Still locked in the playpen
I pick up my coloring pen
I’ve promised to make no noise
So I draw my two cuddly toys
It’s Ugly Joy and Pretty Misery - again
They want to ride on a train
No! No destination causes pain
You are being a bad mother again
Shut up or I’ll lock you back in my brain
So to my children I give in
Before they crawl under my skin
Their birth I don’t remember
They must have given birth to me
The three holding hands
On a platform we land
We’re standing in front of the rails
Joy and Misery are biting their nails
Feeling like an abstract lump
The thought hits me with a thump
'If I see a mouse, I'll jump'
The tree of plum hearts
There is a beautiful, dangerous place in my mind that smells of ripe plums. Imagine a dirt road crossing green fields, an untouched spot of land lined by tall willow trees to its West and the unknown to its East. In this spot of the mind, it is always a summer day, and always at the brink of sunset. That mystical time of the day that carries the scent of a hot and humid summer night, dampened by lust. Halfway along this road, there is a big plum tree. And if you stand under it and listen very carefully, among the sound of leaves rustling in the breeze, you'll hear a faint rhythm of hearts beating.
I'm sure that this dirt road leads to a place of unparalleled beauty but unfortunately I couldn't possibly describe it to you, as I have never walked past the tree myself. I've always walked up to it, stood under its thick shade for a few seconds, only to turn my back to it and hastily walk away, often run. Run as if something dark behind me is out to snatch me. I guess that, even before the day I figured out why, I'd always felt uneasy in this spot of eerie beauty. Because a few moments under the plum tree arouse feelings that can't easily be contained, certainly not by people with weak hearts. Because the breeze in this spot of the mind always carries in the air whispers of promises, promises, promises – whispers that lick your ear and leave it moist, promising freedom and happiness in a life of eternal lusty summer nights.
I always knew there was something wrong, but it took me too long to see. And then, one day, whilst walking through my mind fields, the sweet smell drew me to the plum tree again. And as I heard the breeze growl its promises, and felt my heart become restless, I looked up for the very first time. And what I saw made a cold and slippery fear slide down my back and tie itself around my ankles. These purple-red plums on the branches were not really plums at all, they were battered, bruised hearts beating faintly in the silence. And what I was standing on was not ripe fruit, it was smashed rotting hearts.
These are the hearts of people who carry fibrous scars, the emotional cripples. People who, once upon a time, held their hearts back with ropes braided from fibers of fear and mistrust. A sad attempt at protecting them because, with every beat, the ropes would cut deeper into them, causing these poor hearts to bend in pain, like slaves forced to march to their deaths with their ankles tied together and their spirits broken. These enslaved hearts grew restless by the second, craving for the freedom that was snatched from them, and unable to contemplate nothing but plans of escape.
And then a day comes when these people, like myself, are drawn again to the dirt road, walking towards eternal summer lust and running away from heartache. And some of them stand still and alone here, in this dangerous spot of the mind, for a little too long. Long enough that their hearts make a bid for freedom, finally breaking free from their ropes and their bony cages.
Only, they don’t fly off into the big blue sky as you might think. Instead, they perch on the branches of this tree, like institutionalized old men. Like premature pensioners struggling to breathe in the summer heat, they gather together in the shade and talk about the war and about love, the war and love, war and the love, all beating at the same hypotonic tempo, their eyes fixed towards the past but never staring it in the eye. It is here that they talk about war and love, war, love, love, war, war, love, until the details are forgotten, and war and love become one and the same. And then one day, they realize that they have nothing to fight for anymore and no one to hold on to anymore. And as simple as that, they beat a last youthful beat, fall off their branch like ripe fruits, and get smashed open on the dirt road. It is the sweet smell of these ripe and rotting hearts that drives people to this dangerous spot of the mind.
I am here talking to you with my heart scarred, but still in my chest. So I guess you can consider me one of the lucky ones who figured it out: we are only emotional cripples when we use freedom as a crutch. I've been under that tree a time too many, so I recognize the sweet smell of freedom, and I wouldn't dream of taking that away from anyone. But one day I might meet you halfway there; and we might make dirty love by the side of the road. And then stand up and, for the first time, walk past it instead of walk away.
Tricks that won't take your breath away
If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But if I'm right, it's scary. So take a step back and read this.
They are more resilient than they look, so that an undetermined poke or half-hearted effort won’t break them. They are transparent, and this serves a double purpose; there is a comforting, almost pure feel to them but, more importantly, it makes it hard to tell which side you are facing from. They are tricky little devils whose shape can be distorted, creating a false illusion of change. But what changes is the shape, and that is superficial, the essence remains the same. They can take beautiful, iridescent colors that can lure and hypnotize into a state that has the warmth, safety and nostalgia of childhood. But worst of all, they merge. To form larger ones, which are the truly dangerous ones. Because, when trapped in a large one, you can’t see then ends of it. So you think you are free, when you are really not.
I only know because I used to be trapped in a bubble like that. Escaping it took a long time, and was the loneliest thing I ever had to do. Nowadays, it’s always there, floating nearby, like the illusion of a madman. Even though it’s heavy, filled with tears, fears and dark moments, it persistently won’t sink. It will never sink. That can be scary, but, in essence, it’s a gift. Because, knowing its resilience, I use it to float safely in turbulent waters. Letting the currents take me forward, until I reach happier moments, when I let go of it again. I’ve turned my bubble and the past it engulfs into a strength and an ally.
Today, as I walked past you and saw you walking backwards, you reminded me of the right way forward. And for that, I'll be grateful. I couldn’t take you that way, even if I set my mind on it. Because the slippery bubble you are trapped in escapes my hands. But I could be there for you as a friend, and I could show you some magic. Some basic bubble-breaking tricks. They wouldn’t take your breath away, but they would give it back to you.
p.s. [http://dolphinbubbles.net/]
They are more resilient than they look, so that an undetermined poke or half-hearted effort won’t break them. They are transparent, and this serves a double purpose; there is a comforting, almost pure feel to them but, more importantly, it makes it hard to tell which side you are facing from. They are tricky little devils whose shape can be distorted, creating a false illusion of change. But what changes is the shape, and that is superficial, the essence remains the same. They can take beautiful, iridescent colors that can lure and hypnotize into a state that has the warmth, safety and nostalgia of childhood. But worst of all, they merge. To form larger ones, which are the truly dangerous ones. Because, when trapped in a large one, you can’t see then ends of it. So you think you are free, when you are really not.
I only know because I used to be trapped in a bubble like that. Escaping it took a long time, and was the loneliest thing I ever had to do. Nowadays, it’s always there, floating nearby, like the illusion of a madman. Even though it’s heavy, filled with tears, fears and dark moments, it persistently won’t sink. It will never sink. That can be scary, but, in essence, it’s a gift. Because, knowing its resilience, I use it to float safely in turbulent waters. Letting the currents take me forward, until I reach happier moments, when I let go of it again. I’ve turned my bubble and the past it engulfs into a strength and an ally.
Today, as I walked past you and saw you walking backwards, you reminded me of the right way forward. And for that, I'll be grateful. I couldn’t take you that way, even if I set my mind on it. Because the slippery bubble you are trapped in escapes my hands. But I could be there for you as a friend, and I could show you some magic. Some basic bubble-breaking tricks. They wouldn’t take your breath away, but they would give it back to you.
p.s. [http://dolphinbubbles.net/]
A journey to Rome and You
Walking 
among the ruins of our past, you say there’s three arches to cross to reach you. I cross the first two in a heartbeat, sweet baby, but the third is our 'loco' idea of freedom.
among the ruins of our past, you say there’s three arches to cross to reach you. I cross the first two in a heartbeat, sweet baby, but the third is our 'loco' idea of freedom.
I stand still under this solid arch at night, holding a glass in my hand. There's a blend of feelings inside it, 'but they are all distillates of love’ I tell you, 'and that's why it tastes like single malt'. A single malt that’s older than our years together, baby.
A million dense feelings, like Roman buildings crammed together. It feels like I can step out a door and into a window, and from there out of my soul and naturally into yours.
Spectators of our grand idea shout 'you are feeding each other to the lions’. But could the holding of hands be the gesture that keeps sparing our freedom?
And when the night falls, and everyone leaves the arena, could you turn on the moonlight and, humming the sound of a familiar waltz, take me for a peaceful stroll among the dead?
You ask me what I’m thinking, but I can’t reply. I am busy diluting this ‘loco’ idea with a thought, to bring out its flavour. That thought is “I love you”, and that's why we'll always have Rome.
Missing you is surreal, but I am calm in the centre of this whirlwind. I have the answer now, it’s ‘to return to Rome’.
And when the dust settles, and the the melody of ‘acuerdate de mi’ stops echoing, i'll still remember what single malt tastes like: a blend of love and freedom, and that blend tastes like you.
Maybe we didn't do that bad
In the midst of a sweet summer night, my love to be made a wish to a falling star for sweet, eternal love. Before the summer was over, the ‘butterfly effect’ took over and our cocoon was born. The protective, silky case that we would nurture for the months to come with the utmost care. It would grow to reveal this stunning butterfly that we would proudly name ‘Relationship’. It would open its wings and take us on an ever-lasting trip among the stars. Our kisses would taste of syrup, our skin would taste of ripe peaches and we would make love hovering beneath the moon, engulfed in a subtle aroma of freshly-cut grass. Pretty classic, you might think, only our fairytale would have no ending.
A fighter and winner by nature, my love to be set his mind and soul on raising the most beautiful creature of all. Our cocoon, he would tell me, ‘will reveal a butterfly with wings in a shade of deep blue, with orange splashes here and there’. ‘It will grow to be the king of the butterfly kingdom, the envy of all living, flying creatures’. I believed him because he was rarely wrong.
For nights and nights we slept on our opposite sides of the bed, with our fragile cocoon tucked tightly between us. But, sadly, perhaps opposing its nature, our cocoon grew worryingly slowly.
After kissing for hours, we would sit up in bed secretly counting its inches, scared to make words out of our fears. But they moistened the air, so much that after a while you could see droplets forming on the ceiling and crystallizing in the corners of the room. At times, our worries made the air so damp that, in the heat of the night, we could hardly breathe. The droplets would rhythmically fall on our foreheads, giving us a melodic but uneasy sleep.
My love to be grew uneasy by the second. I woke up one morning with silky fibers tangled in my hair and caught in my eyelashes. ‘When you turned your back on me last night’, he said, ‘I untangled some strings from our cocoon’. He was rushing the birth of our butterfly and I, the protective mother and stubborn child, would spin the fibers back into place every Sunday afternoon. ‘It’s just taking it’s time’ I used to tell him.
Shortly after New Year’s eve, our creature was finally born. It quietly opened its wings one morning but, like an underdeveloped child, it was crinkly and clumsy. Too fragile to be the king of butterflies we had dreamt of. Like my love to be had predicted, its wings were blue. But it was a pale and nostalgic shade, like the color of the Caribbean sea on a cloudy morning. Like predicted, there were surprisingly bright splashes of orange here and there but they looked unflattering, almost wrong, on the pale blue background.
Our butterfly, Relationship, lived another sixty days and sixty nights and, as peacefully as it had arrived, with no fireworks or celebrations, it fell on the floor with a dull thud, and died. I cried and cried for nights and nights. For not saving it.
I heard that the ancient word for butterfly is psyche, but we didn't give wings to eachothers' soul. I also heard that butterflies live from a week to nearly a year. With our half year of kissing, maybe we didn’t do that bad after all.
A fighter and winner by nature, my love to be set his mind and soul on raising the most beautiful creature of all. Our cocoon, he would tell me, ‘will reveal a butterfly with wings in a shade of deep blue, with orange splashes here and there’. ‘It will grow to be the king of the butterfly kingdom, the envy of all living, flying creatures’. I believed him because he was rarely wrong.
For nights and nights we slept on our opposite sides of the bed, with our fragile cocoon tucked tightly between us. But, sadly, perhaps opposing its nature, our cocoon grew worryingly slowly.
After kissing for hours, we would sit up in bed secretly counting its inches, scared to make words out of our fears. But they moistened the air, so much that after a while you could see droplets forming on the ceiling and crystallizing in the corners of the room. At times, our worries made the air so damp that, in the heat of the night, we could hardly breathe. The droplets would rhythmically fall on our foreheads, giving us a melodic but uneasy sleep.
My love to be grew uneasy by the second. I woke up one morning with silky fibers tangled in my hair and caught in my eyelashes. ‘When you turned your back on me last night’, he said, ‘I untangled some strings from our cocoon’. He was rushing the birth of our butterfly and I, the protective mother and stubborn child, would spin the fibers back into place every Sunday afternoon. ‘It’s just taking it’s time’ I used to tell him.
Shortly after New Year’s eve, our creature was finally born. It quietly opened its wings one morning but, like an underdeveloped child, it was crinkly and clumsy. Too fragile to be the king of butterflies we had dreamt of. Like my love to be had predicted, its wings were blue. But it was a pale and nostalgic shade, like the color of the Caribbean sea on a cloudy morning. Like predicted, there were surprisingly bright splashes of orange here and there but they looked unflattering, almost wrong, on the pale blue background.
Our butterfly, Relationship, lived another sixty days and sixty nights and, as peacefully as it had arrived, with no fireworks or celebrations, it fell on the floor with a dull thud, and died. I cried and cried for nights and nights. For not saving it.
I heard that the ancient word for butterfly is psyche, but we didn't give wings to eachothers' soul. I also heard that butterflies live from a week to nearly a year. With our half year of kissing, maybe we didn’t do that bad after all.
A whirlwind tore my sentence!
Life is a whirlwind. In the most unexpected moments, it lifts you up and lands you in the most surreal places. It swirls you with such intensity that each landing leaves you slightly disorientated, with a limited recollection of what had been important in the past. Unavoidably, as years go by, some memories are lost.
Will I remember you? Maybe your name or smile will be lost a few landings from now. If that is true, then a touch of today is insignificant, nothing more than skin brushing against skin. Between two people who are not lovers, nor true friends, and meet at a crossroad to exchange words that leave no trait, simply to continue walking on their previous path, unaltered.
But that’s not how things work in (sur)real life, because words are not just words, they are tiny but powerful forest elves with pointy ears, deep blue eyes and silky, damp, bronze-colored skin. In grey afternoons, with a peculiar wind blowing that agitates with its smells of life, they crawl under wooden pub tables to make love to each other. Of every passionate affair, a sentence is born with its sole purpose to inspire. If this newborn sentence doesn’t carry out its purpose, it fades away and dies weeping. Not many people know this, but lots of the raindrops falling these grey afternoons, are in fact the tears of failed sentences. Surely, it’s a little bit sad, but sadness can be more true than happiness.
So I was given a sentence. But then, this terrible thing happened, the wind changed and this whirlwind flew in. It took what was once my beautifully structured sentence and tore it into pieces, god knows where the pieces landed. Who knows, you might find the word ‘want’ buried in the sand on one of your summer holidays. But you’ll never manage to trace it back to me. Or you might find the words ‘I’ and ‘you’ floating in your pint but with ‘want’ missing they’ll never make much sense. That’s how things work I guess, people need to want badly to find themselves in the same sentence.
Most Friday afternoons, with the elves gathering under the table, ‘I want’. I want the passion but, most of all, I want to prove to myself that there’s a reason for wanting so badly. But I struggle to finish that sentence without ‘you’ in it.
Before the whirlwind takes me someplace else, before the elves give up on me and hand me a different sentence, find me for a last touch. The words will draw each other back with such force that all the strength in the world will not be enough to separate them. Only one little word will be able to squeeze itself in that sentence: more.
Will I remember you? Maybe your name or smile will be lost a few landings from now. If that is true, then a touch of today is insignificant, nothing more than skin brushing against skin. Between two people who are not lovers, nor true friends, and meet at a crossroad to exchange words that leave no trait, simply to continue walking on their previous path, unaltered.
But that’s not how things work in (sur)real life, because words are not just words, they are tiny but powerful forest elves with pointy ears, deep blue eyes and silky, damp, bronze-colored skin. In grey afternoons, with a peculiar wind blowing that agitates with its smells of life, they crawl under wooden pub tables to make love to each other. Of every passionate affair, a sentence is born with its sole purpose to inspire. If this newborn sentence doesn’t carry out its purpose, it fades away and dies weeping. Not many people know this, but lots of the raindrops falling these grey afternoons, are in fact the tears of failed sentences. Surely, it’s a little bit sad, but sadness can be more true than happiness.
So I was given a sentence. But then, this terrible thing happened, the wind changed and this whirlwind flew in. It took what was once my beautifully structured sentence and tore it into pieces, god knows where the pieces landed. Who knows, you might find the word ‘want’ buried in the sand on one of your summer holidays. But you’ll never manage to trace it back to me. Or you might find the words ‘I’ and ‘you’ floating in your pint but with ‘want’ missing they’ll never make much sense. That’s how things work I guess, people need to want badly to find themselves in the same sentence.
Most Friday afternoons, with the elves gathering under the table, ‘I want’. I want the passion but, most of all, I want to prove to myself that there’s a reason for wanting so badly. But I struggle to finish that sentence without ‘you’ in it.
Before the whirlwind takes me someplace else, before the elves give up on me and hand me a different sentence, find me for a last touch. The words will draw each other back with such force that all the strength in the world will not be enough to separate them. Only one little word will be able to squeeze itself in that sentence: more.
I want you. I want you more.
A dragon ate my fairytale
I look into your eyes
But I don't know what I see
So I make things up
I see a knight hunting a dragon
I see closed shells hiding pearls
And sunsets that claim souls away
I see an undiscovered planet
A harsh land
Where the only survivor is a fairytale of love
But I know
I will free the dragon
Dress it with the pearls
Creating an unatural creature
That will savagly feed on the sunsets
Till the fairytale dies
And we live miserably ever after...
What happens to the knight
I am not quite sure
I think we end up married
But I don't know what I see
So I make things up
I see a knight hunting a dragon
I see closed shells hiding pearls
And sunsets that claim souls away
I see an undiscovered planet
A harsh land
Where the only survivor is a fairytale of love
But I know
I will free the dragon
Dress it with the pearls
Creating an unatural creature
That will savagly feed on the sunsets
Till the fairytale dies
And we live miserably ever after...
What happens to the knight
I am not quite sure
I think we end up married
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
