I am the embodiment of freedom,

The mighty pilot of my fate.

I travel through the broadest of horizons,

Without going beyond any gate.

There's no country I've not seen,

Nor a season I've not embraced.

My life is full of bewilderment;

It turns a single page every day.

Beyond the turbulence of flight and fear,

Against the clutches of sweat and tears,

I soar, towards the end of the world,

To the new dimension of another novel.

Upon the vast skies that covers me

Over the sun that's glowing with hope.

I am the embodiment of freedom,

The world only ends when there is no road.

With my fate sealed by the tardiest wax,

Dashing the hopes and dreams of the enraged.

I am the embodiment of freedom,

Bounded by the cage.

That night I took a step away,

The night I let my feelings stray.

They took a ride to eternity,

Came to the terms:

It's better without me.

The cold and lonely

Know only how I feel,

Yet they fade away

Feelings gone; Heart of steel.

Maybe, or maybe, they shall be saved.

The tightened ropes, fall of the brave,

The sharpened blade, may pain be engraved.

But in time to come, painless; would it be embraced.

Blackened ropes and blooded knives

Tempting pills and twisted lies,

Alone I shall end my life

In darkness tonight, to find my guiding light.

Darkness indeed, the haunted souls,

Searched in vain for a gaping hole.

Into the abyss, purity fell

Even with hope, my skin:

Stained by Hell.

With my fate sealed

By the Devil who killed

Away the goodness go

And insanity fills the soul.

It's time I gave up

On this non-existent life,

For it's mere invisible evil

That keeps me alive.

Touch

He leans against the fence, his fingers delicately curled around the wires. The creases on his fingertips caressed the surface of the tensioned strings, subtly but deliberate – enough to feel the outermost layers of his skin being rubbed away. The skin cells disintegrating off the tips and almost vanishing into thin air, just as he wished could be done to his existence.

Sight

He lifts his heavily burdened skull, up to an angle that’s barely hanging his head on the fine line separating him from discomfort, peacefully immersed in the ache. The sky is beautiful. He hasn’t expressed a sense of liking to anything in a long while, but the sky is beautiful. Abstract art at its finest.

The sky is a palette of vibrancy, each spot of it a work of art – the mix of colours and weather as intricate as the human emotion. Dark clouds penetrate through the sky, making their grand, melancholic presence known to the orb of life. Their colours clash, into a shade peculiar as a dissonant chord. This mix only created a mess constantly greater than before as the dark clouds ease in comfortably, like playing every genre of music at the same time in that one moment. Ironically, his troubles seem to have displaced themselves into the landscape in his sight – the disarray of the sky brings calmness spewing into his once clouded mind.

Smell

He closes his eyes and takes a whiff of the air beyond his nose. A trillion particles, each clinging on to its neighbour – a cloud of fragrance crashing into his olfactory sensors, and he can hear the ocean waves whispering to the shore. He bows his head, intent to construct an inescapable paradise beneath his breath, so that he could take in the scents over and over. And over. And the rain, it’s over.

His feet began to sink into the moist ground, like he was battling quicksand, except without the struggle. Two inches in. He is venturing into the earth. He’s two inches closer to the centre now. And as if that wasn’t enough, he lowers his stance – ten inches down. One foot in now. The pleasurable fragrance now closer to him than ever.

With his eyes still shut tight, he takes another huge whiff.

Fresh produce. Lemonade. Tea leaves. Strawberries. Cow dung. The aroma of them all.

He can no longer resist. A lone finger releases itself from his clenched fist. It points towards the ground, as if to pose a warning to the earth. Slowly, he extends his arm, sending the tip of his guiding wand creeping into the earthly soil. Slowly, and there.

He greets Mother Nature with a light tap on Her soul. She returns the greeting by sending exhilaration through his connected receptor, and it flows through his humanly veins to arrive at the edges of his lips. She lifts them. With that, he brings his wand, covered in the grains of the earth –

Taste

Onto his lips without hesitation.

He sticks out his tongue in delight and savours the gift of nature that has landed itself on his palette. The soil melts to the heat of his mouth like a piece of chocolate and evaporates into a burst of flavours he’s never tasted before. His entire mouth begins to fill up with sweetness and the occasional cackle of the fine insoluble grains against his teeth.

Satisfied, he stands up again and leans against the fence, his fingers delicately curled around the wires.

le goût

She chews on the piece of rubber repetitively, sucking out the last ounce of flavour that the piece of rubber could provide before it turns into a piece of rubber. The sweetness on her tongue slowly dissipates into nothingness, then into a distastefully bitter aftertaste. Not forgetting the plaque on her teeth that is stuck onto the sticky rubber too.

Her humanly instincts send the sticky rubber flying past the grass patch and onto the tree bark beyond the nearby fence.

la odeur

Her humanly curiosity brings her two covered feet moving, one in front of the other and leaving marks behind them that resemble tiny fences on the ground. On she goes, building dominoes in her tracks that lead her towards the tree.

As she nears the seemingly lifeless giant, she is overwhelmed by odours that she has never associated herself with ever. The smells so pungent they punch into her olfactory sensors, and she hears the shattering of glass leading into the wailing emergency alarm.

Greens. Acid. Decomposed what-are-those-called-oh-leaves. I-think-I-smell-a-rubbish-chute. Cow dung. She gags.

la vue

But somehow, the sight of the old tree trunk up close seems to blind her nostrils. The stench escaped her memories. Particles dispersed. She sees nothing but the intricate carvings on the piece of log ahead of her. The patterns on the trunk are unique, as if to have its own fingerprint. Each line is a marking of the path of the new life in the palms of its hands. The lines connect, intersect and diverge, carrying the fervent blood of this wise, old being, extending the paths towards its branches and roots.

He remains stemmed to the ground but reaches for the sky.

No part of her life before this moment matters to her; his beauty cannot be unseen.

For the first time, she fell in love.

le toucher

And so, she removes her feet from their shelter. They finally leave their homes and for the first time her bare feet grazes the earthly soil. Mother Earth greets her with a burst of exhilaration sent through her connect receptors, and it flows through her humanly veins to arrive at the edges of her lips. She smiles.

She faces away from Sir Old Tree and raises her head to make a toast to the skies. The dark clouds are gone, leaving the orb of life glowing ever so brightly in her face. The sky is beautiful. She hasn’t expressed a sense of liking to anything in a long while. But that thought reminds her of something else. Or someone else.

She takes a step back and leans against the tree, with only the fence in between them. She allows her fingers to slip through the gaps, with her arms behind of her, and those fingers delicately curled around his hands – the hands which feel more human than her own.