‘I Would Like You Not To Forget Me’

Butterflies, spinning in celestial delight, over arches

Crumbling and old, divinity longs for the brush of a

Whispering wing. A Darkening sky looms over the cathedral

Of locked bolts, standing tall and stalwart.

Footfalls echo down the hallways of buried thought,

Love lies dreamlessly in a flower wreathed coffin.

A hand gently runs down the jar of forgotten myth,

“Elpis”, the walls softly echo, “You should have

left when you could Have”. The dead roses you

fear are tucked away in the spandrels of memory,

The night is dark and beautiful,

The butterflies linger, will you too?

“Perhaps dawn is lovelier than twilight, allusive of the light that arises from darkness, the peaceful assurance that night does not last forever. Or the cold drawing away of the veil, the assertion that disturbance always mars the idyllic dream of nightfall.”

Nothing much, I know, just an old sunset.

I met an old centipede on the terrace today, slowly she crawled up to me. “Isn’t the sky beautiful today?” She remarks. I tilted my head forward and mumbled, “My aunt says she has seen finer ones, over Misty hilltops and pale dawns.”. She smiled, (I thought centipedes couldn’t smile?) “You’ll never find beauty or happiness in anything if you keep thinking there is something better.” Did she sound wistful? I don’t know. We sat there for a while, she crept near me and asked in a whisper, “Will you play something on that old guitar?” “Uh, sure.” I say and pick up my guitar and start strumming an old tune. I kept muting strings and tripping over notes. But as she showed no signs of noticing anything, I continued playing, until twilight gave way to the night sky and the music faded away in discord. “It was lovely”, she said. I raised an eyebrow. “It was lovely.” She repeated, as mosquitoes swarmed over my phone that had lit up at a notification from my math teacher.

What is it called when certain moments of intense stress or panic cause you to fixate on a certain aspect of a thing and distort everything surrounding it in a very negative way and it’s as if that certain distortion changes almost everything thing about your perception itself? As if you have no tangible correlation to whatever is happening at the present moment and you are forced to observe yourself involuntarily perform an action you might not actively want to? A very persistent incoherence in your mind? Complete inability to concentrate on anything for more than ten minutes at maximum? Casually suicidal? As in overdosing on metformin because of a comparatively very trivial event?

The limitations of language - sounds and symbols that encapsulate that which is fundamentally incommunicable - perception, first hand experience

Memorial

Sometimes is enough for one wish.

And a walk from the corner

And back under the trees and light

Is often enough for a thought to perish

And a million others to be born

From their graves

The way shells explode

Under the hills of tin men and grass

Long after the blood-bath is but an anecdote

A story for a hot summer's evening on the porch

Or a tale told on idle winters

Through the dislodged teeth of the old ones.

- pollosky-in-blue

Lilac blooms upon the fading windowsill,

Quiet is the evening and despaired is the night.

Past death and past life must haunt dread

the man in the doorway, for he has dared

let wither the choicest blossom of the maidens gift.

Silence, ever faithful brooks no gentle rhythm

but draws on her loom of blue mist to weave

harsh discord into the spirit of the forthcoming dusk.

The loom hath shattered, but of what

concern is it in the light of the man’s grief?

alright gather round, enthusiasts of shakespeare’s words words words. i’m gonna learn you a fun research exercise you can do in lieu of switching between the same four websites or even include in your research for essays and creative stuff. 

step 1. first up, you’re gonna need a play you like (or literally any work written between 1450 to let’s say 1700, but i baited you with shakespeare so.)

step 2. get you a word. it doesn’t have to necessarily be a difficult word that needs glosses. actually, it’s more fun if you take a word you think you know.

step 3: go here. see, you keep being told that the first dictionary was invented by samuel johnson in 1757. which isn’t wholly incorrect, this guy did set out to define all words. but lexicons and glossaries wayyyyyy predate johnson. the catch is, these were for difficult words. or words specific to a trade. this is actually interesting and tells us more than if all words were defined like the OED or smth. more on this soon. now type in your word and hit enter.

step 4: you will see a list of old, digitized, searchable lexicons. and it lists every instance your word is used. holy shit, you think. 

step 5: now here are some things you can assume. if your word occurs in the headword (the word being defined), then it’s a difficult word. for speakers of that time. if your word is used in definitions and explanations of other words, they were common words that didn’t need to be explained. easy words may also be on spelling books for children but again, not defined. 

step 6: okay, now what? you’ve learned the meaning of the word in context and its usage. now it’s time for conceptsssssssss. click on some translating dictionaries where this word occurs. these are more likely to have synonyms. now take a deep breath because you’ll see some wild connections. why is virginity the same as honesty of life? why does enjoy mean “to possess” something but also TO FUCK? co valences are so fun because essentially ON PURPOSE. THESE WORDS WERE CHOSEN ON PUPRPOSE.

step 7: wonder, and go back to your play. 

[just to put my credentials on the table, this is my field of research. so it’s 100% okay if you have objectively a better idea of fun. but one of my friends said this was like carbon dating words, so i’m operating under that illusion, baby.]