Every hue is a friend of darkness. The fortress was crumbling, yet it was all the protection they could have. Eventually it would all degenerate, empires to ashes. It was rumored that the edifice was attacked, the traitorous king welcoming the forsaken archers.

A portal on a pedestal, a flux. Why is there a pain in light. It's so beautiful. So beautiful. Forlorn bliss, so beautiful. By virtue, we are all wrong, wrong. Cobwebs in the dust, withering, forgotten. The masters dead moments after an inaudible despair. Who would have known. Still, they glitter in the night. A light for the dust.

Do we all hope to return. Always a rose before and behind us. Always a sky before and behind us. Always.

Do we hold the fortress into the ground, do we lay it to rest with its weeping foundations. Do we reach into the portal, climb into everything we longed for. Climb into everything we marched those bloody fields for. Is it noble to save your dreams. Is it noble to murder them for another's. Can we all really go back to Manhattan. Are we really just light. Just what we perceive. Or are we we are.

What lies beneath this bridge. I would cross it. But would I alone. Are we factories and makers of that black smoke. Or are we jazz in your ears. This is punishable, but is it a task we must carry through dusk and through dawn and through dusk and through dawn. I saw a glimpse of Your salvation amidst Your judgement. Elucidate me.

Now, I long for that vortex, I will follow you into the dark.

From the light to the sky, earth to earth. It's more beautiful than unreal.

I am unsaid, and unsafe, and untold, and I cannot even begin to tell you how.

I hear longing in everything. I hear melancholy in everything. I see sorrow in the emaciated blueprints of hope.

I hear a fragile cry in the shadows, in the lacuna. I hear a plea in the void, in the swelling emptiness. There is pain, trailing quietly from desperation.

I hold this in my outstretched arm, the world. In all the deafening melody, I want to be immersed in an ocean of song.

You are an ocean of songs

"A good and virtuous nature may recoil
In an imperial charge. But I shall crave your pardon:
That which you are, my thoughts cannot transpose;
Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell.
Though all things foul must wear the brows of grace,
Yet grace must still look so."

-William Shakespeare

Forget love, I just want you to make sense to me tonight.

An island. Like all islands.

Fire is everywhere. Everywhere,

It tastes beautiful.

I saw the dreams in their chariots, they said,

"Goodbye."

I could feel the stars burn,
I could feel the night burn,
and I said,

"It tastes beautiful."

The oceans and the mountaintops were
curtains - drapery.

The sky was not blue.

They watched me burn, they did not say

that I looked beautiful.

The ashen remains,

well I swear,

there was a strong breeze I swear.

I said,

I bet it feels good,

the fire,

fire, fire, fire, fire,

I said,

"It feels so beautiful."

That's what I said.
I swear it's not what I said.

That's all there was.

Me and fire.

Imagine it. Imagine it.

What does it look like ?

Could you see the night ?

I bet it was beautiful.

See, it was crimson,
an ocean of red, red, red.

See, it was red,
an ocean of blue, blue, blue.

Could you see it ?

Well, there was me and fire,
and I saw the dreams,
and they were beautiful,
and I was beautiful.

I swear I was strong.
I put the fire out all by myself.

Alone, see,
I could feel the night,
could you ?

The sky was in my eyes,
did you bother

to see the most magnificent thing in the world ?

It really was something beautiful.

Me and fire.

And there was a sonata,
a pull of strings.

I could hear it,
and it was me.

The most harmonic thing in the world.

Could you see the sky ?

I wasn't even there !

That wasn't me !

I am beautiful !

And this means nothing at all. All this. Burn it.

Derelicts, righteous derelicts. They stand across the fence. Upon the land charred by their enemies, scorched, barren, desolate. Yet, their heads remain held high, monuments of defense, fortressses amidst the raging. They are outcasts, they are transcendence and purity. They rise as towering citadel, as fierece shields of passive denial. Denial of defeat, a denial of conquer, a denial of submission. Truth, harbingers of truth. Outcasts. You cannot fell them.

Moon. That's what they said. Moon, I'm sure of it.
A moon and a scar.

Scar.
Murderer.

Broken, lying wounded in the moon, crimson moon. Robed in life, a seepage, flowing out upon you. You are dressed in a hole, a gaping emptiness, vacuum of pain.

Numbness. Passion, an infinite relationship. Broken you like there hanging by a loss of time.

Eyes shut, no.
Eyes closed, adrift in a pool of hope.

Black and white, I see clearer.

Violet, crimson hues wing by me. Soaring, happy faces, happy faces.

Happy faces reflected in a bowl of water, crystal, mirror. It is dark. Darkness hovers like a canopy, suspended above me. Light flashes and light dies, births and victories, losses. Fire jumps a double, roped in powdered purple gems. A footprint blackens the cleaned glass. Another outsteps the other. And so on until all that is left are flashbacks, fragments, fragrant memories of who stood where and why, and where I was when they did. What happened to dreams ? Folded away, cutouts and cardboard, felt pen, crayons. Vaporise into empty space. While melancholy drapes on either side of me, and traps my way back. Outside there are prohibitions, fences built of fabric floating away, waiting to be stitched, coloured, sorted, worn. Not folded away on some shelf. Grey, infinite, overexposed, crazed, varied in luring traps set to trap themselves. Purity suffocates. Purity blossoms, hopes piled beneath footsteps. Barebodied in a place like nowhere, my face left in the forgetting heap, I wish. I wish I could swirl into focus, find a place in the confluence of hypotheses and missing parts.

No, I will not join you thank you, I would rather stay by myself, and do what I guess I was meant to be doing. Tangible success is not my prize course. Do I even belong anywhere ? As blame shifts and disappointment taints the hollow shafts of silent, muffled pain. Was it meant for me to watch sleep tick away, no sleeves to roll up, no buttons to loosen, no more songs to sing.

No more ways to convince you that I may be right.

When rain falls in pieces and the wind blows in the dark, and I am nowhere but here and everywhere. In the blackest of rooms. When passive embraces teem in unsuspecting places, hiding, waiting to pounce on those who are hurt by them. When walls fall down and defenses shift, when ideas bloom and love is ethereal, and the chase is half over because you want to run back home, that's when I cry.

That's when I thank you mother, to come here and look at me. I swear I don't deserve this, but every part of that. When you take and don't give, when you fall and lay gazing at the trodden dirt and see another print of jaws next to it, it is then when I begin to hope. Maybe someday I will be loved, maybe one day my time will be worth that little more. The minimal falling and maximum rising, right. Profits are for the blackhearts. And I will not be blackhearted, no. Blurs and recurring faces, endless disappointment, endless expectation. Endless plans, endless failure. Are you the bread for all your butter, I will have toast and jam. It tastes like home, home where I belong. I belong here, at home. Home. Home...

Home.

That's where it is. Home.

Home, I'm home, home.

Sunlight is only for the mornings.

Heartbreakingly disappointing.

I'm sorry.

Whispered
in the mist,
and moonlight,
black hair against white silk,
mornings left alone.

Music in the gaps,
but I believe,
you can't ever escape at all.

Good Frozen Morning

Ross, The World

Gretchen, The World

Yes, it was more like a rush of power.

December Weather

A bitter humor in the way I speak, how could I let you leave my side ?

This could have been something amazing. I see I have changed, I see that I speak kniving wounds, I see that I stab you with my words.

I shouldn't. I know I shouldn't, but it would be so empty.
Maybe I should.

But this is me, I guess.

But who am I but a saboteur to myself ?

And let your hollow pieces walk away...

For a moment, I felt like I could soar. A grace that encompassed me, daring me to embrace it. I didn't, and I know I should have, because it was beautiful. I can rise. I know I can, because I did. Just now, and it felt magical. So magical that I felt like I could soar.

Everything is glowing, and the air sifts through the room like a dust from some forgotten realm.

I can tell where you stop and where I begin ..

A gentle melody plays, a subtle beat carries it to a graceful voice. Singing not so graceful things, or maybe the most.

Darkness pervades your music, a happiness of fulfilment and great, great failure. My failure.

A sweeping, gentle melody.

A subtle, dangerous beat.

A Tale at the Door

Soren Kierkegaard

A Cradle of Failure and a Cot full of Shame

A Great Sorrow in Happiness

A Once Friend

I feel red. And then nothing. Through my veins, sand and sea, in confluence and constant embrace. Open air in my eyes, a landscape in my lungs.

This post named itself.

Weary feet marched themselves upon paved despair. A slow rallentando sang itself through the rustle in the leaves. A lamp lit itself in the sky, a dim light, a scared light, fractured and scattered across many days, many years. The breeze gathered itself around a flower and they danced to an elegy written for you and me. The space filled itself, broken hope and an empty, sober irrelevance spoke itself in the effortless stepping of steps that go nowhere. Diamonds in the air shone themselves, reflecting not the light of the sky but the painful glow of eyes that hid themselves. The sand drank itself, quenching the thirst of a tired confidence, of a determination that could not determine itself. A tree grew itself, branched itself, stretched itself, holding up its shadow, building an abode of solace, a haven I could only dream of.

All the while, I could not walk, I could not sing, I could not see the light, I could not feel the breeze, I could not feel the emptiness, I could not lift my eyes, I could not find the water, I could not even feel.

Hover over me, oh great branch, I will borrow your body for sleep, while I only find myself.

Chronicle

A vacuum, sweeping still and culminating in a royal disappointment. Smooth flows a river, grey and greying. Amaranth blossoms in the crevices of an eruption, ready to spew immortality to the reaches of every man, or was that a distraction ?

Bleak, a solitary figure, centered in a wide-angle lens, a lone white figure on a black backdrop, black drapery, black windows, white light. Pacing forth, pacing forth.

Let flow your hair, black stream, so close to purity, let it flow, break against my feet. Shine in the twilight, unkempt in a mile so many miles away. Will you sink, will I sink, who will sink ? Will you carry the raft, splintered, roped, in your silver robe, down into streams of innocence and entire humility, or am I a victim of that ill illusion ?

I will not fall at your feet, I cannot. But you can rise, tower over me, fortress, calm, defended, protected, shielded.

Am I the enemy.

Promise me this.

Honesty has been banished from its throne. And it wanders, blind, blinded by our arrogance.

I am blinded by ignorance. The ropes knot themselves, and the chains bind themselves. The wind whistles, and the sea screams; and so I forget what I believe in.

From where will my decisions spring ? For white and black is grey, and the shafts of my mind are magnificent in the light.

Are you a monster ? And if you are, will I tell you ?
Or are you a monster in disguise ? If you are, will you tell me ?

Or will this always lay in doubt, in untold anticipation of solid ground,
But eternally sinking, sinking,
Sinking until the promise is varnished, polished
And again shines in the blaze of Truth.

Then we will rise on each others' wings, and fall into each other's grasp, and surrender ourselves to trust. And then the essence will be elucidated, hiding the blemishes and the scars, healing the despondent and the wishful.

We will realise we are already everything.

Prior.

He stared into the glass. The glass and the man inside the glass stared back. Everything else didn't seem to matter. It all seemed to be like paper; foldable, unfoldable, crushable, thin. Or at least he wanted it to seem so.

Maybe then he'd be able to tear up the grass, tear down the clouds, rip the sky apart, rip the earth apart, and then finally dismantle himself. Banish himself into an everlasting exile; free to explore the magnitude of his only passion. A passion that had been robbed of him, thieved in a single night, lost without the slightest regret.

It was stolen when he stepped into the world of glass, steel, and green paper. Briefcases and files, documents and suits. It began with promise, catapulting him to positions of honour and repute. Propelled by fame, smothered in false pride, he carefully and unknowingly crafted his own downfall. Unmatched in caliber, labelled and respected, he grew into ranks of glory, and also grew cold. Without time for emotion, his body became a machine; signing contracts, issuing cheques, printing bills, writing letters, pacifying press. He was worshipped by businessmen, blandished by critics, and praised by the public mass.

Eyes turned when he walked down the road, but now there was no-one. He was a shell; a passive instrument of commercial exploitation. He had lost.

And now he stood obscured in the morning mist, feet fixed upon a lush plain. Before him was a mirror, and within the mirror, a man. He was staring at himself in contempt, scorn, in disgust. The reflection stood calm. As invisible hands swiftly and silently painted this moment, to be remembered in time, he fell to his knees. His head cupped in his hands, the grass thirsted for his tears. His reflection still stood before him, rigid, unmoved. Determined, it stepped out of the mirror. It placed its cold hand upon the man's shoulder, and he looked up. Too tired for surprise, he asked simply, "Yes ?", and then looked down again.

The reflection quietly extended its arm to the man, and heaved him off the ground. "You are my past, not my reflection," said the man, and firmly took the reflection's hand in his. He shook it, let go, and said, "I have accepted you. And now I bid goodbye."

Things have drastically changed and something has happened to me.

I feel ready, but I don't know for what.

Oh, hello !

101.

Not a lesson, a celebration.

Not a celebration, a lesson.

Moreover, a journey.

Conversation

So, then. It's really over. Polished, and left upon a mantle. "Here, come one, come all ! Here, here. Here is 2008."

"Where ?"

"Here !"

"I can't find it."

"Obviously ! you aren't looking hard enough."

"I am !"

"Look once more. Now, do you see it ?"

"Yes. It's right here."

"I told you."

"How could it be so close ?"

"It just is. It won't go far, either."

"Why ?"

"It can't."

"Why ?"

"We're holding it back."

"Are we holding back ?"

"No, we're holding it back."

"Should we let go ?"

"No. Never."

"Why ? There is much to do tomorrow, and today."

"Never let go."

"Why ?"

"Would you let go of a part of yourself ?"

"No. Never."

"Exactly."

"Yes."

"It shaped all of us."

"It did."

"Look at the light."

"It's never been so bright."

"Do you know why it is so bright ?"

"No. Tell us."

"There's hope."

"Wasn't hope buried, a long time ago ?"

"It was, yes."

"Who unearthed it ?"

"Did you feel the light ?"

"Yes."

"Then you did."

"But I never .."

"We all did."

"How ?"

"Ask yesterday."

"But yesterday's gone !"

"Where ?"

"I don't know."

"And where are the answers to things you don't know ?"

"Within."

"So where's yesterday ?"

"Within."

"Where are we ?"

"We're going forward, aren't we ?"

"Yes."

"But what if we stay behind ?"

"Then you will become a stranger unto even yourself."

"Then I'm staying behind."

"Okay. But I'm staying behind and moving on."

"How ?"

"The light is within and without."

A SHORT LOVE STORY IN STOP MOTION from Carlos Lascano on Vimeo.

Hoppipolla - Sigur Ros.

Thank you, Carlos.

A search for answers oft leads to a greater question, and then to fact. Just like a note will, sometime, fold into a chord, into a song.

Where, then, do we go ?

Where do thoughts come from anyway ? And creativity, imagination. Where do they go at the end of the day ?

Frost on swings, chipped wood. Fairytales and joy, bedtime stories. I used to be able to walk down a road without considering what I project onto others' minds. Where is the confidence now ? Unlock and unleash the waters of love, drown in them, and then come here ? Disappearing trails at our heels. Everything we know, we knew when. Or do we know now ? I don't think so ..

Did little building blocks really elevate us to this ? Chasing the moonlight, and then running away from bullets. Are we wanted here ?

Capes and masks, they folded away with the paper planes and cardboard castles. They sailed away as we turned away from the ocean of possibilities, toward the glass abode of nowhere. How did we get here ?

And what if I scream into the night ? Will anyone hear me ?

Will anyone respond ?

Certainly. Absolutely. Definitely. Yes, it will be done.