...can somebody please just take me away?...

...For the mind is willing but the body is weak.

And my innocence is lost somewhere between the lines.

...dear seventeen...

...I wonder where you've disappeared to.

My history is stained, a pale shade of grey,

filled with might-have-beens and unfinished yesterdays.

My golden days of yore,

of optimism and vigor are long gone,

tarnished by the storms of life's cruel austerities.

You used to be all I ever knew.

My shield, my solace,

my sunshine after the rain,

the mask I wore,

the sword I held,

the shelter I cowered beneath when the going got tough...

It kills me to think I've somehow lost you now.

...Why do I feel you're a lifetime away?

"There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing."

- Maya Angelou

...steady my breathing, silently screaming...

Currently listening to: Edge of Desire - John Mayer

.highasthesky.

Southbank, Melbourne, December 2009

Here's a question for you:

Would you rather be given the chance to feel extremely happy - blissfully content - at some point in your life, only to have reality slap you straight on the face and knock you down, hard, when that euphoric moment is over;

OR

Would you choose, instead, to have your emotions checked out and experience everything in moderation in order to avoid such eventual misery?

I know this is silly. It's like asking whether one would prefer to madly love apples and madly despise bananas OR just settle for a simple way out and like both indifferently. For we all know that - like everything else that makes up our sense of identity - we can't force someone to prefer something over another because everyone is innately unique. I for one would rather dig up a hole and hide if the remote possibility of shoving that disgusting horridness of an apple down my throat ever presents itself to me. Not in a million years, thank you very much. But that's completely besides the point.

There is some uneasy truth to this dilemma, I believe, like what my good friend Dea conveniently pointed out to a puzzled yours truly during our late-night telephone conversation a few days ago: sometimes we choose to grow cold towards all the things that define our happiness because we're far too afraid of getting hurt, of seeing that menacing layer of gloomy grey clouds looming at the edge of our glittering, sun-kissed horizon.

I think that - being the fragile, self-centered, indecisive human beings that we are - we tend to let our emotions get the best of us.

That is, when we deliberately choose to bare our souls and succumb to our most fundamental worldly desire, which - and don't hold my word for this - is the desire to be limitlessly happy, then there has to be a point somewhere along the journey, a turning point, at which this little guilt trip of ours - our personal, emotional big bang - will somehow snap back and start spiraling down, leading ultimately to sadness, and gloom, and disappointment.

After all, to quote a certain washed-up pop act, all good things come to an end, right?

'Cuz karma's a bitch like that, believe it or not.

Having said that, I also believe that the happier we are - the more we yearn so foolishly to taste the blissful joy of our happiness, the more we will asphyxiate ourselves, and the more painful our eventual fall from grace will be.

Just like the two sides of a coin; one simply can't exist without the other. For an extreme point in itself will not be an extreme point without an opposing, equally extreme point existing on the other side of the spectrum. Joy, and Grief. Delight, and Anguish. Eros, and Thanatos.

So why bother?

Why do we still waste our time trying so imprudently to make our way to the top, if we know that at the end of the day the things we fight for will expire, our steps will be weary, and our desperate attempt will be futile?

Maybe it's because deep down inside we'd like to believe that, at the end of the day, the joy we get is worth the downfall, somehow.

Well, I can tell you right now with confidence, ladies and gentlemen, that it bloody isn't.

I for one have long since decided to lock my thrills and trolls away and stay more or less indifferent. It's terribly exhausting to always wear my heart on my sleeve; I think it's gonna be much more convenient to just roll 'em down and button up.

And before you start patronizing me with your "but what about optimism?" crap, please be aware that I have seen too much - way too much for my own good, I should say - to be convinced otherwise.

I rest my case.

If fairytale dreams don't have happy endings then I'd rather not dream at all.

'Cuz I know if I still do, like a starry-eyed child oblivious to reality, the pain I'll get after figuring that out will hurt like a bitch.

So thanks, but no thanks.