“Beware the Moon”, the two Americans are warned as they set off onto the English moors on a dark, stormy night. Ah, if only they had listened, because what follows is one of the scariest movies ever. Filled with dark humour, An American Werewolf in London is a classic! These guys end up being munched by a werewolf, one dying and haunting the other, who survives but receives the curse of the wolf! The American werewolf’s ghostly buddy tries to get him to commit suicide to end the curse, and man, there is a big part of me that can totally relate to that, to being cursed, to wanting it to be all over. In addition I have to admit I become kind of wolfy myself during the full Moon. It definitely affects my energy- levels and moods; I am restless and energised, vibrant and alert, definitely more primal. Man is not a wolf but ahoooooooowllllll! I can feel the Moon, sense the silvery gossamer of its magnetic pull. I feel the need to be outdoors, to touch the Earth, to run through her forests and fields and jungles. It is a deep, primal connection which causes vivid dreams and fretful nights of little sleep.
In the pearl light of the moon last night, I certainly tapped into something. I am, as I am sure you, dear reader, can tell, in somewhat of a state of emotional and psychological turmoil and anguish. Some of this comes from revisiting the pain of last year’s Los Angeles experience. I am, at the moment, attempting to write about it and so am reading over my correspondence with LA Woman and looking at our photographs. It is an uncomfortable and painful process, but it has served to remind me of just how fresh the wounds still are, as has, of course, my latest emotional idiocy. There is something fundamentally wrong with me. With regards my latest heartbreak, I miss this person so much it aches, yet to her I am quite probably no more than an irritation, and this is all my own doing. As I said, there is something wrong with me, other than just the wolfy thing. This is the other reason for my state; my emotional lunacy with regards this really special person. So I am reminded that I am unwanted, of no real worth and that I have really amounted to very little in this life, and not for want of trying. If one had to say something good about me I suppose it is that I endure, that I pick myself up and keep on. I have to say though, that I am weary.
OK, so last night, the full Moon, restless souls and fretful nights of little sleep: I dreamed of my fluffy buddy, Champers, again. The fact is it was a nightmare! Champers was covered in these lesions that looked like runny feta cheese and his eyes were blood-red. My family and friends in the dream kept on telling me that he was ill and that I had to have him killed as it was kinder, but I just held him and cried and cried…and awoke crying, curled up in a ball. The Moon was bright outside and coated everything in my room, including my tears, with a white luminescent glow. I lay exhausted by the tension in my body as well as from my lack of sleep, haunted by those dream-images seared into my aching brain. So today I am a sleepwalker, the world misty about me. I have no idea what the dream is supposed to mean but I am quite sure it has a lot to do with where I am emotionally at the moment. Tonight is another full Moon, and I dread the long, dark hours ahead of me as I wrestle with my demons and my emotions…and my loneliness.
I wrote this poem for my new lost love and I thought I’d share it with you because it kind reflects my hope for the future despite the darkness I find myself engulfed by and my present despondency.
3AM
I often wonder why
I wear 3am
As I do.
I know it is
Darker than Midnight,
And more powerful.
As dead, in sleep
We cry out.
Exposed, vulnerable, bewitched.
3am is the charm.
We fear then.
We believe then.
Its magic is that
It brings hope,
It brings dawn.
The darkest hour passes.
Nightshade silence lifts,
And the cock crows.
Perhaps this is why
I wear 3am
As I do?
SWANY 2013/01/28
Copyright: Andrew Peter Swanepoel 2013/01/28