Don't you sometimes wish you could watch your life as a film, again and again, fast-forwarding through the embarrassing moments, freezing the wonderful scenes so that you could zoom in, have a closer look, memorize all the magical details, re-live every second several times until your whole being was saturated with warmth and sweetness and nostalgia?

Is this a fantasy a byproduct of our camera-obsessed culture, I wonder, or did people dream of re-playable memories long before the invention of film?

Picking up the pieces. The kids decided to burn the city, making us realize that we're no longer kids. Does youth hide in the body or the mind? Because I fear my soul is slowly greying, drying up; a process of gradual disintegration, unaccompanied by the merciful blessings of wisdom and maturity.

Christmas is made of sticky sweets, dizzying lights and cheap alcohol. A season to eat, drink and be merrily violent. Don't waste your only chance to buy a piece of heaven wrapped in glittering cellophane- as seen on TV. Only the pious shoppers among you shall earn their much longed-for 15 minutes of airtime.

Holidays are prone to seizures of uncontrollable misery, despite the gifts, family gatherings and long distance phone calls- or maybe because of them. I'd cry, if my eyelids weren't waterproof. I'd miss you, if I'd ever held you near. But you're you and I'm me, you're there and I'm here, with miles and miles of land and water lying between us, and all these unspeakable barriers nobody ever dares to cross.

What is hope and what would our lives be without it? Why does it like to hide in the ashes of past glories and stifling establishments?

Everyday I pray to my newly found god: Google. Like all deities, It is man-made and inherently flawed; seemingly infinite and dangerously seductive; deaf to human prayers yet often employed as a means to achieve homogeneity of the masses; prone to exaggeration and intolerant of doubt; governed by arbitrary laws and susceptible to all forms of organised violence.

Therefore, every night I denounce my beliefs and go to bed cleansed, reassured and empty.

Some people love to hear the sound of their own voices. Let us take a casual stroll into the past's dusty corridors. Tomorrow is not ours to recover, so praise the benefits of paraphrasing. The point of control is to inspire in us the desire to lose it- remember that? All I wanted to do was stand naked in the moonlight, but life is a game with complicated rules.

Images of destruction have become part of our daily routine- effortlessly, it seems. What are we but insects caught in webs of intricate patterns? Strange faces entering your universe. Becoming familiar. Then vanishing. A never-ending cycle. This is no tragedy, this is reality mystified. Curiosity's bitter blessing wasn't destined for mass consumption. Repetition has a purpose, today.

Break the spell- my expectations are asphyxiating. Nothing in this world was made to last, we only have now to win or lose. The prize is just a memory- your choices shall define its aftertaste. I suspect we'll never manage to bring down the walls; I say, it does not matter, there's beauty in miscommunication, there's beauty even in anticipated pain and retrospective monotony.

Believe me, I hate to talk politics, but this situation invites speculation. Greece has become an incubator for reactionary spirits- not exactly in the positive sense of the word.

Kids who have learned about life from videogames and reality TV. Today they seek to destroy a society that gave them too much to eat and too little to dream of. Financial crises and environmental disasters- if the world's just about to end, we might as well finish
it ourselves.

Adrenalin mixing with rage. We watch the city burn, night after night. Horrified yet tempted. Suddenly the road home seems like a pretty scary place. The law of the streets states that anything is permitted. How can you condemn something you understand?

And the older generations, they have long become accustomed to being robbed, and used and lied to by politicians, priests and salesmen of all kinds. But now their precious cars are in flames, their holy shop-windows lie in pieces, their children roam out of control, and the foundations of their sweet, self-righteous, gold-glazed certainty have began to shake...

Sometimes, just sometimes, i feel like a fool. Priorities that don't much- your name is high on my list, my name is barely mentioned in yours. Most of the time, I can handle it, I don't let it bring me down for too long. I remind myself I've been through worse; that I'm the only one to blame for getting myself stuck in emotional dead-ends.

Still, once in a while, my defense-mechanisms fail; the dream ends; I wake up lonely, and all these people surrounding me cannot fill the gaps. Flirting is good, but how can it ever suffice when you've known trust and warmth and companionship?

Meanwhile, work is starting to dominate my life- not a wholly unwelcome change, yet it's hard to adjust when your reality keeps shifting. In my dreams, I miss deadlines and interviews, I say the wrong things to the wrong people, I am fired due to personnel cuts. When awake, I'm consumed in doomed attempts for tension release and the hopeless pursuit of oblivion...

Do you truly fear failure more than fear itself? What will happen if you don't meet up to your own expectations, if others reject all that you represent?

Fly over islands of snow. The world is so vast, it doesn't really matter where you're standing, as long as you keep altering your viewpoint, as long as you keep learning, challenging, asking questions and not surrendering until you've found the answers you're seeking.

I wasn't blind before I met you, but, in a way, I was mute, bursting with all those thoughts and emotions left unexpressed; I was deaf to the noise and music of this world; my skin was cold and my eyes were dry; I was afraid of feeling...

Life without love is simply an exercise in monotony.
When attraction and disdain converge, beware the consequences.
Falling in love means laughing in Death's face.
Our little personal rules- would you dare challenge them?
The loss of love is a cause for mourning, yet it also offers a
promise of rebirth.
We move on, because there's nothing else to do.
Does a book change to suit the reader, or does a reader change
to suit the Book?
Death makes life lovable and love livable.
Your absence gives breath to my dreams like your presence
never could.
One ending just leads to another.
We survive them all but one.

Time's running out. Why are we lingering? Procrastination shouldn't be a way of life. I remember that night, exchanging glances from the corners of an unfamiliar room, a drunken conversation in a corridor, then a seemingly endless bus drive. Don't you sometimes wish life had a replay button?

Thinking of you takes me further into the past than you can imagine. Innocence has been forsaken, but love always transforms us into the children we never truly ceased to be. By love, of course, I only mean this mixture of hope, attraction and agony underlying the very first accidental encounters of two utterly dissimilar individuals, who turn out to be astonishingly alike.

A metamorphosis occurs behind the scenes; desire is only the tip of the iceberg. What am I saying? there is no why beneath the imperatives of separation; it was over before it began; still, there was no resolution, no culmination of events leading to some form of conclusion, no sense of closure to throw us naked and cleansed into the future's embrace.

As for me, I'm happier here; I don't approve of finales, anyhow.

It only takes a moment for your attention to drift away. From all that brings you down, all that keeps you tied to the mast of obsession and apathy. I must admit I tend to be attracted to the wrong men. But wrongness can take up a multiplicity of features, and you never know what's waiting for you after the next turn.

A million ways to be hurt, let down or betrayed. A million methods to excite, inspire and tear you to pieces. Yet we still find a place for hope- there lies the beauty of it all. Praise the futility of happiness, the mindlessness of joy, the insistence of optimism to show up when it's least expected. What is human nature, if not a hymn to antithesis?

Fulfillment always lies just a breath away. Stuck behind the barriers of an insecure ego, she dreamed of emerald skies. Her array of idols took turns in throwing stones at the limits of her abilities. The mirror had been shattered; her vision was stained; yesterday had been sacrificed in the name of inhuman progress.

Memories of warmth, the promise of relief, kisses of betrayal. Familiar stranger I once thought I knew, you're drifting away, your image is fading, and don't you know I miss even the pain you caused me. Open your eyes, the whole world lies behind a glass window; see but don't touch, touch but don't feel, feel but don't experience. Where will it lead us, this sad pursuit of indifference?

From John Irving's The Cider House Rules:

...And the trembling mice beneath the floor of the cider house stopped in their tracks between the cider house walls to listen to the lovers. The mice knew there was the owl to worry about, and the fox. But what animal was this whose sound was petrifying them? The owl does not hoot when it hunts, and the fox does not bark when it pounces. But what is this new animal? wondered the cider house mice- what new beast has charged and disturbed the air?
And is it safe?

Human existence is composed of single, mostly unrelated and seemingly infinite moments that, alas, never last longer than a few heartbeats. The people we share them with are merely voices in the night. What is more devastating, violence or silence? Is death truly scarier than love?

Don't misunderstand me, I am not a pessimist; I never was; I am infatuated with this life. Wherever I go, I do what I know best, which is to create practically hopeless and potentially threatening emotionally charged situations. But this journey began thanks to a ghost, and I vow not to let other apparitions haunt it.

Consider this proposition: If god existed, it would probably be less like an old man and more like an all-seeing, all-knowing search engine. How about some digital blasphemy?

Listen to the music; let it wrap your soul in cellophane.
Green blue green blue green blue violet.
Smell the colours of sound as they fill your eyes with warmth.
The denial of weakness is not a manifestation of strength.
To simply survive is to hide under the carpet.
Freedom reflects desire like our eyes seek to reflect mortality.

If only we could entrap the rarest pain giving breath to the seductive nightmares of poetry. Admit it: All hope is oblivion, ignorance is the only path to bliss. Cease your struggle against death and you might understand that nothing but sorrow lies in the heart of pure Beauty.

I waste my youth at the wrong places, I waste my dreams on the wrong people, I waste my strength in fleeting fantasies. My art will never be worthy of immortality, and my life...I'm helplessly watching it slip away.

Who are you and what do you want from me? Looking forward to something is enough to ensure its collapse, needing someone suffices to make them disappear- or fail you. Recurring themes threaten to overwhelm us; loneliness the most tenacious of them all.

Please, I screamed, take me away, give me a purpose to fight for, a reason to go on. The sound of silence echoed like evil laughter in my head. I didn't cry- no, I am too proud for tears, too focused on hiding my Achilles' heel, too busy building fences and preparing assaults.

Keep it all in, don't let your weakness rise to the surface, put up the perfect show of indifference and self-sufficiency. Then what? Explosions? Thunderstorms? Earthquakes? Or a slow demise that knows no cure, eternal apathy, a cancerous decay of the soul?

Why must excitement always be served glazed in fear? I wake up with a terrible headache and an even worse realization beginning to settle in my mind. Pleasure only comes at a price- are you willing to pay it?

Don't look at me, the answer isn't written in my eyes, yet your gaze is lingering. A year older, none the wiser- keep repeating the mistakes you know best. Can fallacies be improved to the point of perfection?

I feel dizzy, I watch the world spin outside my window, and don't you understand? Someone's about to get hurt here, but right now we're too busy examining each other's footprints on the sand for premonitions to have any effect.

Doesn't the world suddenly feel complete, when you've discovered a story? Not invented, not made up, just stumbled upon in the corridors of imagination. A plot, one character or many, a crisis and a final resolution. Hold on to what you've found- you're now a rich person.

Don't let anything limit you; the possibilities are endless. Open your mind and heart, embrace your latest companions: a man who only speaks in rhymes; a pig that hates getting dirty; a little girl with flowers growing on her head...anything can happen.

Us lonely freaks living at the brinks of reality, all we have left are these ethereal journeys. Exaggeration flashes like a mirror under the sun, droplets of sweat glistening above your eyebrow, clouds embarking on vicious assaults against weather-worn mountain peaks.

The music of nonsense brings little comfort to saturated ears,
but when silence threatens to annihilate you, it may become your only hope.

I've belatedly realized that sex and friendship are totally incompatible. The first always manages to spoil the latter- and
vice versa. Some people might be able to combine them, but on my planet it never seems to work. How can you be friendly towards someone you're truly attracted to? And if you're not, doesn't sex with them taste like cold soup or warm ice cream or just something purely and utterly wrong?

Of course, I still support the practice- on a theoretical level. In an ideal world, we would only have sex with our friends. The people
we trust and enjoy the company of; the people who have stood
beside us in our worst moments and would never let us down; the people we can laugh with, speak our minds to, get reassurance from, feel safe around.

Instead, we prefer to experiment with strangers, which- after the first few moments of excitement- usually leaves us tired, confused, disappointed, hurt or enraged. Now, you could say that even passionate love eventually evolves into a kind of companionship resembling friendship. No wonder so many married couples complain about their sex lives.

OK, I guess I got carried away. Enough with stereotypes. All I wanted to say is...I think I'm growing old. I'm tired of shallow games and painful compromises. I want to be who I am, nothing more, nothing less. And I'm done putting myself in situations that are meant to bring me down, just to prove I'm strong enough to handle them.

From Ask the Dust, by John Fante

"The greying east brightened, metamorphosed to pink, then red, and then the giant ball of fire rose out of the blackened hills. Across the desolation lay a supreme indifference, the casualness of night and another day, and yet the secret intimacy of those hills, their silent consoling wonder, made death a thing of no great importance. You could die, but the desert would hide the secret of your death, it would remain after you, to cover your memory with ageless wind and heat and cold."

Let us start our own philosophical movement- we'll call it Cynical Existentialism. Put Antithesis at its core, make Scepticism its main principle, add the imperatives of Individualistic Anarchy to the mix, sprinkle it with traces of Romanticism and just a hint of Nihilism.

Encourage euthanasia and suicide- no one should stay alive that doesn't truly wish to- but ban all forms of organised warfare and institutional violence. Children should grow up surrounded by love, not locked up in prisons of lies and parental ambitions. Fuck advanced technology- who fantasizes of sleeping with cyborgs?

Uncover the twisted roots of morality, attack the foundations of order, allow society to annihilate itself, so it might be reborn from pure necessity, let anyone who desires to break free of its web simply walk away. Shatter all mirrors, for are they anything more than a means to imposing conformity, the all-seeing eye of Others constantly attacking the kingdom of Solitude?

Now find the hidden weaknesses of this Utopia and blow it to bits. Then you'll understand what it means to abolish certainty; then you'll know the beauty and vastness and sorrow of persistent self-doubt.

Would you compromise freedom in the name of companionship? Would you sacrifice vulnerability in the name of indifference? Miracles do happen, if only to prove that they weren't miracles, after all. Is discontentment the disease of modern society, or merely an innate human trait?

What if death is the answer to all our questions? Keep afterlife for your humble servants; all I seek is eternal oblivion, I'd give up remembrance for the chance to forget. Do you think your feet leave permanent marks on every path you follow? Do you believe that your voice will echo forever in the halls of the universe? Dream on.

They stood together in the darkness. “Think I haven't known desire?”, she whispered. “Flesh and spirit blending into one- think I've never experienced it? Might be it is you, who is mistaken, assuming love and lust are two separate things, talking to me of devotion, expecting me to take the reins and lead you where others have led you before.”

She turned, tears streaking down her face, to look at him- but he wasn't there, he never had been. On the other side of the river, he was counting the stars, praying for sleep, wishing she would lie beside him. “Why can't you let passion overtake you?”, he asked the wind. “Let attraction burn holes into your soul- why should we stay paralyzed behind walls of analysis and filters of virtual dissection?”

As the wind blew around her, she carved spirals of solitude on cold skin. “Cast your fear of rejection aside”, she screamed, “then you shall see: indifference is only a disguise, politeness has no place were physical contact becomes spiritual. Why can't we feel instead of formulating; embrace instead of examining; sink deep into this current of sensations rather than remain tied to the mast of a reassuring but fleeting projection of self-sufficiency?”

The night saw it all, and said nothing, for it had witnessed such scenes a million times before. So had the moon, but the moon understood; the moon shed tears for all the lost moments, the unbridgeable gaps and the strained figures struggling to cross them. The moon mourned, because the figures could fly if they chose to; they dragged atrophied wings in their wake, only they had never dared to look back..

The moon wept.
It began to rain.

They traveled with the speed of light, they rode on rays of sunshine, they changed form in spinning images while moving from one dream to the next. Their blood flowed like lava in molten arteries, their hair was in flames, smoke marked their passage on early morning skies- a new day dawning, but they're already miles away. On their shoulders they carried humanity's forsaken memories, they weighed their worth in nostalgia, they exchanged glimpses of a fading past with generous pieces of freshly-baked oblivion.

Time is a man made concept, time is the nourishment sustaining everything, it is the promise of our demise, it is the foundation of the universe. Time is only one dimension among infinite others, yet the world revolves around Time. How can I trust you, knowing our lives are written in Time's script and we cannot resist the Call luring us higher, further, away from all we once held near? How can I doubt you, when the desire to believe is stronger than even the need to protect myself?

When I write, I lose myself; when I write, you and I melt into one; when I write, the earth stops turning and the oceans freeze. After a while, it does not matter if my words are beautiful or if you’re truly drawn to who I have become. Words are more than letters on a page; each one of them contains a whole continent, a door to a universe of unexplored connections and newborn memories.

On paper, our worst fears seem insignificant, sorrow is transformed into pure energy, frustration sustains the will to live, abandonment gives birth to a million possibilities. For the briefest of moments, the creator truly is god- it makes no difference whether the end result will be a masterpiece or a spiritual disaster.

Whatever entity or accident brought us into this world, we were only given three gifts: drugs, the knowledge of our own death, and a limitless imagination. Call them curses, if you wish, but it is they that make us who we are; it is they that define the nature of humanity itself.

From Bukowski's Ham on Rye:

"Every time I see you you have a drink in your hand. You call that protecting yourself?"
"It's the best way I know. Without drink I would have long ago cut my god-damned throat."
"That's bullshit."
"Nothing's bullshit that works. The Pershing Square preachers have their God. I have the blood of my god!"
I raised my glass and drained it.
"You're just hiding from reality", Becker said.
"Why not?"
"You'll never be a writer if you hide from reality."
"What are you talking about? That's what writers do!"

We spend our lives fussing about trivialities, fighting for impossibilities, weeping over the ruins of broken promises, attaching our expectations to the unexpected, pretending that the secret to fulfillment lies in the heart of all the things we cannot reach. We walk around staring at the ground, forgetting how bright the stars shine, how the horizon turns red at sunset, how the trees change into their autumn uniforms. Consumed in shallow acts of socializing, hiding our deepest desires to protect fragile egos, seeking to attain immortality by preserving our souls in formaldehyde.

Till, one day, we'll leave this world behind, and what shall remain? Only a few fading memories; stolen moments we could have experienced, but wouldn't dare; oceans of tears we were to proud to cry; wrinkled bodies rotting behind shiny armour; screams of despair echoing above deserted highways; adolescent dreams frozen like sculptures of ice, already melting. No big words or grand victories, none of our precious dignity, no trace at all of the pain we endured to stay in control, not even a bleak reminder of our supposed strength and unmatched bravery.

If you were to die tomorrow, would you really wish to take back what you willingly surrendered, expecting nothing in return; would you feel ashamed for seeming weak, childish, clumsy, loud, obscene, confused and imperfect? Or would you simply mourn for the joy, the sorrow, the fear, the danger, the passion you could have cherished, letting them mark your ephemeral flesh with the beautiful scars of a vulnerable but vibrant existence, instead of locking yourself in cold rooms- flawless, composed and alone- whilst time kept pouring in like water on a sinking ship?

When something ends before it begins, how can the cycle of misfortune be broken? An attempt to break the silence...and you end up saying too much. Two people staring at the waves, each of them locked in a separate cell. It could have been perfect, it could have been something new, but here we are, holding nothing but air in our arms. A fantasy almost realized, then silence. Back to the world of disillusionment and shattered ideals.

If only I could write about it. Write and write like I used to, create my own happy endings in my head. But there's no fire burning in this hearth of inspiration- just ashes and lukewarm coal. At night I wander in empty streets, begging for a sparkle; all I get is drops of autumn rain. Release me, I've been trapped in this world of perpetual self-doubt and unbearable discontentment too long now.

How am I ever going to fly if my wings are tied with strings of negativity? How can I love, if no one seems able to withstand the madness of my affection? Why do we always let our insecurities come between us?

Nonsense. I fear I'm little more than a frustrated narcissist, gradually and painfully coming to terms with the fact that uniqueness- or even real communication- is merely an illusion amidst this pandemonium of six billion hysterical voices, all screaming for attention.

Did you manage to run out of loneliness? Cheer up, I may have some to spare. Charming little boy with your bright little mind, you think you've got the world at your feet and you probably do. But what drew me to you was neither your disarming smile nor your ambiguous compliments; it was the promise of depth in your cute eyes, a hint of chaos behind composed features- or was that nothing more than a projection of my most secret fantasies?

Thus spoke the wrinkled old lady to her imaginary lover- being delusional makes the aging process easier. People are terrifying, better stick to cats and butterflies. Can inspiration be aspirational or is aspiration naturally inspirational? This is totally irrelevant; oh please don't let the blinding sun shine in the face of my dreams. What's happening, my words used to almost make sense, now surreal impressions of non-ideas run amok in my head.

I fear I'm changing. I've left my trembling self behind, and will you recognize me? Will you still experience a certain sense of inexplicable attraction? But no, it was only a game for you from the start; after all, you're accustomed to getting everyone's attention. Still, even though I was fully conscious of the irony, I somehow couldn't resist the lure of a few moments in your shadow. Is it because I'm prone to vanity? Is it because I latently believe I deserve the agony?

Stop. Stop revolving around your own reflection. Cease your tossing and turning and disguising the slightest turbulence as a typhoon. Put your surgical knife aside, attempt to actually experience your emotions instead of dissecting them. Why can't you focus on the outside world, for a change?

A prayer for silence, and who might answer it? You seek to cut the chains holding you back, but cutting almost always hurts. Pain spreads deep roots into the ground; is it anything more than an exhibitionist's imitation of sorrow? When love dies, we cry, for we're reminded of our own imminent ending.

Annoying city nightclubs playing the same songs night after night after night. The sound of the waves becomes our ultimate dream, a mirage to keep us going in the desert. So keen on escaping I catch you kneeling in front of exit signs; I find you worshiping highways and elevators, even though all roads lead to nowhere and you're too tired to walk, anyway. The earth is not round, it is twisted; your soul haunted by the ghosts of previous owners.

Love isn't futile; life is. Love blossoms like a flower, erupts like a volcano, rages like a storm, evaporates like morning dew under hot summer sun. Life is a series of unpredictable and mostly unfortunate events; it is life's fantasies that matter- the concepts, the ideals, the memories. Vain processes of the mind seeking to construct meanings, build connections, raise certainties on devastatingly barren plains.

Love is like scratching your skin until you bleed, yet you manage to extract some perverse pleasure out of it; you cannot stop, indeed you mustn’t stop for where is the beauty of a life without passion? Instead of distinguishing between universes of emotions and realms of rational thoughts you must embrace both, let them consume you; there was no line separating them until you drew a boundary to keep yourself from falling apart.

Perhaps your blue looks like my red, perhaps your anger feels like my joy, and there's no way of ever knowing. Still, we're all flawed, mortal, vulnerable, with nothing but a thin layer of soft flesh protecting us from the evils and cruelty of the outside world. Could innocence be anything more than what we've irretrievably lost? Wet wings may be used as a fire extinguisher, but should you wish to fly again, beware what you use for cover. Why weep when there's no one around to taste your tears?

And I tend to forget,
Where I'm going or who I'm pretending to be.
This is no poem, so be prepared.
This is no poem, it just looks like one.
The cities of ivory have been turned upside down,
Teenage couples make out in their ran down street corners,
You smile as I dance on your windowsill.

Remember, once we were content
Just to feel under each other's clothes,
Barely touching the smooth skin of innocence.
Now excitement is lukewarm; desire is blunt.
Conversations revolve around sex
But it's more like debating the flaws of Hegelian philosophy.
We 're consumed by mechanical acts of obscene repetition
That leave us empty, yet still longing for more.

I say “tell me something you've never told anyone else”
You hesitate; then begin to carve your pin number
On the inside of my palm.
It's supposed to make me feel safer. But it hurts.
Even devotion has a price in our 21st century romance,
Our confessions are subject to the strict laws of copyright.
We have matured, at last. Our knives are sharper.

The face in the mirror was there, when I last checked.
A pathetic abstraction designed to remind me
Of my place in the world and the world in my places;
Constructed to limit my being in physical realms,
To help me police my facial expressions.
Does my terror abide with the rulings of fashion
And is this rendition of sorrow convincing enough?

Believe me, I wish I could take you away for a while,
To cleanse your emotions of cold calculation,
To brush out all traces of doubt from your memory,
Whilst struggling to fill your deposit of hope.
But wounds never heal on my planet of loneliness,
I'm trapped in autistic projections of lust,
My nightmares converge at the crossroads of nothingness
Where futures are burnt in the flames of the past.

To him, she represented raw unpredictable passion, the formidable risk of losing control, the potential collapse of rational thought and slow demise of inner stability. He felt compelled to stay away.

In her mind, he had become a vessel for all things unreachable, the forlorn ideal of fulfilment, the encrypted answer to a question she'd never find the courage to ask, the "what if..." that could never be completed. She had vowed to die trying.

She wasn't what he wanted and he wasn't what she needed, yet they kept orbiting around each other like helpless planets caught in an irresistible magnetic field. They were forced to keep their distance at all times, for the slightest move might prove disastrous: too close, and gravity would suck them in a black hole of explosive emotions, from which no one could escape unscathed; too far, and they'd end up free falling in the cold outer layers of the universe, with nothing but a fading memory of sunshine to hold them back.

Knowing thy self leaves you broken, and still too much remains unknowable. Beauty and futility. Mortality and ignorance. Tired eyes are merely allowed to watch as fearless hands take control and start writing. Not to think is to see the world as it really is: empty. Of meanings, of purposes, of certainties. Cease your struggling, chance will always have the last word.

Tomorrow, tomorrow, yesterday. Did you offer your present as a present to the vain gods of feigned security? Recurring themes may keep your weak spirit hostage. You told me not touch Time with bare hands, but I was never one to follow advice and now it’s over. Burnt fingers, the gradual build up of pain.

Belatedly realizing that the only price for freedom is death. Does loneliness hurt more when it’s translated as rejection, or when it springs from an innate need to break all chains and bonds and attachments? If only you could answer just one of my questions, maybe the sand in our hourglass of moments wouldn’t run out so fast.

They say we only fall in love once every seven years, she whispered. In that case, I think I wasted seven years of my life on you. And if I could, I'd probably waste seven more. Believe, believe in the hollowness of time. Tomorrow shall never be freed from yesterday. Our battered ship sails to where sunsets are fabricated. The master painter takes pride in his array of reds.

Sometimes you have to reach the bottom before you can rise to
the surface; sometimes you ought to die in order to be reborn; sometimes you must let it all go, so that something new may
come along. The world keeps turning, tears dry before they reach
the ground, wounds heal so that fresh ones can take their place.
Blood on the pavement is only chocolate.

It must be hard, to weep for the futility of happiness; it must be strange, to laugh in the face of your own sorrow; it must be heartbreaking, to cheat on your god with other gods. You insist on feeding your most sacred ideals to the shaggy dogs of cynicism, whilst humming the merciless tune of fully-conscious betrayal.

Does guilt ever lead to redemption? Could regret serve to ease the suffering of our victims? Can shame lighten the weight of our crimes? I doubt it.

The emptiness inside...more intense than ever. We were granted another chance to see the world through our long-shattered lenses
of innocence. We were awoken by the sunshine and fell asleep to
the sound of the waves; we let insects crawl on our fingers and mice nimble on our food; we dived naked in crystal waters and burnt our defenseless city-feet running on the sand. If I dared utter I love you, it was the kind of love that makes no demands to reciprocity, or
even acknowledgement.

And now we're back. Clothes seek to restrain our bodies like walls seek to confine our senses, and those pointless laws of conduct and daily interaction seek to imprison our minds. Car engines wrecking our attempts to sleep peacefully. Frantic crowds approaching from all sides. Break free or succumb to the pressure.

Nonsense. I'm here. Why am I here? The past is back to haunt us. I thought I'd cleansed your scent off my skin, thought the sun had dried up your memory. Why are you here? Who are you, and what do you really want from me? Do you still hope that maybe... somehow... somewhere... some day... you and me...

Escape is not an option this time. If only dying was as easy as pulling a plug... But then again, you wouldn't want to miss these rare unforgettable moments, when the sky blends with the sea in the horizon; when you want to laugh and dance and scream of pure childish joy; when the idea of happiness begins to almost resemble a possibility, albeit for a short while...

A year has passed. I'd probably have forgotten you long ago, if only nostalgia hadn't borrowed your name; it now wears your face like a mask; it speaks with your voice; it has learned to transform your absence into a memory of your presence.

Dear Ghost, your alibis were never worth a damn. You're either lying to me or to yourself- and I can’t tell which one is preferable. Though I've painted a perfect picture of you, deep inside I suspect you're just as human as the rest of us. Still, I'd give up the world for a chance to explore your flaws like undiscovered continents.
Does that frighten you?

Such confessions are not really my style; this one is so openly cryptic it hardly makes a difference. Sometimes I sit and wonder, why can't you be here, why don’t you even wish you were here, what have I done to deserve being stuck in an unrealizable ideal…then I remember you are exactly where you should remain: in my head.

From William Burroughs' Naked Lunch:
"The end result of complete cellular representation is cancer. Democracy is cancerous, and bureaus are its cancer. A bureau takes root anywhere in the state, turns malignant like the Narcotic Bureau, and grows and grows, always reproducing more of its own kind until it chokes the host if not controlled or excised. Bureaus cannot live without a host, being true parasitic organisms...Bureaucracy is wrong as a cancer, a turning away from the human evolutionary direction of infinite potentials and differentiation and independent spontaneous action to the complete parasitism of a virus."

And later on:
"You see control can never be a means to any practical end...It can never be a means to anything but more control...Like junk..."

Once upon a time, there was a woman who fell in love with a tree. Unable to express her emotions, she just stood and stared at her object of affection from dawn to dusk. Hours gave way to days, sunrises gave way to sunsets, until her body dried and hardened, her feet spread roots into the ground, her opened arms stretched outwards and upwards, her hair turned from blond to green, the thin lines in her face took permanent form, and only the frozen tears in her deepened eyes spoke of sorrow and longing and the ephemeral tragedies of once-live, fervent human mortality....

If I became a tree for you, would you give me another chance?

The heat. It's taking control. Standing at the bus stop, I expect to begin evaporating any minute. I drag myself to work, but only physically. The rest of me is simply counting days till I'm out here.

“You should keep your phone with you, whilst you're away” they told me at work. I mumbled a hesitant “yes”, which in fact meant “Sure, I'll take my phone with me, I might even be as kind as to bring a charger, yet I might face considerable difficulty in finding a eh.... plug. They don't normally provide them, not even on five-star beaches. Therefore, I'd suggest you employ other means of communication- a message in a bottle, perhaps? Just don't be surprised if my reply is somehow incomprehensible. I intend to be positively spaced out most of the time.”

We're a lost generation, us 20somethings, constantly fantasizing of the Big Escape. So lost, I don't even see people our age any more. The ones I meet are either over 30 or still at school. But it is summer now, and our herds of beloved students have began to make their way home- mostly back from England, where their hearts lie (together with their parent's money and part of their sizzling brain cells).

You can always tell newcomers from the colour of their skin. Those just-arrived are pale and keep complaining about the heat. The bright red ones, enthusiastically stumbling on you whilst you're trying to cross the street, are tourists. As for Athenians, they comprise an exhibition of all the possible shades of brown, from dark beige to mild types of skin cancer.

Actually, it is an urban legend that men no longer obsess with the size of their penises; instead, they focus on comparing the intensity of their tans. On weekends, they spend hours stuck in their cars- cheap and expensive ones side by side, since traffic, like death, makes everyone equal- only to secure the tiniest place on the crowded seaside, where they sit sporting nothing but their branded swim wear and designer sunglasses, until their skin melts into the sand and they need to be carried away on stretchers.

Sadly, superficial colour changes do not facilitate the necessary alterations inside their heads...

A simple chemical reaction suffices to turn tears into a smile- it only takes years of practice to perfect the transition. He said, I fear that you are soulless and incapable of love. She smiled- she could have cried, but hers was an old habit. He took her silence as a confirmation of his words. She took his words as a confirmation of the premonition underlying her silence.

Their roads parted one ordinary summer evening. So long for drunken confessions, midnight walks and far-fetched travel plans. When did people become replaceable, she wondered. Perhaps disappointment was an inherent part of human relationships. Or maybe she'd just got it all wrong again. Goodbyes not spoken hurt the most.

“We love life not because we are used to living, but because we are used to loving”, spoke Nietzsche. I suspect we're not even used to loving. No, we're merely accustomed to deep words and heavy promises; to pretending we're oh-so-passionate and prone to infatuation; to faking wounds we then blame on others.

When, in truth, all we want is to be noticed, appreciated, admired; when all the real emotion we ever experience- whether adoration or hate- is for our own, frustratingly indistinguishable selves.

Accept it: there isn't- there never was- anything grand or meaningful about life. To go on, we need to invent meanings, justifications, theories. You've heard this one before, and it's got nothing to do with pessimism. Pessimism only exists in relation to optimism, which is to say, they're both just ways of seeing the world, your choice of coloured lenses. None is closer to the truth, if such a thing exists.

What if it doesn't? Do we create reality by imagining it? What happens when our fantasies clash? You paint the world green, I paint it red, till someone comes along and covers it with graffiti. How much re-designing can it take before collapsing? Will we ever run out of paint or, even worse, ideas? And what happens if you're colourblind- do you remain forever trapped in a black and white universe?

I know what this is all about: you're trying to psychoanalyze me, said the statue to the sculptor. You think that, because you've carved my face, you can also solidify my spirit. But my mind is not yours to shape at will; it is not a fixed essence for you to grasp.

I change with every passing day, no body of stone will ever be able to imprison me, and when you lie frozen in sleep, my shadow dances in the boulevards of your dreams. Deep inside, I know, you envy me, for I flirt with immortality in a way you can't even come close to...

When the moon painted its silver path on shimmering seas, she could only beg for silence. On warm summer nights, no one wants to go home. Yet home was where she felt safe. Protected. Where she didn't need to pretend. She'd spend a week exchanging promises with three different men, while secretly dreaming of a fourth one. She'd spent another week in utter solitude, seeking oblivion.

People climb high on the towers of your expectations, then they jump. Sex was an all-purpose currency, used to buy impressions of devotion; it was her ticket to places she wasn't meant to see; the means to prove her love or independence; tension release more intense than tension itself; a sound loud enough to drown the voices in her head; the fuel that fed her withering flame of self-worth.

She said, give me the strength to forsake all shapes of compromise. Sex was pleasure when it wasn't necessary. It wasn't necessary
when she didn't care. She didn't care only when it was pleasure.
She thought, how can we depend on something so vague, fleeting
and indescribable? If it's best when it involves the deepest core of
your mind, why does it feel better when the mind succumbs to
the raw force of the body?

"We work n the dark -we do what we can -we give what we have.
Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is
the madness of art."

Thus spoke Henry James. Quotes like this make you want to shut your mouth and never utter another word, for everything you say will be nothing more than banalities and unnecessary additions to already flawless meanings. Of course, by you I'm only referring to myself, here. If I can be you, why can't you be me?

Don't be so quick to dismiss vanity and the fear of dying as mere weaknesses, unacceptable obstacles on your path to Perfection. From these particularly human traits spring too many of this world's wonders- monuments, texts, paintings, the melodies you unconsciously hum when you feel small and scared and lonely...

How does love enter the equation? 'Tis our love for life that makes the thought of death abhorring; 'tis our love for our own bodies behind our fruitless attempts to defy mortality; 'tis the absence of love that pushes us higher, further onto its pursuit. We yearn to be loved so that our deaths won't be without witnesses. We become vain because we believe we are worthy of love.

How much more can I say without losing you? If only I could think of something you've never heard before, a phrase that would brand itself on your mind so you'd never be able to forget me. An exercise in vanity reinforced by the fear of dying.

See, these days I don't even have time for philosophizing. My scribblings are little more than unsuccessful experiments in tension release, rivers of emotions flowing unstoppable and beyond my control; they built up whilst I was struggling to focus on reality's choirs and now are threatening to overturn me.

What will you answer me? You're casually drifting away, teaching me what it feels like to be left behind. I used to not care; then I changed my mind, but couldn't bring myself to tell you. Don't you know it frightens me when you read between the lines?

If I let go, will you let go, too?

Her heart was like a blank cheque, offered to the least approachable by-passer under some hardly convincing excuse. Again and again she took that terrifyingly familiar path, seeking to be discovered, yet striving to remain forever lost, inventing new ways to make the same mistakes, though infinitely tired of repetition.

And when the days grew shorter, the moon would always find her alone on an autumn beach, carving expressions of aggression on impersonal masks, adding footnotes of indifference to manuscripts
of abandonment, wondering which deep-rooted need was pushing
her towards a life she never wished to live, before letting the waves wash it all away…

As time's embrace tightens, our dreams run out of oxygen.

If you were sinking, what would you let go of first, your dreams or your ideals? We learn to love. Then we learn to betray. We jump from alibi to alibi like those water-walking insects. It is because you detest decisions, the tyranny of choice. You’d rather have it all- and nothing. Freedom of un-choice.

You has a multitude of faces. They are almost impossible to separate. Call it a quest for completion, when it is only an attempt to bury your insecurities. So you cling to people, and sometimes people cling to you- their expectations clash with your needs, their needs clash with your expectations. You’d like to follow your own path without hurting or disappointing anyone; you end up hurt and disappointed and fed up with it all. Solitude smiles sardonically: welcome on board.  Am I ready to give you up?

Egocentrism is neither a philosophy nor a way of life. It is not necessarily synonymous with narcissism, though it always entails an aspect of self-examination, often to the point of obsession. Stick to what you have: could you ever really grasp something outside the boundaries of your mortal skin? Can you ever really know yourself?

Amazing, the things you can talk about with strangers, but wouldn't dare tell the people you know. A cathartic and frightening experience, as you summarise your life in a few sentences, barely pausing to blunt edges or brighten colours- the only choice you make is which details to leave out. It feels almost like an interview, a test you need to pass before you're allowed to move on to the next level.

Sometimes the conversation flows, as if you've met an old friend; other times it is broken by long, uncomfortable pauses and expressions of disguised disappointment. As you speak, you begin to see yourself as a stranger, too, filtering every word through invisible distorting glasses, projecting your conscience on the person sitting next to you, wondering "do I sound interesting, or like a psychotic self-absorbed sociopath?"

A face that stands out in the crowd. Exchanged glances. Curiosity turns to hope turns to excitement turns to fear. Then your insistence is rewarded with a smile, maybe even a hint of a chance. You start to notice the tiny footprints of coincidence wherever you go. Fear turns to excitement turns to hope turns to curiosity. A new beginning. Or another case of self-delusion. Don't we all live for these moments of effortless inspiration and agonizing doubt?

From Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty :

"Something happened when you looked in the mirror together.
You asked it, as always, a question, and you asked each other something too; and the space,shadowy but glossy, the further
room in which you found yourself, as if on stage, vibrated with ironies and sentimental admissions."

You can fall in love with someone you don't trust.
You can trust someone you're not in love with.
But could you really trust someone you're in love with, and could you ever truly fall in love with someone you trust?
Purely rhetorical nonsense- please don't bother conjuring an answer.

Last night I realised I only yearn for freedom so passionately because I'm prone to dependency. I also long to be mercilessly enslaved, because I'm prone to stubborn, unassailable detachment.

Her poems withered and died the moment she tried to turn them into words. As for words themselves, they surely did protest, but words are used to dealing with worse than enforced constraints of rhythm.

How refreshingly devastating, when a story ends abruptly, leaving you nothing but a few suggestions as to what follows- did the hero find the treasure he was looking for, or did he die helpless and afraid on his deserted island?..

You sit and wonder, conjuring possible scenarios, wanting to believe the best, yet fearing for the worst, fully aware of the fact that thinking alone is inadequate; there must be witnesses, tangible statements to prove the events narrated really did occur.

In sort, you ought to write the next chapter- and perhaps the one after it, too-, whilst deep inside recognizing the futility of such a task; you're not half as talented or imaginative; even if you were, how could you possibly recreate the style, the vision, the effect;
even if you did, how could you bring yourself to believe your own fantasies as truths?

You also know that no one cares about happy endings anymore, and surely no one enjoys a plot, in which everything unfolds flawlessly or according to plan, in a world where everyone gets what they deserve. So the story must end, just like a life, never enough, stubbornly undefinable, forever incomplete...

Don’t you know there’s a fire blazing behind those controlled features? Desire hides behind a veil of detachment. “You seek to touch my skin” she said. “I’d let you hold my soul, but could you bear its heat? It might scald your hands, not with its unparalleled magnificence- no claim to brilliance or singularity- but because it strives to devour itself and everything surrounding it.”

A soul? Didn’t I sell mine long ago, to a band of tired nomads? They only gave me a dream in exchange; they said it was magical. I stood and watched it shine brighter than the stars; I dared hope it would provide my body with the sparkle it needed.

In the morning, they were gone, taking the moon with them, and all I had left was a dim piece of glass. So I still sit alone in the darkness, sometimes, wondering if they deceived me, or if my innate urge to doubt all that is warm and comforting casts a shadow on even the most radiant of lights life has gifted me with.

Reminder: Books are not a substitute for sleep. Trespassers will be prosecuted. Come morning, their eyelids will be stitched together, their bedcovers rendered unmovable; nearby alarms will refuse to break the silence; they’ll have “tired” branded on their foreheads and stay trapped in perpetual slow motion for the rest of the day.

When the mind needs solace, there’s nothing as effective as dreams. But sleep-enforcing rituals have become increasingly complex lately- on nights like this, any path to oblivion should suffice. Read well.

My day began at dawn- awake again.
I tried to sleep some more, but soon gave up.
Fresh images of you crossing my mind.
A piece of daily life, disguised as such.
Nothing too time consuming or severe;
Obsessions neutralized- a gift of time.

I dragged me to my feet and washed my face,
Had breakfast in a rush and left for work.
I walked on empty streets, hopped on the bus.
I listened to a song that spoke of you.
My thoughts betrayed me, like they always do,
But soon my precious logic gained control.

I sat in crowded rooms, and in a corner
An unfamiliar face stared back at me.
No one you’d call attractive, on the whole,
Yet something in his eyes caught my attention.
His eyes. They looked like yours,
They made my skin crawl.
I had to look away, but even then,
There was no way I’d focus on the speakers.
I didn't hear a word, and later on
I'd have to make it up in pointless sentences.

Thus, all which had been buried into memory
Was dragged up to the surface with a glance.
It seemed so long forgotten, I'd began to doubt
The very truth of our abandoned moments.
Yet there it was, the feeling, burning me like ice
And there it was, the fear, driving me crazy.

How easy to go on in pure denial,
Assuming I was cured, or even worse,
Acting as if our story never happened,
As if you never looked at me that way-
So real, I wouldn't dare assume you faked it;
So deep, I couldn't blame it on myself
Or my delusional imagination
-Which wouldn't change a thing, in any case
Lost as I was in a transparent labyrinth
With my defenses scattered at your feet.

Time goes by, blunting life’s edges, giving even our gravest errors an aura of necessity, and in the end all that remains is a sense of regret for what we didn’t- or couldn't- do.

So I wish I’d been stronger, braver and franker; I wish I’d given you more, and demanded more, too; I wish I’d shown my feelings instead of vaguely mentioning them in self-pitiful texts; I wish I’d expressed my anger, however undeserved, instead of letting it go stale before turning to sorrow, for all would be over now, anyway. Humiliation can only last that long, whilst inaction comes back to haunt us.

But there’s no point dwelling in the realm of unfinished memories. I’ve changed; I’m who I used to be. I still feed on sunshine and idealized encounters; I still can’t decide whether living is a tragedy or the greatest adventure; I still seek out the company of people, then violently push them away to become engrossed in my constraining, explosive love-affair with solitude.

The future is like a distorting mirror: it shows nothing more than a disfigured image of my expectations. And the past is like a delicate spider’s web, in which I am forever caught.

Last night I heard you talk to yourself, again; the words made hardly any sense. I stood and watched you look in the mirror, your face convulsed in an expression of terror. “What did you see?”, I asked. “Beauty. The ultimate essence of Beauty.” “Then why are you so frightened? ”Because real Beauty can only be found in death.”

But I wouldn’t let myself be carried away by another one of your melodramas- we’d both seen enough of that. I said: “You must make up a ritual, a single thoughtful act of repetition to help you keep loneliness at bay, to save your mind from the embrace of madness.”

And I showed you the starlit sky: “Aren’t the stars and moon beautiful, too?”. “The stars remind me of all the things beyond my reach”, you replied. “The moon is the pill I swallow every night before going to bed, and every morning I wake up emptier.”

I knew, then, that you had to die, for only in death would your
soul find Peace and Serenity; for only then would I be cured from
the futile thirst for Perfection.

Lust unfolds more easily in safety. Yet attraction goes hand in hand with fear. Does this make any sense to you?

Sometimes words, which remain unspoken, are heavier than all our utterings. Weight can add value. Weight may increase significance.
It always makes walking harder.

I say, I wish I could explode, scream till my throat bleeds, dance naked in the streets, let madness rise upon seas of monotony, break through the mirror to the Opposite Side.

You ask to come with me; I hesitate, because your face resembles a statue carved in wax- I do not know whether you’re inherently indefinable, or my imagination has betrayed me again. I fear the heat of my expectations is enough to make you melt, and then the journey will surely transform you into my favourite nightmare.

Poems that can make you cry with their flawless depth. Sometimes you wish you'd written them, but then you'd miss the pleasure of discovering them for the first time- when you read someone else’s verses, thinking this is what I wanted to say.
Are we always writing for an audience?

Pessimists tend to be misunderstood for weaklings or losers. In fact, most of them are really determined survivors. Imagine knowingly having to put up with all that's wrong in the world.
Absurdity is not a phenomenon; it is a way of life.

Lacking in trust. She drew invisible lines that no one could cross. Upside down, inside out and beneath the current.
Are you afraid? Are you afraid? What are you afraid of?

Parvus sum, nullus sum. (Richard Burton)

In truth, it isn’t the Unreachable that drives us crazy. You don’t wake up one day and think I want a private island, then spend the rest of your days in misery. No, it is the gifts that are given freely before being violently reclaimed, which hurt the most. It is the seemingly perfect pictures, whose brightness suddenly faded, leaving you broken as you desperately strive to recreate an impression of flawlessness.

And this is why our defenses fail, this why we are prone to error, why we’re so easily affected by other people’s confessions and promises. You may be more than satisfied in your present situation, but if someone convinces you that you can have -and you deserve- much more, that you’re admired, special and needed…I hope you have the strength to simply walk away.

For if you fall into the trap, if you are forced to see what was so readily offered crumble the moment you reach out to touch it; or if you indeed manage to hold it for a single moment just to watch it explode in a million painful pieces, there’s no going back. You shall move around in circles, struggling to recover the untainted wholeness you once took for granted, whilst the screen behind your eyes will only play one, unbearably idealized, scene.

One of the most special things about music is that it accepts –no, it celebrates- the relativity of time. Time. Humanity’s oldest disorder. Ever since we divided existence in days, months and seasons, ever since we began to distinguish between future and past, the battle was lost. How desperately we struggle to make sense of our surroundings, to create an illusion of certainty and control, and yet…who is really holding the reins in this frantic race?

We’re haunted. Running around, trying to make it in time. Make what? As if there’s a chance you might miss your own death. You wake up, again, before the dream is over. Soon you’ll be screaming "leave me alone!" Focus on the present. When you were a kid, you could still manage it somehow. Eternity in the palm of your hand. Infinity in an hour. Now you must take drugs to simulate the experience; even then, it is too heartbreakingly ephemeral.

Memories, plans, fears, traumas…we’re nothing more than a succession of images. Incomplete sentences, unfinished poems, half-emptied glasses. We thought we’d conjured some absolute Essence; it failed, so we seek to exorcise it, but the ancient spell doesn’t seem to work. If god existed, it would probably have laughed itself to death long ago. Provided we’d left it the time for that.

Sunshine torturing our souls with fragments from long-gone summers. It is not people we miss, it is emotions, moments, situations. Don't you sometimes wish you could open these locked windows, allow people to touch you, feel your warmth? Don't you dream of trust and belonging, of being more than a passive observer in the melancholic acts of social interaction?

You've done it before, you know you're capable of closeness, and yet you only let the same old figures enter your well-defended world. In the soothing comfort of their familiarity, conversations flow naturally, your body grows soft and responsive, your mind remains focused on the present, you experience instead of analyzing, you come to life, like a cold-blooded vampire suddenly awoken by midnight-chiming clocks.

To go on, everyday you must convince yourself that you’re in love with a different person. But your love is purely theoretical- it begins to evaporate the moment actions become necessary. And, once in a while, you're overwhelmed by all those repressed desires, so you explode in some unsuspecting stranger's face. But the explosion is a stunt, since merely worlds escape the prison of your lips; you think you're showing weaknesses, a human side, when you're simply fabricating distractions, fooling yourself...

What is worse, you're just hanging there, waiting for someone to forcibly drag you out of your self-inflicted misery, instead of smashing down those walls. And you avoid the most important questions, like What’s so precious and irreplaceable about your detached existence that you'd rather spend the rest of your life in a glass bowl than risk making a mistake? What are you terrified of losing except a little pride and the pathetic safety of your ego trip?

I cannot stop moving in circles for it isn't over yet. Even though I've got my life back; the life I used to have, when I was still unattached, impulsive and careless. Before a constant sense of shame spread its roots inside my mind; before I learned to filter words and actions so they'd fit into the mold someone else had created for me

Filtering, of course, is an on going process. But now I am the one who makes the choices. You could call it pretentiousness or dishonesty; I'd say it is little more than selective unveiling of particular sides. There's such variety in my wardrobe of characters. I'm like a book that changes to suit its reader. And when the transformation fails to produce the desired result, I feel worthless. As if my only task in life was to be a convincing personifier.

Never trust literature that does not threaten to undermine
your preconceptions.

First thing you learn is how to cry,
Naked and helpless as you lie,
You struggle for communication
Or just to capture their attention.

Soon, cries alone won't be enough
And you'll discover how to laugh,
For they may tire of weeping eyes,
But they cannot resist your smiles.

So you begin to imitate
Every expression they dictate
From rage to boredom or lust.
Such is the way to win their trust.

How they enjoy to read your face…
Until one day you fall from grace.
You cannot let them play their game
Tainting your purest thoughts with shame.

Now, masks are often hard to make
-Unless you want them to look fake-
But how on earth will you grow up
If you keep swallowing their crap?

Pretend you're doing as you're told,
Fashion a shield in shiny gold,
Observe behind this fine disguise
The gaping holes inside their eyes.

Spring’s affliction is beginning to take it’s toll. The possibilities for momentary fixation are limitless. Mess around. Transform something old. Resurrect something dead. Discover something new. Just be careful not to leave everything in pieces.

Like a butterfly flying from flower to flower, not because she’s playing games of abuse and domination, but because she is seduced by all those tantalizing scents. As a matter of fact, the butterfly has no idea where she’s going nor, alas, what her tiny heart desires.

But this metaphor has become too sugary for my taste, and I can’t afford being more specific at the moment, so I guess I’ll have to end it here. For now.

Books and traveling. Drugs for the soul.
How would it be if all our memories came from the future and we could only speculate about past events?
Wounds heal. The fear remains.
What is the logarithm of your most secret desire?
Black stones sinking in an emerald pool.
Aren’t worker bees banned from eating royal jelly?
If only Marx had lived in a hive.
As a kid, did you ever suspect you were an alien, because your breath sounded louder than other people’s and your eyes didn’t blink?
They thought I had an eye infection. At least I didn’t asphyxiate.
Why does no one make pianos with multicoloured keys?
Fight for your rights to simulated synesthesia.
Does the spirit fly when the body falls?
Religions seek to defy gravity. And fail.
Shouldn't those, who believe life is serious, find dying hilarious?
Tickle yourself to death.

She hid her head under the covers, creating another illusion of safety. I’d like to tell you…it doesn’t matter. Why do my thoughts keep moving backwards, dwelling on places I thought I’d managed
to escape from?

Worship of the Unreachable never ends. Without it, our bodies
would grow cold, our minds would become sterile. For everything
you seek but cannot touch, imagination conjures a million different depictions of attainment. What you manage to get hold of leaves you tired and insatiable.

Yet you’re a part of this as much as I am. Not letting the flame become a fire, whilst making sure it’s kept alive. Discreet
reminders. Every now and then. So that you, too, are caught in the web. I’ve come to believe you never meant to hurt anyone. You
were just carelessly pulling strings, like a child lured by the arcane mechanics of a toy-car.

You set the rules of the game. I follow course. Torturing myself. With bittersweet droplets of hope. Writing it all here, taking the risk, so that you might find out and back away. In fear, repulsion or indifference? I do not really wish to know.

What will it lead us to? Not much, I’d say. Time will take its toll, healing wounds, replacing old disappointments with fresh ones.
Little of you and I will remain in the realm of memories.
There was never a lot to begin with.

Still, I shall drink from this glass again and again, for as long as I can make it last. Flickers of creativity are not easy to find these days- better stick to what you’ve got.

Silence. Crumbling words, tired and worn out from overuse.
You 'd like to write something original, something no one has ever said before. Instead, you keep repeating the same ideas, phrase
after phrase. Inspiration used to be a current, an unstoppable waterfall. Now it resembles a drying well; you sweat for a few
drops of muddy water.

Bouncing moods. When you become accustomed to crying in
public places, deceiving yourself that you’re safe and invisible in the merciful embrace of anonymity, it's time to take a look around
and ask your self “what am I doing here?”. Expect no easy answers- or, rather, do not expect any answers at all. The question was
purely for exercise purposes. Rhetorical. Irresolvable. Wipe those tears from your eyes; no one shall take pity on you. You don't
deserve it, anyway.

Memories of a winter afternoon. Do you remember, I think I played my part well. I kept smiling. Afterwards my lips hurt from the effort. A performance of strength and spiritual greatness. It almost worked. If only you hadn't looked at me this way. What did you see, I wonder. Why do we continue this struggle of wills? Let us celebrate our immaculate ignorance.

Silence. I could have told you how it feels to fly. You didn't need my interference. Dancing in 87 dimensions constitutes a challenge of sorts. But no, you are the master of the deck, you've always known why the sky is blue; my offer was of little value. In other words, hope has began to stink of rotting allibis. A new sense of direction would be greatly appreciated.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our world of poetically futuristic piracy. Please follow the rules. Scan the horizon for abandoned promises. The winner earns a trip to the valley of madness.

Isn't it strange, and sometimes sad, how certain people slip in and out of our lives like shadows; words exchanged, faces seen and then gone, never to come back. It would be a lie to say I haven't consciously cut contact on more than one occasions- a coward's response to all that scares or makes me uncomfortable.

I remember mornings and evenings spent with persons I haven’t seen since. Some were strangers, others I used to call friends. I let them tell their stories, laughed at their jokes, listened to their music; we got drunk and high together, watched sunsets and sunrises, swam in moonlit seas; we explored caves and hollow trees, walked for hours in deserted cities, carved pumpkins for Halloween; we stumbled upon great discoveries, made up our own songs and words and proverbs...

Most were nice to me, and I just smiled, saying nothing, for what was there to say? I stayed up for hours and watched them sleep, convinced there wouldn't be another night, knowing I' d have to leave tomorrow, without saying goodbye, unable to even conjure a convincing excuse. No, I did not really deceive them, I do not think most of them were even remotely affected by my inexplicable behaviour- I'm not that important, after all.

Thus, it is not guilt that makes me talk this way; it is nostalgia mixed with grief and a hint of regret, for the wasted moments more than anything else. Wasted, because we then had to deny them, to cover them with weak arguments and misleading alibis, so that we wouldn't have to recall the broken promises, the abandoned plans, the shared illusions; so that we wouldn't need to remember that this is meant to happen again and again and again, and there is nothing we can do about it except maybe be more honest next time and braver, too.

I adore buses- the tube is way too stressful and loud. I like to sit
back and relax, listen to music, check out the people around, play little games trying to guess details about their lives by simply examining their shoes, hairstyles or mobile phones.

Sometimes I’m inspired, images flashing before my eyes at the speed of light. When possible, it's wise to note them down before they move on to the next passenger. Writing makes me dizzy, but I choose to accept it as a prerequisite of the creative process. The bus keeps moving, and the mind continues its parallel journey…

What do cats think when they sit on trees, roofs and balconies, looking down? Are they contemplating suicide? Reflecting upon the utter futility of human actions? Killing time? Why do they love to sit in the sunshine, eyes closed in an expression of pure, lazy joy?
What do they see when they stare at us? And what do we truly
see when we stare back?

Why do certain individuals' eyes seem as if they’re hiding more depth than the rest? Why do they make you feel as if they’re x-raying your brain with a simple glance? How can other people know you all your life and still be unable to comprehend your inner logic?

What do embryos see when they’re dreaming? Where do dreams go when they end? Are they stored for future recollection? Gone forever? Could they perhaps be recycled, or even reused? So that, when we meet someone with whom we’ve unsuspectingly shared a dream, we experience this moment of revelation and spontaneous nostalgic understanding - which only lasts as long as a dream...

And winter passed us in full speed, like a surrealist’s dream: blurred, mildly unpleasant at times; not terryfying but somehow confused and occasionally incomprehensible. It pushed and pulled and turned us around, a tidal wave of the mind. Yet now spring has come, with it’s changing weather and miserable spells of hay fever, and it feels as if something is about to happen. Something fresh, miraculous and unexpected. Or maybe not..

Don’t blame me, I just work here. What would be your explanation for all these sudden coincidences, small but unmistakable as such. This time, I didn’t even go fishing for them. What I did was welcome them as signs for better times to come: as heralds of a powerful explosion, or at least a miniature firework, to break the dull procession of indistinguishable days and nights.

It needn’t be extraordinary or unique; Im not concerned with it’s nature or origin; all I want is to be engrossed into an ultimate and all-consuming impression of substance, an essence of meaning, an ideal, an ingeniously and paradoxically convincing metaphysical plan of sorts… In other words, my spirit is off hunting for the Adventurous, the Ephemeral, the Outrageous, whilst my body struggles to complete everyday tasks.

Oh well, isn’t it natural to long for these intense, strange and familiar feelings, which make life spicier, more traumatic and adorable than it normally is?

They drew a circle of flowers, then lay down inside it, curled up like kittens. The trees held their breath, so as not to wake them, and the forests' creatures guarded their sleep. At night, the moon watched them and wept- for they were children of the future, already let down by today. Rain fell, washing their scars away, but the the wind tore their clothes in pieces and filled their ears with sand from all the world's deserts.

Seasons came and went; winter saw them covered in snow; birds made nests in their hair during spring; the summer sun burnt their skin mercilessly; in autumn their dreams smelled of falling leaves. Spiders wove intricate webs between their fingers and over their eyelids; plants spread their roots beneath them; snails left glistening trails on their necks. In time, they were unrecognizable, two tattered statues almost invisible in the green twilight, and even the stars took them for dead.

Yet they were only asleep, waiting -patiently, long past caring- for a day when the tide would turn and they could walk away from their wooded island, that heavenly prison they had chosen as shelter for their defenseless bodies, whilst their spirits wandered on the twisting path to oblivion and all-defying hope...

There is no time- there’s never enough time. Our lives will run out and we’ll still be running around, trying to remember something that has long ceased to matter. So many thoughts cross my mind, some might even be worth writing, but what do I know, I’ve lost myself in tomorrow’s frantic pursuit.

Last night I was thinking, what is it with me and love, why am I always on the look for it, when it’s so very rare and euphemeral? See, I wouldn’t consider myself romantic. Valentine’s day leaves me unimpressed or irritated; I prefer my flowers alive, ideally in a garden; hope no one would ever buy me a teddy bear or suggest we watch the sunset on a first date- unless we’re on acid; I’ve laughed in the face of people who uttered improbable compliments or resorted to unnecessary sentimentality too early along the way.

Now, maybe it is all little more than an adverse reaction to everything, possibly even a sign of insecurity. But you can’t change the fact that I like my passion raw, spiced up with lust and just a hint of crudeness. Which is why my secret wish to spend most of my life in a constant state of infatuation makes hardly any sense.

Losing control, I guess that’s what it’s all about. A power freak, who struggles to keep everything in order, yet furtively willing nothing as much as to break free of the chains and live madly, carelessly, randomly, engrossed in something totally inconsequential and at least partially made up- since I normally need to initiate or enhance the process with a bit of imagination. Still, I must tell you, it seldom works to the desired effect. Pathetic, isn’t it?

Today I won’t go on boring you with more attempts to self-analyisis. Let it be; I am what I am and, when I manage to take a step back and look at myself, the mess I witness shocks and amuses me…

I wish you were here
Even for a short while.
I wish you were someone else.

I wish I'd never met you
Wish I could escape
My minds' prison,
The paper bridges,
The agony.

I wish you were lost in a maize,
Where only I could find you.
I wish you were naught but dream
So only I could want you.
But there's no time,
There is no space.
Crawling on the ground,
Our desires.

And deep inside
I know I'm happier in your absence,
I'm whole.

Because you never understood
-Or cared to see-
The fears that burnt my thoughts,
Those days
When I would cling
Onto your shadow,
Those days
When I would long
For just one touch,
A sign,
A promise of unhindered comprehension.

How could I trust you?
How could I doubt
Your every sentence?
Where did it spring from
My hope to enter your reality?

How could I picture you
Sharing that longing,
The trembling fantasy
Of random meetings
In places far away
And unexplored,
When you would only offer silence
For an answer?

And I, the fool,
Why did I ask
My endless questions?
Why did I let obsessions blur my sight,
Wasting your time,
Uncovering your reasons,
Why did I beg for more
Than you could give?

I wish I was here
Even for a short while.
I wish I was someone else.

Notes from an ordinary day

Early morning. I get up and make coffee, hoping I won’t have to meet anyone until it kicks in. Force myself to open the blinds before switching on the laptop. Sometimes it’s easy to forget which one is my real window to the world.

Short visit to grandma- it's her birthday today, but she's depressed and refuses to celebrate. We're the same, you and I, I tell her: stubborn survivors with self-destructive tendencies. She laughs, seeming slightly better. I leave, feeling guilty for being ever busy, when all she needs is company.

Outside there's still snow on the pavement, but the thermometer says 21. Old men are sitting in what counts for a park in this latitude, talking politics. The pigeons have begun their mating rituals. Why does everyone remember sex as soon as the sun’s out?

(I'm not referring to myself, here; my obsession with sexuality is weatherproof. This has nothing to do with desire, of course, it's more like a philosophy. I remain true to my- personally defined- duty to challenge taboos and stereotypes. Foucault would be proud.)

On the tube, I listen to Janis Joplin. I wish I could sing like her, though if I did, I'd probably be dead by 27. A cute guy is looking at me; he can't be more than 17. Get shy and pretend I haven't noticed. I’m late for work- as usually- and struggle to write a boring article, whilst fantasizing of beaches.

Ex-boyfriend calls; we make plans for the night, faithful to our silent agreement not to talk about anything but the present. When we meet, we act as if we're still together- only without the fighting. When we part, we go our separate ways. No questions asked. Which is hard, yet not as hard as to suddenly cut contact. You don’t just stop loving a person; it's simply that other things get in the way.

On my way home I think of a story that’s part of a story that’s part of a story…Nothing that hasn’t been done before, but the potential implications are limitless- to Imagination's delight. A stray dog comes to smell my shoes, then nods in approval. I bet you're the one who woke me up last night, I say. He waves his tail. I smile, all memories of loss and pain and sorrow evaporating, albeit temporarily. Aren't Fridays great, for some reason?

It is the time of year, a time for reflection, doubt and the occasional self-pitiful glance in the mirror. Prone as I am to exaggeration, I shall resist the temptation to dwell on my unresolved dramas. Tell you how chaotic my life looks right now, how nothing is wrong yet nothing feels quite right. Perfectly conscious of the fact that it’s all in my head. I blame it on the time of the year. With last summer’s, echo fading, and the next one still out of reach.

When we were younger, we could somehow find reasons for hope. Things to wait for, however far and uncertain. Trust in some vague, improbable ideal, the spell that would turn the world upside down, blessing us with a new point of view. Now our childish naivety is evaporating fast and, whilst our skin has grown thick and our hearts harder to break, it’s hard to find a meaning to hang on to. No distant light on the horizon, no absolute moment of magical release.

We no longer expect salvation to come from outside, we cannot assume someone else will bring the answers we’re seeking, or even hold our hand and stay close as we continue this desperate search.
We can’t even believe in our hidden potential anymore. Yes, we have built our walls of confidence and masks of aggression, but the faith in our superpowers and indisputable uniqueness is shrinking with every passing day.

And what keeps us carrying on our pointless existence? Could it be simply the fear of dying, nature’s determination to ensure preservation of the species, however unwilling the species in question might be? You’re nihilistic, they always say. They think it’s wrong. They think we’re meant to be lighthearted, joyful all the time. They consider happiness something permanent, to be chased even if its pursuit inflicts the worst kind of suffering.

But if you spend your life struggling to be happy, happiness must surely come with death, right? Which leads us back to what I was trying to say: life does not really make any sense, so why waste it looking for patterns or following principles? I mean, we’ll all die anyway, and that leaves us with very little to lose. So, we might as well mess things up a bit, while we’re here.

Notice how pessimism goes full circle until it annihilates itself. In contrast, optimism only ends up crashing into some formidable obstacle it refused to acknowledge.