Nothings’ Possibilities

Dear Sister,

You, a Wallflower, seem to see the invisible bonds that shackle me
We wait, Vertiginous, for them to break, for me to break free

The seconds tick by in their regular rhythmicity
Tomorrow is a promise, full of possibility

But all the todays are amounting to nothings
Is it wise then, to imagine a future of kings?

Living often means wielding hope against misery
Yet false hope is a dangerous potential trajectory

And now I wonder what can be saved
For look at me: I am left altered, changed

Love,

The Resilient Virus.

Practicing Resilience

Dear Sister,

I am prone to a feeling of falling, endlessly:
gravity exists everywhere but in the dimension I am alive in.
This is a vertigo that cannot be explained.

You are prone to falling into the arms of misfortune:
home should be anywhere but the hospital bed you are trapped in.
This is a misery that cannot be understood.

But you always fight because
it is the only thing you
have ever known to do
and your limbs
are only comfortable when they
are practicing
resilience.

Sincerely Yours,
The Vertiginous Wallflower

Resilience

Dear Sister,

You are resilient.

Sincerely Yours,
The Vertiginous Wallflower

Soaking in the Sun

Dear Sister,

Do you know that feeling when you let your skin soak up the sun until it reaches slowly to your core, and you fill up with warmth all the way through? I think that’s how I’d describe hope.

Adversities appear, and we’re required to gather every ounce of courage and grit we have to face them. I used to think that’s the most natural assumption but the past few weeks have taught me that it is also very natural to want the opposite: to curl up in defeat and despair. Does that make us weak and pathetic? Maybe momentarily. Shall I apologise for being scared, remembering my regression from a fully functional member of society to someone with little autonomy, and when looking at the present, wondering if it’s just a matter of time for the cycle to repeat?

Then I remember the sun coursing through my veins: all the reasons I have that will make everything okay… whatever okay means.

Lots of love,

The Resilient Virus.

Hey There, 2015.

Dear Sister,

And somehow, despite the bone-chilling cold of near-midnight winter weather, a warmth was erupting at my core: the excitement of hundreds, all running towards the heart of New Year’s Eve celebrations in the downtown of a rather small metropolitan—praying that their feet would carry them there just in time to hear the last number of the countdown—was enough to convert my frozen body to scorching, veins coursing with boiling blood. In the heat of the moment, I was completely taken over by an indescribable urge to sprint across the paved roads and feel the whip of the negative twenty degrees of wind chill against my reddened cheeks, curly hair a tangled chaos behind me. I was consumed by my thirst to feel wild and absolutely free. Is this mob mentality too?

Alas, my moments of what can only be described as primal insanity were cut immediately short by my realization that our parents were struggling to keep up behind us, the result of their middle age and years of not-exactly-healthy lifestyles. Finding my way back into reality, but still slightly intoxicated by the euphoria of the movement around us, I spent the rest of the night in a sort of limbo of my own. We arrived at Nathan Phillips Square barely in time to hear the colossal booming of the first firework being lit; I still remember feeling the resonance of a thousand screaming voices as they yelled variations of the same things, rejoicing in the beginning of a new Roman year. Here I was, Nathan Phillips Square on New Year’s Eve, surrounded by: warm embraces and gentle, passionate kisses showered throughout the square; smiles and giggles and laughter; bodies huddling closer and closer together, the crowd collectively shivering from the icy temperatures; a small neon green car trying to cut its way through, somehow not having gotten the memo of NO VEHICLES BEYOND THIS POINT; and of course, my three favourite people in the world, however annoying they can perpetually be. In this moment in time, in this place, all I saw were people. Simply human beings, of all colours, of all sizes, speaking every tongue, standing together, watching the night sky illuminated by successions of beautiful works of light.

And I think that’s a pretty cool way to start what I pray to God will be a pretty cool year.

Happy New Year,
Sincerely Yours,

The Vertiginous Wallflower