the isle of seclusion

Do you know that feeling? When your chest becomes so heavy you cannot breathe. Your jaw tightens until it hurts. Your hands tremble. Your heart stops beating, and your blood thickens to the point where it does not flow. Then, the moment lingers on, and on. Have you ever had that feeling before?

A situation of bleakness. Where all is lost and hope is placed on lost things. Where all that was familiar dissolves, and all that was unfamiliar is valued. Blind eyes and deaf ears become natural symptoms, and nothing makes any sense. Silence is kind, and lies blessed. The beholder of truth is a delusion to himself. Colours pale and scents fade, all beauty is disdained. There are senseless cries. Pleas of despair. Yet, it lingers on, and on.

And then it spreads. A shivering voice from a quivering lip. Gloom becomes the air of breath. A helpless word becomes the foundation of two. The hope that was placed on lost things is lost. The sky is too dark, the air too heavy. There is panic, not of a single soul but of many. A shout complicates matters, deceptive images are aplenty. A friend turns an enemy, an enemy turns a friend. There is no understanding, for what is there to discern? All are shreds. Our reason. Our humanity. Madness abounds. There is blood, and the ending of life. Yet, help does not come.

That feeling. A heavy chest, a tight jaw, shivering hands, blood slowing till it no longer flows. It lingers on, and on.


Notsnhoj

How Pure His Cleansing Blood

How pure His cleansing blood, that make us white as snow. There is need for my flesh to be restored and to be made whole. This flesh that has been consumed by sinful nature. Charred and tainted, rendered foul and useless. How fickle are the minds of mortal men, that we cannot keep our faith. How cheap is our word, that it can vanish in a moment's instant. Like deranged sheep, we constantly stray from the path.

There is joy being in His arms. There is peace being under His wings. We know it. It is life to live with Him. And death to live otherwise. We know it.

Johnston

the song of a bleeding heart

The clouds go by
In disarray.
A lonely mind
In troubles parts.
The world turns still
In solitude.
I sing the song
Of a bleeding heart.

I fell for an gem, so bright and fair.
It shone in the night, in moonlight glared.
Its voice was soft, it took me whole.
Its song so sweet, enraptured my soul.

I placed my heart in a foreign hand.
How could I quell my feelings' tide?
My heart, my soul, was taken whole.
How could I turn myself aside?

Though hope was high, and life seemed fine.
My heart was torn from that foreign hand.
For I was to see her walk away.
To take the arms of another man.

What coloured scarf hangs not on its paired coat?
What finished diamond on murky waters float?
What mare of wings to the world can convince?
What princess walks the streets without her prince?

I must have been blind,
For I had not seen.
How those arms entwined,
In hers had been.

What fair use to climb to the peak.
The rose had already been picked.

The clouds went by
In disarray.
This lonely mind
Now troubled parts.
The world turned still
In solitude.
Can you hear the song
Of a bleeding heart.


Notsnhoj

the loneliness of night

I am getting sick of these nights. They are cold and lonesome. It has been awhile since I have spoken. The hinges of my jaw have turned rusty. I would think it hard for any man to try pry a gap between my lips. The air grows stale within. For the first time, I wake alone. I wash up alone. I walk to school alone. I sit alone. I learn alone. I study alone. I go home alone. I stay at home alone. I cook alone. I eat alone. I wash up alone. I sleep alone.

My life is routine, carried out and accomplished alone. How I wish for a neighbour. Then, the darkness would not be so cold and lonesome. I am tired.

Yet I wait for the better tomorrow. The better tomorrow that will come.


Johnston

the weariness of day

I am entitled to a small portion of the sky from my study chair. Zeus must be panting hard, for the clouds are racing by. Like a screensaver, they come in from the left, and then they are gone. Yet, that is all the movement that my eyes are entitled to. The brick walls outside are still. The branch hanging over is still. My room is still. The air in stale. Somehow, I feel as though this hollow world is caving in on me.

I sit here, indulging in the texts of laws and monetary sciences. I wish the world would move. Then, I would not feel so stale inside. The days are wearisome.

But there is hope beyond. I can wait.


Johnston

the unfamiliarity of familiarity

The double year has passed and I have awoken from my slumber. My dreams of my sovereign nation are over and I have been painfully thrown back into the world of reality. A world where its minions, by their thousands, scurry around maintaining the perfect balance forged and acquired over time.

I have found myself wrenched from my former seat. Gagged and bound, the next time I saw the light, I saw a different surrounding. No longer can I touch the cleansing waters birthed of science, nor feel the stones veining with fond warmth. The waters and stones of my motherland. Though my new life is one that I knew, it is lonesome and distant. The unfamiliarity of familiarity. The comfort of a home, the joy of my peers, the love of a family. These are the three wonders of life that no pyramid can surmount.

I have returned to this land of bleakness, where the buildings are grey, the night dark and the day quieter. No song can speak my anguish, no cry my solitude. I left my heart in ancient time, the now, I live without it. Life was greater, now it is meek. Let me now be earth's minion, holding it up on pillars made of books and lack.


Notsnhoj

Ecclesiastes 5:1-3

"Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong. Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few. As a dream comes when there are many cares, so the speech of a fool when there are many words."

Flamboyant eloquence is of no regard when we approach the Lord in prayer, especially when the heart is not right. When we pray, we must pray with a sincere heart, constantly seeking His will. We are meek and lowly, constantly covered in sin. Our God is the Lord of Lords, when we speak to Him, we must know we are speaking to a King. When we pray, we must be aware of our humble positions before Him, for His throne is great and His glory boundless. When we speak to God, who are we truly speaking to? Are we placing Him in His rightful position as our Lord and Master? Or are we simply throwing our wish list on some unseen random? Who are we truly speaking to? Let our words be spoken with the right heart, and spoken to the right King.


Johnston