Real men cry in broad daylight.

With nightfall, solitude tags along,

and in the moon's arrival,

some find the time to cry.

But why wait for nightfall?

Why wait for solitude?

Why hold back on your tears

when you know they are ready to flow?

We are told to choke all emotion,

put a stopper on all weakness.

So we do as we're told

and soon enough,

we forget how to feel properly.

But to those whose manhood

isn't bound to them as a facade:

you are the men with the strength to cry

in broad daylight.

The night is gifted with that grace that so few possess. Though the world is asleep, there is no sense of foreboding to be found in the late hour. The sky's soft darkness is textured by clouds oddly bright and silvery, stealing away the moonlight for their own contours. You watch them pass with a specter's idleness, roaming along and towards another horizon as stars wink down at you between them.

Your curiosity is piqued by its allure. There is something indelibly innocent and very nearly wondrous about this feeling in your chest as you look up at the midnight stars. There are some secrets here, some whispers of inspiration untainted by others, previously touched but never truly realized. But it's not soothing; it's too enchanting to be peaceful, this sensation. 

As you gaze at it from your window, you hear a noise. No, not only noise. A faint hymn? A melody, rather. A piano, a voice? An accompaniment of sorts, and more complex than you thought. The longer you strain to hear, the more instruments you pick out, the more you make sense of their soft intricacies weaving together, rising louder, more ambitious, more compelling and excited. 

You remove yourself from your desk, at first unsettled, but more so intrigued. The music is coming from outside, and you were going there anyways ... to get a better look at the sky.

There is no denying it as you walk up the stairs: the music is coming from outside, just beyond your house. A tinkling of piano notes, of strings in the background, a girl's voice intermittently singing wordless harmony and other times speaking in chime-like words you cannot discern. It is so very nearly terrifying, but too mystifying and captivating to feel that fear. It's drowned beneath your curiosity, the possibility of something unimaginable.

As you unlock your door, a shiver seems to extend from the mechanism to your entire body. You don't need to pull the knob, because you now see rich, violet and emerald lights flowing against the walls of your home, reaching through the windowpanes, almost too timid to reach into that place of normality, but just bold enough to show you their color. But more importantly, you don't need to pull the knob because ...

The door has opened for you.

And the music has rushed in with it. In fact, their sounds have become more chaotic, yet more beautiful, as if incited by your entrance into their presence. 

A whole cast of characters are decorating your driveway as you step out in stupefaction. Dozens of performers are dressed in grand, bizarre costumes you would only recognize at a theater or a circus, but even then, that wouldn't quite be doing them justice. They're not from here; that's all you decide.

There is no fear, not as the music swells from the instruments, not as the lights shine brighter from the caravan of carriages that have lined your driveway, not as you watch a juggler cascade a quintuplet of knives into the air, not as an illusionist ascends by seemingly no effort at all into the air, accompanied by a trio of acrobats darting all around her by a means of strings attached to the trees surrounding your driveway. And not, certainly not, as a woman with a small top hat and a pair of finches on either shoulder walks towards you, and extends a hand invitingly with a bow of her head.

The door of the foremost carriage opens without aid as she motions you to come closer. The music rises. The performers begin to collapse their movements together in a crescendo of talent, weaving like fireflies in a competition of whose brilliance is brightest. 

And you are walking forward to join them, putting your foot in the first stirrup of the coach's steps, to watch the final moments of their performance, to slip inside between the curtained windows, and never look back, as the wheels begin to roll away.

An eclipsing purpose

Ignites resolve to fervor

Casting shadow tendrils

Trembling along the walls

Privy to secrets seeking

Abhorrent and admirable words

Alike, their surface shimmers

Synonymous to keener eyes

Now extends my ivory irises

Embracing the black pupil

All consuming, their vortexes

Digesting all for but a sentence

Just as no love persists long

Without sacrifice at its hand

So no craft will embody

Persistence without quarrels

I cradle this blaze knowingly

Disintegrating doubt's burdens

With eyes embroidered by violet

The sheets turn barren and cold

Black and white wings alike

Encircle this silhouette

Diffusing long after dusk

In the mud, tumult and havoc

Are budding allies of misery

For only in their presence

Can endurance unearth discovery

And die, though this might

To tomorrow's coming light

If only for this night

I am briefly ... alive

Turning plague and blight

Into secrets now sifting

Sincerity to keener eyes

This so-called "mutual love" is a mystery to me. How do two people love each other at the same time? I think love is the feeling, the idea, that someone is enough for you, even though you're wrong in thinking that because they'll never be enough. But you try. They try. And I think the trying is true love at its finest: Two beautiful people trying to find each other in a pitch black world.

Sometimes, it seems, they never do.

Nobody is born to die

But to live

Seize

Every opportunity that comes your way

Mourn

Every loss you encounter

Believe in yourself-

Your capabilities

“Don’t let anybody tell you

You can’t do nothing”

Life revolves around joy

And sorrow

Avoid self-induced sorrows

Smile and wave

When everybody around you says ‘Yes’

Don’t be afraid to say ‘No’

If you disagree

It’s okay to go against the grain

Whether you live ten minutes

Or survives to see sixty

Leave a trail

Refuse to return to dust unaccomplished

Strive to make that idea realisable

Dare to dream

Don’t rely on other people’s experiences

Get out of your backyard

And find your own

Open your eyes

Opportunities are all around you

It’s within your power to recognise them

Make your dreams come true

But if you die without reaching your destiny

At least lay the foundation

Your wife

Kids

Friends will build upon it

And when darkness closes on you

And life seems bleak

Have faith it will pass

’’Hope is like a candle in your soul

That keeps on burning

When the winds of doubt

You can’t help feeling

Should have blown it out”