If the world where a haze of black and white.
I would be the collector, the man of broken shards and pieces.
I sift through the darkness and the light, always searching for them.
My body a shadow. My eyes burning bright. On do I search, through the dark and the light.
My thoughts are the fragments of the pieces I collect.
Some, sharp enough to cut through souls. Others, dull enough to embody pure loneliness.
Some are large enough to hold in two hands. Some small enough to fit on a thimble, spinning, dangling by a single thread, waiting to shatter into scarlet abandon of this grayed out world I wander.
I pick up the pieces as they fall, whether from the arms of those so easily given, so easy to fall, so easy…
Or perhaps from the ones held close to the chest, never given up, always held close squeezed behind arms cocooned in loneliness, pain to much to bear again.
Those do splinter eventually, cracked before even starting, the tiniest splinter I do find within.
I feel sadness for those, sadness? Do I truly know sadness? I am but a humble collector of broken dreams, shattered upon the cobbled grey surface of this obscure place to which I belong.
To which I shall wander endlessly.
The texture of my pieces do so enthrall me.
They are masterfully crafted in simplistic beauty, beyond anything I have ever seen. Some so smooth it feels like a summer breeze upon my cheek, warm, blissful, content beyond understanding only to be brought to its edge, jagged and sharp torn away from its whole,
Broken.
Others are rough and coarse, almost like the outer layers of rock. Hiding the real beauty within, cracked open to reveal the dark ruby crystals of incoherent splendor.
I treasure those the most. For they show me that nothing is as it seems in this world.
Every abandoned piece is more than it seems. Even when the fragment is coarse on the outside, with a bit of effort it reveals its true beauty from within.
So I wander collecting these pieces, small and large, fine and coarse building my collection only to throw them away back to the world I can barely remember so long ago. I never cease, my existence is to collect,
for I am the collector.
I follow the path, through the grays searching for that one place I know too well. That place where light burns bright and darkness is absent.
It is a place of pure joy and infinite sorrow.
I think to myself will it finally happen?
I approach wearily. I have been here so many times, and yet still do I fear this place of wonder.
I glance upon the pedestal, pure white, lined with complex patterns lost upon my searching mind.
I lay down my broken pieces held close to my chest. Underneath my arms, ‘Safe, must keep them safe.’ Their red luster catching my eye. My breath lost in its shining beauty. Its scarlet hue, permeating this place of regality.
I lay down my shards waiting, holding my breath, praying fervently over and over.
Let this be it,
Let this be it…
The scarlet hue brightens. I exclaim in wonder, as my eyes shut from the sudden brightness. The light so strong it hurts my very eyes.
Then it stops and slowly I open my eyes and what sits before me, floating above the pedestal, is something I cannot explain after all my years searching,
for I am the collector.
Still, I cannot describe the wonder that so does float before me, in its purest vermilion shade, and yet as it floats away into the darkened sky so do I weep.
I weep and I weep, for what was lost from me.
My mind a numbness as old as time, and shared by all at one point or another.
Slowly I get up, my breathing starting to return to normal, as I leave this place of amazement.
Why do I collect these fragments? These forlorn objects, carelessly abandoned into oblivion?
It’s simple,
I am the collector.
The man who shall always search, always wander this world, searching for that which he has lost.
So do I continue my search,
For I am the collector,
the man of fragments and shards.
For he is the collector,
The collector of broken hearts.
Milkshake Thoughts 