in a seashell

mis_understandings

2009-02-11T19:49:00.031Z

i fear him...

my heart stops before i give in.
my head rules over my every move,
my every trace of feeling.

but the written words

the written words...

he walks in holding peace and understanding.

he's tall.
he's not.

he brings me faraway lands and desires,
struggles and visions i held secretly within.

he's quiet.

he says no word,
and watches me from afar.

it's late.
it's late and it might not snow tonight.

what must we do with all the clouds left behind?
what statues of thought can we build in-between?
and then how, how to break them?....

my heart stops halfway,
turns back.
my head leads the way.
as if by accident,
protecting what is not seen.

yet he sees it...

he sees me.

he watches from afar.

in-between silence(s)

2008-11-15T21:56:00.002Z

" is it right, my love, is it right?

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)

"phoenix"

2008-10-21T20:31:00.004+01:00

my body took my soul for a drive.

the sun was beginning to set
and somewhere across the world someone's wish for a new day,
a new chance,
a new start,
was finally coming true.

a flock of birds flew past as i turned down the road that would lead me to my next moment of now.

another bird passed by
right in front of my eyes,
filling me with his own essence
and the amazing wonder of all.

the unborn poppies
smiled
as i rolled down the window
to let in that field of coloured sea.

...

my body took my soul for a drive.

together,

they rescued me.

refugee

2008-10-04T00:19:00.032+01:00

the world is immense

and i have no home.

suddenly it hits me,
the unbearable reality,

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,

when is it coming?

keep the car running

keep the car running

keep the car running "

(image: desiree dolron, xteriors ix)

" pai "

2008-09-19T09:12:00.036+01:00

"i miss you

i guess that i should"

(counting crows, raining in baltimore)

..

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 ")

..

(image by unknown author, sadly.)

(in) alice's pain

2008-09-14T07:28:00.033+01:00

.

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...

let it come, peaceful.

and may the day be gentle on you..
everyday.

..

let it.

what we think is only that,

a thought we allow to be.

life at its full is a sunset

a hand held in the dark

the sea.

..

(image by john tenniel)

(my) country of people and sea

2008-08-15T06:45:00.007+01:00

" 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)

" through the looking-glass "

2008-08-01T19:48:00.008+01:00

" i know who i was when i got up this morning,
but i think i must have been changed several times since then. "

(lewis carroll, alice's adventures in wonderland)

...

" The child closes her eyes on the wall
She counts the time her friends take
To transform

She closes her eyes inside the numbers
Looks inside and around and finds
Herself
The child asks whether to meet herself

She wants to find her friends, she wants
To be answered. She calculates the loud voice
The height of the wall, the progression of silence. "

(daniel faria)

ruela, "inaseashell"

(...)

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)

self-reminder (in advance)

2008-06-18T22:38:00.009+01:00

" paston common, 5.maio.08 - "free balance"

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...)

(in (between) life and dreams)

2008-05-11T04:45:00.004+01:00

" so runs my dream, but what am i?

an infant crying in the night

an infant crying for the light

and with no language but a cry. "

(from the poem "in memoriam a.h.h.", by alfred lord tennyson)

...

i keep imprisoned
chocked with the memories' mourning

the franked weight of a sick life
- all that unreality
of your final moments

...

i miss you.

i am chocked

with never more.

(first image: youth mourning, george clausen
second image:death in the the sickroom, edvard munch)

(in) discovery

2008-04-06T20:56:00.003+01:00

" 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)

break(ing)

2008-03-02T11:39:00.004Z

i delayed him in our hug, back then.

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)

they talk of cuba...

2008-02-22T17:19:00.005Z

and i think of reynaldo*:

"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.."

(*reynaldo arenas, before night falls)

(the scream, edvard munch)

.....

you cannot shake hands
with a clenched fist.

(indira gandhi)

.

touched

2008-02-18T20:18:00.007Z

.
adj.
emotionally affected; moved.
.

"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.

for the kindness,

the presence,

the giving.

(sky and water, m. c. escher)

...

"afin de ne pas vous blesser"

2008-02-15T16:33:00.010Z

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?

(reunited with her thoughts, haleh bryan)

...

(imagem primeira, portrait, de haleh bryan)

missing

2008-02-12T04:45:00.001Z

...

there are days when i could

simply

cry for you.

in darkened silence

2007-11-30T14:18:00.001Z

..

*" - 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

2007-11-28T22:08:00.001Z

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

2007-11-22T00:20:00.002Z

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

2007-11-15T20:28:00.001Z

(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

2007-11-12T04:45:00.000Z

" i miss my father.

i miss everything. " *

..

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

birthday, faraway

2007-11-08T09:10:00.000Z

(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

2007-10-30T07:10:00.000Z

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

2007-10-12T04:45:00.000+01:00

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")

2007-10-04T20:28:00.000+01:00

"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

2007-10-04T00:30:00.000+01:00

" 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

2007-09-23T20:44:00.001+01:00

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.

2007-09-18T16:56:00.002+01:00

“ 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

2007-09-14T21:39:00.000+01:00

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

2007-09-12T04:45:00.000+01:00

"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

2007-09-08T20:54:00.000+01:00

.
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

2007-09-04T22:28:00.000+01:00

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.

2007-09-01T22:16:00.000+01:00

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.

2007-08-30T03:23:00.001+01:00

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

2007-08-27T16:11:00.000+01:00

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

2007-08-21T14:29:00.001+01:00

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

2007-08-15T14:22:00.001+01:00

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

2007-08-11T22:59:00.000+01:00

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

(image: embrace, by robinson tuon)

foreign morning.

2007-08-09T14:49:00.002+01:00

(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"...)

(re)start.

2007-08-06T17:15:00.001+01:00

"even when we moved to the rooms that the sindi friend had recommended, i was still not feeling comfortable in london, i was missing home and my country. i kept thinking of my mother's love and, at night, tears would come to my eyes, and i couldn't fall asleep. it was impossible to talk to someone about how i was feeling and, even if i did, what difference would it make? nothing would ease my anguish. (...) i was, therefore, between the cross and the wall. (...) now that i was here i should go until the end of the three years, an inner voice said to me."

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

i restart myself from scratch.

i build
myself
only
one more time.

i travel
inside
and out
of who i was
and now am.

no matter the strength of what i left behind
- all that, with pain on the lips,
lived its undeserved death -,
i now
now
open
way:
i smile at the future and return to myself.

" i shall not regret it, what is gone is gone
i am leaving, my time is done
i have a lot to discover
i'm sorry but i have to go

i'm going to the world cuz there's nothing left for me here
it's the end of the show
and don't be hurt because i'm leaving
that's just how i am

changes
here comes my train
come my train
i'm going and i'm gonna be fine now
changes
here comes my train
come my train
i know it's time and now i'm gonna be fine
- always onwards, never backwards

nothing much to it but i'm gonna have fun
while life allows it
i'm gonna try and make good friends only
if needed, to help as well

and now freedom and the horizon
only you didn't get it
new york, ipanema or hong kong
that's where i'll be

changes
here comes my train
come my train
i'm going and i'm gonna be fine now
changes
here comes my train
come my train
i know it's time and now i'm gonna be fine
- always onwards, never backwards

free
i feel sublime
people more people
the sun and the blue sea

changes
here comes my train
come my train
i'm going and i'm gonna be fine now
changes
here comes my train
come my train
i know it's time and now i'm gonna be fine
- always onwards, never backwards
- always onwards, never backwards

(lyrics by seu jorge)

....

for ALL your strength,
my people
from different networks,
thank you
so much.