Posts tagged short prose
Happiness is harder
It is harder to write when your hands are cupping happiness and, far outside the shining barrier of your unconscious smile, negativity is a thing happening to other people. But harder is not a bad thing, harder is not a reason to shake a fist at the challenge and force contentment to escape through tight gaps in clenched fingers. Harder builds the muscles in your forearms, strengthens the tendons in your wrists, supports you from behind and allows you to carry the weight of the comfort in clenched teeth while using fingertips to jot down lines that do not come easily. Ideas do not disappear when elation flashes colour into the world, words simply camouflage themselves so that you must work to find them, so that when found and arranged, the idea they describe comes with accomplishment that glows in unison with the vibrancy you hold between grinning lips. If you find yourself surrounded by satisfaction, do not burst that bubble by lamenting a loss of muse, by cloaking yourself in pity so that words replace the ecstasy you held in your hands. Relish the challenge of chasing what used to be delivered to you and increase your fitness by carrying happiness and inspiration at the same time. It is harder but harder is not a bad thing.
Birth of an idea
Wrapped softly in the curves and creases of my untended pillow, sleeping peacefully, humming softly, gently shining, there sits an idea. It floated in on tired winds while my feet shuffled me off to greet the day. It shimmers as it grows and images flicker across its contented form, telling the story of its inception, hinting at what it will become. It is my creation, the fruit of my imagination, and its safety is my everything. I tiptoe around the empty sheets, whispering while it becomes a pulsing form that begins to stir. Tended by moments of idle thought, the slumbering concept wakes when I lay my head down again to rest. Born from my imagination, the idea now returns, fully formed, to whence it came.
Sunset
When I was younger I’d stare at the sun and stumble, blind and erratic, for several minutes as I waited for the ghostly imprint to clear from my vision. I grew older, realised that there are some things too powerful to look upon directly, and no longer tried to out-stare the sun. But it seems that bad habits morph when they don’t grow worse and a picture of you follows me permanently like a watermark on my image of the world. I try not to look at it directly but all too often I let my attention waver and focus on you, making my thoughts stumble, blind and erratic. I try to clear you from my mind but with the effort comes the feeling that I am pushing away my sun. And when I can see again, it is in the gloom of eternal twilight.
