My Poem “Everything to Me”
On the night after my Dad died, I ran away into the city - I wanted to lose myself within the metropolis of people, because I felt like I had lost something inside of me... on the night after my Dad died, I walked the illuminated city streets not knowing where I was going to go, nor who I was going to meet... on the night after my Dad died, I felt more alone than I had ever felt in my life... on the night after my Dad died, I wanted to scream, I wanted to shout, I wanted to cry - but, in all honesty, I could not control my emotions so instead I felt numb but as if I were walking around with a gaping wound in my chest that exposed my bleeding heart that felt like it had been repeatedly stabbed by a knife. On the night after my Dad died, I unexpectedly met some new friends who all already knew one another and who had gathered together to share a Christmas drink - and though I had never met any of them before I knew that there was something to my meeting them that seemed like someone or something wanted me to form a brand new link... on the night after my Dad died, I remember being angry at whomever or whatever had taken my Dad away from me... on the night after my Dad died, I could not believe what had happened, what I had seen - and even now, and always, I will never be able to comprehend this nightmarish new reality I am living in that I wish was just a bad dream. On the night after my Dad died - after spending most of the night talking, connecting, and intoxicated, with my new friends - I said goodbye, and then, after I somehow made my way home, I reflected upon what had happened through a mirrored torrent of tears, and I wondered what was going to happen next and who I now was - and though no clear answers came to me, I knew that my world, as I knew it, had come to an end. My Dad is always with me - I feel him around me, within me, like the glow and the feeling of some kind of perpetual spirit and light that I know is my Dad speaking to me, reaching out to me, guiding me, giving me the gift of his unending love that will always mean everything to me. -Mark Hastings 22/12/22 In memory of my Dad, David William George Hastings 6/1/1949 - 8/12/2022
My Poem “Shadow of Death”
All my footprints have gone... all my fingerprints have disappeared... all my impressions have been undone... all my loves have been lost - it is as if what happened never happened and now I am the only one who remembers or cares that I once used to be with someone, sometime, somewhere. I never used to believe in true endings until this year, and now it feel as if life is not done teaching me the lesson that I, nor anybody, has true control over what happens... I never believed that hope would abandon me - but something is telling me and showing me that the days of knowing what to do and when are out of my hands and from now on I am going to have to do more to keep the once perpetual light of optimism within me lit, because even the most intense and raging fire can be doused and can even go out for good. All my life, I took more for granted than I realised - and it is only now, that I am bereft of what and who I used to rely on, that I understand where I have been going wrong, where and when I should have done more, and made the most of moments that I thought would last for ever, but were always only temporary... all my life, I have been blessed and I have been surrounded by more that I could have ever wished or asked for; and now that things, and people, have left me I find myself wondering if, when, and how my life could make sense ever again - because I have been changed forever in ways that not even I could describe or capture in poetry. The future, to me, is now one day at a time... the past, to me, is now like somewhere I once knew that I wont see or repeat again until I reach my own version of the end... the present is dark, and even the lights I see, to me, have lost their once vibrant shine... reality, for me, has been fractured too badly for anything or anyone to be able to mend - because I will always be haunted and living under the shadow of death.
‘VEGA – The Vampire King’ by Mark Hastings – Chapter Eleven: “Pandemonium”
‘VEGA – The Vampire King’ by Mark Hastings – Chapter Ten: “The Vampire Messiah”
‘VEGA – The Vampire King’ by Mark Hastings – Chapter Nine: “Vampire of the City”
‘VEGA – The Vampire King’ by Mark Hastings – Chapter Eight: “The Vampire Life”
‘VEGA – The Vampire King’ by Mark Hastings – Chapter Seven: “Shadows”
My Poem “No One Is Ever Alone”
It's scary how fast time goes by... It's scary how fast things can change... It's scary how many times in our lives we have to say goodbye... It's scary how many people have found themselves staring into space as they wonder what's next? Everybody has a dream that they hope and pray will become a reality someday... Everybody has a nightmare that they wish will never come to pass... Everybody has an ideal life that they always imagine, which within their mind can seem so real and so tangible that they can almost make themselves believe that all they have to do is simply to choose to get out of their own way... Everybody has lost someone who has meant something to them - and the best way to remember and to honour someone, in my experience, is to take the time to stop what you are doing and realise that every moment is like a page being turned in a book, which soon transitions from being the present into becoming the past, which leaves an impression but not always one that is meant to last. Life, like the universe, can seem so big for such a small word... Life, especially when we are young, can seem too incredible and sometimes too unfathomable for our minds to handle... Life is a question with an answer - but you have to stay until the end in order to find out... Life is complicated and emotional... Life is not always good and life is not always bad... Life is a riddle that some people work out slowly but surely, while others take a more direct approach and miss the point of why some things happen and why some things don't. A traveller of time and space once said that: "Fear can be a superpower" - and, if you think back over your life and everything that you have been through, you will realise that though things might not have gone how you might once have envisioned they would things happened the way that they had to, because life consists of each and every one of us making a difference and leaping into the unknown with a secret: that "No One Is Ever Alone."
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