To Scotland I

See,

it doesn’t have to make sense,

it doesn’t have to be logical,

it is what it is.

You are a stranger

as you are strange,

everything I want to see,

albeit can’t,

the life I do not breathe,

the freedom of my fantasies,

and a lonesome summer breeze.

I want to kiss you,

not because I love you,

nor because I am lusting for you.

but because I want to press my cigarette mauled lips against you

then I would pause to look at you

with wonder in your brown eyes

and maybe then I’d kiss them too,

simply because I want to.

see,

I wish I would speak the words instead,

but they won’t let me,

friends in my head,

but at least this is I, writing

or I think it is.

one of them really likes this piece,

another despises it,

a third thinks I’m an idiot

and a fourth claims I’m a teenager romance whore.

So I will not speak of affection

of which I know little

nor dwell on lust

of which I have abundance.

I just want to kiss you,

maybe comfort you,

and feel like a twat, writing this to you.

I wonder,

how people will read this,

the very few that do

make me self conscious

self restricting

but it does not matter

nothing has to;

these ramblings

this body

my face

your faith

your awkward laughter

or your misunderstanding of this

all is hell, all is bliss

all will go to shit

simply because I want to want to.

Stranger: Dance of the benign, insane

It begins with wanting, usually we tend to want one of two things: Something that we do not possess, rather a “want” out of our simple, naive and mortal reach, or more of the sweet, eternal same, more of want we’ve already embraced.

Applying the previous theory on the state of yours faithful, a paradoxical concept rises from the ashes of your spotless minds: both options are valid and match the description of our mysterious lady friend, she is the incarnation of what I long for in the materialistic sense and she is the embodiment of the theoretical, theatrical and thorough spiritual enticement.

Alongside the former, her familiar existence and her lack of needless masks that depict false facades is comforting, as if I’d seen her in the darkest of my ages in an old, beautifully melancholic coincidence.

I have always assumed I’m naturally equipped for analyzing humans but my perception draws blanks or mere false conclusions when it comes to her revered presence.

The  path seems long, troublesome and full of terrors and I remain quite at ease despite me feeling quite insane for writing this heresy and these hallucinations about this borderline mythical persona, using my intuition rather than my logic.

God have mercy on the feeble I.

Simply yours,

Zeus

Artwork by Cherine El-Halfawy

Stranger: The beginning

And there she was, lying next to me, awestricken and devoid of all masks and facades, and by the Gods it was a sight for the sore, bored eyes of mine. Times like these are thoroughly scarce in quantity yet intensely and beautifully rich in quality wherein time itself seems meaningless.

I would rust during the wait for her to reveal where her mind wanders, gloomy and simultaneously content, she seemed when she rested her eyes and leaned against the walls of thought and consciousness. I continued to write, hapless, helpless and very much intrigued by this alien presence that felt unrealistically familiar.

I was probably just imagining or mistaken, I tend to dramatize and complicate simple incidents to make them something I could write about, but a small part of me wishes it was as real and tangible as the words depict.

I will lay now in the comfort of my bed, with fingers crossed, with a wandering mind and with hope for better times ahead, times where my imagination isn’t that far from the truth.

Goodnight and Goodbye..

For now.

Yours explicitly,

Zeus

Artwork by Russ Mills