The URL for this blog will be changing on the 18th of December 2012 to:
closingpandorasboxx.blogspot.co.uk
Note the double x at the end of the word box, for there is already a blog URL by the name of closingpandorasbox. Please remember to update your various readers / feeds. I’ll also be unveiling a few other links at that time.
Thank you,
Nas
[This is a scheduled post]
Mirror mirror on the wall
Who is the fairest of them all?
You, my Queen, are fairest of all.1
The mirror and the timepiece tell the story of your beauty. Mirror mirror on the wall, the glass hides not neither does it stall. Who is the fairest of them all, would my beauty silence the hall, a question many would lie in response to. Not the mirror, nay, for it speaks that which it sees. It flatters not and neither does it deceive.
Your glass, be it hanging on the bedroom wall or hidden away among the contents of your bag, shows just how your beauty goes. When decades pass; the soft needles of the winter snow, dig deep trenches upon your brow. Your beauty, a radiating field once the envy of many, will be covered in weeds, no longer gazed upon in want or in need. What worth will it hold then?
Mirror mirror on the wall
Who is the fairest of them all?
Queen, you are full fair, it is true, but Snow White is fairer than you.1
Then when they ask, where is your beauty now, what will you have left to show? Hidden in the lines on your forehead or behind the sunken eyes, which saw your lustful days? And your timepiece will show you the precious moments that went to waste as you tried to outwit time’s thievish ways.
Why ask others, do I look beautiful, when men lie to please for in that is ease. Question the one that never lies, not intimidated by royalty or repelled by a ragamuffin. If your eyes tell you, you are beautiful when you look in the mirror then be it so and be you grateful.
But what is beauty? For that which is skin deep only lasts as long as the skin holds its keep. Be like that flower which catches the eye in its prime but still gives off its sweet scent even as it is about to die.
[This is a scheduled post]
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Catachresis – (noun) 1. The misuse of a word; application of a meaning to a word not its own, as asset used in the sense of advantage; also a mixed or strained metaphor, as a paradox for example. 2. The use of a wrong form of the word, through a misunderstanding of its etymology. – Taken from Webster’s Comprehensive dictionary.
1 Mirror mirror on the wall – from the fairy tale, Snow White and the seven dwarfs.
Image of mirror taken from here.
26 letters. That’s all there is in the English alphabet. Arrange them in different ways and you have at your disposal means to change the world. When Sir Winston Churchill rallied the nation during World War II, telling the people, “Do not let us speak of darker days: let us speak rather of sterner days. These are not dark days; these are great days - the greatest days our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable,”1 he used the same 26 letters. When Martin Luther King told the American people, “I have a dream today,”2 he did so by rearranging the 26 letters. The quotes we so dearly love and copy down for rainy days or those that we sign off emails and letters with, “I’ll see you soon then,”3 are all made from those same letters.
A bunch of plain letters linked together can have a worlds worth of meaning in them at one point and then they can be utterly meaningless, devoid of any emotion at another point. Or for someone else. – Rosaline
Words, that once people gave to each other as gifts, as inspiration or as binding contracts are now thrown around and kicked about like trash; uncared for and unwanted. Devoid. Empty. Shallow. Words. A person would once say, “I give thee my word,” and that would be all, for their words upheld their honour. Now people plead to one another for their words to be listened to, but they are heard only by deaf ears. Those that once would trust now build their walls higher and higher and those that talk the talk hand out the bricks.
Why can’t we just believe and be trusting? Everyone can talk the talk but it takes an honest, upright man or woman to be able to walk the walk. Say only that which you mean, and mean what you say.
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Title: What are words – Chris Medina
Photograph from personal photography, available here.
1 “Never give in” – Wartime speech by Sir Winston Churchill. Full transcript here.
2 “I have a dream” – Speech by Martin Luther King Jr. Full transcript here.
3 “I’ll see you soon then” – Quote from the film Dear John.
“So this is it then?” she asked, staring at him intently.
“Yeah,” he replied, nodding slowly.
“But why? Why now?” He remained quiet and continued to stir his latte. “Will you stop that please?” She said irately.
“What? I’m just mixing this,” he retorted.
“You haven’t even added the sugar yet, what are you mixing it for?”
Quiet.
“Is it because of the haters?” she nudged trying to understand.
“I’ve had a lot of haters. Some people hate because they’re jealous of what you have. Others hate because they are unable to refute what you have to say due to ignorance or stupidity. But sometimes, just like I don’t necessarily like everyone I come across doesn’t mean they gotta like me either,” he said quietly, eyes still not meeting hers.
“What about the others? Surely not everyone is a hater?” She said.
“Are you trying to make me change my mind?” he asked, a flicker of a smile in his eyes.
“Just shurrup and answer the question,” she retorted.
“No, not everyone is a hater. There’s balance in everything. With the bad there is always some good.”
“So then why?” she asked for the second time.
His latte was cold, lacking in warmth just like the words that came out his mouth. Resigned words that had accepted fate, cold and calculating. He finally looked up, held her tenderly in his gaze and let his words fill the empty gaps that remained. “Everyone talks these days, but there’s only a few people who actually say something worth listening to,” he explained. “I just need some time to deal with a few things and find the one that used to own this place. It’s his responsibility to bring this place back to its former glory.”
“Deal with what?”
He shook his head but didn’t speak.
“But will you be coming back? So this isn’t goodbye?”
The poker face was back. The mask had fallen. His eyes gave nothing away. “I just don’t know yet. I don’t even know if I want to be back. And what if I don’t find the person who built this place from scratch? What point will there be then? None.”
Silence sat in between them again. No-one else seemed to notice. The waitress cursed trying to clean the marks left by the man with his Swiss army knife. What mark will I leave behind he thought to himself. Will people curse when I am gone too?
[5th May 2012]
*****
I wrote the above before I was leaving but didn’t finish it so it never got posted. I thought now was an appropriate time to do so.
If it is time to go, remember what you’re leaving. Remember the best. – The Doctor (Doctor Who)
Ladies and gentlemen, friends and foes, girls and boys, giraffes and giraffesses (?) I am back!
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Silence. It can be very loud at times, almost suffocating. Sometimes that same quiet that is just so peaceful and serene grabs you by throat and squeezes the breath out of you. And claws at your skin and silently seeps right through you, twisting its way beneath the surface. Then you're running around looking for the damn remote. It leaves an emptiness in the stomach, as if you're floating in nothingness. You know it is hurting but the numbness stops you feeling anything. And you wonder if this is really it. That you're meant to float. "Float like a butterfly. Sting like a bee," said Muhammad Ali. A loved one asks what your plans are. "To float," you hear yourself say. They look at you crazy. "That's bullshit, you're no floater!". But the world sometimes pushes you as if you are no more than a feather, weightless and without direction. You float where it takes you whether you like it or not.
This is an unedited text conversation I had with Rosaline at midnight. <3
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Title: Firework – Katy Perry
While waiting for my train home from uni a few weeks ago I sat down and watched the men with the long coats brushing their ears, suitcase in one hand and the Evening Standard in the other, the boys from school sprinting to buy some chips, the old lady rubbing her hands for warmth. People were running to catch their trains while others waited and planned their journey. It made me think. There are always many trains to choose from, but before you get on one, you gotta know where you wanna go. Same with life.
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