The House Down the Road (poem)

It was built in '94,

Its walls white,

Its rooms empty,

The house down the road.

Its caretakers were afraid

That it would fall apart,

So they covered it up

And tried to protect it from time.

But they couldn't leave it empty,

And so the woodworker moved in.

He built miniature houses,

Decorated them like they were real.

He detested his new home,

Thought his toys more suitable,

So he neglected it,

The house down the road.

In drunken rages he'd return,

Curse the inadequacy of the house,

And paint the walls with holes

He would later cover with paper.

One day he left,

Found a more suitable home.

It was beautiful,

And collapsed two months later.

He didn't go back,

Not for longer than an occasional night.

On cold nights he'd break in,

And steal the heat he forsook.

When his visits stopped,

Someone else moved in.

The woodworker had skipped town.

The new tenant was softer.

The new tenant was a doctor,

And patched up the walls right,

Painted over the scars,

Secured its warmth.

Months later, the woodworker returned,

Having been homeless since,

With the memory of the house fresh,

And the desire for its stability and warmth.

When he arrived,

The doctor was tending to the garden.

But instead of trying to steal the house,

The woodworker smiled and left.

-Zero

The Fourth Year (update)

     Today marks the fourth year that this blog has been running, and it has been quite an eventful year. A lot has come to an end, such as the first drafts of "Kuna Zero: A Wanderer's Tale" and "A Plead to Iris" in April, as well as "the Wanderer's Journal" over the summer. A friendship has ended, a relationship, and the lives of some loved ones. It has been a difficult year for many of my family members. Those who survived have to face now an irreparable absence as well as those who are having trouble coping. A lot of mistakes have been made, and there has been a whirlwind of emotion.

      But a year so full of death, destruction, and suffering is bound to find itself possessing exuberant life, creation, and joy. Sometimes pain brings people together and unites them in a way that fights back against the pain. After all, in the darkest night, people create their own light. And with that said, I will speak more about the year, starting from the beginning.

      My return to university after the month long break was welcomed passionately, as the lack of a schedule had driven me to irregularity and boredom. That being said, when I returned to my room in residence, I found out that things had changed. It wasn't an immediate obvious change, but one that had taken place within the people there, including myself. My room had somehow become home and an appropriate workplace in which I would work the most in. I returned to my hermit habits and found myself making daily trips to the on-campus chapel as my Divine and Ultimate Concern class questioned the nature of the Infinite and posited the notion of the Calling.

      As for my writing, I did the same as in the fall, which was characterized by reflecting on my past and giving it expression as well as writing about new characters that I had developed in the fall. I remembered and reflected on the experiment I had undertaken a year prior, although I had been seemingly blind to the mistake I had made. "The Daughter of Athena" (my NaNo novel of 2013) began as being about a friend. When I first started it, I was curious as to how the process of fictionalization would function with a living friendship. While the novel itself did go on to ignore its root inspiration, I satisfied my curiosity. The fictionalization began destroying the friendship by placing a barrier between us. Gradually it intensified, got worse, and the words once exchanged were lost to an unbearable silence and recognition that I had created it. And unlike the experiment, this person was aware and more or less engaged in what was happening. My stupidity caused for them to suffer and for this I am truly sorry.

     But that is only the beginning of the year, really, although that particular story found its true end in this past fall. When summer came around, or rather summer break when I would return to Aylmer, I was working hard on my writing until camp NaNoWriMo ended. Once it did, I fell into a near insanity from the lack of work, only to be pulled out of it by an eventful week, beginning with a synchronized event and peaking at the crash. From there on, it's a storm of emotion.

      In the wake of death, I got lost pursuing a light I thought was eternal (see "The Frustrating and Mysterious Spark"), but the truth became apparent when it was swallowed up by the mere concept of distance. I almost found myself again, only to be thrown right back into that pursuit to try and cope with a new change. It disappeared again, but this time with an awakening, a return to myself. But that whole time, my pen scribbled about Love, praising it for its strength, for its light. Although as much as I wanted to call it truly infinite, I always found it lacking somehow. Once I remembered this, the storm quieted, submitted to that power I've always felt guiding me, and gave me up.

      Now, as I look back on the past four years and compare myself to the teenager who started this blog, I wonder how things will be next year, how things will change, and how wrong my future self will think I am. Ah well, he'll probably think I'm trivial as well. But that is for another time. Take care. Until next time,

-Zero

To Love a Goddess (poem)

He wakes up,

Her face in his mind,

The sensation of her lips

Against his cheek.

(This is his passion,

His foolish love.)

He rolls out of bed,

Wishing she was there,

Wishing he could hold her,

Instead of cuddling reality.

(His love is destruction:

Conversations turn to silence.)

He admires her,

The way her glasses fit,

And her always shining eyes,

As if belonging to Athena herself.

(But she is no daughter of Athena,

And he falls further.)

He confesses his love,

A child jumping into fire.

She turns away,

Tries to kill his sick passion.

(Time to walk away.

Only a fool pursues the unwilling.)

His passion lives on.

Its origin was never in her,

But in his mind:

The love of an idea.

(Let this be a warning.

He has isolated himself.)

-Zero

If I Write You No Longer (poem)

In a poem, you appear.

In a meeting, you disappear.

So I question:

Are you Love's impossible ideal,

Destructive, and broken,

But not helpless?

Are you my fallen pursuit,

Enough to comfort my grief,

But not enough to guide me?

The answer to both,

It seems,

Is yes.

In the Fall,

I return to Love's ideal,

Forget its limitations.

Then I take up the pen,

Scribble hundreds of lines,

All referring to you.

The yearning takes form,

An emptiness grows:

Love defined by absence.

But when the Truth awakens,

The pen refuses your name,

The yearning dissipates.

So I wonder:

If I write you no longer,

Will you vanish forever?

-Zero

The Untouched Temptation (poem)

Energy drinks are his past,

Mixed in with cigarette smoke,

Under-aged drinking,

And broken hearts.

He always keeps one with him,

Not in case he needs it,

But in case he falls,

All the way back to the past.

It would be so easy,

Open up the can,

Throw in his heart,

And watch it fizzle away.

Instead he stares at it,

Examines it,

Goes out to buy more,

A fridge full of unopened cans.

Late night comes,

Five in the morning,

Not a wink of sleep,

Not a can opened.

Temptation always present.

Like a yearning to jump from the bridge,

He contemplates it seriously,

But fear holds him back.

A friend notices the cans,

Asks “why so many?”

He shrugs, says,

“You can have some.”

Gradually they disappear.

Some smashed apart,

Others given away,

But not one drank by him.

The temptation fades

Like chalk in the rain,

Washed away by necessity,

His soul's catharsis.

Energy drinks are his past,

When he was self-destructive,

But no longer.

He is self-creative.

-Zero

On November (non-fiction)

      This past November I undertook in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) once more. This November proved itself to be difficult in many ways, often having very little to do with the actual challenge. It is noticeably the only November NaNo that I have not started a new novel, deciding instead to work on "The Beginning of The End", as well as the only time that my novel has little to do with romantic love.

      For those who are unaware, NaNoWriMo is an online challenge where participants attempt to write 50,000 words (or 200 pages) of a novel over the course of the month. I first attempted it in 2011, winning with "Love: A Chaotic Insanity". The year following I wrote part of "A Plead to Iris", and the next year I wrote part of "The Daughter of Athena", winning both times. All three of these have roots in romantic love, and it makes a significant appearance in all three of them. "The Beginning of The End" (or TBOTE) is quite the opposite.

      Reflecting now on the month of November, and how my thoughts (and writings) were being formed, I find that TBOTE was perhaps the best novel for me to have been working on. After all, as discussed in my last poem "The Awakening of a Fallen Man", I fell back into old habits from a time long past, predominantly a self-destructive praising of Love. But TBOTE began as an expression of the failed ultimate concern that my younger self experienced with Love.

      As it has developed, I have borrowed (from the poet William Blake) a notion of the Fallen states (which he uses for his Four Zoas, a coincidental parallel with the Four in TBOTE). To be Fallen is essentially to be broken in some way, to have something missing, to be less than one is. In falling back to a previous state (that of the Grey to extend the parallel with TBOTE), I became Fallen and forsook that which gives me the strength and confidence to do as I must.

      For the first time in four years, I had become Kuna Zero (of TBOTE) once more. I possessed doubt, was overwhelmed by sorrow, and felt as if I was wandering about in a world without meaning. Truly, I was more alone than I had been since those old times. And my attempt to break the loneliness of the finite was the same. I tried to find a love. (and inevitably failed).

      So why was "The Beginning of The End" so important in this past month? Why was it so helpful? Why do I think that it was so crucial that I wrote that and not another love-based novel?

     It is quite simple. For the whole month (without even realizing it at first), I was reminded of my initial failure, of the inherent flaw in the belief system which I had fallen back on in fear. Even more so, I was forced to face that which had guided me thus far, and write how the child of Fire has to put his faith and trust in it, as well as in himself. I rewrote the awakening of each of the Four by this awakened Kuna Zero, this flame-bound man following the path that lay before him. I was setting up my own reawakening.

      Had I not realized my folly, I might have fallen even more victim to the allures of affection, misusing the pen for mild and undeveloped affections. I suppose I was lucky I could write so much about that Flame-haired woman. Otherwise I might have written more about the friend, or even more recently the girl whose eyes I could not pull away from. Inevitably, this would have ruined any relationship with them (it has happened before).

     There is a strange power in the pen, one I feel I still fail to understand. But I understand it enough to not write any possible thing. Otherwise I would give life and substance to more fictions than I can keep track of, more fictions that very well may trick me into believing they exist outside of my mind.

     But with the end of the month came an awakening, in which all my doubts were expelled. Sorrow was seared away, and the loneliness of the finite (the terrible grey) was banished by the connectivity of the infinite. The flames in my eyes had returned.

     And with that potentially more metaphorical statement made (one should rarely take what I say as literal), I feel I have written enough in this post. Take care of yourself and never fear to reflect and reconsider your values. It might just save you. Until next time,

-Zero