“I have seen the best of you, and the worst of you, and I choose both.”
– Sarah Kay, No Matter the Wreckage
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There is something that makes cynics private people. You may think that, as they stare at you blank, unfazed, uninterested, the emptiness of this world – in all its uncomfortable entirety – is staring back at you. The emptiest of emptiness. So dangerously shallow that it competes with the greatest depths of anger and pain.
Cynics are private people, romantics dressed in carefully stitched, hand-made gowns, posing, occasionally smiling, childishly hiding what they perceive as their weakness. Cynics hide children underneath their veils. Their most innate desire is to give, give, give. Until there is no more to give, no more of their insides that they haven’t exposed to the scorching sun. They are born with an inexplicable intuition. A powerful magnet that draws them to internal travelling, soul searching, looking for lost pieces of humanity in tired eyes and worn-out paths. Looking for wild flowers growing on cemented roads, hearts that have long lost their spot on the moon, their guiding star of hope.
Cynics are private people. Withdrawn like the distant moon, but always carrying their soft spot. Strong and independent, torn and vulnerable, bleeding and glowing at the same time.
*****
This is the private part of me so be careful what you touch, be careful what you don’t touch. Be careful which door handles you twist, where you step, where you stop to occupy space. There are sharp pieces here, broken glass, remnants of dreams, unspoken vows, sorrows ever so lightly sweetened by the passage of time. There are dark shadows quivering behind closed doors, collections of seashells and rose petals that I wouldn’t want this hard-nosed world to see. There are images of passengers that briefly muddled the chaos in my mind. You may even find the torn images of another, the broken chains of whatever it was that connected us. But not any more. No, those ‘others’ are not here any more. I have cleaned up their traces that night they didn’t return the call. That morning I laughed about their absence, that night they didn’t see the sharp tears in my smile.
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Cynics are private people. On the stormiest of nights you might catch them whispering prayers. You might catch them counting stars, drifting into the endlessness of a universe that both humbles and empowers them. You might catch them while they are gone, gone eyes, lost in the humbling chaos of seas, oceans, skies, eternal moons. No doubt you’ll be struck by their courage as they appear to embrace death, no doubt they’ll dismiss their fears of uncertainty. They want you to know it’s okay to fall sometimes. They want you to know they’ll try to catch you if it’s the time of the great free fall. They want you to know that they’ll let you fall if it’s the time for you to learn swimming. They want you to know that they’ve learnt not to just dwell in their darkness but to submit all weapons and enjoy the silence just when it only seems to get darker. As they silently stare at you, they want you to know that there is a silent fire burning their insides. They have dismissed love before, but they have also let it rage – an unstoppable fire, an unstoppable power keeping them sometimes calm, sometimes wired.
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Cynics are broken people. They have rebuilt themselves before, again and again, piece by piece, they have reassembled. Like old watches that know more or less how to keep the time, they keep functioning. Like old souls, they look for a dark space so they can curl up beside someone and consume all the romance residing in silence.
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I have found my dark place somewhere where you are too. I have come, like a good old watch carrying a good old soul, ready to share the emptiness, the illusion of time. Ready to let the fire rage in a place where I know that, in the end, none of us will burn (completely).
Cynics are broken people that like to take precautions. I have come to pretend that we will be okay no matter the wreckage. I have come to pretend that we will be okay as we unfold stories of both laughter and forgetting.
I have come to take risks while searching for comfort. I have come so we can find the truth in ourselves, our self in each other.
W. Kandinsky, Composition VII
Rational Artist 