He said
"You're not a problem.
You're a disaster.
Problems can be solved.
Lie on me."

Presence of absence

I think of you
Even as my body yearns for another
More familiar body than yours.
This was all supposed to happen
In order to get a chance to see you again,
Not a second chance per se,
Just a second fleeting glimpse of you.
Fast forward two months since your enthusiastic proclaim we'd meet soon,
(Don't like my future attendance of events,
Come see me.)
He is,
And he's coming from another country to do so.
Call me,
I'm afraid if I don't see you
This one-sided story will never end.
Spare me
Your absence,
The presence of your ghost.

She's going to break your heart some day

Called me three times today.
Hardly talked,
mostly we looked at each other's faces.
I adore him
but the silence was echoing inside my head
and I was restless to hang up.

My friend says
I'm the kind to make
love to the bad boys
and leave them.

I break both our hearts
in the process.


(I read somewhere "She looked at me softly; that's how she stabs souls." I suppose it is appropriate and the joke's on me.)

Happy/Sad matter

Talking to you makes me happy.
It also makes me sad.
It was never
supposed
to matter
so much.

I am not here to be magnifiscent
or alter the courses of people's lives.
I simply am.
So I burrow myself
in art and books
and all the beauties I can find on my way
home
somewhere,
I look for the beauty of solitary numbers.
I expect their memories
to remain untouched.

*

God, I miss him still. I miss them both but I miss him still. And it kills me to know we're only two hours away and we have not met yet even though he said we would. And the other one wants to get a flight from his country to here to come see me and I miss him too and love him and adore him but I miss him still. It shouldn't hurt so much to not have seen a complete stranger after a whole year.

I miss you, it's not healthy, but it still breaks my heart and your name is everywhere. It will stop I guess but when?

Not a muse

I am not magnificent in any way.
I am not poetry
or art.
There is nothing remarkable about me
you can find many more interesting copies out there.
You will find
no song written about me
no dance poisoned with the thought of me
no indelible intoxication
I am nobody's muse.
I'm awkward talks
and stares of curiosity
and an abundance of tenderness.
I'm here to touch you
break you
give you what you need
and then leave
with not even a photograph
or a memory left behind.
Only a slight perfume
of skin and soap,
light and fading.

Imaginary conversations

It's been over a year
since I've last seen him.
Then there were miles of sea
and land
but mostly people between us.
Now we're two hours away by car
and a recent message plays over
and over
in my head.
"We'll meet soon."
Fast forward a month
and silence has been ever-present
the anxiety has not subsided
though I recognise
there will be no meeting.

I try not to count the possibilities
to map out the possible outcomes
but nevertheless in one scenario
there's a meeting
and somewhere along the way
one piece of conversation
goes along like this:
"I was in love with you you know."
"Me too."
"Where does that leave us?"
"Nowhere."

Violent intentions

He says he doesn't
beg
instead he'll make me.
I smile
because he does not get
that I don't need to hear it
it's enough for me
to know he can't have me
even if he wants me
even if he fucks others
breathing out my name.
It's enough to know I can break or touch
a fraction of him
even as he's whole
even as he has already forgotten me.

It was his birthday

She wished him
Happy Birthday.
He replied
I am too far away.


I smoked three cigarettes straight
when she told me.

Arriving in Rome

A week after
reaching Rome
everything is already faded
my old life back in Greece
the people
the moments
everything
they feel faraway
are part of a dreamland.
I am in a parenthesis
where nothing is real
except the now
the here
a here in which
I feel to strangely belong
to myself
to the city
to the unknown
to no one
nowhere.
It's starnge to say I do not miss him
there is only a slight melancholy
a slight upward turning of the lips
and then he's swept away
by the roman heat.

Final goodbyes

I try to make light of his loving remarks
but that is hard because
how do you ignore the solemn ones?
I smile sadly at his words
because I have seen the future
have already lived it
- am already on recovery.
The expiration date has passed
and now it's rotting
and I'm letting go of control
- I'll take the emotions as they come
feel them all the way
le them wash over me
then fade away.

(I don't care if it is love or not
- I adore him in my own way -
but it hurt to say - the last - goodbye.)


Ten minutes later:
a text.
"I already miss you."

Fever

It's dawn when I wake

from his flaming body.

Later he rests his head between my thighs

slowly exhaling in his sleep.

I sit by him as he soaks in the bathtub

my fingers working their way against his skin.

His frame is melting when I caress his hair

and sometimes it feels

like his defences are crumpling.

"Damn it, you have a wonderful touch,"

he murmurs

his hands around my waist.

His vulnerability

at times gives me pleasure

at times gives me grief.

I'm kind of glad

the affair will end the way it will.

I'd hate 

for the tenderness to turn bitter 

at the tips

of my sorry

limbs.

Denied impulse

When you got mad
I had this impulse
to ask you to my home.
Except I though
you'd say no
so I
didn't whisper a word.

(I'll probably
regret
this tomorrow.)

He said

He asked

"What are you doing tonight?"

"Friends are coming over

just hanging around."

And he said 

"Hanging out

hanging out.

You keep hanging out with friends

and you never invite me."

We were speeding up past cars

the wind in my hair.

Boy, I thought,

what are you trying to do?

It's no good getting access

to worlds you will soon lose.

I couldn't see his face.

Bullets on the street

I'm getting tired of being asked
why women are so "sensitive".
People don't seem to understand
that when you grow up learning
to expect unwanted hands from every direction
even a word on the street
can feel like a bullet.
And it's aiming at you.

Fragments*

Bite marks on my back
and your pelvis.
With us it's all about
silent resignation
nails and sinking teeth
and ice cream and movies
and little unimportant things in between.
I cherish this intimacy you have given me,
I want you to know that.
Still
you remain a stranger
and I don't look forward
to you forgetting me.

(Though I highly encourage it)

Surprise drinks

Yesterday night
I only went out for a drink
after lying on the floor of a dance school until midnight.
Somehow
I ended up at some rich kid's house
smoking weed with his friends as the sun came up,
his fiery girlfriend sleeping on the balcony couch.
N slept in the arms of an italian,
and I went inside intoxicated,
frustrated by his silence,
the lack of his hands on my skin,
for all the wrong reasons.
I laid down on the couch
and sank inside myself
until staying there was unbearable.

*

Grandma's back is turned to me.
She breathes heavily in her sleep
I wonder if she's dreaming.
I smoke silently by the window
the city lights of a foreign city
in a foreign country
music
and cigarette smoke
my sole companions.
She knows
and yet it still feels like a secret.
I smoke only behind her back.

Damn it
I'm getting mixed up over here
slightly emotionally involved.
I do not know
whether I'm merely slipping into intimacy
or I'm developing a crush.
I always tend to wonder
why people
let me in in their little universes.
It touches me deeply.
All I know
is that I have one month left
in that home of mine
and I want to spend the time we're left
with you.
I'm ready to pay for the consequences of that
but I've never asked
are you?

Tenderly,
Bug

Expiration dates

Do I cut off too soon
what already has an expiration date
or
or treasure the time left?
Do I remain entirely honest
or partally so.
Your messages confuse me,
what are you getting at?
I'm not trying to hurt you
I'm trying to hold back.

Sometimes I think you can feel me
drifting.
I wish I could say it was not so.

Hold on just another month or so
and then
never think of me at all.

Overpower

I bit him
and he choked me
as we fucked.
He stroked my hair
my cheek
my thighs.
Sometimes fucking
feels like fighting
and I realised what a good analogy that is
for the chemistry between us.
His weakness
is the emotions he appears to have for me.
They give me power
that I do not know how to handle
without instictively hurting him.
My power is also
the source of my fear,
my weakness.
Human relationships
tend to be
a game of overpowering the other.
It's a fight I am not willing to lose.
I might.
I hope i know myself enough not to.

Bathroom times

Days ago,
before leaving for a week,
I was at his place
in his bathroom.
He was standing naked before me
dripping wet on the floor.
His hands were taking off my undergarments
under my dress
and his lips were on the edge of mine.
"What turns me on the most,"
he said,
"is kissing you."

“Whatever I looked at was alive, everything had a voice,
but I never found out were you a friend, an enemy,
was it winter, summer? Smoke, singing, midnight heat.
I wrote thousands of lines. Not one told me.”

—	Anna Akhmatova, from Fragment, 1959

Bruises

I spend my days
in the half light
smoking stale tobbaco,
the only tobbaco that I'm left,
musing at the bruises betweem my thighs
wondering how
life is full of surprises
yet I'm never surprised
by the people that can bruise my heart.
The moment I meet them
I recognise them in an instant
as if something inside me said
"Hello there tormentor.
I have been waiting for you."

Careful what you wish for

He's fucking me when he says:
"Seems to me that I will fall for you.
And that won't be good."
He lowers on me
and his voice is low to my ear:
"Maybe I already have."
He's making me moan
and there is panic settling in my bones.

Low desires

And as you smiled
I knew all my fears were unfounded
and as relief surged in
so did disappointment
and God damn,
I really did have hope
that I would not turn out to be so cruel.
I wish for people to crave me
even as I do not.
What a low desire
to have myself.

Compliment

To his compliment 

I replied "I know." 

He sat back against the balcony wall

smoking and unnerved and said

"You have a lot of confidence

and I think there might be a hole in it somewhere."

Tilting my head I asked

"Don't we all have?"

Oh no

And as we laid side by side on the mattress
our bodies feeling hot and sweaty and animal-raw
his hand found mine and he interlaced our fingers
and I felt the panic forming at the back of my throat
'cause the only connection between us is lust
and I do not want anything more.
I turned my back and stared outside at the city lights
and ignored the gut-feeling
as his hand kept mine pinned
in the small space between our skins
saying "There are no other signs
except this feeling of dread.
He's not that kind of man."

Lust

All I want from him
is his hand around my neck
and my teeth tearing at his flesh.

I want that look upon your face
as you undress me.

Fucking thoughts

And as we fuck
for the first time
my first time
I think of you
not the guy who moves inside me
who treats me rough and soft
at the same time.

Good news is
we both see it as just sex.

Thanks for the warning

If I feel like smoking
I'll smoke.
Don't tell me you'll kill me for it
if it does not kill me first.
I've been drowning in myself all this time.
I don't need tobacco to die.

Manic Obsessive

The truth is
I love all my obsessions
all of my addictions.
Whether that's tobacco
or alcohol
or people
or emotions.

I draw them
I put them on paper
they break the shell of boredom
they break me
they keep me alive.

If I'm not addicted to something
there's no ground under my feet.

Let me burn
from the inside out.

*

Since last summer
you're like a strange ghost
to which I turn
when I need to trick myself
of having someone's body
wrapped with mine.

The man in Berlin

I think
of all those things he told me in Berlin
when we sat in the park.
Of his past.
He told me
"Don't be scared,"
and I replied
"I'm not."
I should have specified
"I trust you enough to not be."
I wonder why he told me
things he knew might change the way I saw him.
I wonder if it was because he had run out
of small talk topics.
Because my silence made him too uncomfortable.
But I could never speak and when I looked at him
I stared
and he would always ask me "what?"
"Nothing."
While the others were there
they spoke enough
that I could remain silent unnoticed.
With some people speech just doesn't come out.
But I'm glad
I said at least
"I appreciate it. You telling me things
you may not feel like sharing."
For a moment
I saw it in his eyes
he was stunned.
Then he laughed and said
"You're welcome I guess."

The things he told me
burn inside me
he's one of those people
you're not in love with
but you could easily be
if you let yourself fall.
He's the kind of person
that probably resonates in everyone
after they meet him.

While in Berlin

I ate less
I smoked more
sometimes more than tobacco
occasionally I drunk more.
I felt lonely at times and content.
Now I'm back and crying
I shouldn't feel so trapped
by people's love.
I love them too
so much
it hurts to think they'll all be gone one day
that's why I need to leave.
I'm a coward
not so deep in my heart.

I loved that state
in which I was continually wondering
what would it take to lose control?

*

Hush,
don't shiver.
I only tell you the lies
you long to hear.

Elsewhere

People often joke
about my tendecies to leave.
I wish how they'd feel
if I joked
that the reason I want to leave
is because there's no one to hold me back.
There's not one number in my phone book
that I don't make excuses why
it's not the proper time to call them.

I told you
I'm a person
who always wants to be
elsewhere.

Wind between my thighs

Many nights ago

I was walking through the picturesque

empty streets of Plaka.

And as I lifted up my dress a bit with my hands

the wind caressed my thighs

and it made me crave you.

Lessons

Before you continue
learn this:
people are entitled
to their boring as fuck lives.
It's not your job to shake them out of it,
you couldn't even if you tried.
Let them always crave
what they'll never have the balls to go after.

No lost tenderness

I don't know
about lost love.
But I know at least
there's no lost tenderness
between me and you.

At least from my part.

Strange,
lately you're back in my thoughts
but you don't ache anymore.
I just want to smoothe the crease
from your forehead.

How long now
will I dedicate
migled phrases to you?

Missing for emotions

To be honest
it's not that things are good.
It's just that
not many bad things are happening.
But then again
nothing good happens either.
Nothing happens at all.
It's a bit terrifying
but worse it's kind of boring.
The stillness is killing me.

I think I almost miss

the illogical pain

of ten months ago.

Phonecall

She called today and asked me
"What do you have to do tonight?"
I said "Nothing at all."
"Good. I need you."
How good it felt to hear that
even as we both knew
my presence would solve nothing.

Both sides

In the whirlwind of time
I do not think
I barely sleep
barely breathe.
Better and more intoxicating
than remaining motionless,
prey to my thoughts.

For all my laugh's
and all the relaxed and the busy moments
I can feel something at the back of my head
scratching to come back in.
I can feel the irritation building up in me.

Pretty girls

I sleep little these days. I laugh a lot. Smoke a lot. Drink more often - sometimes I get tipsy, more often than not I don't. I've been talking with new people, some I just met, some I've known for a while but nonetheless people who are not regulars in my life. I've found that talking to strangers often feels refreshing.

"Lets go meet new people. Lets pass them by and smile, lets make them invite us, we are after all pretty girls in a prettily clumsy town, lets meet them and then disappear if we feel like it."

I let her drag me around, too sober for that but people we met all the same. It always happens when around magnetising people. We tasted the best rum I've drank in a while and had a shot of Smirnoff North, sweet as a cake at the tip of my tongue.

We sand tango at the bus stop ignoring strangers and we pretended to be tourists and drunk.

And realised you're only as magnetising as you want to be.

I think after all, I might start walking up to people that I find interesting with the only trick at hand being honesty.

"Hey, I thought you looked interesting."

*

If I am to be
entirely honest and completely truthful,
I don't care much about anything these days.
Oh the bliss of it.
I do things on my own pace
and to hell with them all.

*

  I've been on a fantastically good mood since since last week - there have been the usual down moments but all in all my spirits have been high. Summer is almost here and I'm trembling at the prospect of Berlin. My Erasmus papers are not ready yet but they will be soon. I'm broke but I try not to worry - unsuccessfully more often than not but no matter. University is going bad as always, I really detest academic learning some times but I'm trying to make up for all the time that I've left to pass me by. I sleep little but I do not care. I've been smoking and drinking a bit more - never to the point of getting drunk - and I've spent most of the past days dancing till the early morning hours. 

  I'm trying to pick up reading again, I feel like my world has not been expanded for a while now and the thought chokes me.

Kissers timeline

My first kiss
was clumsy and awkward
on New Year's some years ago
with a dark haired boy called Orpheus
that I had just met and never met again
and who tasted like McFarland.

The second boy I kissed
was sandy-haired Stefan
whom I never cared to see again.

The third one matter.

The fourth one
was a guy
I never cared to ask his name for.

I don't think there has been one sober kiss.
Certainly not one repeated.

Diary excerpt

[...] I felt something in that instant, I am not sure how to describe it, I grab for the words but they are just not there. I struggle to form them with my lips but my lips are numb, and so,  beyond my control. But it was as if at that moment an electrical current striked me, deep within me, I felt a sharp twinge in my heart.

No reason, I told myself as I scrolled further, no reason to be influenced, there's nothing new there, nothing to see, nothing that is my bussiness to mull over, nothing nothing nothing.

Where does this obsession end?

This ought not to hurt anymore. (Except I'm not precisely hurt, nor envious. It feels more as if I am in a parenthesis that everyone overlooks, unable to get out of the brackets.)

It feels like I can't outgrow myself. Like I'm stuck in phases. It's like T.S. Elliot said"

"Some things take root 

in the brain and just don't

let go."

(Written in my diary in the early hours of dawn, posted unedited).

Fine day

I thought to myself
I'm not really going
to eat soup and drink wine
at 7p.m. am I?

Except yes, yes I am
just as I enjoyed
strawberries drenched in mastic liquer
and covered in brown sugar earlier,
while I submerged myself
to words and thoughts
that were not mine
but belonged to other people.

A fine day
one might say.

Intentions

I intend to get lost in Rome.
I'll get lost among the traces of the ancient city
and among the bars and the people.
And before that I intend to get lost in Berlin
and make a vow to return someday there
among the beautiful harsh language.
And after that I intend to get lost in some other city
in some other country
in some other bars
in some other man's arms
in some other faceless nameless bunch of people.
I intend to constantly get lost
to constantly lose myself
to let other constantly lose me if they wish to.
That seems like the only way
I can hold on to me.

Dream on

Yesterday I dreamt
of the boy
I have not seen
and have not been able to forget
for a long while now.

(Is one really a boy over 20?

I always call him that)

It was tender and short

and we both kept on

appearing and disappearing

only to find each other again.

I remember caressing the back of his knee

asking him whether he minded

      -he did not-

and laughing and telling him

"Sei ubriaco!"

as he stumbled slightly

then sat down heavily

by my side.

It made me a little sad

and yet

if you see me passing by

you'll notice that I'm smiling.

Spiral

Today
was not a bad day.
But somehow I feel
like I'm collapsing in on myself,
like my heart is caving in
like I'm running out of breath.

Somehow I register
I'm not making making circles
I'm spiralling downwards.

Morning walk

I did not sleep last night. I laid next to her, listening to her slow intakes of breath. I was in a strange man's house, someone who's name I forget and whom I have not met yet. But she had the keys to his place and he was away and there would be no chance like this to catch up with each other and there were so many things to tell. She was feeling like such a mess. She looked at him and hurt. And the were anxieties piling up inside me, things I had not shared so I followed her to the appartment that overlooked the cemetery.

Which was probably a mistake, because look at me now, sleep-deprived and without a chance to sleep before midnight for today. I couldn't sleep for there were thoughts of him in me tonight and they mingled with the way some other guy looked at me, and what words I've shared with each one of them - I repeated words I had been told in the past and when I think of the outcome of that case I feel sorry for the poor lad that heard them, should he go down the same course. You usually fall for people who dare to admit to you they're not that great. Maybe honesty is so rare these days we can't help but free-fall in its wake.

I got up and left with the first rays of sunlight, I put on my hat and shoes then my leather jacket. I went quietly down the stairs, opened the door and let myself out. My eyes felt weary and I shivered in the crispy April air. I plugged in my ear-phones, my feet taking me around an unfamiliar area, the world waking around me. I went through the archives, somehow Winehouse seemed like the most appropriate choice.

Mornings in Athens can be such hopeful and such hopeless hours.

First drink

There was

something utterly delicious

in that first sip of Baileys

that I'm currently enjoying. 

It left 

a slight burning in my lips

it made a shiver run down my spine.

Sometimes

that is all it takes

some good alcohol

some good music

the memory of that guy

who kept looking at me yesterday

and laughed at what I said

and quietly said

"I think I've figured out how you work.

You have that cool  and polite exterior

and then all the coolness comes out."

I hope you look that way

many girls

for I'll only break your heart.

Be careful boy, you've only known me for days

I have not let you in yet.

Alarmed

I've been feeling
                        alarmed.

  I was so annoyed yesterday at your absence. I had been certain that at some point I'd catch a glimpse of him among the others, casually leaning against the piano or the bar and drinking his beer. So certain, so certain that as the time went by I kept feeling more and more annoyed and, if I am to be completely honest, worried and disappointed at his absence. Having not seen him for over a week I miss the buzz he gives me, the way he riles me up, the way he places his hand on my arm or my waist, the slow way he leans in to kiss my cheek. I just kept glancing over my shoulder at the exit.

  I'm alarmed because I give him too much importance. Alarmed because he shakes me out of my daily boredom. Alarmed because I want to unnerve him to the point I render him speechless. I want to make him blush. 

  Alarmed because he makes me feel more like a predator rather than someone who just wants to be in love.

Self esteem

I love how people always believe

low self-esteem 

means you feel you're the lowest of the low.

In my opinion

I'm rather pretty

rather smart

rather talented

almost interesting.

Almost - not enough.

I'm rather many things.

But not enough

to make me 

first choice material.

I'm not 

substancial

enough.

Not a nice person

I have realised
what attracts me
is that aloofness of yours
as if you really don't give a shit.

I kind of want to make you care
so that
I get to break your bones
instead.

(I told him
I was not a nice person
and now
you might just find out
it's true)

Weird guy

That was weird.
You're weird.

Not sure I'm attracted to you
in a romantic way that is
(is there any other kind of attracion?)
I think it's mostly
because you frustrate me
because you perplex me.

You said you were sorry.
Whatever did you have to caress my cheek for then?

Weird guy.
Weird.
Weird.
Weird.

You might
might
sort of excite me.

I'll never understand people

There always seems
to be this one person
who perplexes me in some way.
This time it's someone
who thinks I'm boring
yet pats the back of my head
when he's drunk.

(Image source)

Weight

Lots
of people tell me
that I've lost weight
and it suits me
and I should keep it up.
And I know they mean it
as a compliment
but sometimes it feels
more like an insult.

Happy birthday

I kissed someone else

for the first time since you

on your birthday.

A nameless,

unimportant guy,

whose name 

I didn’t even care to ask

and whose kiss

I don’t even care to remember.

I’ve decided

I’m not in love with you

and I’ll repeat that to myself

until I believe it to be true.

We just filled,

temporarely so,

the empty hungry crevices 

of each other.

we just gave each other

the intimacy

we craved.

I’ve gotten too accustomed to your absence

and pain is sometimes the strongest drug.

It makes one feel alive.

I’m not in love with you

anymore.

I think

I was not made 

for constant love.

I’m not in love with you anymore.

Happy birthday.

(Eh, I've also posted this elsewhere, oh well)

Wounds

Somebody tell me
why my mouth,
which is so full of wounds
from my teeth
that constantly graze the insides of my cheeks,
hurts so much more less
than my soul does.

Get it off

It would be best
she said
if you could get it off your mind.

Get it off my mind.
Do I look stupid?
Do you think I don't know?
Do you think
I
do not want to?
But how
does one take it off?
Is it a puzzle piece
we just remove
is it a tumor
that we cut
is it flesh
that rip apart?
How do I get it off my mind?
Maybe
there's something wrong
with my mind.
Everything that enters it
remains locked there
and turns it into
dust.

Valentine's day

You see
today was Valentine's day
and the irony is
exactly a month ago
I had done the last
attempt
to talk with him.
And all I could think
today
was how this was
an anniversary
of final silence
and how he probably
made love to her tonight.
It made me
want to
bite off
my thoughts
my heart
the part of my soul
that still cares.

I hope he at least
fucked the one
he wants the most today
otherwise,
bummer for both of us.
One of us
ought to be
in love and content.

Let it be him.

Quiet

I sat in my chair
shivering.
There are some times
when I really trick myself
into believing
that if
just if
I can freeze myself enough
the numb part might not hurt.
It's all so quiet.
Like I'm not even there.

I went out with someone today.
I had high hopes
I might wanna fuck them.
But I did not.
I don't think
I was made
for this love game
or anyway
I'm not ready to play.

Please don't let me fall in love.


(Maybe that's why
I fell in love with you.
Because it was doomed from start
I didn't risk getting
what I wished for).

She asked me

"Have you thought
of what it will be like
next time you see him?
You might have a chance then."

    The question echoed inside me, it rippled through my ribcage. Had I thought, she asked. Of course I had. Of course I do. The possibilities sometimes make me tremble in the dead hours of night. They're so endless that each night a new one will be there in the place of the previous one and sometimes it's agonizing and sometimes it feels like nothing at all.
    I try
    very hard
    not to concentrate on those posibilities.
    Even the good ones.

I said,
"Yes. I have. But I try not to.
Life can be such a dirty whore
and such a splendid witch
that of all the myriad scenarios
I might build in my head
she will present me
with the one that always slipped
by the edge of my mind.
I try to have no expectations
for I might never see him again."

    And the truth is, more than that, I know that should we ever get the chance, things will not be easy. He does not seem like an easy person. Hell, I know I'm not one. But then again, I don't expect someone who is so ready to admit he wants a woman to love him, that he wants tenderness, to be an easy person and maybe I don't want an easy person. What's the point of that? I don't want to be someone's comfortable choise, I want to be the breeze that soothes the harsness. If he wasn't so honest, so raw with emotions, would I have been so attracted?
    Would I have admitted the things I did admit?
    Would I have cried so much for missing him?
    Would I still worry the way I do?

I am so scared
of seeing him again
because there might be
nothing there
and we'll be perfect strangers
and I will wonder
even more
whether this was all in my head
and it will break my heart
because that will erase
even the fondest of memories.

    It was such things that I discussed with her yesterday night, over a glass of wine.

Talking

He talks to me
and I talk to him
and we talk
and talk
and the problem is
I just can't seem
to get over
this tiny little thing:

he's not
you.

My boyfriend's name is Daquiri

Or so I wrote.
You know
you didn't have to comment
that.
"Too sweet
for you."
Like what,
am I supposed
to prefer Negroni
your favourite one?
The one that leaves
the tongue
with the bitter taste
after a short-lived sweetness?
Well guess what
you fucker
I do love that one.
I'm annoyed
'cause I'm annoyed for no reason.
This should 'cause
no shiver of the bones,
no sped up heartbeat,
no short inhales of breath.
It means nothing
and it annoys me
that you don't know
it still affects me.


Sorry for the fucker part.

Away

Away
away
away.
I want to leave.

These days
I've taken to
biting the side of my finger
over and
over and
over.

The presence
of family and friends
makes me shiver.
I want
to run out
in the cold night
but I have
no possible destination
and
I'd only
end up
running back
into myself
anyways.

Next time

Next time I fall in love
I'll make sure
to kiss my lover
on the wrists
at the inside of his elbows
the soft space behind his knees
the hollow of his neck.

Next time I fall in love
I'll trace my lover's skin
with moans and sighs
and make a mental record
of the way he tilts his head
the sound of his voice
his moans
his laughs
the grip of his hands on my skin.

I'll make a mental note
to create as many memories
of my lover
next time I fall in love,
lest I be left alone
with only imaginary scenarios
in my head.

Self-destructive

I've been doing
some research
lately.
Apparently
I have
most
of the traits
of self-destructive
people.

Maybe
I'm just always looking
for new reasons
to drown
myself.

Afraid

I'm afraid
that the next time I see you
after months
and months
after a year
my first thought
will be
    
     where did
        
           all the tenderness

                  go?

Faded.

I used to be
so deathly scared
of you fading.
Looking back
I don't understand
what it was that I was afraid of.
Now I can barely remember
the shine in your eyes.
I try,
but I can barely care.
My organsim
has lost
the capacity
of you.

Poem of a late night bus ride

Everytime
I'd feel them
rolling down my cheeks
I'd tell myself
"It's
the tiredness."

Dedications

It doesn't make me
sad anymore
but the fact is
- and I can't
help
but think about it -
that people get singers
to make public
dedications to their loved ones
and I
couldn't get you to
talk
to me.

Ours is just a story
that will never turn into a song
because there is no story,
only moments,
barely long enough,
to have their own
soundtrack.

Faded

I see people
falling in love
and sometimes
it doesn't hurt
anymore.

     You've faded.

     And I finally let you

     do that.

Smoothe liar

I am
a smoothe liar.
I lie through my teeth
and I do it well.
So much so
that people choose
to believe me
even if their gut tells them otherwise.

I've been busy with university
that's why I have not come to see you.
So busy that I have not come for months
so busy
too busy
to even pick up the phone.

But what do you know
they still love me
even if I'm not there.
How do you love the one
who is always absent?

Oh.

But people love me all the same
and they love my smoothe lies
better have that
than none of me at all.

Do you know

Do you know
I'm talking with someone
and he makes me laugh
and it's fun.

(Don't care if it turns 

into something

or not)

You don't know
but do you care?

Imaginary conversation #1

I lean against the counter
drinking your sight in.
How long has it been
since I last saw you.
You hand me two beers
and I take them,
I watch you as you look into the fridge
watch your hands
as they reach in inside.

In the other room
I hear people talking.

You stand up straight
you're busy with something,
don't know what.
I watch your back.

"Come stai?"
"Bene. E tu?"
"Bene."
"Is that all?" I say. "One year
I have not seen you,
months we have not talked,
and that is all?
Bene?"
"What do you want me to say?"

In the other room
I hear people laugh.

"Something personal.
Something true.
Tell me about the moment
you felt eternal
or the moment
when you couldn't breathe.
Tell me how you fucked that girl
so hard you couldn't speak.
Tell about something
that had an impact on you,
about something
that kept you awake at night
if even for a moment."

In the other room
I hear your girlfriend laugh.

I wonder if it's the same thing
we're hearing.
"I missed you."
"Well. I certainly
didn't see that coming,"
I said.
"What am I supposed to say to that?"

Last night I dreamt
That somebody loved me
No hope - but no harm
Just another false alarm

Memory restarts

I sometimes think
I'd like the idea
of forgetting every night
the person I am
dying
night after night.

'Cause right now
I seem to be tied with people
and I see them drowning
and I can't help
I'm drowning myself.

Sometimes it's such a numbness
that engulfs me
I'm not sure whether I feel anymore.

Forgetting
and leaving
and cutting all ties
how lovely and lonely and better
it sounds at the moment.

(I'm fine)

Burning

I realised
you're just a phase.
I mean
I'm just a phase of myself
really.
So I decided
to sleep through you
and when I wake up
your memory will be more slippery
than the smell of jasmine
amidst the blaze of fire.
At least then
I'll have no choice but to let go,
I'll be too busy
burning alive.

The horrible one

In my head
it's all still going around
the ever lasting question
will we talk again
will we ever?

The loud pain is gone
faded
washed down the drain
along with the remains
of that alcoholic night.

But the empiness there throbs
reminding me
that something used to be there
reminding me to care.

Sat in a bar tonight
alone
at an hour that was too early for alcohol
but the winter sky tricks you about that,
it's what's so lovely about winter.

So I drank my bourbon
and that guy next to me chatted me up
as I though
good company or no company,
good alcohol
and good music.
And it's good.

Sweet guy,
he wanted to ask my for my number
as I got up to leave.
I would have given it to him,
why not?
(though that question alone
is reason enough).
I took a strange kind of pleasure
from the thought he'd beat himself over
for not doing so in the end.

Ever wanted to use someone not to think?
Or am I the only horrible one?

Wine

Go on then.
Drink your ine,
sip it slowly
savour its taste
let drops of it
rest on your lips.
Let me drink it from there.


(this is an old one)

Push

I don't get much sleep these days.
I either sleep a lot
or not at all.
Sometimes I eat.

I try to push myself these days.
Push my self to eat
push my self to rest
push my self to work
push my self to feel
(I don't always do that though.
do I?)

It gently occures to me
that I should try to care of myself
'cause no one else will
and if they want to
they won't always be able to,
now will they?

This feeling

I don't know
where this feeling stems from.
It comes after good nights
and it comes after bad nights.
It's not very picky about the nights frankly
or the days.
But it seems it loves me
all the same.

I recognise it
from the pressure on the chest
the thoughts of disappearing
the need to disappear,
this oppressive need,
from thr feeling of worthlessness
of being an Extra,
good enough
but far from astounding.

I see it, in those moments
whenI desperately want to show off,
to be praised,
and I laugh at my inability
to sustain myself.