The Attic

Due to my inability to blog properly, and caving in on Ian's encouragement, I'd once more recycle an old entry from another abandoned site. Bloghoppers looking for fresh materials are discouraged to read further. This is my blog. Don't whine for fresh new entries. I can recycle all I want. Deal with it.

(I've just noticed typing this: how crabby I sounded. I've been in a foul mood in the past three weeks. Deal with it.)

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give me an attic. i will fill it into bursting with dreams.

varied hues of dreams. assortments, permutations, swatches and textures of dreams. childish dreams of cotton candy, marbled balloons and rubbery gums; dreams smudged with maternal agonies over domestic scatter of broken limbs of a tearful sister’s dolls, building blocks, toy guns, wooden ponies, dog eared storybooks and torn kites—yes, you have to remember those incredibly cheery kites; kites that can now only drift in pleasant daze, silently brimming with recollections of tangled flights.

somewhere at the far corner i’ll stack the attic with habitual, chronic dreams: reveries of sand and water, aimless treks, procrastinated plans of horseback rides down a slope pillared with pines and crisp morning air. i'd summon the image of a teasing hammock under a fertile mango tree on blistering summer afternoons while vulnerably drowned in crude trappings of demanding paperclips, insolent keyboards, rebellious shredders, invasive phone shrieks and oppressive fluorescent flickers pouring from unsympathetic ceilings.

the attic's walls will be papered with ambitious dreams: delusions and aspirations fermented by the most restless of imaginations. vision will be varnished across its swathed canvasses—they will be brave testaments of fertile creative impulses that shall transcend the trivialities of their passionate bearer.

there will be unlocked chests on the left of the attic to store unpleasant dreams: aches, frustrations, disillusionments and the constant ally and shaper of wisdom and understanding: the state of brokenness. the keys of these trunks will not be thrown into rivers, lakes or ponds but best kept at hand, for when that throbbing moment beckons you to lift the lid and peek inside as if to greet a vaguely-familiar wounded friend.

neatly piled near the sharp angle where two walls wed, allow me to assemble parched dreams and longings - a thirst for gentle geometries of tenderness: anchored arms orbiting a torso, legs twined around hips, gentle inching of skins to move closer or soft snuggles in the unholy hours between sunsets and dawn, buried for a moment in sheets and pillows, stirred only by sunken rhythms of breathing and discreet half-whispers piercing the elongations of downy sleep.

the windowsills of the attic will be book-ended with unwelcome dreams: nightmares and melancholy, goodbyes lumped in throats, pickled emotions as stale as grandmother’s yellowed prescriptions, polite conversations and insufferable silences, watching misery flicker in the eye of someone who laughs the loudest.

there will be no rugs in the attic; rugs hide the quivering hopefulness of the wooden floorboards. and it's nothing short of rude prejudice to shroud its modest dignity with shoddy linoleum. hopefulness is a dream, too and i would rather lay motionless on wooden ply, eyes blissfully closed, draining the coldness of timber that kiss the excitable contours at the back of my neck.

wistfulness, wishful thinking - they will sit languidly on the spot of an absent couch. they will populate the orphaned space like twins forever ensnared in umbilical inheritance. they are bound by reciprocation and hereditary accidents. they are compulsory dreams, too. in their honor abundant beauty are created to be desired.

this will be my shrouded attic, my private breathing space. i want it hidden for selfish reasons. once in a while, out of fondness, i’d invite another soul to lie down with me among its naked floors, to soak up the shivering radiance of its apologetic flaws.

an invited guest's probable sweet lingering or impromptu departure from this attic is an equal measure of anticipation and regret. this makes its keeper guardedly ambivalent to fling the doors open and welcome outside intrusions that will possibly leave ghostly footprints smeared with mud and woes.

a choice remains: let your dreams float in unlocked rooms and hazard a bruise. or in the private attic of sadness quietly spread your wings.