visions-of-eternal

[visions-of-eternal]

Seeing Red Again

I awaken in a fit of heat. Bad dreams linger in the air like the foul smelling smoke of a burnt candle. I feel over-heated, exhausted and physically ill. I barely slept at all, and I need to leave for work soon. Frustration burns it's way to the surface. Cauterizing my every vein along the way. My body shakes with anger. I push it down, as deeply as I can, as tears burn the edges of my eyes. I beg them to dry up, "not now, Erin, later" the same avoidance I have smothered myself with for months. My voice screams loudly within the confines of my own mind. It echoes endlessly. I follow the echo deeper into the corners, searching for a tiny crevice of comfort. Yet with every door I peer into "will this one be safe?" I find the opposite to be true. Safety? Comfort? I find neither of those here. Anger and betrayal have become my new normal, they have become the anthem I sing myself to sleep with at night. So much anger, and nowhere to put it. "I cannot bare to be like this anymore" I think to myself. My nervous system completely fried, as it has been for so long that I can barely remember what it ever felt like to be a peace. So I will pray, I will list all of the tiny things I am grateful for, this will sooth the fire at hand, right? But every prayer leads me down the same path.. "I am so grateful for my family.. this damned family that causes me so much pain, I can't save anyone no matter how hard I try. I am so grateful for my health, this fcking body that hates me because I can't find the energy to take care of it. I am grateful for being alive.. why so I can live through this torment of tragic death, only to die alone myself?" The repressed emotions have now compounded beyond my comprehension. The pressure so palpable, I envision hitting my own head against the wall just for a moment of release. Eight months of burying everything. From the very first hour, "Breathe, don't feel this right now, Erin, we need to drive to the house and be by your brother's side. Say the right thing, Erin, the wrong words in this moment could be fatal. Be strong, Erin, take care of everything for Mom. Offer to call your Father and sisters in the morning and tell them the news. Wake up, Erin, I need you to call the coroner and locate the body. I need you to call the morgue and schedule a cremation. Get the paperwork signed. Plan the funeral. Call the lawyer. Design the prayer cards, this is all people will have left of him make sure you get it right. Check on Mom. Coordinate Dad's arrival dates. Check on siblings. Check on spouse. Answer the phone, Erin, we need you to administer your brother's estate. Put on layers, Erin, you'll need to dig through filth to find his belongings. Don't look in that room, Erin, you'll wish you could forget. Don't look down, Erin, you're standing where his body was. Don't tell anyone what you see, Erin, protect your brother from judgement. Don't be sad, Erin, there is too much to take care of. Don't complain about anything. Don't forget to go to work, to pay your bills, to shower, eat and take care of your normal life too, Erin, because death is around the corner for you too. Don't wait too long to call your parents, or you might find them dead too. Don't cry Erin, you need to get back on the sales floor, rent is due. Don't feel anything Erin, there is no time for that today. Just pretend that everything is alright. No one wants to be reminded of your stress, your struggles, because no one wants to face death."

[ Written: May 4th, 2025 - 11:21pm]

[visions-of-eternal]

Incoming Call; 11:43pm

I haven't been able to write. For weeks. I bought a brand new chocolate brown leather journal for September 1st. But it lays empty on my desk. For weeks and weeks I had this sinking feeling, lingering in the back of my heart. I would wake up with anxiety and panic. Nightmares resurfacing of old wounds. The pain lashing through every cell in my body, waking me in the middle of the night. Tears streaming down my face. My boyfriend wouldn’t know what to say. “What are you so afraid of?” he asked. “I’m afraid of the phone call. I’m terrified that it’s going to happen again.” He didn’t know how to console me. How could he? I could see it in his eyes, he wanted to tell me everything was going to be okay, and sometimes, he said just that. And I wanted to believe it. I convinced myself it was just paranoia. I told myself over and over again it was just fear coming back around because of what happened with my brother John, who suddenly and tragically died ten years ago; at the young age of 26. He was killed in the middle of the night by a drunk driver. Ejected from the vehicle on impact, and died from his wounds. A traumatic event that altered the course of my life. Altered the chemistry of my brain. I learned during that time, that death takes more than just the life of the person you love. It robs you of your comfort, your joy, your naive sense of safety in this world.. if you let it. And I did. Let it, that is. For many, many years. I walked around like a ghost. Death had become me, and I became it. A walking shell of a person. So haunted by the ticking clock of impending loss of every person I love. Wondering if it was all worth it. It took every ounce of courage I could cultivate, to find consolation in any form. I looked for it in the changing shapes of the clouds. The way rays of light sometimes filter through them, casting heavenly beams in my direction. The tiny pink flower petals that would line the city streets in early Summer. The pattern of falling rain on the sunroof of my car. The steady hum of my tires against pavement. I spent years making room for darkness and light to coexist within me. To let my heart shatter over and over again as I relived and transmuted every trauma from my past. Rebuilding myself again and again into an endless mosaic. Learning how to work with the polarity, the contrast of joy and pain. To feel everything so deeply, and not just survive it.. but transform it into something good. Learning how to find meaning in the present. To create my own joy. And to let go of that which I cannot control. It was a dark and lonely road. I spent ten years alone. Burning, healing, breaking and rebuilding until I learned how to become as flexible as water. Moving with the natural flow of life. Filling the space I have been granted. Yet powerful and life giving, like the ocean tides.

.... Until three weeks ago. The night I received the phone call I had feared most, I had reached a pinnacle of inner peace. Life loves to be ironic like that, doesn't it? I was sitting alone in my bedroom, with all the lights off. A few candles flickering in the dark. The scent of warm vanilla wrapped around me. I had just showered and finished my nightly routine, spending the last twenty minutes on preparing for bed and praying. I sat for long moments, thanking god for the beauty of my life, as I often try to do. Sending blessings over each of my five siblings, my parents, my love, all the people I care about, and then finally my prayers for the Earth and humanity itself. I felt truly at peace. I thought to myself how happy, how blessed I am to have reached this inner peace I had worked so long for. I felt joy. When finished, I laid down on the floor to stretch. Giving my boyfriend a quick call to say goodnight.

Our phone call ended up lasting a little while, as we chuckled at this and that. Making plans for when we’d see each other next. When suddenly a call from my Mom interrupted. The time was 11:43pm on Friday September 20th, 2024. A nervous feeling settled over me. “Uhm.. my Mom is calling me. I’m going to answer this.” I stared blankly at the incoming call.. “I’ll call you back after.”

I answered the call.

The screams of my Mother will haunt me until the day I myself, leave this Earth.

[Written: October 13th, 2024]

[visions-of-eternal]

“A Douleur Exquise”

[ 10.24.2017 x 10:27 ]

Four months ago I tried to burn every word I had ever written about him. I had been awoken with the stark and cold realization that no matter how far I suppressed my feelings, they kept coming back. Each time stronger than the last, each let down hurting just a little bit more. Pulling me back into a torturous place of uncertainty. Self preservation had finally kicked in.. so there I stood, dragging a long thin match against the small red patch of sandpaper, bursting the tip into flames. I held it close to the edge of one page sticking out from the corner of the pile held within my left hand, pausing for a moment to wonder which words i’d be burning first. The desire to disintegrate every letter until there wasn’t a single remnant left to remind me how foolish the heart can make ones imagination. I stood there for a moment in front of the tall silver trash bin in my Father’s shop, images of dreams I once had flashed before my eyes. My naivety to once believe that he felt the same, that there was more to this series of what I call ‘not-meetings’ than that of what the eyes have seen. I stopped my thoughts there before they could bloom any further, I didn’t want any more memories of what could have been. I touched the match to the corner of my torn up stack of pages until the flames slowly flickered over the edges. I dropped them into the bin and watched for only a moment.. for that stale parchment began billowing out clouds of black smoke. Knowing the smoke would set off an alarm, I was forced to pour a cup of water onto the pages before a satisfactory percent of my sentences had been obscured. I reached into the bin pulling out the now soggy pile of pages, irritated that my need for closure could not yet be met. A taunting omen of the open ended situation I had been facing for over three years. I threw the soggy black charred pile into a plastic bag, and then into the trunk of my car; not wanting curiosity to spark someone’s interest enough to read my partially blackened pages. My plan was to come back the next day and take the bin outside. There the pages would be able to burn with freedom; to billow into tall thin clouds that would slowly melt into the infinite abyss of sky; taking my words with them. Then maybe I could have somewhat of a chance to forget about him.. or some small chance of regaining a sense of composure, after my unintentional reoccuring vulnerability. But the real problem with this plan, was that the next day when I returned to finish the job, the pages were still wet and could not hold a flame. And the day after that. I waited weeks, but the pages refused to dry, again a seemingly continuous omen for the lack of closure I had been able to find. A few more weeks passed and the need to burn these pages slowly slipped from my mind as other things filled the spaces they once held in my journal. Until today. - - -

10:47 PM: I stop typing on my laptop and get up, I head to the parlor and grab my car keys. I reach up to turn on the stairwell light and unlock both locks before heading down the twenty-six steps it takes me to reach pavement. My feet hit the ground, I breathe in the cold Autumn air that envelopes everything around me. I make my way over to my parking spot in the lot and open my cars trunk. The only item in the otherwise empty compartment is a white trash bag, still encasing those partially burnt pages. I head back up to my third floor apartment and back into my bedroom; closing the door behind me. Sitting on the floor, I slowly open the bag, almost wondering if after all these months the pages still even exist.. and to my surprise- they do. Most of them are in much more read-able condition than I would have liked. I battle with the urge to throw them away or try and read what is left. Curiosity taking over as I peel through the strangely smelling pages, a mixture of ash and mold. I begin to read some of the words I had tried so diligently to remove from my life, until something falls onto my lap. A half burned match is now sitting in the palm of my left hand. I sit there for a moment in disbelief that the match I used was still stuck to these stubborn pages, when only minutes ago I had been typing away about this moment that felt quite far in the past.. only to be pulled directly into the present… once again completely re-opened and still as unfinished as ever. I ache to put the issue to rest. But now, as I sit here in the far corner of my dimly lit bedroom, I know that I cannot. How can I put something to rest that has never been acknowledge as awoken in the first place? Hundreds of questions light up in my mind, so I type and type and type.. but I delete the thoughts at once.

[visions-of-eternal]

Atoms of Humanity

[ 07.21.2020 x 2:24 ]

The shapes around me shift and morph until my subconscious mind reveals itself. I enter the dimly lit room and my senses are awakened, I smell the warmth of a glowing fire on a summer night. My fingers graze across the dusty keys of an eternal piano waiting patiently to be played once again. I move deeper into the room through a forest of old books, whose scent reminds me of places I have been before. Alight with the softened flicker from the glow of everlasting candlelight, the walls are lined with large oil paintings whose images tug on the recesses of my consciousness. Everything feels distant and familiar all at once. My heels make a patterned noise against the carpet and as my ears adjust to the softened sound, I hear the whistling of an open window. I push further into the room until I reach a large circular window with panes that open wide. Outside is a tall willow tree whose age surpasses my own, ten fold. I am enveloped in her beauty even in the dark night sky as stars dance around her like a glowing halo. The long satin curtains that surround the window whip around and dance against the far wall. There is a large canvas behind them, but I cannot see what these curtains are hiding. They move fast and then slow, never showing the treasure they conceal, and altering my perception of time in motion. I slowly move closer, reaching for the curtains and the moment my fingers touch the fabric they drop to the floor and everything is silent. The flames no longer flicker, the wind no longer sings. Time slows to a complete stand still as the fabrics melts to the floor and a large white canvas reveals itself to me. It is slightly iridescent and in it I can see my own reflection. But the reflection I see, is not the me I remember. I see a face I know all too well, but it isn’t the one I was expecting. The longer I hold my own gaze the contours of my face begin to transform and through the lens of my eyes I see the face of one thousand human lives. Blending in complete gradience as if they were really one. In this moment I remember all that was forgotten, I can feel all that I have felt.. yet even with the magnitude of these overwhelming emotions, I am enveloped in a complete state of peace; as if I was watching the universe itself form the atoms of humanity.

[visions-of-eternal]

Concrete Forest

[ 07.15.2020 x 4:25 ]

I sit here in an empty boutique. I’m supposed to be busy at work.. folding.. cleaning.. pretending to care. I’m supposed to be wearing a face mask and rubber gloves. But I do none of these things. I wander the empty isles and get lost within my convoluted mind. In a state of creative illusionary image, the future seems so close.. yet I reach out my fair skinned hands in front of me and I still cannot touch it. I want to be sure I am making the right choices.. with each step bringing me exactly where I am meant to be. I want to know I am becoming the Human Being I am destined to become. But a distant friend once taught me that there is no set path for me that has been already mapped out. Rather I am wandering a universe of forest all my own, and I must forge a new path.. one created by following the thread of deepest inspiration. I wonder if he understood in that moment, how much those words affected me. And how deeply I wanted that whisper of inspiration to be everlasting.. even though it never was meant to be. Yet still after all I have lost, here I reside in the present.. a fire deep inside of my eternal soul still flickers with the hope of future potential. Still aches for just one exhaling breathe from the lips of true love to breathe life back into these softly glowing flames; after decades of rapturous rains. 

I stare out the large glass windows as shoppers pass by with their faces covered by masks of every color and fabric. Shopping bags in their hands. We pretend to have an ounce of normalcy in a culture of dystopia. Illusion is the King, the Queen and the entire court. Illusion is the commoner, the beggar and the markets themselves. But not the mountains, the sea or the summer breeze.

And I as stand trapped in the glass foliage of a concrete forest, I can still See. But they cannot feel what I feel, and they cannot see what I can see; as if the masks were covering their eyes and not their mouths.

[visions-of-eternal]

The Damned

[ 07.03.2019 x 10:47 ]

I want to heal and move on but I sit and dig knives into my own wounds. Emptiness and pain wash over me like a dam that has been holding on for years, but the deep rooted cracks have finally caved in and the walls have broken open. Floods of rapturous waters drown me in a sea of anger.  They sweep my feet right off of the ground, and my knives from my own two hands. Drowning in this ocean of untamed waters that have no where to go.. so they flood the city, demanding to hold space. Filling every street, every doorway, every step to the city halls. I need not attest the strength of these waves, so I give in and lay without fight as they carry me where they may.. loosing touch with anything I had held on so tightly to. The oxygen has long since left my lungs, my brain fighting for something to hold onto- to keep me safe. But in this moment with no hope for the future, and nothing but pain in the past, my mind is too smart to fool my soul any longer. Nothing is guaranteed: except death, and that is a cruel, cruel thought.

[visions-of-eternal]

I wake up and rays of colored light filter through my room. I roll over and rub my eyes, begging to escape the day. I lay beneath the surface of my satin sheets and push the stress away. “I am eternal, I am love, I am free” I repeat my truth to myself a few times before I am able to let go of the fears that often seep into my mind, like a punctured hole in the bow of a ship, filling with water over time.

I pull the sheets away from over my head and peek out at the gorgeous and wild rainbows piercing through the air, painting the walls like they belong there. The filtered rays of light enrapture me in their glow, I can’t help but be wrapped up in their beauty like a silk river that washes over me endlessly.

I sit up and look more closely as the fractals move into separation; distinguishing different colors that glow with the intensity of the heavens. Everything feels familiar yet distant.. I move closer to the window until the light flowers over my body, painting my face in an a crystalline flow of liquid light. Suddenly.. I remember everything I had forgotten. Suddenly I am whole.

[visions-of-eternal]

I move through space until i’m lost in a sea of grids. My eyes are bathed in colors I cannot identify. My ears swim through waves I cannot separate. There are cities of my own creation basking in a light not of this sun. I have been here before, I will enter again.

[visions-of-eternal]

[ xxiv.ix.iv ]

I stare at the blank wall until my chest begs to explode, aches for me set fire to the room around me so my eyes won’t be the only thing devoured in flames. But I can’t find the strength to move at all. My knuckles are bloody, both metaphorically and physically. I watch as the blood runs down my finger tips and drips slowly onto the empty floor. I question whether or not I have any strength left to fight at all, knowing that I am alone in this battle- one of many that add up to a seemingly hopeless war. My once abundant resources seem to be depleting by the second. My faith is tested over and over again, until every brick of every wall I had so meticulously lay to build, have been torn apart, shattered into an unrecognizable labyrinth of ashes. A hopelessness calling me to give in, beckoning me to beg for my own end. I can’t help but repeat to myself over and over again, i’m done, i’m so fucking done. But the entirety of the time these words spend crossing the boarders of my lips, is wasted- because I know they are untrue. I know I am not done. There is an underlying and unspoken truth that has woven itself into the deepest fabrication of who I am, and that is the unwavering faith that good will prevail. But even still, I often want to give in. Entranced by a daydream of red flames laced in heavy black smoke, dancing above me as I lay upon the cold grey pavement of this desolate city.. Allowing myself to succumb to the immeasurable and seemingly unending rapturous waves of emotional turmoil that lap over me on their own accord. Their momentum growing by factors of which I have no control, their rhythm building a castle upon my heavy heart at a slow and steady pace, until I couldn’t get up even if I wanted to. I watch as the flames rises from the cracks in the pavement until they billow above my head, drowning me in an effortless and unattested motion of surrender. - - I stop writing for a moment and rub my sore knuckles, they didn’t deserve to be smashed into the dirty walls of a bathroom stall, but i’m thankful because I needed a way to let it out. Words were not working, they only seemed to disintegrate into a heavy gasoline, feeding the flames that taunt me with their alluring call. And it was either the dirty wall or my own body, and one scars much more easily than the other. I place my palms face down onto a floor layered in rubble- remnants of the battle at hand. Structures that once stood sturdy against the harsh conditions of the exterior world are now shattered into pieces small enough to fit in my pocket. The current state of destruction laced with tiny red drops of my own blood, seem to paint an image that closely mirrors my own. I push myself up onto my knees, and then my feet. I stare at the barely visible marks on the wall and momentarily compare them to their matching points on each of my knuckles. I take one heavy deep breath as far into my lungs as it will go, turn to face the door and leave.

[visions-of-eternal]

Do you remember past days in your life, when every little thing was completely different? You wore different clothing, and slept in a different bed. Home isn’t where you would call it right now, and you held onto what you had left. You were a completely different person, or maybe a little bit the same.. you always wanted to feel more, daydreams of daydreaming.. soaked wet in the pouring rain.

[visions-of-eternal]

Begin Again

[ 09.28.2017 x 11:00 ]

I have identified a desire to trace the intricately and endlessly woven threads of my individual consciousness back to the beginning.. to better understand the essence of ‘who’ and ‘why’.. But what exactly defines ‘beginning’? If I am referring to this life.. and not all the others, then was it the moment I was conceived? Or maybe rather the moment I was born? Was it the warm Rhode Island days of my childhood, spent hanging by small bare hands from the trees in my backyard.. or chasing after my older brothers and sisters with the endless hope for their acceptance? Was it the day I watched a black plastic trash-bag become my fathers suitcase? Or the immeasurable days of the after-math, where I spent my illusions of time lying in the pitch black, back to the bedroom floor- my only comfort an album played on repeat, praying to experience something more? Or maybe it was the day my first love used a blade sharper than knives in attempt to cut out my heart? No, it couldn’t be.. so then it must be the night my brother was neglectfully murdered by a few glasses of fermented grains, mixed with a bottle of pills and topped off with a frail females battle with internal demons..

But I would be lying to myself if I thought these significant moments of life, that have naturally built such a peculiar foundation, could ever be called the true beginning of this journey.. Because the truth is, I realize in this moment right here- that there is no beginning, and there is no end. There is only perception of experience, that is created within the illusion of Earth’s specific equation of constructed time. If all of these waves that have lapped over me, again and again, are not the beginning- but rather the continuance of a ‘middle’..  maybe I should start with what I remember first from this life- and that is essence itself. My first memories of being alive, feeling the breeze on my small round face. Running my fingers through the thick green grass in search for the magical dandelions that would make all of my wishes come true. Running through the forest of trees pretending I was a fairy amongst the flowers. I think i’ll start there, because those are my first memories of watching as light manifested itself into matter.. because those are my first conscious moments- visions of eternal.