are you happy inside your eyes? can't you see your lover fall apart in her silk threads?
in time the hunter will find the trail of blood
i see you alone tonight when will you tear down? love will save you
try not to starve yourself of love
- feed your hunger
is it right, my love, is it right?
it's a question with no reply i am sure of longing to be on the open sea to feel the comfort of the mist upon my cheek
no, i'm not crying
lose me in your memory turn your head
let me become a part of it
let me become a part of it
(...) "
it didn't start that way...
it never does.
a more tender more thoughtful more heartfelt gesture gets my attention, draws me in, makes me feel special, loved, wanted...
and the game begins.
suddenly i am touched by rules i was not explained, that i do not understand, yet somehow invade my whole life and its surroundings.
and i can no longer smile what i feel, i cannot hug too tight, i cannot look deep into their eyes.
the next square to land on is unknown. i place myself on it with all the care and honesty i can, all the fear i hide, all the love i do not know - my hands clenched behind my back..
yet i always seem to mislead myself.
..
i'm in every place all over the place(s) in what i feel.
and i don't know i won't find out what flows around.
where it starts.
where it ends.
if.
what.
when.
and it will always be a hand held (too far) away.
(first image: noose, by cynthia zordich last image: (c) ana nicolau)
when all i touch turns to gold and all i love is out of touch
and i'm forever lost in this labyrinth i created for my own daring.
i don't like it this way.
i don't like it
when i see myself
from the distance
and it feels
dark
and haunted.
..
nothing but shadows
beyond the deafening silence.
nothing
but timeless
ghosts.
.
" every night my dream’s the same. same old city with a different name. men are coming to take me away. i don’t know why but i know i can’t stay.
there’s a weight that’s pressing down. late at night you can hear the sound. even the noise you make when you sleep. can’t swim across a river so deep. they know my name 'cause i told it to them, but they don’t know where and they don’t know when it’s coming,
when it’s coming.
there’s this fear i keep so deep, knew its name since before i could speak: aaaah aaaaaah aaaaah aaaaaah they know my name 'cause i told it to them, but they don’t know where and they don’t know when it’s coming,
when when it’s coming
keep the car running
if some night i don’t come home, please don’t think i’ve left you alone. the same place animals go when they die, you can’t climb across a mountain so high. the same city where i go when i sleep, you can’t swim across a river so deep. they know my name 'cause i told it to them, but they don’t know where and they don’t know when it’s coming,
morning becomes dark and empty as i wake up to the day
to find the scratched hands and words
that have lost you along the way
would you have stayed if i'd dreamt harder?
could you have had another try?
in dreams reality is kind
and pain no more than a sigh
..
today only i will be a child,
with no possible time lapse
no shame or masked fears
- i miss you always beyond this silence
this trail of memories
this blood of tears
...
("day comes up sicker than a cat something's wrong that is that
mr. somewhere missing somewhere never did figure just how much
a boat from the river takes you out 'cross the other side of town, to get out, to get out you take the tide, any tide, any tide like there isn't gonna be any tide
mr. somewhere missing somewhere never did figure just how much missing somewhere never did figure just how much
a world like tomorrow wears things out it's hard enough to get what's yours for now and the hardest words are spoken softly softly look, no hands upon
nr. somewhere missing somewhere never did figure just how much missing somewhere never did figure just how much
now the milkman beats you to the door that was once a home, home no more
mr. somewhere, missing somewhere couldn't get the calendar to stop missing somewhere, never did figure just how much missing somewhere, never will admit just how much ")
. suicide watch is an intensive monitoring process used to ensure that an individual does not commit suicide.
.
..
i was sitting close to her, a seat between us, my hand reaching past it, over her shoulder, cuddling her till where my fingers could reach, wanting almost to go through her skin and reach inside, deep where the voices i could not hear shouted at her, voices no one could imagine, voices that would deafen her speech and mute her hearing; and so the touch, the attempt of the touch, the touch desperate to reach inside, inside until my hands covered the mouth of those unfair and lying voices that pushed that firey-alice into the deepest hole in her, away from everything, from everyone, away from everything that is life in life.
" you see..
i wasn't supposed to be alive by friday......"
she said it in a whisper,
knowing what is certain,
with no path to return.
and i had vertigo of her planned death.
...
she spoke through the crying that torn her breathing apart, as if nothing left inside but the black of all her immense colours, that darkness of sharpened knives and swallowed pills that lingered across years of injustice, hidden love, discouragement.
and i thought i thought that it isn't fair.
the scales becoming more and more uneven everyday without us knowing, without us knowing the weight of every hour.
the weight of not recognizing oneself.
of losing everything one is.
so tempting, just letting go.....
before my eyes she fell, and i knew she fell with her eyes closed, clenched as fists, and thus let herself go, not speaking to anyone, not even looking at us anymore, nothing of her but that little girl's body abandoned by herself and that quiet, chocking, painful cry, that contaminated my blood with sadness and anger.
unthinkable not to hold the hands of one who carries in them their own present and raise them until they see, know, feel everything that is, can be, always, everyday, every minute, still, always, life.
i wanted to shake her and say stop, stop the voices, stop everything that's tormenting you, dive out of yourself if you need to because we'll catch you, we will catch you, just don't go. not like this. not before so much of you.
but she was just a little girl, curled up in herself, tiny tiny, tiny with fear and so grown up with pain...
scared to break her, almost... as if a bird with broken wings.
with nowhere to fly to.
but, still, each moment...
the healing.
every single little moment...
now.
in the quietness of the night, she slept as one who surrenders to the rest of the arms of a home, a friend, a shelter.
in the tender light of day she held my hand and took me through her labyrinth of trees, all tangled in rusty knots of dark memories and flowers left to die by their own negligence, and through the mist of fear i could see she looked this way. at us. inside. from the distance. she looked.
and we had to make her see.
so we told her of the lights that brighten the day, the candles that go out so that it can come, the night that rests, tranquilizes, pacifies...
" Everything chains me to the land I gave myself in: the suddenly teenager river, the light tripping on the corners, the sands where I impatiently burnt.
Everything chains me with the same sad love that is knowing life doesn't last long, and in it I put hope and the warmth of some fingers with remains of tenderness.
They say there are other skies and other moons and other eyes deep with joy, but I belong to these houses, these streets, this love dripping melancholy. "
(eugénio de andrade, canção breve)
...
i see the way.
i know it complete, and i know where it leads.
to which sea of land and people of my own.
fear of shame?
shame of fear?
the same cold shiver going into the sea - my whole life in suspended desire for the awaited time of this dive of me.
more than queens and princes i bring in my suitcase the fairies that know my wings in certainty, dignity of just being.
i am all those i buried, all those that were born inside - tattooed seeds of constant change of tide.
.
i hear (myself) in the wind.
as if mine the name that someone.
as if calling dream to a life that no one else no one else has.
...
right now,
faraway and close,
i try humbleness:
i live.
.
(first picture: ana nicolau, selfportrait2007 second picture: eduardo gageiro third picture: haleh bryan, dani-blue)
if you knew that love can break your heart when you're down so low you cannot fall would you change?
would you change?
how bad, how good does it need to get?
how many losses? how much regret?
what chain reaction would cause an effect?
[that] makes you turn around,
[that] makes you try to explain,
[that] makes you forgive and forget,
[that] makes you change?
makes you change
if you knew that you would be alone, knowing right, being wrong, would you change?
would you change?
if you knew that you would find a truth that brings up pain that can't be soothed, would you change?
would you change?
how bad, how good does it need to get?
how many losses? how much regret?
what chain reaction would cause an effect?
[that] makes you turn around,
[that] makes you try to explain,
[that] makes you forgive and forget,
[that] makes you change?
makes you change
are you so upright you can't be bent if it comes to blows?
are you so sure you won't be crawling?
if not for the good, why risk falling?
why risk falling?
if everything you think you know makes your life unbearable, would you change?
would you change?
if you'd broken every rule and vow, and hard times come to bring you down, would you change?
would you change?
(...)
the end is not near, haleh bryan
(first image: sue blackwell, alice through the looking glass fifth image: thespeak, thinking ninth image: lachlan humphreys, change all other images: haleh bryan song&lyrics: tracy chapman, change)
i brought myself here. it's seven, almost seven years already, of emotions that confuse, comfort, feel safe, confuse, take forward, carry, frighten, feel safe, confuse, feel safe, confuse. that have brought me here, in me. as the will for more.
.
it's stunning, this life i now live. of believing, knowing, all that. that i am happy. i am (already) happy. for so much and more. for all that is in me.
(it's beautiful here, this moment in time. as i close my eyes, the birds lull me to the truth in me: i am part of nature. i am the birds. i am the trees. i am the sea.)
i live the life that i know. the one i brought myself.
i open my eyes, conquer and receive in me all that, through my will, is mine to be. "
..
(first image:do you believe it in your head, by michael vesen second image: integration of the soul. by an unknown artist, sadly...)
" i wonder if i've been changed in the night? let me think. was i the same when i got up this morning? i almost think i can remember feeling a little different. but if i'm not the same, the next question is 'who in the world am i?' ah, that's the great puzzle! "
(lewis carroll, alice's adventures in wonderland)
..
i slow down the time.
my body forces me to look at my soul.
i look at what i am
with open eyes.
i won't spend lose (any)more time forgetting, when forgetting will bring me nothing.
despite the pain of going without leaving a box, some water, a glass globe.
i smile at life.
to all that, in it, is truth and justice.
i remember what i want.
what i love.
and i move on.
never_the_less.
slowly.
without running.
without running anymore.
without running unless i want to feel on my body the wind that brings me life and soul and sea.
knowing, alone and deep down, that when i fly there is so much, so much lulling me...
...
" 'everything's got a moral, if only you can find it'. and she squeezed herself up closer to alice's side as she spoke. "
(lewis carroll, alice's adventures in wonderland)
(first image: day will come, by haleh bryan last image by gundega dege)
there were numerous days of distance between us, lives we lived apart, all the things we didn't share, the pains, the walls, the joys, the victories, missing what we once were, the pride-sometimes-shame of what we became, what we are in this present of one more day.
the one today.
where i shape my departure from you.
(when dream is gone, haleh bryan)
it ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe
if you don't know by now
an' it ain't no use to sit and wonder why, babe
it'll never do somehow
when your rooster crows at the break of dawn
look out your window and i'll be gone
you're the reason i'm trav'lin' on
...
don't think twice, it's all right
it ain't no use in turnin' on your light, babe
that light i never knowed
an' it ain't no use in turnin' on your light, babe
i'm on the dark side of the road
i wish there was somethin' you would do or say
to try and make me change my mind and stay
we never did too much talkin' anyway
...
so don't think twice, it's all right
i pack the life i was here to open it somewhere else, in another space, my own, where i'll live with open doors, letting in the air and the others, the music that reaches the silence within, that makes it sing, gently wakes me up, sets me free, slowly returns me to the feeling inside.
...
on that other part of me, i still hold on to what i don't have or know.
and i don't ever let you die in my dreams.
..
you only die in this everything this life this being of every instant.
you die in me
only
everyday.
...
it ain't no use in callin' out my name, boy
like you never done before
it ain't no use in callin' out my name, boy
i can't hear you any more
i'm a-thinkin' and a-wond'rin' walkin' down the road
i once loved a man, a child i'm told
i gave him my heart but he wanted my soul
...
don't think twice, it's all right
so long,
honey babe
where i'm bound, i can't tell
goodbye's too good a word, babe
so i'll just say fare thee well
i ain't sayin' you treated me unkind
you could have done better but i don't mind
you just kinda wasted my precious time
...
but don't think twice, it's all right
.
(aditional images by cig harvey, katia chausheva and noronha da costa poem: adaptation of don't think twice, it's all right, by bob dylan)
"why is it that we, the great majority of the people, and even the intellectuals, did not realize that this was the beginning of a new dictatorship, even bloodier that the previous one? perhaps we did realize it, but the enthusiasm of knowing that now one was part of a revolution, that a dictatorship has been overthrown and the time had come for vengeance, outweighed the injustices and the crimes that were being committed. not only were injustices being inflicted; the executions were being conducted in the name of justice and freedom, and above all, in the name of the people.."
"what sort of diary should i like mine to be?... something loose knit and yet not slovenly, so elastic that it will embrace any thing, solemn, slight or beautiful that comes into my mind. i should like it to resemble some deep old desk, or capacious hold-all, in which one flings a mass of odds and ends without looking them through. i should like to come back, after a year or two, and find that the collection had sorted itself and refined itself and coalessed - as such deposits so misteriously do - into a mould, transparent enough to reflect the light of our life."
(virginia woolf, a writer's diary)
...
"this diary is my kief, hashish and opium pipe. this is my drug and my vice."
(anaïs nin)
...
thank you to those who generously share it with me.
it's like falling knowing there's nothing below...
i look down (again) and see the crude darkness of the certainty of nothing at all, a dazzled rock that now fears the sea...
yet nevertheless:
hand in hand, i go.
i fall as if flying, deepened with balance and happiness, as my body stops being my own or ours: we leave that weight behind and love as if resting from life, sometimes from ourselves, we tattoo our hands with sand in nights full of moon and giving - the blood pulsing, the water being born.
we love with the fury of fear, the unfair certainty of love, so much less than life...
and we love in flight.
we love in vain.
for no safe refuge for this flight.
and all is dreams, after all.
open wings,
body,
fall(ing).
without knowing.
feeling the acute silence of falling alone.
.
(silence, bogdan zwir)
- my castrated wing...
when did you choose, in land, to be water, flipper and sea?
