This newly installed cold

All the night walkers have been driven into their homes, so I discover I have the streets to myself. To be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t be out running tonight either had I not drunk that 35% fat cream. Yes, that was dinner. At the light of the fridge. Literally.

So to prevent myself from smashing my scale tomorrow morning because of seeing the extra two hundred grams too real to deny, I run. I run until nothing hurts except everything. And I feel pathetic and sad and what seemed not so long ago to be perfect is horrible now and I just hate my life.

I make a right turn and I almost bump into another runner. Another girl. The first one I’ve seen in this area except me in the past year, since I moved here. Makes me wonder what she had for dinner.

Reporting on the hookers: they are wearing long pants, platforms and thick, fluffy waist jackets and are so much less vocal than during summer nights. Two are smoking quietly, while a strong wind is blowing, forcing them to make sudden head turns to free their lips from the tyranny of their hair.

We, the nightshoppers

Some of us still wearing our office clothes, others just baggy pants and t-shirts, others bathrobes and slippers (yes!), squinting at the shelves in that tiring, artificial light that makes your skin pale, your brain foggy and suddenly so needy. Getting single beer bottles and the smallest pack of peanuts there is and then just walking among shelves looking for salvation.

I remember a night in Pnom Penh, Cambodia, when I went out and walked around and then just before returning to my hotel, I got into this shop and walked among the shelves and stopped in front of the beer fridge. And this short guy, in his late twenties or early thirties stopped next to me and opened the fridge door only to find we were both reaching for the same bottle. I don’t remember the brand, something local. We turned to one another and smiled and, with a short gesture of his hand, he let me have it and then reached for another one. I wanted to ask him if he cared to join me and have that beer in a park nearby, but before I got to the cash register he was already gone. I had no intention to pick him up and lure him into my den, I was just craving for conversation and companionship. At least we smiled and had a moment of connection there.

Here, in Bucharest, the fauna in the supermarket at night is much wilder. We never smile. If we see someone interesting, we just stare. Repeatedly. We lack the courage to smile, smile back (if an alien does smile to us) or say anything. If asked “Shall I wait for you?” we would probably collapse or just die through implosion. Such things are unheard of. In our autism, we simply move around like headless pawns in an electronic game of chess played by a slow computer on its own, in a demo version. And when we are out of the game, we cease to exist.

Not writing because everything has already been said

Then what if after the first autumn the season would have simply canceled itself? Because in no other year could it repeat the extraordinary display of color and the whole autumn paraphernalia.

And then after the first love story we would have simply stopped falling in love and writing poems and books and making movies about it. No one would ever have to repeat lines like “Do you have the time?”, “Do you want to go out tonight?” or “Will you have dinner with me?” or the ever so used “Hi. How are you?” No one would ever strive to come up with a more original first line like “Sorry, do you know which way the river flows?” And the cute couple in party clothes would not be kissing at the corner tonight. We would not develop gastritis, either.

And what about living? People have been living since forever and everything has already been lived. Yes, it has. Then, after the first human being, everything would have simply stopped. Because a human being has already lived, felt, experimented etc. And so I would not be writing things like “I want you to feel my breath in your hair” or “my mouth in the palm of your hand” and no one would say ” I’m a good cook, but remember I never eat meat”. Or “you are insane”.

Then Florence Foster Jenkins would not have existed. Or if she had, she would definitely not have sung. And what a waste that would have been.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6ubiUIxbWE&w=560&h=315]

“People may say I can’t sing, but no one can ever say I didn’t sing.” (Florence Foster Jenkins)

She was everybody’s darling

fullmoon16sept16

tshirtparty16sept16

 

“I wonder… Why did you write that with the end of the world?”
“That it’s the end of the world as we know it?”
“Yes, that’s it!”
“Well, isn’t it. I sure hope it is…”
“What do you want this full moon to change?”
“Everything…”

PS The lower part of the T-shirt is self-made, while the poem is a collaborative writing piece by Bea, Andreea, Moni, Ilinca and me. Ilinca is eight years old and wrote the last line. The title is the image on top and the lines were written one by one, without any of us seeing what the others wrote. We just uncovered the whole thing at the end and enjoyed the surprise.

The photo of the full moon was taken by Bea.

All from the all girls Full moon & eclipse blockprinting party I hosted yesterday.

i am waiting

a violin at the restaurant across the street

crickets

tiny frogs in the park

Porto

my lines flowing so smoothly on the asphalt in front of me

i do not want to erase them anymore

islands

cheesy songs come to mind

cheesy lines

cheesy is the new black

but I can finally breathe again

still, life’s testing my patience

no attempt to shut down the mind

i just run

the hookers are eating chocolate ice cream

 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qnb-5pss1UU&w=560&h=315]

That leaving feeling

The rattle of my keys in the back pocket, my foot soles hitting the asphalt, the sound of my breath, dogs barking behind tall fences, a woman screaming in a house, a gust of wind brushing against my bare arms, leaves cracking under my feet.

I check the dark stain on my chest. Not big enough yet. I cannot stop.

Sweat dripping from my hair onto my collar bones. Precious golden drops under the moonlight.

No id, no phone, no name. I am no one again. I can disappear.

The guards at the embassy of Jordan greet me again with their courteous smiles, taking short bows as they all turn towards me when I pass. Her majesty is out running again, in her colorful tights, all smeared in grace. I do not bother to answer this time, I do not even look, as if I were not even there, as if they were simply remembering me passing by them yesterday night and repeating the same gestures at the same time, out of habit.

People having drinks at the newly opened cafe, a guy sweeping on the ground floor of this office building, the hookers with their heavy makeup, the church with no candles burning for the dead, two guys wearing military clothes talk about percentages, the Greek tavern with its blue and white umbrellas, the pharmacy on the corner, a grey haired guy smoking in front of the hotel steps aside so I can pass, the prophet in the wheel chair loudly declaring war, a guy talking to himself, a girl laughing on the phone.

Am I revisiting all my past lives? Before what? Where am I heading?

I want to leave so badly I feel all my cells are screaming. And so I try to drown that leaving feeling, shake it off, sweat it out, exhaust myself to the point of numbness so I can just pass out in my bed tonight and not want anything anymore.

I get to the house and I surprise my body by suddenly making a right turn instead of the left, leaving the gate behind and cutting through the darkness of another street.

Famous for its high intensity of feeling, the Scorpio is the only zodiac sign known to be able to commit suicide through a self-induced heart attack while jogging.

“I was simply trying to shut down the system and rest for a while”, the resuscitated victim later stated.

An hour and a half later I am back home again.

Foray into the bank

I’m standing in a long queue at the bank as the branch manager comes out of his office, talking on the phone. When he sees me, he stops in front of me for a moment, looks into my eyes as he keeps talking and then pauses to say hello. I answer him. He goes into another office and then comes out again after a short while, walks past the queue and into his office again, leaving the door open. A few seconds later, he comes out again.

“Is everyone here for cash operations?” he inquires.

The people standing in line say yes and he’s looking at me as I nod.

“Can I help you with anything?” he insists addressing the queue and then approaches the man standing in front of me, who looks rather sick and has difficulty standing, and asks him what he is there for. The man wants to make a payment, so the guy shows him how to do it himself, using the self-banking robo (whatever its name is).

“If you are here for anything other than cash operations, please come into my office or go to my colleagues’ offices over there, who are counselors and can help you. So that you don’t spend too much time in our bank.”

He keeps looking at me and smiling while addressing the queue, so I smile back. Only for a few seconds do his blue eyes slide like melting ice from my eyes down to my neck, collar bones and cleavage.

The rattle of my keys in my back pocket

rattle-jogging

Nothing else on me
No phone, no water, no money
No shadows of lovers gone
A stabbing pain in my back
As I’m running through this melting heat
There seems to be so much noise down here
Two weeks up in the north have that effect
They make you whisper
Why trade the forest for the asphalt?
I have nothing to say
Everything to live
And love

PS Took the photo last week in Sweden, Stockholm area.

lady lazarus

ladylazarus

three hookers
suspended on their platforms
each wearing something red
complaining about low pay
waving sumptuous handheld fans
reminders
of long days between stone walls
in crinoline and lace

I still believe it takes such
can I call it generosity?
death by stoning
no exclamation mark as the words stop in mid throat
their
shall I call it availability?
a reminder
of long forgotten fears between two legs

I was dead
bearing the story of resignation
life took me by the hand
and invited me to dance
I said no
she insisted

PS I took the photo at a Rodin exhibition in Stockholm in January.

A drop of cold water falls on my right shoulder

It lingers a bit and then slides like melting ice cream
Before the night quickly licks it off my skin

The moon is half full
Armies of crickets are singing their anthem
Bracing themselves for another long night

I run past these tables outside a restaurant
“At the seaside I never go swimming, actually”
A girl’s voice says in English
And I remember her holding me
The sea
As I tasted her salt from my lips
I could never surrender to anyone like that
Not risky enough
My life at stake, all bravery awakens

What is it about this body that’s so important?
I see its shadow in front of me on the asphalt
What is it about it that’s so repulsive,
So desirable, so fragile, so strong
And yet so utterly honest
To the point of betrayal?

This dark stain on my chest
I touch it and it’s wet
How can one sweat just on the left?
Right where it hurts
Wait
I measure the concentration of salt
With the tip of my tongue
I think I’d better light some of that incense tonight