unicidades

Photo: Dan Garver What do we do with what we feel exactly? How does it impact one's life? My tango teacher is telling me he needs to feel what I feel when I am dancing. How can I unveil my feelings in a class?  How can I let him know of the raw and unbearable feelings I have had lately. The intensity of the pain both physical and emotional? How could I bare it all in front of him?  The books sit on my table on the right. A pile of words, teachings, theories. I think of TJ and what he represented in the short period of time that we experienced life together. I remember his words: my body is failing me. Little did he know that my body was also failing me. For different reasons.  I avoid listening to music these days. I avoid pain. I avoid voices. Avoidance has been my strategy. The sky is my witness and partner of sorts. Way above me. Intangible. The dream of dreams. Where blood and tears mean nothing. White and blue mixing together in perfect harmony....

The color was a dying pink. The pink you see in the sky when the day is ending. It wasn't a pale pink. It was just a disappearing pink. The hue you see in something that is dying. It must be the same color you see on a dying heart. The heart that is forgetting love. That is a dying pink heart. One that crumbles and shrinks. A heart that has indeed forgotten how to love.  Image by me. 

The windows were small and tall. So out of her reach she had to climb up in her bed to open them. The windows themselves did not open to the street or to the sky. The windows faced a corridor that had a special type of brick. She grew up without seeing most of sky. She opened boxes in the meantime. Boxes that contained books. The Book of Life. Recipe books (recipes they never made in the house). The Bible. She soon decided the Bible wasn't for her. She preferred the poetry book her dad had written for her mom. It had a glassy blue cover and golden letters. He wrote in blue. Passionately.  The bedroom where her brother and her used to sleep was dark and cold. They lived in a big house that hadn't been built in its entirety. The functional and small areas were a kitchen, a garage (turned into a bedroom), a future library (turned into a bedroom), a bathroom, a laundry room and a corridor. As time went by, the future library was used as a master bedroom, but became a living r...

As I sit here in this office that is gray and noisy, I press the repeat button on a song that means so much to me. All my life I knew where I was going to and who I was going to be. I was going to be a professional. I was going to be independent. I was going to be someone. And that way, without knowing who I really was, I ventured into becoming. I didn't walk a straight line. I fell many times. Success as we imagine it or how we see around it around of us, was never reached by me. I am not famous. I am not popular. I am not rich. I felt stuck for a long time.  Right here, in this precise moment, I realize that even though I was searching and searching for better ways to live, I missed out who I was. It's this way I have of not making a big deal out of anything. I take myself for granted. I am honest. Big deal. Everybody should be honest. I am a good person, big deal. Everybody should be a good person. No need to reward myself.  How can I blame you for not seeing me? ...

O que foi o mundo antes de ti. Espera. O que e o mundo depois de ti? Ainda nao sei. Sento-me na beira do mar e respiro o mundo. Pesado. Engulo os sofregantes sonhos. Me desertaste, e eu ao-mar. Maos cheias de amor a tua espera. Recolhida no dourado do sol que me enxerga. Maresia alta. Frangrancia de umidade quente. Brisa. A companhia do passaro que tem por lema apenas estar e partir. O mundo de antes, que perdi, era feito de significados. Deixo essa vida de significados para tras. Minha lucidez agora me banha de sal e remorsos. Ah, se eu tivesse estendido-te a mao no dia em que partiste. Se talvez eu tivesse gritado a ferocidade da minha raiva e minha dor. Quem sabe? Quem sabe meu mundo agora fosse outro. Esfera de fogo. Arabesques de titaneo moldado pela tua forca.

I lost my father. Years ago. When somehow we got distanced and disconnected from each other. My mom used to say my dad and I had very similar personalities and that's why we didn't get along. I wonder if she used to say that because of my brother (the favorite). I guess she wanted my brother to be like her. I lost my father in the complicated life of adults. It was things here and there and then one day it was something that felt like a nuclear war. I was 11 years old at the time and that was, perhaps, the first step towards an awkward and feeble relationship between a father and a daughter.  It seems like our silence was our small war. We talked through my mom. I went to college and our distance seemed to grow larger. At the same time, I developed some of the same likes my dad had. I was into architecture, punctuality, music, nature. Reading and writing. There was an external calm within me that was a mirror imagine of that man I learned to be distanced from.  I am ...

Life is simple. Or is it? It's cold out today My heart trembles The blue in drops shatters my hope I feel the cut The tears burn it River of pain bridge of light Hands that shrink His eyes still Photograph I cannot bear to look at Life in black in white We are running out of time not now, I tell myself It's not now that we are running out of time We ran out of time years ago We ran out of time when you did not find inside of you The Seed of Love.