your steps differently. her breath quickened when she heard you from the stairs. she remembered your eerie look, picking apart the smallest problems in the kitchen. your in-law maid — she remembered she was made to please you. her shoulders learned to drop at the tone of your voice. her skin broke beneath the nails you hammered in. your in-law maid remembered you the thief of her lost dream, how you told her she covered too much, and her abuse were but her fault. she remembered the sadist you named her, the thing that would forever disappoint. she could stay up all night and mother your children in the day. she could keep the home and wife your husband and brother, yet she failed the shape you kept changing. today you see her stretching the wings you clutched you watch her become the things you made sure she wouldn’t. the mountain you crowned her with has become her footstool. today she twists the knife — with a smile, with kindness and forgiveness. today she gores you. — Myra

In a world without freedom, liberate yourself. ~Myra