Nothing outside the text
I like to write 'you', when I really mean 'I'
What is that about?
You is generic, but is that really what I mean?
Am I escaping responsibility for these words, these thoughts?
(I don't even say "my")
The second person allows me to detach from the text.
Shifting the focus, letting me elaborate without getting in the way.
Taking a step away from these feelings that could be anyone's, really.
Only, they are not.
Perhaps Derrida was right; il n'ya pas de hors-texte, but there's much more in it that I let on.
you won't be around to see them bleed and break
This thing
There you are,
out of sight out of mind can be true,
But we need this,
about you.
That you are here, but always gone.
That everytime I try to see your face I can' t remember what you look like
and all your pictures have been erased.
Your number was deleted and I pretend I did not memorize it.
There you are,
suddenly from nowhere and you say things,
Things I'd rather not hear, because
I recall your face and I dial your number.
Nobody's there.
out of sight out of mind can be true,
if you want to.
But we need this,
The destruction of the other, the mutual calamity that rips us apart,
every time but,
like boomerangs throws us back into each other.
Always like this and never any other way.
Looking for meaning inside the data.
I see it happen,
I see it happening,
Something about being the exotic spice. The extra flavour that improves, but is not indispensable.
Something about being all these things, and yet nothing.
And I ask myself why I search incessantly for meaning?
rewind, slow-motion, repeat.
Only it did not.
I see it happening,
fast-forward, next chapter, picture perfect.
But it won't.
Something about being the exotic spice. The extra flavour that improves, but is not indispensable.
The tree that is not large enough to provide shade.
The flower that will not grow and therefore must die.
Something about being painted into a corner, stepping out and getting my feet soaked in the paint.
Something about being all these things, and yet nothing.
And I ask myself why I search incessantly for meaning?
reprise: Perception
What am I, if not what I think I am?
I imagine and I try to become. I change, evolve (and regress.)
Yes, I contradict myself,I contradict you; I contain multitudes.
In a day I am ridiculed, patronized, celebrated and envied.
I am understood, misunderstood and slightly overlooked.
Possibly an opportunity, but probably a hypothesis floating away, passing by.
Like a piece of wood at sea.
I see things as I am, not as they are.
But how do they see me?
Comfortably free.
Phantom pains? C fibre firing?
Yet, I've been holding on to that pathetic little rope's end for years.
And when I'd open my hand, I'd be bleeding.
I never stopped to think whether I could really lose something that wasn't actually there.
What about absence of phantom pains?
Does that mean there was nothing there to begin with?
If I cut it off and I feel nothing, what does that say about my judgement?
Yet, I've been holding on to that pathetic little rope's end for years.
Everytime it was about to slip through my fingers I grabbed it harder.
Never asking myself why it mattered, never questioning the importance of keeping something so broken.
And when I'd open my hand, I'd be bleeding.
Because inside that small stump there were thorns.
The more I held on, the more they pinched my fingertips.
I felt no pain, all I knew was the adrenaline that comes from fear of losing.
I never stopped to think whether I could really lose something that wasn't actually there.
And in a flash, the illusion was gone and so was the tiny rope along with its thorns.
When I open my hands the wounds have healed,
There is no pain, you are receding.
fear of eternal recurrence
If I accept the premises on which our coexistence was based,
Or can I ever escape the road taken?
does that mean I am inevitably doomed to end up in the same place?
To take the same baits, furiously spit them out and then go back and ask for more?
Or can I ever escape the road taken?
That seductive undergrowth that wanted wear.
Yeah, I wore it. Or it wore me.
We wore each other out.
And here I stop, half-way through this analogy that makes no sense.
Voiced thoughts are non-rigid designators.
Especially mine.
An obsessive quest.
Years ago I discovered Milan Kundera's masterpiece 'The unbearable lightness of being'.
I read it over and over, highlighted expressions, learnt passages. Questioned my worldview.
Kundera writes:
'Metaphors are not to be trifled with. A single metaphor may give birth to love.'
Since then I have been obsessed with metaphors, aphorisms, similes.
Perhaps I secretly hope the right one will give birth to the love I am missing.
Poetry is eroticized language, said Octavio Paz. Maybe Metaphor is language dramatized.
Only a drama will do and while the fireworks last, the sky is a different color.
the domino effect
It was a small shift,
imperceivable to anyone but me.
Nevertheless decisive, final.
I am a book that you could not take the time to read,
a language you never spoke and won't learn.
I explain myself over and over, but my essence remains undiscovered.
Unread, my cover neatly closed.
Dusty.
It does not matter. Why would it?
you were here but I am the one to remember for everyone.
I'd remind you, but I'm out of breath, out of words.
when one tile falls it takes with it all the rest.
Deconstruction of sovereignty (No man is an island)
It is a strange world,
I don't want to acknowledge it,
And as long as my independence equals the absence of you,
And why is it so important to try?
/How many fantasies in an infinitesimal space?/
where all we think of ourselves is based on others' opinion
and everything we feel about others is a reflection of ourselves.
I don't want to acknowledge it,
but independence exists only in contrast to the non-existence of external influences.
Never as a conscious choice.
Is "independently happy" a euphemism for a passive-aggressive weapon of discourse?
And as long as my independence equals the absence of you,
does that not make me dependent on you?
Can a woman ever be an island, entire of itself?
And why is it so important to try?
/How many fantasies in an infinitesimal space?/
too real for reality
I need stories, for my life to be real.
this might be difficult to comprehend.
Right-angled events and rationality
And when you don't understand me I blame you in my mind.
I may be difficult to comprehend.
Right-angled events and rationality
passwords and people who cannot be bothered,
There is no room for them in this life that I write.
So when given an empty space, a silent pause
I fill it with something that goes with the drama I am composing.
A hint of unrequited love, a pinch of betrayal. Add a spoonful of deception.
Then I feign pride and strength, despite the fictitious suffering I supposedly face.
And when you don't understand me I blame you in my mind.
Blame your inability to rise to the level of your literary doppelganger.
It is an easy game.
Different ingredients cook up the same every time.
I keep writing...
a fine frenzy.
an avalanche,
of repressed emotions, fantasises. Desire.
Released at full speed with no room for thoughts about what comes next,
after acting out what had been forbidden for years.
A nagging feeling, a tug at the heart.
Fear of the end that always comes. inevitable end.
Will it come at full speed too?
Am I different now? Am I a conglomerate of residual feelings and images;
expectations of all that is desirable, unattainable and so there for the taking?
Are you still there? Are you the same?
Or have you been replaced by the instincts that pressed on you until you finally scratched?
When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse..
Twilight enhances everything.
Dead trees turn into beautiful creatures,
an empty meadow becomes the setting of a mysterious tale.
Light and darkness dance together, the colors marry, as the French say.
Anything seems possible in that short period of time between day and night.
It appears to be a pause from actual time and space; outside of the ordinary.
Every time it comes I try to keep it, but twilight cannot be captured and preserved.
Its appeal lies in its fleetingness.
Like all other things passing, I want it precisely because it is impossible to have.
Deconstruction of self
'What do you mean?'
So instead of saying 'I want you', I say 'there's a copper coil of desire conducting me'
The words I use set me apart from others.
The net is hard to break through.
'What do you mean 'what do I mean'?
'I don't mean anything, if I did I would have said something else'
I believe in the power of language, not as beautiful decoration,
but in its ability of creation and expansion of meaning.
I say what I mean, even if I use a strange vocabulary and metaphors.
Because they open up new worlds. They create more dimensions to our thoughts.
When others would use 'I am scared', I choose 'if he broke her, where would the pieces fly?'
Metaphors and aphorisms tend to create their own world.
Spinning beautiful words into a thick net of imaginary stories.
Turning life into something that it might not be. Better.
There aren't many who find their way inside.
It is safer that way.
Trouble is just something that was filed in the wrong place.
Contentment is a feeling, you say?
I thought it was absence of feeling.
Actually content is just two letters and hardly a sound away from contempt.
Are we there yet?
Piu mi vorrai meno mi vedrai e meno mi vorrai e piu saro con te.
Im walking the tight rope,
One foot in the past, the other in my imagination,
I don't know what is real.
My version was safe, but now I cannot be sure of my own story.
You were here, but are you the one to remember?
Am I?
Am I so stubborn that I will not see what is real if it differs from my perception?
Has my cynicism made me blind to everything that is good?
Did I back down, leaving you there on your own?
Shake it up
We are so involved in our own that it's hard to see.
Hard to see ourselves and our lives from the outside, looking in.
And we misunderstand.
We punish ourselves and one another for all the things we have done.
Is it possible to be freed from old sins? Can ours be washed away, our innocence restored?
Because I remember and I'm tired.
Not sure we can recover from what we did to us.
Doubting if we have forgiven each other.
But there is this certainty in me that it is not finished.
That there must be a reason we keep coming back looking for something, anything.
Because there's no continuous narrative, only lit up moments and the rest is dark.
And the truth is I recall all those moments of togetherness with perfect clarity.
Distinguishing them from the darkness, I know I will not walk away from that light.
Crash and burn
"Let me be the one you call, if you jump I'll break your fall,
lift you up and fly away with you into the night.
If you need to fall apart, I can mend a broken heart.
If you need to crash, then crash and burn you're not alone."
it is unfortunate.
This role I've somehow created for myself.
I am the anchor, I am the in-case-of-emergency, Call me- I always answer
Available for break-ups, deaths, anxiety, low self-esteem or the average rant.
I will make you feel good about yourself until you do feel good enough to leave.
Perhaps I will introduce you to the love of your life?
Of course I will also neglect my own issues just so that I can save your life.
Why not?
They say admitting your problem is the first step.
But what if my problem is everybody else's benefit?
And what if I did this all on my own and it is too late to change?
And I will forever wait in the corner of your eye, for the next crisis.
Cogito ergo sum Sophia
Personality.
And the tests don't lie.
We suddenly withdraw to prevent ourselves from emotional overload caused by our exceptional intuition.
As though this was not illustrative enough, here are some words I've collected along the road of life:
We cannot find peace by building a floor over unanswered questions and living upon it.
The list goes on...
It's no explanation, no solution or remedy.
Appearently it is something that can and should be tested.
Nosce te ipsum (know thyself) is a well known maxim and the Ancient Greeks knew their stuff.
I am exploring myself. Discovering my inner mechanics. Understanding my personal illusions.
Some might say, 'if it ain't broken, don't fix it'...
But it is a pre-cautionary inspection, a vaccine shot for the mind.
And the tests don't lie.
Here are the answers to all my hitherto doubts, concerns and questions.
According to Humanmetrics, only 3% of the population share my personality type:investigator/counselor.
Investigators are distinguished by the paradoxical mind of both doer & dreamer.
We share a deep concern for the destiny of humanity and spend our time contemplating it.
Human interaction is enjoyable only when it is profound, we shy away from superficial relationships.
We suddenly withdraw to prevent ourselves from emotional overload caused by our exceptional intuition.
Often charactized by inner conflicts, we are preoccupied with complex thoughts and imaginary constructs.
An earnest desire to understand the world drives us to constantly search and question everything,
and our self-expression takes the form of the written word.
All things unthinkable, secretive and unknown appeal to us
As though this was not illustrative enough, here are some words I've collected along the road of life:
Reality is the name we give to our disappointments
We cannot find peace by building a floor over unanswered questions and living upon it.
Fellowship imprisons, freedom exiles.
The basis of action is lack of imagination. It is the last resource of those who know not how to dream.
The continuous narrative of existence is a lie. There is no continuous narrative.
Only lit up momoents and the rest is dark.
The list goes on...
So, here it all is.
My obsession with metaphors and aphorisms. This strange desire to be surrounded by people but inside my own mind. The comfortable safety offered by words scrabbled on a white page, or even a screen.
The questions that challenge my every preconceived notion, my worldview. and yours.
It's no explanation, no solution or remedy.
It is a sort of manual, the ingredients of my recipe, my list of content.
I think, therefore I am myself?
'He's so fluffy I'm going to die'
There's that word.
A word full of smiles, promises and hopes of something.
And I wonder, like I have wondered so many times without ever finding the answer.
A word full of smiles, promises and hopes of something.
One word takes me back to another time and space. A small place with big feelings.
A room with austere furniture just like another empty room many years ago.
Is this what I do?
Break in and make my own space in rooms that do not belong to me and where I'm not wanted?
And I wonder, like I have wondered so many times without ever finding the answer.
I play myself like a broken record, asking why, for what, for whom?
You are quiet, unaware of my existential crisis and only slightly aware of me.
nothing falls into the mouth of a sleeping fox.
On a whim,
on your terms,
I obey.
What difference does it make?
What difference do I make,
in this world where we don't exist and we know nothing about eachother?
We express needs and indulge in mutual feelings of loss
But we don't really miss one another,
we are missing some parts of the whole and the person is substituted for feeling,
I am not a feeling, but I do feel.
Don't try to make me feel any more than that.
What you need is not me, but the sense of importance, reassurance..consolation?
I search for none of those things and I do not want to offer them to anyone.
Not even to you.
I always mistook the egocentric need of attention for misdirected affection
even now that I know better, I could easily repeat my mistake.
Being helpful, being the anchor, being a little coward.
on ne connaît que les choses que l'on apprivoise, dit le renard..
on ne connaît que les choses que l'on apprivoise, dit le renard..
