Just like blood

What I like, is what I have already seen
I never expected to make it this way, it was life
Am I the one to blame? Perhaps…
But the “who” I am now, is what I chose to be

The mistakes, the shadows…
The shinning victories, the love…
This is all my inheritance to life
The simple verses of my thoughts

When you walk forward, you create
When you create, you unfold
Unfolding my possibilities brought me pain
But the pain made me a man, killing the poet

The poet brought me pleasure
The pleasure brought me freedom
The freedom brought me love
And the love trapped my soul

After the war was fought, I took a moment…
I thought about the battles, the combats
And chose to contemplate my graveyard
Shutting myself down, to alleviate the sorrows

But then I forgot, that as everyone knows,
After every storm, the calm awaits
But I kept my eyes shut, the hope was gone
I left my inspiration locked, inside the rock

And the lights got shut down
The curtains drown
As the flame slowly froze
But my hope, was kept alive…

… And now, it’s time to write.

For T.

Leaving my borrowed life behind

It’s time to move on, I thought. My mind giving me cross references that made my heart ache with mixed sensations. I had left that morning to a new life, excited, scared and obligated by the circumstances. I was a half immigrant, with one foot in, but still chained by the incredible toughness of a system.

Nostalgia and fear, they all were there and sat next to my mind as co-pilots on the ride to a new life, one that was given as a pity loan, in which I was the object of a deal that I had very little to say for.

I didn’t have time to apply a judging thought to the series of events; I was merely existing, in silence, with very little hope.

I borrowed a wore-out smile, a tiny sample of dignity, and carried with me a bag full of old and tight clothes, filling the space with the unavoidable sense of fear; fear of the unknown and the uncertain.

My new life was set up in the shape of a fruit basket, lying in the breakfast bar of an empty kitchen, and that meant the world to me. It was a clear sign of hope, as I have taken to give fruit baskets to people in some sort of disgrace.

My steps were cautious; I had learned too well to never give a step without proper inspection. Just like a street cat in a new home, skepticism was my biggest shield, I wanted it to be truth, I wanted it to be right.

And the new life began, split like the heart of a war criminal, I had a life left behind far away, and a new reality, consistent of an environment that I couldn’t grasp, an office filled with strangers that passed by a back door at a rapid rate, slamming the big, noisy metal doors as they went through and the feeling of being the only dark grain in a full bag of white rice.

Step by step, what should have been a process of adaptation became a new way of survival, a new set of rules, in which I had to respond to a series of expectations that were part of that broken deal; filled with secrets in which I had very little input. I realized that my life was still wrecked in two parts and there was an obvious winner.

Then freedom came, in the shape of an e-mail, then a passport, after that a piece of paper that three weeks later would translate in a small two by three-point-five inches card, step by step, like a survivor in a disaster area making his way through the rubble. I could barely content myself, just to realize that I still had the moral commitment to my “redeemers”, or so I thought.

The light was shinning right into my eyes and after such a long time of darkness, I was blinded for a while; feeling lost, without direction, the warm stream of emotions raced throughout my system, giving me back the freedom which I still evaded feeling for the fear that it was a dream, a fantasy. I was ready to fly, to explore, but then fear came, cornered and trapped me.

I was the one to blame I thought; the guilt translated in insecurities, which echoed in my non-fructuous efforts to escape the state of mind, the overwhelming thought of coming back to earth as a full person, as a rightful human being.

And life happened… I was forced to take back the curse of life, the one I had been assigned as what I wanted to think was my destiny. With so little hope, so few expectations; but hungry of living, of seeing, of harvesting all the promises left by the sacrifices.

Half broken is how I felt. The memories of my life were misting with the bitter pictures of those who held me back; the ones that once made promises and held me captive of their selfish existence. Unable to scream, to run, I was a slave of the circumstances.

A mental picture of the loss of dignity; Printed in the back of my head, while I saw too many planes flight away with my own dreams on board, and half my heart left to be stepped down by that new acquired sense of quilt. I chose to suffer, because I was still blinded by the stream of light, the price of freedom, the recuperation of myself.

What is fair? I thought bitterly, why am I still here? I told to myself in a desperate plea for redemption. Then I saw it, clearly and shiny, life is not fair; I had to gain it back, and return this borrowed one to the circumstances.

The choice then was mine, for the longest time I felt able to show some of my feelings. I slapped in the face those who for so long showed me coward sympathy, I terminated the unfair contract that was signed with two hands tied up in a string of emotional distress, and decided to fear the unknown, the uncertain landscape of possibilities, still half-broken, still afraid.

And this is how I leave my borrowed life. I take with me my old tight clothes, but I leave behind the fear of a half immigrant, the lack of dignity; I take with me the uncertainty of the future, but I leave behind the slavering strings of circumstances; I move on, leaving my borrowed life behind, to look back at a dream, that was a nightmare, to learn more lessons.

When you look up and down

When you look up and down, and come to the realization that life offers you several options, but circumstances shape and force you into just a few of them, it is not until then, that you are able to figure your destiny according to plan, or to make a plan at least.

Life can be described in many different ways. I think that the recipe has a few key ingredients, such as luck, desires, wishes, needs, and moreover, what some people call motivation, but I prefer to identify as determination.

Attitude is just the mask that we put to our actions, whether good or bad, they don’t always represent the reality of what attitude is supposed to portrait: Emotions.

Emotions on the other hand are the first thing we learn to shade and shield. Emotions make us vulnerable, weak, innocent, charming, angry, happy, loving, silly, senseless, idiots. Emotions make us young, and most of the times naïve.

The simplicity of the complexity of life is truly overwhelming. People write about the different aspects that shape the principles of living. They worship the failures; Love the vulnerabilities offered by our inexperience, that rich inexperience that in my perspective, makes us charming, desirable and willing.

Life can be described in many different ways; to me, it is a journey, where the point of living is about the little things that can secretly scratch a smile out of your system. The pleasures you enjoy from the inside, that piece of music, that group of words, the look of the eyes of people in pictures, the tiny senses that we choose to ignore.

The journey can be unacknowledged, leaving us living life like objects live in a house, mere spectators of the passing life, unable to interact, to tell a story, and more importantly, to create one. Anyone can create anecdotes, but just those lucky enough to discover the beauty of living in the simple things, can truly create the canvas for stories; with a beginning, a core, and an end.

These stories, sometimes are sad, sometimes are dull, a few times happy, and as we grow, they tend to be loaded with sarcasm, that just shields those emotions that we have chosen to keep far from everybody, including ourselves. Then it is when it hit us, we become perfect strangers to ourselves, writing stories that are dictated by our fears, rather than by out true emotions, with the fake kind inspiration.

When life gets too real, we stop learning to be inspired, and start learning to create expectations based on the superficial basis of necessity and ambition; ambition that you can purchase on sale on the nearest Costco.

Changing the rhythm, the sounds, the scripts, the stories, the emotions, the sarcasm, the journey, the life… making it simple, living the today, getting what we need, stopping for a second to breathe, to take a deep breath, and to observe. Looking around us and allowing each of the little sources of inspiration feed that forgotten vitality that we have the honor to own: our souls.

One word can change a poem, one idea can change a song, one motto can change a story, and a different perspective, can create a life instead of changing it.

This is the rhapsody of what I believe life is all about. Use it or throw it, but there is only one way to understand it; you have to share it.

Life is simple… as simple as an atom, and yet, so undecipherable and complex, just like the thoughts we have when our life demands an upgrade…. And that so many of us, choose to ignore.