Prague

Your memories are postcards of Happiness.

Prague, August 2005

Sans Dégoût

You grab a book from the shelf, randomly. It’s De Profundis. Oscar Wilde. You still haven’t got time to read it, though you bought it so long ago. But you pause for a moment with the book in your hands.
You think sometimes you can hear the cockroaches chirping behind the cupboard.
On the back cover, it says:

“… a universal statement about love, injustice and the pain of living in the world.”

Now we’re talking, you think to yourself. You open it and read the first lines you see on page sixty.

“O Seigneur, donnez-moi la force et le courage
De contempler mon corps et mon coeur sans dégoût.”

It’s Baudelaire. Oscar Wilde quoting Baudelaire. The words, like a prayer, hit you strongly. In the chest. Just like when you hear cars crashing outside.
It’s five in the morning. “Oh Lord, grant me the strength and the courage to look at my body and my heart without disgust.”
You washed your hair but it still smells like an ashtray.
You stare at the wall and almost cry.

Westminster Chime

It’s in these half empty glasses of lukewarm drinks that you find the reminiscent smell of loneliness. When time and everyone are gone. You can still find silence there even when cars go by. Early mornings.
You feel tired.
Your body is broken.
But you are not distracted. The clocks ticking, the post-it notes of death, everywhere in the house.

When you were a child your grandfather had a clock on the wall. It woke you up late at night with its scary imitation of the Westminster Chime. You cried in panic for being so small amidst the old dark furniture. You had nightmares.

Now you are exhausted. You can’t sleep.
You just run around the idea of resting – finally – and stop insisting with Youth. Never happy as in Teenage Wasteland.

Not again.

You light a cigarrette. You lie in bed.

You don’t dream.

Photograph

You lie on the grass. Your hair touch the ground.
You’re so european, you and your perfect skin, you and your love of the sun, your naivety during summer, your cool shades.
The dirt under your nails.
You have very fine hair. You walk with no hurry. You’re beautiful in a way no one can really explain.
You’re photogenic.
You’re calm.
You laugh slowly while passing the joint. Everyone pays attention when you speak. You smile while you carefully listen to a stranger. You’re effortlessly polite. You’re so nice it makes it seem easy.
You’re not afraid.
You cry in front of close friends whenever your heart is broken.
You have so many close friends. They worship you. They only say the best things about you, even when you’re absent. Specially when you’re absent.
No evil eye looks upon you.
You’re protected.
You’re one of those people that never ever say anything negative about someone you don’t know and still manage not to have anyone thinking you’re a hypocrite.
You always listen to the best songs, old or new.
You only wear simple basic clothes, but in a way you’re always looking good.
You’re cute when you’re singing. No one gets offended when you say no. People always throw you the best surprise birthday parties. You’ve done the best trips ever.
Your photographs in Thailand make me feel nostalgic for something I haven’t even lived.
You’ve got good grades in school.
You’ve gone to all the best music festivals on Earth.
You’re young, you hang out with people we see in the coolest magazines, you never sound pretentious, you know how to cook, how to drive, how to cut your own hair.
Your perfectly uncombed fine hair touching the grass before me.
I’ll love you forever just like I believe everyone else does.
And you will never ever know.

Dawn

Lights on, lights off.
You enter quietly, sit in your bed. Your hands crush the linen and the silver stars in your fingers while you breath and wait.
You look at your feet, at your shoes.
You want them to be off.
Without having to use your hands.
You want to be a child again, when you would sleep in the backseat and would be carried to bed -they would take your shoes and your clothes off and pull the blankets over you and kiss your forehead while you pretended you were still sleeping ’cause you didn’t want to talk.
Ever so slowly, you lift your left leg and hold your foot.
It’s cold, you shiver.
You yawn.
You think about removing the make up at least the eye make up.
But…
Every move stirs what’s left of energy inside you. It’s hurtful.
You’re running on reserve battery power but don’t know how to recharge.
Morning is coming soon.
You raise your eyes to the window and already notice streaks of blue light invading every uncovered space in between the heavy curtains.
You think it would be good if an angel came in just like the blue light in the hours preceding dawn and ripped the heavy curtains of your soul, ripped them apart, forever.
But you fall heavily asleep before you think again.
And you still have your shoes on.