Have you ever seen painted smoke?

2:11 in the morning, jumping around dancing to my favourite tune in the universe, intoxicated on bittersweet red wine in the company of ghosts, phantoms and souls without mates. Paintbrush in hand, painting the most beautiful shit I have ever painted, throwing them in the fire and watching them go BOOM. I have paint on my face and fingertips and am as happy as can be. As they char and turn to painted smoke I realise I am free, never bound to anything that will not be bound to me.

The Last Leaf

The last leaf fell long ago, so she found a new place to stay, inside a cardboard box. Sometimes she steps out for a while. She puts a fragile sticker on her forehead and pins some bubble wrap over her quiet heart. She doesn't stay out long, the trees are all dead there and it's getting harder to breathe so she returns inside her box. The cardboard box is easy to kick around, and those that used to love her all take their turn. The box is easier still, to carry away, and those that love her yet, all have their excuses why they cannot.

Awaiting the return that never comes

And sometimes when I have so much hope left in me that it almost becomes the madness, I will go and sit at the train station and wait for the train that only ever arrives when I leave.

The unreturned, the hysteria of another day of it, comes, and then fades,

...as does the day.

Nepenthe

...and with each sip, I hold it in my mouth, as I hold each remembering in my heart.

I swallow, and my heart fades away.

I built a world for you and I

I made it from the reflection of a place we'll never know, a time that never existed. I c m y t.

Do you understand what I am trying to tell you?

The dreams are as a vapour... until I reach eternal sleep.

She listened to the song, her iTunes was counting, it just counted 3011 plays. Soon it will cease to play and her iTunes will cease to count, but the echo of that song cannot cease. For when you press softly your head to her corpse, you shall hear the echo of this song playing on, in her unbeating heart, and in the dream that she is finally free to stay in, forever.

I stayed

I stayed...I am here...here is all I can ever be...just here.

I'm sorry I lost my way

I've been travelling in the wrong direction for quite some time now, I'm sorry I lost my way. I got lost searching for true north.

Heard the rattle from the train

Found myself very drawn to the work of this artist.

The space between

I was on the outside peering in, and felt I had seen this space before, yet I had not. If only to be inside peering out... I didn't know the very thought of it, would ache so much.

Like two strangers, turning into dust

Paradise lost

And at every eventide she comes to bathe in the river lethe for she knows the night is long for those with the memory. Oh how she longs to drown in it.

ME TODAY (days of wine and roses)

vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat incohare longam

Skies you climb

I always found myself longing to fall whenever I came to someplace high. Out of windows, off buildings, from cliffs...I always wanted to fall, until one day I found myself on top of the world...I was with you. And for the first time in my life I longed instead to stay.

Did my whisper find your ear?

The view from my studio, a window which looks out to the old rose bush, out the garden gate and across the way where I sight the lake, and then I see it!, the train station. I hear the train coming. I cannot get there in time but I know that sound travels farther across water so I throw open the old window and look to the lake, where I whisper the words,

"I am here".

I hear the train leaving and I know my words have boarded and are making their way to a stranger.

Staring at my face in the mirror,

#arhibald#MAMAalbury#Ashowofsomanyfaces#Istaredatthemandtheystaredbackatme.

Aglance

I was on the train, and on my carriage the Woman was telling a story in her language with such passion. For the briefest moment our eyes connected in her heightened state and I do not understand her language, but in that moment I understood her whole world... this whole universe.

A Blanket

I sent a butterfly with a kiss on it's wings, it is as white as the pure snow that falls from your sky. You will think it a snowflake until it rests on your lips, then flutters back up to the heavens whence it came.

I will know it's journey is made when in these warm nights I pull for my blanket, overcome with a gentle chill from a faraway place.

Saudade

The quiet aching for you...she would not know how else to live.

It is all she is and all she loves.