I opened my eyes to a pool of black, a quicksand of emptiness, a sinkhole into nothingness, from the other side of nowhere, I stood in useless thoughts. I was thirsty for things I knew nothing about. It opened up in spasms of dull color, as light peeks through rustling curtains of water.
Everything. The beginning. The end.
I never exited the womb. The world formed around me.
I fell from the sky in a shell of fire, I was struck down by Zeus in a chariot of gold, I fell from heaven in disgust and shame, I tried to reach the sun. I was the sun.I spent my life finding who I am.
I am the Phantasm, I am the Phoenix
I am the light of the fire in your eyes
Two titans fight on a storm-laden night
I am the spark when their swords collide
I am the Phantasm, I am the fury
I am a moment of unsuppressed rage
In a basement of ghouls and spectres, shadowy and obscure
There was a dream, transparent, foreign, yet familiar, packed in a corner. I have always seen it. I have lost it forever.
I am the Phantasm, I am Phaethon
I am the last ray of a dying sun
I am the Phantasm, I am the Phantom
I am a farce of your wildest dreams
I am among you. I am not you.
I have sailed this sea forever. I don't recognize the stars.
I have gone astray down forgotten streets
Lost in crowds of plastic faces.
Where am I?
Who am I?
I am the Phantasm.
I am who you want me to be.
This is my story. This is my journal. This is a bunch of words, scribbled onto paper and typed onto a screen. Now a series of electrical charges; soon burns on dead trees.
Some may say that words start wars. They also end them.
Some may say words cause death, but only words can bring one back to life.
Words may move mountains, but the mountains remain after the echo fades.
Some may say, but that is only talk.
Shrouded among vapors of insane jealousies
Nothing else remains
Tell me where do your loyalties lie
Beneath the auburn glow of a crystalline sky?
This is where it ends.
For reality lies in finality
Nothing else exists.
All stories have beginnings and endings.
This story has already begun. Now it must end.
For my entire life all I craved was adventure. Throughout the adventure all I wanted was out.
From where I was it stood, loomed, shadowed, tall, silent, majestic, I could always see the mountain.
I knew someday I'd stand atop it
And see life
The world, meaning, destiny
Spread out below me.
Everything. The beginning. The end.
I saw more than I wanted to see.
I could hear the screaming torments
Of a hundred thousand worlds
I could see the clouds collect
Over darkened desert valleys
I could feel the raindrops fall
In a sheet of pounding water
Coming towards me through a mist
I saw the storm.
Covering all of a past life
In grey and dusty sweat
Promising an eternity of nothingness
Only all that ever was.
And she was down there.
I never knew her.
I never met her.
I never saw her.
But she was down there.
I saw more than I wanted to see.
And I had to go back.
I had to descend the mountain, I had to rejoin the world, I had to enter the storm. The maelstrom. The chaos.
I had to feel the rain on my back again.
I had to see the clouds take familiar shapes
That linger in the corners of my dreams.
I had to meet the Beast.
In a Phantasm of fire and rain
I delved into anonymity
I became one with the Devil.
I am the Phantasm
I am the Fear.
I am a thousand nightmares
Of ignorance and helplessness.
Amidst the sidewalk seas
I walked with my eyes closed
To the trivialities
Of passing bodies far away
Of other passing thoughts and lives
Of such I never cared
I am the Phantasm
But I don't know who you are.
I walk the sidewalks backwards
To see where I have been.
To see the empty highways
Of nothing
Only all that ever was.
I am the Phantasm
I am the fury.
I am a thousand tiny lies
Of conspiracy and pride.
Between nowhere and everywhere
A train passed from here to there
And blocked my view of new.
And each car that goes by
Like a single picture frame
Brings eternities of nothingness
Huge behemoths of metal
Moving towards monotony
Drowning all in drudgery
It never would have bothered me
If I hadn't looked between the cracks
If I hadn't seen the other side
If I hadn't seen her face.
From a bridge above I looked down onto the highways
I looked out into the lightning coming in from the horizon
The raindrops teased my face and smashed into the sidewalks. I looked down into a bus. Her gaze passed through my heart.
I welcomed the storm with glaring eyes
I sliced the night sky with lightning blows
My eyes absorbed the rain. The wind's only word was a shrieking bestial scream: The chaos is for me.
I am the Phantasm, I am Der Fuhrer
I am a blitzkrieg of holocaustic depths
At the vacant crossing the train still rolled on by
The sound of passing cars like the rattling of bars
Or the howling of a beast in the middle of the night.
And when my eyes saw through her form strobed into view
Drawing memories of colors that lay buried deep within
I watched her stare right past me not noticing the sin.
And her eyes, deep black pools, recede into bottom, stare blindly into nothing, penetrate my soul.
Hollow cheeks and paste-white skin turn hunger into beauty and find empathy in empty hopes.
I watched as she turned away and faded from my sight.
I persisted through the storm, static explosions strobed the world, jagged power arced overhead, a percussionistic symphony rumbled across the ground like a deep Satanic laugh. In a spark of clarity, there It stood in front of me.
I sensed the monstrous beauty that is unknown reality. I saw the blind addictions mirrored in my mind. I reached out for the passions. I fought the violent sensuality. I felt the storm.
Through intoxicating shots of lightning
The monstrosity made its presence known
In the void of your lonely room
And in the daze of a party of friends
In the comfort of anonymity
And in the greed of fame
It revealed itself in you, it revealed itself in me
It revealed itself in every triviality.
It is always there.
There is no escape.
In a hurricane of thoughts and words
I met the fear head on
I pushed away the taunts and lies
I broke the Devil's pact.
Thunder crashed into the earth. In a moment of abandon, the water fled the clouds, the rain met the rocks, dripped like sweat onto the ground, pounded my chest in vibrant ecstacy, faster and faster, harder and harder, flooded all the highways, drowned me in eternity.
I was thrown at the mercy of the whim of providence.
I was backed in a corner of basement memories
I was caught in the calm of the Eye of the Storm
From out of timeless thunder
The Beast pronounced its taunt:
I am the Phantasm
I am your fate
I am the bullet
You will never forget
I am the Phantasm
You are a fake.
You are a flicker
In a furnace of fire
No more could I hold back.
I saw the world in all its vision, I saw the green beyond the tracks, I saw the crispness of the air, I saw her fade between the cracks, I saw the life I could have had. I set the wheels in motion, without a single notion, of the rails beyond the thought, I went racing toward destruction, Faster, Faster, Faster
I faced my destination, I stared into damnation, I pedaled harder, harder, harder
I kicked off the ground, I flew into the train, I smashed into the new, I exploded into colors.
In a flood of panic
I felt the fever rise
In a volcanic eruption
I let the anger out.
And in a fury of Phantasmic violence
The Phoenix turned to flame.
Phaethon had his chance to fly
The comet shown throughout the sky
And put each Beast to shame.
Lightning shattered stone into splinters of dust
Forks of jagged light streaked throughout the skies
An explosion supernova shook the seven seas
Again the thunder.
I could hear the voices screaming
From a hundred thousand blows
I could see the teardrops forming
In the darkened hateful eyes
I could feel the bloodsweat sting
Pouring out as in a mist
I saw the fall.
Covering all of a past life
In grey and dusty sweat
Promising an eternity of forgiveness
Only all that ever was.
I broke through the surface gasping for air
I searched for second wind but there was nothing there
I pushed to the extreme.
I exceeded my limits.
I went beyond the bounds.
I could hear the sullen hissing
Of stagnant static steam
I could see through bloody haze
Of a hundred empty deaths
I could feel the acid burn
Pouring through my weary soul
I could feel the lazy wind
That blew the candle out.
Dropping like a stage curtain
Covering all in darkness
I saw the night.
I tried to reach the sun. I was the sun. All suns are destined to fade.
And in the final note there is a chair that squeaks
In the very end there is a voice that speaks:
There are many stars in the sky. What makes you think they will ever see you?
I am a phantasm
I am a fantasy.
I am a slave
to the freedom of folly.
I am an enigma that defies scrutiny
Bathed in a yellow light that turns everything to black-and-white
I am the phantasm
I am a fool.
I am a black hole
in a universe of stars.
I tried to reach the sun.
I was the sun.
All suns are destined to fade.
As I sit here writing a darkness creeps in
A pale murky gloom where shadows live and haunt.
I drift about the room finding every light in disrepair
The grey acquiesces into shapes, shadows, demons
I can see their forms, faintly, flitting, from the corner of my fear.
I don't fear the monsters.
I fear not seeing them.
I wait frozen as black blindness envelopes me in a death-cloak of finality.
I always wake up before the end.
This is where it starts
For all endings have beginnings.