Visual Poetry

A long time ago, there lived a warlock in a far away magical kingdom. As he grew up, he observed how foolish his friends got whenever they fell in love and how they'd almost always end up getting themselves hurt in some or other way. He decided he never wanted to fall prey to such weakness or be controlled by his heart and he used the Dark Arts to ensure his immunity to love. His family - unaware of what he'd done and of his immunity to love - laughed at his cruel, uncaring and cold nature, telling him that all would change once he met the right woman for him and fell in love with her. Of course, this never happened. Though many maidens did try to touch his heart and get him to find an interest in them, none succeeded. Years went by and his parents soon passed away, but he remained completely unaffected by their death. If anything, he was thrilled to be the sole ruler of the Kingdom and to have the castle all to himself. He transferred his greatest treasure to the deepest d

Loss. We've all felt it. We've all experienced it. We've all lost something. We've all lost someone. We've all lost hope. Sometimes, we get to the point where we lose ourselves. When we've lost something, we don't try to forget it. No, it hurts us and tears us up inside - piece by piece - but as humans we refuse to let it go.  We try to find it all over again, to get it back, rather than forget it. We compare our current situation to the life we lived before we knew loss. Thinking that this constant comparison will help us hold on to that happiness without realizing the simple fact that comparison is the thief of joy. We hold on to those memories the way we wish we held on to the person, thing or feeling we lost. We spend hours rethinking our actions and  decisions, hating ourselves and wishing we'd done things differently because maybe then we'd still be happy. We blame ourselves for the loss.  We punish ourselves. We drown ourselves in t

Drawing: "Empty Vessel" - Nicole Nolte Perhaps we feel empty because we leave pieces of ourselves in everything we used to love and we just accept that it's gone. We forget who we are. We lock our hearts away, acting as if it's us against the world but really it's just us against ourselves.  We give up too easily, we're afraid to fight for what we want and what we believe is right because we live in a society where not everyone's opinion is of equal worth to the person next to them.  If something makes you happy, fight for it. Don't just give up. Stop keeping quiet in fear of offending people or getting yourself into uncomfortable situations because you will regret it. Speak up!  Rather an "oops" than a "what if". We cry when we lose the people we love but we don't realize how quickly we are losing ourselves. We don't realize what we had until it's gone. We don't know real love or happiness until we make a mis

Drawing: "Permanent Residence" - Nicole Nolte What is love and how can we explain it? Hearts (❤) are merely romanticised symbols representing the idea of love as they have basically nothing to do with this powerful feeling and are fairly abstract symbols. This beautiful feeling (love) is rather indescribable if you think about it. Everybody will experience, express and explain it in a different way.  When we've been hurt and we feel as if we can never love again, we say our heart has been broken and although our feelings aren't directly associated with our hearts, if you've been hurt badly enough you can actually feel that emotional pain in a physical sense. When you're crying your eyes out at night - feeling completely and hopelessly alone - your chest feels tight, as if your heart is going into lockdown to protect itself. You begin to feel your pain, rather than only experiencing it. It's this particular kind of pain that leads me to  believe ou