in darkened silence

..



















*" - is he dead, mama?






- i think so,
sweetheart...















- can we wish
for him to come back?






- yeah.


















...























- i wish.
















































...



























- i wish, too. " *























...
































(*from the film e.t., the extraterrestrial)
(picture from light of life, by de es)

(en)chanted transparency

i opened his drawn window:


in each curtain a seashell

in each image
my worded life




i looked out,


saw him seeing me within


and thought







how can one who does not know me by heart

know the colours it is made of?



..



























(ruela, in a seashell)














....


























(because i don't know,
i really don't know
the words to.




















....























thank you.)

constant loop

i warm up beyond the past
that cuts
still
blind in itself


i release me from myself
my own ghosts
in still life



even if i hurt
scratch
burn
mislead
myself





..


i try
to get up
from myself



and i do
i feel
i sing
mine
again
their words

..






























" lift me up on my honour
take me over this spell
get this weight off my shoulders
- i’ve carried it well

loose these shackles of pressure
shake me out of these chains
lead me not to temptation



hold my hand harder
ease my mind
roll down the smoke screen
and open the sky

















* let me fly *





- man, i need a release from
this troublesome mind
fix my feet when they’re stumbling
and where you know it hurts sometimes
you know it’s gonna bleed sometimes

(haleh bryan, can't wait forever)

dig me out from this thorn tree
help me bury my shame
keep my eyes from the fire
they can’t handle the flame

grace cut out from my brothers
when most of them fell
i carried it well














* let me fly *






man, i need a release from
this troublesome mind
fix my feet when they’re stumbling
i guess you know it hurts sometimes
you know it’s gonna bleed sometimes

now hold on
- i’m not looking for sweet talk
i’m looking for time
time for tower and sleep walk
brother, cause it hurts sometimes
you know it’s gonna bleed sometimes
hold on

you know its gonna hurt sometimes...

when you call me...

hold on...

hold on...

hold on...






i’m gonna climb that symphony home
and make it mine

let his resonance light my way

see, all these pessimistic sufferers
tend to drag me down

so i could use it to shelter what good i’ve found "

















....





















(haley bryan, towards the light)


















..






















(first picture: haleh bryan.
pictures on slideshow: auguria, bjorn tagemose, cole rise, f.n.terryan, floriana barbu, yatsutani taizo, banksy, zack garner, lovisa ringborg and michael vesen)

waking morning

(while you were gone, by haleh bryan)












he laid his body with mine.

with the calm of those who don't possess,
we swallowed the night and the world
and in the morning woke up the touch of what is unknown.


he looked close,
saw me in there
and gave me the eyes of a smile.

he uncovered me inside
discovered me alive
and
with nothing else
for me only
adventured in the solitude of the non-peace
- that where i was kept
still
by the selfish ghost
of a false,
abandoned,
imprisoned
love.
















that i know

now

no longer.




















...























my body
returned to my arms
today.











(between us, by haleh bryan)



















...








( " you'll be given love
you'll be taken care of
you'll be given love
you have to trust it

maybe not from the sources
you have poured yours
maybe not from the directions
you are staring at

trust your head around
it's all around you
all is full of love
all around you

all is full of love
you just aint receiving
all is full of love
your phone is off the hook
all is full of love
your doors are all shut
all is full of love

all is full of love
all is full of love
all is full of love
all is full of love
all is full of love " )

quiet silence

" i miss my father.

..

i miss everything. " *



























..






* from the film central do brasil, by walter salles
(image by bogdan zwir)

birthday, faraway

(edvard munch, puberty)





" ...and that's the day i knew there was this entire life behind things, and...
this incredibly benevolent force, that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever.
(...)
i need to remember...
sometimes there's so much beauty in the world i feel like i can't take it,
like my heart's going to cave in. "

(from the film american beauty)




..





i write in this faraway place as if i'm writing at home.

everything is peace, strength and life
in this moment of time.
instant.

new touches that take me to what i am,
that kiss my ear in a whisper,
that wake me up with assurance and a smile.


i keep everything to remember it,
later on,
this still time

suspended

in amazement
and wonder

of being humble

like life.
























(bogdan zwir, butterfly)



...


on the absence of the touch
the sea
the others
i (re)write myself.
i remember all that i am
feel
live.


even if faraway.
even if here.
even if in the painful distance
of some
any
non-hug.


..


i know i live

alive.



and that is everything.


with each step
each gesture
each touch of sleeping wonder
may i be
feel
exist
in the sea-felt peace
of being true in life.















(ana nicolau)

life expectancy

night falls.











....












it's early

and night falls.








....



























(brian wiles, dawn)









there are voices calling me, speaking beyond my own language...



they come from everywhere
and are like lives that bring me life,
that remind me the sweetness of our brief humanity,
that make me believe it's always possible to be better...



(thus we smile with everything
in front of a rained rainbow that takes over the grey town,
a full moon that breathes a whole field of dreamt leaves, fallen in colour,
a sun that naked and red dives into water and salt of sea...

thus we do.
as one who looks life in the eye and sees beyond it.

..

beyond all.)



to accept those who hurt,
to accept the absence,
to accept choices and choose
choose
to smile above it all.

..

above all
smile.



to be true in the eyes of the one who looks, let them in, even if just a little,
let him in, sit near, as if.
to be taken by the words that touch,
that take the thoughts without one thinking,
that make the unknown distance fly in intimacy.
to hesitate, still, in sharing one's truth,
in truth,
sharing before the peace, inside,
for so non-peaceful
this serenity,
incomplete,
still...
but to let,
to let the eyes.
drink from the words, taste their touch,
in secret.
to let them comfort
and be able to be
the life
that is built.


to wake up each day and smile,
smile alone,
smile with,
in joy of life.

for life.

in life.





and thus
be
each second.















...

this,
in this black and white of colour,
i see,
i try to,
when i look ahead.

with me,
in me,
as i cross the present.

with all that is (not) left behind.

..


it's still felt.










...





thus me,
in the world,
in the salt of missing so much,
the salt of life and truth.


thus me,
in me,
in a stubborn rebirth
- as one who redoes and remembers
every night
the coming morning.

































































(image by bogdan zwir)





























" the most pure and strong desires of the heart
will always be fulfilled. "

(mohandas k. ghandi, in
"an autobiography - the story of my experiments with truth")

lullaby with(out) my father

all in life,
then,

still
and so much

inside















(lullaby with(out) my father with images by ana nicolau, IgaNinja, kyle houston cummings, guayasamin, dale wicks, graça morais, peter kozikowski, hau maru and antoine de saint-exupéry.
images "waiting" and "mask" by unknown authors.
poem "the small square" by sophia de mello breyner andresen, said by luis miguel cintra.
music by javier navarrete, from the film "pan's labyrinth")

"when i dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision,
then it becomes less and less important whether i am afraid."

(audrey geraldine lorde)

eyes wide open

" burma is ruled by one of the worst military dictatorships in the world. last month buddhist monks and nuns began marching and chanting prayers to call for democracy. the protests spread and hundreds of thousands of burmese people joined in, but they've been brutally attacked by the military regime.

i just signed a petition calling on burma's powerful ally china and the UN security council to step in and pressure burma's rulers to stop the killing. the petition has exploded to over 500,000 signatures in a few days and is being advertised in newspapers around the world, delivered to the UN security council, and broadcast to the burmese people by radio. we're trying to get to 1 million signatures this week, please sign below and tell everyone! "


give your voice to those who don't have one.
here.













(image: guernica, by pablo picasso)

Life And Memories Inflicting Affection

my dearest sister of love and pain,


yes, you’re right:
i knew.
or maybe i hoped to know, was hoping for it.
and secretly felt it, already.
in you.
like you in me,
straight away,
from the first picture word.


i also loved complete,
with all of myself,
in everything,
and so much more than i thought and wanted to be able to.
i also loved with the future and the past present in me,
loved with open eyes,
until the one that stole them from me blinded me fully
by stopping to watch me.


so,
yes,
our loves were,
still are,
no matter what,
alike in life,
characters,
disappointment.
so alike....


alike now this emptiness of living lost in ourselves,
broken and exhausted by the sting of the salt,
in this labyrinth of skin and missing one so much,
a labyrinth where we don’t know how to feel the way back to what we are anymore,
what we were when,
before.
- how does one live happy without that completely shared life,
loved in blood, water and giving?....


and this not knowing that there is nothing we can do to bring it back.
and not knowing if, anymore, anyway...


and not to have something that would silence or bring some relief to the cruelty of them violating the places of our love – how could they, those places of everything we believed to be ours forever, even if, even now?... -, where we gave ourselves and were so much more than ordinary mortals, us, alive with love and future.
nothing that stops the knife of pain of seeing them constantly imprisoned in images of another hands, another relief, in strength and feelings that are no longer born from the memories of our love,
that is just abandoned, with nothing more,
without even a break,
one single moment of respect for the memory of what we lived and gave there,
as if nothing,
no one else in the world but us.






...













but one day
- i promise it to you beyond these tears that my veins cry, in a body abandoned by itself -
it will be ours, as well, the greater peace
of living without their love.
forever.
as those who, now, without us.


i promise.

despite the pain
in the black of the olives
and the red of the poppies
that pair.

i promise it to you.
to us.


until then,

my friend of hidden face and feelings,

let us breathe.










( " help, i have done it again
i have been here many times before
hurt myself again today
and the worst part is there's no-one else to blame

be my friend
hold me, wrap me up
unfold me
i am small
and needy
warm me up
and breathe me

ouch, i have lost myself again
lost myself and i am nowhere else to be found,
yeah, i think that i might break
lost myself again and i feel unsafe

be my friend
hold me, wrap me up
unfold me
i am small
and needy
warm me up
and breathe me

be my friend
hold me, wrap me up
unfold me
i am small
and needy
warm me up
and breathe me " )






















(image: danae, by gustav klimt)

for always. forever.

“ i have a friend that knows me beyond time. beyond everything.
she has eyes like the sky, a smile with a baby's colour and life growing from her words.
with her, for her, i chose, i re-learnt that life, the living life, that of giving and sharing, 14 years ago.

i have a friend that knows me beyond me. beyond all that.
she looks me in the eyes and i know i can be true, i know i want to be life, i need to be me.
with her, in her, pain and death are defeated.
for her, the courage of life is reborn. ”

(lisboa, 18.07.07)


...

in the year of ’93, without knowing each other or knowing how close we were, already, how tangled our lives were becoming, flechinha and i lived similar feelings, incomparable of pain and shock, incomprehensible by all those who didn't suffer it, there, with us, teenagers hit with reality and adulthood, without possible warning or truce.

when we met, when we first spoke and smiled at each other with and in life, despite everything, it was a month to the day since that date that i will never hear or feel in an ordinary way, will never be mistaken with any other, will never be part of a normal calendar, as if they all came with defect, just like life, that one, all with that day marked in pain.
i already had open wounds that i didn't understand but that burnt, tears that tasted of death, a kind of living i did not know how to live or feel.
she lived the nightmare of the days that brought the uncertainty of the assurance of the fear of the tomorrow.

we licked wounds together, exchanged lives e memories of those days of despair and confusion, so many and many times, so many and more nights of words and tears and the sharing of everything we were, wanted to be, and what we didn't know was in us, as well. we were the doubt of the present holding on to the past, but we were together, step by step, in the direction of something that existed, should exist somewhere down the line - flechinha with all the love, strength and an almost stubborn refusal to see me giving up of whatever in me.
because i, i sank in the non-predicted and unfair pain of someone who lived so much and wanted to live more.
i wanted to sink in the days, to be a shadow, to be non-life. to refuse to live as a way of protest. and when i refused to leave lisbon because the body of, even if dead, lived here, condemned to rest here forever, when i said no to traveling to anywhere else that would take me from this city, that would take me away from the proximity of her body, for at least that – i believed – still existed, and it seemed so unfair, so terrible what i saw as abandonment, flechinha, in tenderness and unbreakable friendship, reached for me and pulled me to life. when no one else, for my own fault, could do it.
for months in a row she was by my side, until i knew again how to have and live the weight of what i was in myself, no refuges, escapes or abandonment of me.


beyond the distance that life can and does bring, we knew how to have each other inside at all times, regardless of the distance outside, regardless of the worlds and walls between us: i knew, i always knew, that the moment i needed life would be there for me. because she.


when i emigrated, the comfort of knowing her in the same land.
she that needed me, also, so much, but that despite that, when i admitted to her the crying, when fear and the weight of the weakness of missing home hurt me so, she would say to me “if you're not happy, if this way, here, you cannot have strength in happiness, go. go back. go back and be away from me, but stay close to what makes you strong and is part of you.”
...
i stayed. with her strength in mine, as well.
i stayed until i returned,
returned until i stayed.


when the nightmare first began, last year, she wrapped up friendship as a present for me – she that could've had "de-humanized" herself, for all that, that year – and tried, the only (im)possible way, to protect me from the future she had already lived.
she was with me, by my side, sitting on the chair that didn't exist, in that hospital room i'm not sure ever existed, either. morning to night, throughout the dawn, flechinha was with me in every instant of wait, anxiety and refusal of the tomorrow, so much and more than others, “close”...
and never
ever
did she abandon me in myself.
to her, just her, i admitted – in those days of unbearable nothing - the weakness under the weight i didn't want to admit to anyone else. even if. because.
- i can’t take it anymore. how can i stop his suffering?, how does one live through this?......
and she, by my side, living it all with me, suffering with me, without ever, ever, letting go of my hand or my life.


...

and now,
now,
only yesterday,
in the care and warmth of a house of so much and so beautiful love, flechinha and her half “inviting” me to be the godmother of the new branch on their tree of life.

...

and thus, by her hand, as so much more before, i become mother for the first time.
and i can’t even begin to sdescribe the pride that brings tears to my voice and this smile of feeling so much to my eyes for being her child, come from that union of so much everything, that is so much to me, that makes me want to cry happy, me, a simple visit on that house of love.
and i think, i know, it couldn’t be any other way. from anyone else, before.

because the strength, in her.
the support.
the example of courage.
of not giving into what tries
so hard
to bend and break.
the love, in her.

and now,
on her hand,
once again,
life.






“ to close my eyes, raise my arms and tell her “i'm coming with you.”. this is clarity, melody. two hands holding. the inside and outside bits of an orange.
(...)
she stopped. she suddenly opened her eyes and understood. then, looking around, she thought: wherever you are, i thank you. i will never forget you. ”

(from the book you gave me almost 11 years ago...)



...




thank you.

for life.

fixed.




(image from here)

eyes that seA me

his eyes are the colour of a warm river.
i look inside them
- i dare to dive in without him knowing,
or you,
only me alone in his sea,
with no other permission than the assurance
that he loves me and wants me, inside -,
and i see him,
i know him,
the little boy who wants to give me his hand,
and love,
and life.


from our life there aren't even photographs.
that's what we chose, felt, did.
with no photographs or witnesses, you and i alone in the divine and infinite love thought, believed, to be ours.
the same whose mortality and humanity scared you off and made you hide from life.
like we did with the photographs, once...

that's good.
for the photographs would make everything a lot more difficult, more real, harder,
now.
this way it's like we had never gone beyond the dream.

and it's ok that you have images, memories in black and colour and white, of your other, first life, as much as, before me. us.
it's ok...



he has baby eyes, the colour of summer.
and shy words that call me to life.



and i don't mind knowing it was a lie, all a lie, we were never infinite, us, you and me. i wouldn't be with him like this, letting him sit close, come closer, so much more than you do, now and.
because our love is over.
as much as - you know it like i do - all the university, all of it, was on our side when.


his eyes are green.
blue.
clear
and dark.

and the sea won't die if i don't hear your voice.


and the sun won't stop coming out with the day.
everyday.


everything,
everything exists,
breathes,
lives,
without you.


life goes on without us.

as if.

as you.

as me,
now.


to whom he tries to look inside,
in eyes of a deep blue,
liquid of tenderness and future.

(image: nude, looking over her right shoulder, by amadeo modigliani)

mo(u)rning

"they told me, heraclitus, they told me you were dead
they brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed.
i wept as i remembered how often you and i
had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky.

and now that thou art lying,my dear old carian guest,
a handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest,
still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;
for death, he taketh all, but them he cannot take. "


(william cory)



























(everyday
i wish more
i'd have (re) met you
before.























.....


























so much.)

homesick

.
adj.
acutely longing for one's family or home.
.





















my friend of so much:


i came here to tell you that i know.

i know.

i know the weight of missing someone.

i know the days of hard awakening,
in cold,
as if all sleep had happened with our eyes open in remembrances.

i know it's almost reasonless,
the non-sharing with those that were part of us all our lives,
daily.

i know how much one misses,
how hard it is for one to miss,

the eyes

the hands

the smiles.


i know the days of wanting a different awakening
from the silence of an empty house,
with no voices or lived memories.




and the truth is it doesn't change,
it stays,
i can tell you because i don't lie to you.

but we can
we can choose
to change in it.


and remain.

where our people have smiles of villages and sea
hands that know ours by heart
eyes where we are who we once were.


remain.

no matter how deep, how far, how scared of it all we feel.


because we know
we know
how much
everything
remains
in us.


..

let us live, friend of mine.
let us use our time in life,
use the mind in being present.
(in) the present.
that has everything in it.
in us.

as it has the past
and smiles
in fear
at the future.


...




the touch is missing, i know...
the closeness.

the antidote to those moments that de-warn us from strength
and lock us inside, crawled up, missing it all.


it's missing...


.





so i hold your hand tight.






























because i know.













(image: drawing hands, by m. c. escher)

a clockwork life

time's returned to itself.

we've left that spiral of wanting
and not wanting
tomorrow to come.

we've left it somewhere, the eternity of the wait, standing
- pins and needles across body and soul -,
not knowing whether that tomorrow would come
or if we were living it already.

forever.





now there is only the confused memory of that dead time
that shadows our life and remembrances.

as if everything was just a bad dream
- so indescribably bad... -
that seems to have been and passed.



..




yes, that time has (now) passed...

we know it.

as much as never.


























and it's returned to itself...

time
has returned
to itself.




gently, secretly,
ashamed of returning without you.

























.












(first image: close-up clockwork, by konstantin inozemtsev.
second image taken from www.kenora.net/watches/)

over(.) again.

away.

again.


a new land,
new people,
smells paths looks words,
meeting places,
ways of being,
spaces that will sow strength in me,
touches of feeling and wisdom
- all of it,
all over again.


..







i change my path
in life's own path.





away.




again.











(image: la réponse imprévue, by rené magritte)

week.end.in a seashell.

friday:

changing


outside

inside

around.
in everything.

saturday:

back to the future

by bus
in turism and self-discovery
around my london























































on foot
in me
around
its
- my own -
camden













































and in its old
- my new -
space and nest of mine.

sunday:

calm and comfort

given
























taken
























































and shared.

















at the end
of the end
of the week,
from the flower picked from the floor
at its beggining
- left there
with no wind or care,
kept as a souvenir
in a diary that does not take count of the past -,
this (re)birth,
nurtured in water:

flowers within

in front of his house there are poppies.

red.

loud.

free.


i was once earth
with them,
and they are now what i am as a flower.
a poppy.
red.


not to be bought
or sold:

brave.

corageous.

life.































sold or bought,
although never,
the rose.


i was once a planet with it,
the red rose:

blood.

truth.

within.






























within me,
as if a planted seed,
the red carnation.


that shouldn’t be bought
or picked:

it should bloom from us.










































(1st image: poppy blossom #1, by daniel beauvais.
i’m afraid none of the others had an author mentioned on the page where i found them...)

open dream

the day is born.


i leave the house wearing my sleep clothes,
red and blue,
and dive into the green in front of me.
catching rain drops as if they're fairies
i make a neckless of feelings
that the wings will take to those who.


i am light
in light.


i am the universe
and the universe is me,
alive as the wind,
each day,
each second,
in a smile blown with love.


i reborn.
kindness shapes my gestures,
freedom paints my life.


i am happy.
and each being sings in my ear
the colour of this world of everything.






...
















when i wake up, i will be under bloomed roots,
with a smile that flies and knows.




















..












and the pain won't be any more real
than the peace of knowing i am me.

































(image: turning point, by brian wiles)

nigth bird

we were lovers in the dark.


when all were adreaming and time was our own,
we left our nested corners of life and distance
and loved eaech other in what we were.


i kept words and feelings
- all of them,
all together,
all ourselves -
as if they were just one
and waited for the end of the day to give them to you in my own nudity.
of what i am.


i discovered your body,
each milimetre,
as if on a first time.
that i don't remember.
that i reinvent at each touch
each kiss
each heart friction.


when morning came with the truth
i went back to faraway from you,
from what we were,
what we are now,
in our own secret;
kept by ourselves
from what is given,
as if.


as if at night,
only at night
- unknown night -
i loved you.
more than what i know.
more than what i can.
more than what i am.

now.

rose thorn

i'm sick of not being able to rest my heart on you.









(image: embrace, by robinson tuon)

foreign morning.

(in love and sadness)




" for i know with the first light of dawn
i'll be leaving,
and tonight will be all
i have left to recall. "































...




in-between fear and words there was always the refusal of love.

always,
in this unreal and true time
you created for us.

you've condemned love and time as if they are one
and it's as if you didn't know that,
now.
as if the inflicted pain
the disappointment
of the disbelief
the surrender
to giving up
could be washed away
by this sea of distance.








.....










but no.


like that word of yours.


so many
and other
times.


"no".



...






..






.






now all we have left to do is close our eyes
hugging what used to be
and pretend that we dream.
that we can dream.
ourselves.
still.

beyond.


until tomorrow.






















(images taken from the book Love, Sex, and Intimacy - Their Psychology, Biology, and History, by Elaine Hatfield and Richard L. Rapson)




(..."the morning is just a few hours away"...)