Passions fizzle out but you never do.
You are that unlit candle, sitting
by the window, in a darkness
of the warmest kind. I can’t see you
but I read you. I read your smile.
I read the gentle way you pull
at your hair, and stand up, and take
a timid step forward; the way you paint
my brow in strokes of unhurried thought
and leave single lingering marks.
The breeze flickers about the curtains,
but I’m steady in your arms.
The world is dark, shadows grey.
But your lips taste of colour.
Image courtesy of Beth Alexander; Designed/created by Katho28
I remember attempting to paint Vincent Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Starry Night’ at the tender age of eight, and thinking how perfectly those stars resembled tiny suns. It was as if night and day couldn’t help but blend themselves together into one far more intriguing, beautiful sky.
Tomorrow I will begin another chapter in my life, and the thought of moving forward into this new world terrifies me to no end. I will be in unfamiliar territory and I will not know anything with certainty. I will be lost, stumbling, fumbling, trying to find my way around (literally and metaphorically). I will be all alone, a tiny boat in a wide ocean. That’s alright though. Because even if nothing’s sure and steady anymore, I trust that the stars will guide me and that my heart will lead me the right way.
Part of me has been, is and probably will always be that person who just loves to write, but ever since I took an art class some two years back, I realised how much I also enjoy taking photos of things that all too often go unnoticed because of their familiarity and seemingly unremarkable presence. And what I love about photography is its spontaneity – its potential to capture these details our eyes often glaze over, and to encapsulate emotion at its purest – in its beautiful, thoughtful, at times messy simplicity. Photography helps us reveal the ordinary as extraordinary.
I never told you guys this, but photography was the initial impetus for me to start this blog. The title ‘Into the Forgotten’ is actually a reflection of what I love about photography (and writing too, I suppose) – how it makes us look a little harder, how it gives us the eyes to see those forgotten things… those forgotten miracles.
Of course, the only reason there aren’t more of my own photographs on this blog is because I don’t currently possess a camera (of reasonable quality). However, I’m hoping to buy a camera (or a phone with a good camera) sometime in the near future… When that happens, expect to see an exponential increase in photos on this blog 🙂
In the meantime, here are some photos I took today on my sister’s tablet (which for some reason, would not let me adjust its camera to a soft, blurred focus):
in mirrors
I was carving out
a bust
and paused in ponder over
what the shaping of my eyes,
and what the colour of my eyes,
and what the longing in my eyes,
and chipped and chipped
till I was bruised in one
and broken in the other,
yet
in blindness
did a friendship’s open hand
draw me from the hardened mould
to lids above my cheek,
to contours of their oval form,
to curtains brimming past the edge,
and drew and drew
till lashes up, mirrors gone,
and I myself appeared –
here I stand, here I am.
I finally understand.
(c) 2015 Katho28
—
True friendship helped to summon the one person I’d always tried looking for but could never quite find or see – me.
Into the Forgotten 