I must admit, I can't believe I wrote this. This is the light in my dark tunnel, I think.
Just the other day I revisited the reason I started writing the Fictional Dependency series. It was actually as a result of the attacks in Paris back in November 2015. I was explaining this to someone, while surprising myself that I could recall it so intimately. I remember scrolling through social media, hours after the attacks, reading everyone's posts. Pray for Paris the most prominent slogan I've ever actually seen. The world went nuts sympathising Paris. You'd swear the rest of the world wasn't falling apart around Paris.
Anyway, what caught my attention was a girls poem about Paris. I get why people were shocked, and I get why people were heartbroken. I watched it all on the news, I seen the devastation just as others did. But I also seen the other side to the story. The French government was at fault, they jeopardised their people and they got the backlash. That's what it was. Wake up, world!
So this girls poem, it annoyed me. Yes, Paris was hurt, yes the world was shocked.. But no, don't just pray for Paris, pray for the whole world. Pray for the living.. that's all we have left.
Recently, a pervasive topic around me is Space. Now, I love Space, I really do. Only recently, people who have known me months, or longer, have learned that. And what I've been hearing and reading, and even discussing with others, has actually left me unsettled. We're looking for another planet, I didn't realise this before, so we can leave this one.
I love the world, as equally as I love space. This is our home.. but it's ours on loan. How awful have we become if we can't make peace and pull our acts together? We can't just ship off to another place. What would make us any different from the aliens we see in SciFi movies? Coming to different worlds, colonising? Have we become hypocrites too?
Since I moved to Dublin, I've had a skylight over my bed which allows me full view of the night sky. I see planes passing by every night - 30 to 40 a night - and the stars. The stars and all the mystery in between. And it's so enchanting, it brings me right back to when I was 10 years old, running up the back garden at night, making wishes into the moonlight, safe inside the perimeter of the garden, with Prince by my side.
And a whole mixture of that, makes me happy and defeated all at once. You see, the world has had a terrible influence on the person I've become over the past few years. But I still know the me I was when I was 10 years old. The little girl who was enchanted by the night sky. She's still there, she wishes for her dreams to come true. She awaits a person to come along and show her all the reasons she kept strong throughout everything.
And Breaking the Fourth Wall is a reflection of this. Over the past four parts, I've emphasised how the story-line wasn't directly based on myself, Shane, or anyone. But that doesn't mean they don't reflect particular aspects. I will say that Shane had an influence on this one as well, but not in the way you'd automatically think. And not directly on the poem exactly, more so on putting me in the mind-frame to write it. Many things concocted together, and I came out of it with a newly found appreciation for myself. Maybe it's an overload of disappointment, or even a feeling of acceptance, but I feel better.
To quote the man to whom I left a piece of my heart; "We'll find our happiness some day." Your words just sit there, in the same place in my mind. All the time.
Thank you, so much.. for your words, and for everything in between..x
Fictional Dependency - Part V: Breaking the Fourth Wall
Now it’s my time to speak,
And I would like to tell you all the truth.
You’ve been listening to another part of me,
As we’ve been in constant dispute.
She seen me in a different light.
She seen pain within my eyes.
At least that’s what she thought,
It was all just one big disguise.
The clouds, they were the same.
The air.. It never changed.
We internally departed,
And then became estranged.
She knows everything that happened,
But she will never understand.
She only said it all out loud,
Because she could not hold my hand.
And you heard all of my stories,
You’ve learned about my pain,
And it was challenging, no doubt about that,
But it wasn’t as she was saying.
Now, I am in a new place.
A place I do not know.
The emptiness dominates me,
But it has space for me to grow.
I’ve been confused, is what I’m trying to say.
I’ve been lost behind my thoughts.
My mind tried to interpret this,
While my stomach twisted into knots.
But here I am now, hear it from me:
I want you to know the reasons she was wrong.
She told you I felt hopeless.
She thought I did not belong.
I chased down every government body,
And I did write letters to the world.
I wanted them to know my solutions,
I did not just want to be heard!
It was not about my voice.
I did not become silent by defeat.
I just wanted her to shut up,
So the world would see what’s underneath.
A part of me did detach,
King Arthur did break my heart.
I fell distant from the world then,
But I did not fall apart.
Instead, I took his weighted words,
And I rejected each sympathetic hand.
I became an island of my own,
And broke away from the mainland.
See, there’s something she does not know,
Though I filled her with each thought,
She said I simply just gave up;
But, I assure you, I did not.
He believed I had a heart.
He encouraged all my dreams.
But he caused the tears in my fabrics,
And now you can easily see the seams.
This does not bother me a whole lot,
In fact, it reminds me of the time,
I was a queen in his loving, hazel eyes.
I was his and he was mine.
And I keep the box beneath my bed,
Safely hidden away,
So I can take it out, and remember him,
When the world around me does turn grey.
She does not understand emotion;
The feelings associated with each fact.
Doors slammed, hands let go, smiles turned upside down..
And then my heart just cracked.
I shied away into the darkness,
And it pierced a large hole through my soul.
I was breaking down, alone,
With no one around me who could console.
And when people did come by,
I guess I expected a little more.
And though I was no longer by myself,
I felt a lot lonelier than before.
But though I did get thrown out in the rain,
And found we’re all out here on our own,
I let go of my King, Arthur,
And then built up my own throne.
She couldn’t distinguish the difference,
Between healing and being hurt.
I was finding myself again,
I had to find my own self-worth.
Because, the truth is, no one’s out there.
We should find love within for ourselves;
We should not expect others to smile back;
We should not be embarrassed to shake our pelves.
We should embrace the air and it’s voices;
And admire the skies many hues.
We should venture out on our own;
Without feeling the old, home-sick blues.
We should chase the ocean when it leaves the shoreline,
And not settle for a drought.
We should shield ourselves from the wind,
And relight our flame inside when it goes out.
We should hold on to our dreams;
And soak in each season’s sun.
We should always remember our virtues;
And live our lives the way we hoped when we were young.
But mostly, we should be happy,
Because, otherwise, we’re just wasting our own years.
You should be content within yourself;
And pass no heed if no one else cares.
And when I say ‘you’,
I really mean to say ‘I’.
I wanted to fix the world,
So I went out there, and I did try.
But my answers did not destroy me:
And that’s the bit that she got wrong.
She described me as weak, and defeated,
When really, I’ve never been so strong.
And I just wanted you to know that,
Instead of all the things she thought she knew:
Yes, my heart cracked in many places,
But that’s how the light got through.
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