The Stranger III

Chapter 3

I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul

Bram Stoker, Dracula

Image Source: Pinterest

Miley turned in front of the tall mirror and looked at herself in the amber glow of the chandelier. The curtains were drawn, and one could only make out that it was early morning by the soft light that ringed the curtains in the window of her quarters generously provided by Count Stephan.

The figure in the mirror posed like a manikin, frozen in a pensive gaze. The eyes in the reflection assessed her with a skeptical look and a face that spoke of no hope that some admirable quality would appear in the warm lighting.

She made love to Stephan throughout the night and still, she found their relationship wanting. What was it? What needed to change? Deep down she knew she was the one that had to change. He already had the perfect girl, and Miley wanted to be her, nothing else.

The bed covers were thrown about the bed, the sheets had wrinkles pressed into sharp creases from too many nights under her restless weight. On the floor among a pile of clothes, shoes, and adorned underthings, paper wads of handwritten notes collected like dust bunnies. The dresser was piled high with lotions, perfumes, make-up left open, and powder spilled on the dark wood and faded linen cover from the night before.

The figure stirred in the ancient mirror, fingered the two curious blood spots on the neck, and turned away. Miley – she called herself Miley because her real name was too hard for others to pronounce or remember – looked at the small desk by her bed at the sheets of paper in a loose pile and more thrown on the floor. It was hopeless. She was too attached. She could not document the Count’s genealogical dictations without inserting herself in this ancient family’s lineage.

She wanted him for herself. Miley wanted to be the forty-seventh Countess Radu cel Mare and become a leaf on this 541-year-old family tree. For a moment, Miley contemplated starting over and then the crushing thought of all that time making love to Stephan, and wrapping her life in a story about him was just too much. She had to let go and let him go back to his Anna and his beloved estate steeped in legacy and mystery so she, the Scribe of Vlad Stephan cel Mare could finish the story. His story, not hers.

The rest of the morning Miley thought about him. While she showered, dressed, and applied her makeup, she thought about him. The more she thought, the more she wanted, and the more Miley wanted, the more hopeless she became. The Scribe thought about how she could change him as she rifled through her catered breakfast spread for some tiny morsel to eat.

The troubled girl settled on Greek yogurt that already had the spoon sunk into it and a cup of coffee growing chill on the ornately engraved silver platter. Miley didn’t know why she fell in love so easily or why she always wanted the man meant for another. It wasn’t going to work out. It never did. She went to the desk and picked up her papers and stuffed them in her waste bin with the others she had read then rejected as woefully inadequate for nobility.

After a few minutes of pulling the papers out and putting them back in the bin, she realized she was late for her morning meeting with the Count’s staff. She set her body of crumpled work back on the table. She could change it. Miley decided she could make Stephan love her. She hurried out the door happy with the decision to make it work. Quick footsteps echoed down the hall of the castle’s residential wing.

A shaft of light cut through the crack left by the open door to Miley’s living quarters. On the floor under the side table, a sheet of paper glowed in the light. It was curled from age and neglect with a fine layer of dust.

“Dearest Miss Miley Nikolavska,

I welcome you to my estate in the historic Carpathians. I look forward to your arrival and employment to capture the historical accomplishments and family tree of my lineage. 

I hope your journey from Bulgaria is enjoyable and that you have rested well. I have made arrangements for you to travel by train to stay in the tiny village of Vadu Oii when you arrive in my country.

I will pick you up at the hotel the next day at eight pm and bring you to my beautiful land in the mountains. I’m sure you will be enchanted by the countryside and enjoy your stay with me.

Your friend,

Stephan.”

The Stranger

we must treasure the dream whatever the terror

N.K. Sandars, The Epic of Gilgamesh

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Miley sat on the edge of the brick planter outside the ice cream shop and indulged in her caramel macchiato sundae. It was a reward for living in denial. She denied herself enough food, rest, love, companionship, and gentle thoughts of doing nothing. Life was about goals and achievement, being heard and seen. She denied herself solitude, fearing silence was not golden but a terrible curse that she couldn’t escape. Some day she would have what she most wanted in life, and when Miley knew what that was, she could set her goals and devour the time to get there.

A man walked by and stopped in front of Miley, facing her left as if looking down the street. She almost asked him if he was looking for something. She stopped, berating herself for opening up for pointless conversation and the fight to get rid of him. She kept her eyes on her cup of sinful decadence and pretended to study where her spoon should dig next. 

The stranger was dressed all in black. It matched his long raven hair. This mysterious fellow obscured Miley’s view with the side of his hip – well muscled. His legs were strong, his shoulders broad. Just what she didn’t need; another muscle man jackass to rip her insides out and leave her alone with her pain and regret. 

“Miley,” his voice assaulted her awareness like the slow rumble of distant thunder.

Miley shuddered. How could he know her name?

“May I sit down with you,” he asked.

“It’s a public place. Set where you like,” she replied. Her voice seemed foreign and full of rude subtleness. She watched as he blotted out the sun and descended to the brick border of the planter. He sat a respectful distance away and leaned forward, his face in his hands, thinking about something – Miley had no clue. “How did he know my name?” The thought haunted her with unease and made her ice cream seem cloying and sticky in her mouth. A memory of her subversion by another man’s passion slid across her mind’s eye and she felt nauseous. She scooted over, just a few more inches. 

The man didn’t look up or move. He didn’t acknowledge her. The black-clad figure sat with his face in his hands, tortured by something she couldn’t imagine and didn’t want to know. 

“Don’t do it, Miley,” her inner voice scolded.

“Who are you? How did you know who I am?” She asked with a timid voice full of dread. 

“I warned you girl,” The voice in her head fumed at her weakness for curiosity. 

He lifted himself up and looked into her face. He was calm and expressionless. Miley tried to read him. Her heart raced with the fear a woman has when she falls under the gaze of a stone-hearted predator.

His gaze held her frozen, not knowing what would come next. Miley’s mind urged her to run away. The interloper’s posture held her captive, like the squirrel waiting for the hawk to leave. He looked down at Miley’s trembling fingers. She pushed them into her lap and abandoned her ice cream. Those eyes. They looked through her. They were like black obsidian gemstones fixed into twin settings; the eyes of Horus, she thought. It spoke and Miley felt the voice resonate in her chest.

“I am everything you fear and everything you need and nothing you want. I am the thing you look upon with disdain and give thanks you are not me. I am the beggar you taunted and the wealthy gentleman whose confidence you stole, thinking he had plenty of money left to carry him away in more luxury than you could afford. I am the love you never had and the pain you suffer to deny. I am the opposite of you, Miley. I am love in the darkness and I am only seen by you.”

His words came to her like a reading of some ancient manuscript that revealed some astonishing secret about her only she had known. It was the poem of Gilgamesh, the Poetic Asatru Edda. As she fell unwittingly into listening, into captivation, into mute silence, his voice shifted and she felt the words and saw them in her mind. His story showed her in the embrace of Krishna stretched out on a tiger’s pelt in a park where the trees were in the full bloom of spring. The air was sweet and fragrant and they practiced the enlightenment of pleasure according to the Kama Sutra.

“I am the boy you admired along the Danube river as our Tribe pushed west across Europe to Scandinavia to escape the Hordes from the Steppes of Asia as they swept everything aside like the floods of angry storms. I am the boy turned to the man who left you at the shore of Bergen Norway as our longboat sailed from the Fjord to Britain in search of glory and wealth.”

His story unfolded in epic vistas of history. She did not know when he had come closer and lifted her hand buried between her tightly held thighs. The hand that drew her into a spell swallowed her fingers with a touch soft and warm. Miley was afraid to look at what they were doing in this strange park where trees cast flower petals like snow. She felt no fear, only longing; the longing she had worked so hard to flush from her life. Now it was back stronger than ever.

The captivated tribal girl tilted her head down and listened as he neared her ear and whispered things; lovely things she didn’t want to hear, and could not resist, nor look away.

“I am the kiss, the bite, the intensity of striking your skin and spontaneous sounds unbidden.” 

Miley felt his tongue barely touching the peach fuzz on her skin. He drew mandalas on her with fingers that burned. She felt the licks and bite, the rhythm of men in their frenzy of lovemaking. “What the hell is going on?” She thought, but it was too late. 

“And who am I in your fantastic story,” she asked.

“You are the innocent girl across the river, the virgin mistress in the park adorned in the silk and spun cotton of your Lord and Master. You are the betrothed whose man has abandoned you for the glory of war, the dutiful wife, the mistress, the madame, the woman divorced from her divine nature.”

The obsidian eyes paused and waited. Miley read hunger in the reflection of her face in glossy pupils blown out to the edges of equally black irises. Did she pick up the faintest scent of his clothes; patchouli? Sandalwood, evergreen forest, wet stones, forest moss, and something sweet like masala chai wafted across her as a breeze from a passing car stirred the air. 

“Would you like to come with me to my place? I want to hear more about us, about you,” Miley asked.

“Not yet, he said. When your heart is full and you have found that the love inside you is the greatest gift you possess, I will come back to you, and this time, I’ll take you with me.”

Miley’s eyes stung from the rejection. She was ashamed for stepping out of her guarded nature to risk her heart with a stranger. Worst of all, Miley had no idea why she asked this goth-looking asshole to stay with her. She could not look at him. She would not show him how he won her over with his charming story and when she gave in, he rebuked her. 

Miley’s breath came in a shudder and she grew angry she might cry. She looked up to confront this cruel trick, but the man was gone and all she could see or hear was the people busy with each other, the sounds of commerce, and the songs of insects in the air. Her damned ice cream melted too.

eyes that feel, body that aches

Depth. Warmth. Mystery.

Too much. Too much of it. 
Sometimes i feel like I’m going insane.
For questioning—
the how i feel quite intensely
with no proper reasoning.
How the outsides quickly mirror the insides,
how the dreams manifest in real life,
how the symbols contradict 
only to synchronize in time;
and how you never seek for signs
but have them knock on your door 
way too many times.

How you sometimes deny
the magic and the fire
as it burns you to death
and to be rebirthed with its own light.
Dying and living—and a loop that is never-ending.
The crying to bed at night 
and the waking up with swollen eyes that feel its aftermath.
No, I don’t see it. 
I don’t see why.
But i was given two sides of the coin of life. 
The duality of which, i have to master in time.

No, i don’t see it.
I don’t even get it.
But i was given this depth of feels to be felt,
and maybe not yet to understand
the sudden body signals,
the splenic insights,
and the ancient whispers of light.
No I don’t see it. 
But the eyes that feel and the body that aches, 
has always been right. 

A Poetic Message for the Visionaries

a work of art and a work of heart

Recently, I’ve been having this constant visits of ideas that pull me into creating more and more inspirational videos that promote love and authenticity for the most part. This one is a spoken-word poetry entry that I made for the visionaries out there who dream big and are so passionate about life. Hope this inspires you to stay true to what your heart is telling you to do and to embrace your visions without any inhibitions. And please, enjoy the flow of the visual representation. 🙂

Writing on a Blank Paper

Dance. Flow. Magic.

The sound of the nib as it merges with the blank paper, the friction it creates that casts spells of magic in all of its content and the ecstatic anticipation of what will occur as they merge into one: this… is my writing. Not my exact way of writing, but the writing that unfolds within my writing. Like bright speckles of light that glow in each words, as it flows freely from left to right, creating a symphony of rhythmic dance without even knowing that you’re already dancing your way to finishing a story, a piece of poetry or maybe just random lines like this one.

Allowing. You just allow it. This is how a writing unfolds within a writing. Something else that’s quite hard to define or label was commanding you to write in the most artful of ways that the confinements of your own mind couldn’t even fathom the depth it creates. Often times, you even surprise yourself.

How magical. How splendid. How ideal. Does it happen all the time? No, it does not.

That harmony sometimes goes haywire and out of balance. And more often than not, the more you want to write, the harder the words come out. The blank paper sometimes stay blank, and you stay staring at it for even hours. Clicking the head of the pen, watching the nib goes in and out of its body, with a soothing sound that calms your insides as you wait for the magic that usually takes place. But no, there are times when the fairy muse doesn’t show up to wave her wand of magical congruence unto your hand.

I know this very well. I had magical moments where a writing happens within my writing. A powerful manifestation of visions. A natural flow. A beautiful alignment that even surprises you with one synchronicity after another.

And there are “unmagical” moments too, where nothing takes place, where nothing seems to fit, where i feel stuck in my own head, but i write anyway. I get on with it. And i don’t give up.

You gotta keep writing too. Whether on a literal sense or on a metaphorical, more in depth way, it’s yours to take. Write your own life on a blank paper each day. Some days it will be easy-peasy and violà there’s your piece of story to tell. But some days it will be hard. You might be stuck too. You might even hate yourself for not knowing what to do. But there’s beauty in it. And I don’t need to elucidate for you what this beauty meant. You’ve got to find it for yourself—like how i constantly write on a blank paper—whether in the flow or not, learn to love it equally, as it both serves a purpose to our own personal mastery.

Don’t read this if you’re highly sensitive

This day felt like a day of survival. A day of waiting for the sun to set so it can rise again tomorrow. Such a paradox really but earlier i was getting a little impatient, yet again. Things don’t seem to be working. Walking along this path that has little to no form of lighting. It’s too dark but holding on tight with this wand of faith handed to me by God when He instructed me to go to this direction. My grip is tight, a bit afraid that it slips off my hand. ‘Cause it’s the only thing I have that keeps me going. To look past the limits of my eyes, to search beyond the unsearchable and to try to grasp the shaky uncertainty that tests me.

Should i keep moving or should i go back? What if there’s nothing in there? What if I’m just wasting my time? What if my intuition was wrong? What if this isn’t really where I’m supposed to be? Will there be light if i kept on walking or am I just fooling myself?

These are my everyday questions. My everyday eerie movie. My everyday battle against the demons in my head that are seemingly obsessive. Well, maybe the rollercoaster effect is to blame. The highs and lows of the ride that give the same amount of shitty feeling. The seesaw syndrome of my extremity. Of my duality that makes and then breaks me. It’s just, hard—To live in the present moment. To just be. But I’m trying. God knows I’m trying. But sometimes the pushing to be present hurts. Maybe because it requires of force. Not like a normal gravitational pull like how i am with my writing, with my words, with the world i create out of my imagination. But I’m not allowed to stay there for long. I HAVE TO stay in the present reality.

And I guess there would really be times like these where I couldn’t get my shit together and that I have to push things. And I think this rythym of pushing with so much force will never stop hurting if I don’t stop trying to control things the way i want it. And hell, I know this already, don’t I? Why do i keep on doing the same old shit?

Earlier i thought to myself: this transformation journey sucks. It fucking hurts. The breaking of old patterns just so i can be better. The changing of habits just so i can be consistent. The allowing of things to unfold at the right time so i can be patient. The loving myself first so I can love others more. The building of self-worth so I won’t be needing of validation from other people anymore. And the fucking slowing down and the fucking details! It sucks. It hurts. But it’s essential for my growth. And it’s all for my highest good. Fine. Let me convince myself of this positive fucked up self-help theme of the world right now. To be self-reliant, to know how to self-regulate and to be self-aware! They sound so simple but it isn’t.

P.s. I know this too shall pass. I just had to blurt it out and felt like posting it. If you reached until this postscript, then i guess you’re not highly sensitive at all 😁 (But please excuse my language.)

Pps. I’M NOT GIVING UP.