Documenting The Great In-Between: Art from the Astral Realms. Part 16.

 (The slow, heavy tick of a clock echoes through an empty room at 3 a.m., swallowed by the soft drift of grey smoke)

In the quietest hour before dawn, old idols fall away, and the soul is left alone with the weight of what it has loved. Out of the shadows of grief and memory, a familiar face steps forward. 

Asking whether the deepest truth of being human is only ever found through the ache of letting go.

Does Dostoevsky’s belief that to suffer is to be fully human — that love’s purity is often revealed only through pain? 

The story arc. 

A vivid impression from a midnight encounter in a rundown American bar. 

An encounter with a woman left me feeling low as I woke. 

A voice whispers in the dark at 3 a.m.

(A lone voice whispers)

I'll never kneel to pray anymore because I won't idolise anyone this way anymore.

I can't hold back my souvenirs of fears any longer.

Though my tears still stain this grey uniform I restfully wear, as I continuously look for a new sanctuary to rest.

So my soul can repair. 

I've got to take all those heartfelt condemnations with me.

For with you, I've smiled, shouted and screamed in joy, to last for a thousand years.

Constantly pushed to live the illuminated man's hidden underground dream.

But what I wouldn't do now, just to be with you.

I know I must neglect all those painful memories, and try to go on and find the resilience I need, to let you go free.

Just like a midnight lantern, filled with good wishes and introduced into a New Year's Eve transformational sky.

To fly so high.

To step away and shut that badly worn door, and let my existence go on like Adam, who once loved Lilith, before Eve.

Before they went outside the Greatest of All Gardens, and all his first love for her, he silently always grieved.

Would we be better off if I had pulled all my barriers down, and let you in so totally, and in all my hidden tributaries, swim? 

Maybe, but I reckon we'll never know.

So I'll let go of my claim on you, but you may call down someday in the near future, unknown.

In the falling rain or snow.

For this painful love, which we once beautifully shared, will keep us safe by the binding of our hearts.

Somewhere sacred in the silence of our minds 

For this love, which we once experienced in the darkness beyond the light, will go through a new phase of rediscovery.

Rewriting our tragic love story like a modern-day Fyodor Dostoevsky.

For humanity is sometimes incredibly and intensely in love with all forms of suffering, and love in action is, occasionally, a brutal and tragic commodity.

Whenever and forever described in relation to true love, as if in poetry, or wishful dreams?

For love of any kind is never low-key.

Especially that kind of love we once shared 

That still sets us both free.

(C)

Copyright John Duffy

 

Have you had dreams that, when you woke, left you emotionally untangled?