Relativity
Behind the liquid and ashes.
Behind the written words and outspoken thoughts. Behind the terminology and reassuring farce of hope. Behind the closed doors and smoky, oppressive rooms. Behind the smokescreens and dusty curtains. Behind the piles of unwashed dishes and unopened envelopes. Behind the unmade bed and drawn blinds. Behind pretended beauty and longed-for intelligence.
Behind the light and before the dusk of night.
Before the lurid fantasies and unmeasured desires. Before the manic exhilaration and deflated faltering. Before the longing and abstract fear that refuses to be voiced. Before the pain unseen and relentless guilt. Before the bruised, torn flesh and decrepit, sallow skin. Before the anxious present and sorrows past. Before the cold stare and inability to act. Before the weakness within and hardness without.
Without.
22 July 2007 at 2:44 pm
Behind and before, yes.
There is always a lot going on behind, isn’t there? Even if the impression is - all too frequently - of nothing. Of having been shut down, vacated, that the boards have been put up.
Before, though. Before is often what one doesn’t wish to remember, yet can’t stop oneself forgetting. So it continues (and ends?) with depending on the without. Depending on the hardness, for protection.
22 July 2007 at 3:09 pm
Yes, the place is mostly boarded up for protection.
But in the tiny spaces between the boards you can still see the bruised, sallow curtains, fluttering in the wind.