I am water

I am dismal, tainted, and mistreated.  

I am blocked, forced, and trapped.

I am poisoned, dull, and weary.

This is what you’ve made me.

But I am still alive. You can make me suffer, torture me and ruin me. But I will live forever. Even if in some places I vanish or perhaps freeze entirely, I will always be somewhere. You cannot kill me. My origin is a force to be reckoned with, bigger than you’ll ever be and more vast than the extent of your imagination.

I’m a home for some, a source of peace for others. A great way to enjoy a hobby and a place to turn to when you need to cool off. To watch me is comforting, ask anyone, for no one has not witnessed my immaculate beauty. Even though I am different everywhere, treated in a number of ways, I am the same.   

I flow through the structures of your homes, wrestled to submission by your hands, condemned for as long as you stand. To escape, to be free, be what I was once before, is what I dream to be.

To be clean, transparent and brimming with life.

To be respected, pure and cared for.

To be beautiful, refreshed and loved.

Is what I dream to be.

I could be all those things if you take care of me. It’s not too late. Change for me, give me some tender love and care, and appreciate my abilities. I have witnessed amazing, devastating, life-altering events, and the growth of your society in my long existence.

One day you’ll die, as most have done before you, so why wait for your children to realise how much you need me? Start now so the future is brighter, so you can be remembered as my friend, so you can live on through me.

For I am the water that flows through your rivers, feeding your lakes, ponds, and canals. So listen closely to what I’m trying to say, open your eyes and see my essence, feel my calming touch and remember that without me, you are nothing.

I will be glorious, shimmering and divine.

I will be transcendent, bewitching and majestic.

I will be striking, enthralling and breath-taking.

My power will know no bounds.

Ocean

A home to the most magnificent creatures on this planet called Earth, and like many of mankind's pointless in denial self-destruction, we are murdering it.
These creatures. The ones we fish to feed, hunt to kill, farm to collect 'medicine', abduct for entertainment, capture to experiment, whilst contaminating their habitats for our own greed.
I have never been so glad that we have never reached the bottom of the ocean. I fear, on the day that we do, our curiosity will kill us and satisfaction will most definitely- not bring us back.
In those pits that the sun cannot reach, is mankind's master, our destroyer, the oceans justifiable vengeance.
Fish are not just food, sharks are not demons, killer whales are not show toys and their reefs are not replaceable. These creatures will dance for you if you let them, if you leave them in their homes.
The definition of serene beauty is things we cannot control.

Teenage Feelings - The Fall

It's not like me. To fall, into a hole so enticing, so deep, so empty with only one possible ending.
"It's so teenager of you."
But it's not like me.
I mean, yes, I know this hole. I am familiar. But I still haven't found a way to cling to the sides, to stop the fall, to "get a grip".
It's not like me.
I shouldn't fall.
I desire the roots of a tree to wrap around me, holding me in place where everything is motionless. Where time passes, yes, but I am stable. I am as confident as that tree to stay where I am and not let anyone sway me. Not unless they had a very big chainsaw, that is.
Stillness.
Instead, I fall.
Losing my grip, a quick slip of the hand when I was peacefully content with the world. The world of me. Losing my grip on the hopes of being carefree. Dropping into this known hole where hearts crumble.
The voice lulls me, a different voice than before, but nonetheless a deathly voice- so soothing and calm and deceiving. Eyes that piece through me, tearing me in two and paralysing me while I stare back, letting it take me, willing me to fall even deeper.
I must stop.
Small invisible cuts scrape away at my skin, almost covering every inch, hidden beneath a smile of optimism. I don't want to feel this- this ache, this wanting for what can never be.
I'm alone in this perpetual nightmare called lust. While I glare enviously at those that have someone to fall with- someone to hold their hand as they break like glass.
I am imperfect in every way that he is perfect.
There is no such thing as love, I tell myself. Only lust. When you fall into the pit of love, there is no recovery. So I convince myself, there is only lust- the need for something that will never be mine.
To be as stable and unwavering as a tree is a dream, to not move until forced to. To be glued to those roots, trapped in the embrace of loneliness, where my heart is protected from the inevitable.
But those piercing eyes and voice that melts the pain in my chest, it's okay to enjoy it for now though right?
When I reach the bottom with a thud or crash, laying there in the dirt and ash, another hollowness inside me.
At least I enjoyed the fall, before I reached the end.

AS Editorial - A letter to authors

Dear book lovers and authors,

I would describe myself as a bookworm, as will most of you. We have survived the deaths of beloved characters, dangerous love triangles and the disastrous movie remakes, but by far the most aggravating experience is when you are in a tense situation, the author is skillfully building up the climax and BOOM! You’ve run out of pages and don’t know any answers to the vital questions raised. You take a deep breath and contemplate the worst possible outcome. You quickly search for the next book release; your heart breaks as the date says you have to wait a year for those crucial answers. How do you survive? The only way you can! You read another book. You are ensnared by the plot twists, love affairs and character developments and BOOM! It happens again!

In the meantime a year has passed, you’ve moved on, and then you see it gleaming in the window of your beloved bookshop in the ‘NEW’ category. Every memory of heartbreak returns to you and you convince yourself that you don’t need to save up money after all. You run home, brush the dust off the first book in the series and bury yourself into the familiar pages to make all the small details and characters clear in your mind again. Once you finish, you feel refreshed and reborn. That is until the neglected book you were reading in the meantime calls out, so again you jump into a whole other world. Another book, another cliff-hanger, an infinite loop of suffering.

I do understand that authors have their reasons. Sometimes the publishers suggest it as a way to make fans read the next book and that’s acceptable, except when it gets to the point where fans are camping outside book stores to buy it. That’s not what literature is about. Literature isn’t about the money, it’s about the enjoyment of the book and feeling as though you’re a part of the story. For instance, most of you have probably read Harry Potter (what book worm hasn’t?), Rowling’s book made you feel as though you were part of the trio; you stuck with Harry until the very end, that is what a book is about. You take on that characters feelings and experiences as your own. In Potter-world you are a student at Hogwarts and even now you are still waiting for your letter (and argue that it got lost in the post). But unlike some mercenary authors, J.K Rowling wrote such a well conceived series that she didn’t need heart wrenching cliff-hangers to make the audience read on. Each book is a carefully crafted narrative arc, one that can be read and appreciated on its own as well as a part of a finely tuned series.

On the other hand, there are amazing authors who still use cliff-hangers for reasons other than the monetary purposes. Rick Riordan (author of the Percy Jackson series – famous for the most deathly cliff-hangers) kept his stories consistently interesting and yet, he leaves his fans in the pits of Tartarus because his cliff-hangers are that agonising. Riordan’s writing style consists of the original incident being resolved but at last minute giving birth to another incident as a consequence of resolving the last one. You have the climax and the relief but with an after taste of “oh, for crying out loud!”

However, you have to remember that there are different kinds of cliff-hangers; some are expected, so you’ve already prepared yourself for the heart ache, and some are just cruel. You have the famous, most clichéd, ones that leave you questioning whether or not the characters are alive or dead? Even though we all know that no author can kill off the main character (if they do, the character always come back one way or another) but what about that side kick, the innocent that has helped the protagonist every step of the way? The one we say ‘aww’ at whenever they do something? The side kick is the one that remains pure even with a bit of blood on their hands? That type of character is the one that is typically killed off to spark determination in the main character and then they normally solve the problem at hand.

The nice kind of cliff-hanger is the one where the story has been summarised but it’ll leave you with ‘what’s going to happen to the characters’ lives now?’ Which is the one J.K. used the most (thankfully). There are a plethora of others as well as these, endings where everything seems hopeless and the villain has the upper hand, leaving you with no idea how the characters are going to get out of their predicament; the famous conclusion that’s normally used in romance fiction, involving the character doing something they’re not supposed to be doing while the audience knows this will lead to great consequences for them later on. You worry for them, scared that the relationship is going to be destroyed or that they might end up with the character you despise most, sometimes to the point that you wish you could dive into the story and correct its course.

So, why do some authors choose not to write the whole series and then publish it? Or at least plan out the whole series in detail first so it won’t take as long to write? More often than not it is because they love watching us, the devoted fans, squirm. You follow them on Twitter for any news or insights. Some tease and give out clues, mostly warning you. For example Rick Riordan loves to tweet hints in the form of riddles or make death puns (e.g. a fan asked Rick how his book: Blood of Olympus was going, he replied: “Everything is proceeding according to plan. *Diabolical laughter*.”)

Authors have the power to make us feel anything they want, they enjoy being Gods in our eyes and yet through all the unforgivable plot twists we keep coming back. We can’t live without them and we wait patiently for the silver linings, much like the characters who’s journeys we all adore sharing. So, we pick up a book, encase ourselves in a new world, invest in new characters and BOOM!