Missing Heart

It's a beautiful sunny day in the world, with temperatures soaring and the misleading taste of an early summer in the air. I should be feeling elated, but my horizon is darkened by such things as social anxieties of all sorts.

I thought that if I kept confronting my fears I would eventually reach a point of complete recovery, but I have to face the fact that it's not working at all. I'm at a stage where I'm actually trying to force my deeply ingrained nature to act in the opposite way - from naturally distant, withdrawn and terrified to nonchalantly open, extroverted and confident. Let me tell you, when you see clearly what you're made of inside and consciously decide to change it, you have to be ready for some serious inner resistance. Every single time I act against my natural inclinations I feel this swelling wave of intense resistance within, almost like some wild animal springing to the defensive and ready to shred my conscious, deliberate efforts to pieces. And this occurs every single time, leaving me exhausted inside and out.

I must be cheating, in a way. Changes in a person are more likely to unfold over time, with the unconscious side transferring the new rules to the conscious one without the person really being aware of it. But I want to remain in control, and not change according to some subconscious dictat. I want to be the one dictating the changes, or add-ons to the personality I have and which must remain as much under my conscious control as possible. That really means working 'against' your inner brains, and my... I can certainly feel it. It's not like I'm just trying to change a habit, or one slight detail about me - I'm reaching out for the core of my behaviours and attempting to wire them back in a whole other way. This attempt, I realise now, could well backfire in my face in the end.

But there is something else. As much as I attempt to wire myself into 'something else' in terms of how I manifest myself in the world, I realise that no matter how much I reach out for the core that needs to be reshaped something was always missing from the start and because it is missing I can't succeed in the reshaping process. I feel as though that missing element within is exactly why my inner side keeps fighting me.

"I need to reshape my self to grant myself the ability to be social and finally relate to others, be able to build humane connections," says I to the inner core.

"I can't let you do that," retorts the inner core. "If you push me, I'll have to fight back."

"Then we'll fight, and I shall win."

"Look, what you're asking can never work. I would love nothing more than work in sync with you on that but we're missing a crucial element in the first place, and thus I cannot let you do this right now."

"What are you talking about? All we need is a rewiring... All we need to do is learn from social experiences, interactions and observations, and from there polish our new version."

"No. It won't work Aliska because we're missing a crucial element at our core to be able to do that. I can't let you change us so long as that part remains missing. It would be a calamity to try anything without it."

"What is this element you speak of?

"The genuine ability of feelings towards others."

"That's missing?"

"Yes, it's missing. It always was. We're emotionally void when it comes to the world in reality, Aliska. We are cold and deeply uncaring, detached from it all, and you cannot have us change when there is nothing there in the first place."

"You're wrong... I can feel. I have feelings for others, I do care!"

"You only think you do. You'd like to think that indeed but as you stare into the core of us you know it is the truth - this cold, empty void that prevents any real connection to the world. The only one you're able to truly feel for is yourself."

"No...that's not true. Liar."

"Our core is so deeply cerebral that our whole existence is based on intellectualising emotions - not actually feeling. The only way we were ever able to make up for that inability to feel was by using an intellectualised version we could use as a bridge to try and relate to an extent."

"No..."

"That is why we can never feel love for others. We can only intellectualise reasons enough to act as though we do, but our emotions remain void in the face of people in the flesh. We are more likely to feel real emotions for what isn't real than what is, and you know it. You know that full well. Our deeply self-centered core has made us such. No matter how much you try to wire us into another way, that void will only lead to a more clumsy travesty because our lack of genuine feelings for anything or anyone beside I will always transpire sooner than later. I didn't want to have to tell you that so openly, but you've been forcing my hand. I'm sorry."

Being emotionally void when it comes to others, or reality overall.... that is what keeps me from making any progress at all. You can't just pretend that you suddenly have the ability to genuinely care when it's really not there inside.

I have never been in love, and I've never really been able to keep friends for long because much like a seed trying to grow in a desert, there never was any emotional roots that could grow.

Where does one acquire a heart? Mine is missing, or was always so shrivelled up that the only thing it ever knew how to do is care for itself. To realise that you were born with an inner heart the size of a tiny prune is depressing.

The best way to lie is to tell the truth, with a twist.

I won't lie, I've been watching way too much science fiction in the past few weeks. It's been, well, my main distraction away from my constant efforts and struggle with learning to be more social within the stiff social environment of the particular society I find myself in.

The latest in line was a series called V; some may recall the old TV series in the early/mid-80s about an invasion of reptile-like aliens wearing 'human' skin to hide their true nature and who arrive on Earth with the purpose of harvesting human flesh as food, or something of the sort. I remember that series strikingly, maybe because my mother let me watch it when I was very young and I still vividly remember a random scene were the human skin of one of the reptile-like aliens gets peeled off his face. Gruesome, indeed. Still, I liked that series, so when I came across a recent remake of it on TV I decided to watch it 'for old times' sake'.

I didn't like the new version, but the ending left me with some unexpected food for thought. I often wonder, whenever I'm watching a film, whether there is something beneath the mundane surface to be found, like messages woven into the fabric of what at first glance looks like, well, complete fantasy. I'm not talking about really bad movies where one is left with only one question along the lines of "whoever even came up with such a stupid storyline in the first place?"

I don't know... The latest version of that series ended with the aliens winning over the humans by using mind control, but the technique itself looked and sounded harmless enough. It was through a 'bliss', telling people to 'feel the peace, the love, the calm' and the only thing it really reminded me of is the New Age type of dogma that is becoming rampant nowadays. I say New Age, but one may choose to call it 'humanism' - where the same mind control is applied except that the unreachable God part is stripped. A bit like what the aliens do in the series. Of course, to see what I'm getting at one has to leave aside the fantasy woven into the storyline and focus on the way something seemingly innocent and harmless - making people feel calm, content, serene, peaceful, loved... - actually turns out to be used for a very destructive ulterior motive.

That technique portrayed in that particular series reminded me at once of the society I live in overall. Maybe the fact that it could trigger that sort of reminder explains why the series was dropped overnight at that point - who knows. The same thing happened with a series called Carnivale, dealing with other puzzling aspects that made you wonder if there wasn't more to it beyond the obvious storyline.

Anyway, everything about today's society functions that way. It will all be about the 'greater good', saving starving children, helping the world, striving for peace etc, etc... and it all sounds so good on the tin, so much so that it even helps us sleep better at night in the knowledge that despite our crazed consumption-driven habits and lust for always more we are, after all, striving for the good of all.

Governments have been using that technique in many Western countries for decades by 'making sure' to look after all its citizens, especially its children. The education system, mostly standardised into a 'one size fits all' approach is an obvious example. It is, they will say, for the greater good of your child that you should put them through it. Sounds SO good on the tin, right? Yeah, it does. And it works. Just like the alien bliss, children come out of school mostly indoctrinated and brainwashed to be a certain way. Social interaction only serves to re-enforce it everyday.

They talk about 'democracy' and freedom of speech - just to give yet another example - but if any of us really dared take full advantage of that 'freedom' we'd have to face complete social annihilation at the very least. What you are allowed to say is always constrained within more or less obvious social acceptance of it. You and I are unlikely to ever even realise that fact because we're so deeply brainwashed to naturally censor what our minds know will be rejected that we always express ourselves within very defined boundaries - whether we realise that or not. And even when one is known for being 'shocking' or 'anti-' whatever, they still remain well within the accepted range of 'freedom' allowed so far as expression is concerned.

The internet, at least at the very beginning, showed signs of being a medium through which these limits (which are made to feel as anything but limits, of course... that's the whole point) could be transcended, but today the power-that-be is fast at work to crack down on it. You know it's getting worse when even a site like YouTube won't let you watch videos outside a certain 'geography', eh.

But I'm not being naive, here. There is no escape from the fact that we always remain the products of a given society. Influences, teachings, socialisation... all these things are necessary and are factors shaping us into who we are. What's truly frightening about today's 'technique' to control us is that it's done under the cover of 'good', the so-called strive for peace and harmony etc - you name it. But beneath that veneer, this emphasis on ensuring we're all 'content' or kept busy getting drunk on consumption is only leading to one thing: the deepest apathy and mind numbness akin to that alien bliss and the effects it had on the mind of people - that of leaving them empty-eyed like brainless cattle.

Bottom line of all this? Disguise an ugly purpose under the veneer of something that sounds ethical and good, and most of us won't know any better.

The best way to lie is to tell the truth, with a twist, or two, or five.

 

On Beauty

Beauty is where you take the time to see it

I was on my way home from work earlier, walking along the busy street illuminated by an unexpected strong sunshine when the thought came to my mind: beauty... is where you take the time to see it. In itself it is everywhere and nowhere at once. Beauty is more often than not just a particular angle to any given thing. Depending on the angle you take when approaching it, you may see that of its beauty, or something drastically different. Same concrete things in essence for all to see, different lighting for each in the realm of perception, perhaps. And there lies Beauty... always and never there at the same time, yet far from elusive. Take the time to see it, and you will.

Another reason why the thought sprung to mind today is down to having spent some time discussing travels with people in the past few weeks. There is no denying that travelling has become a much prized commodity for our consumer-driven society. Ever since flying, in particular, was made affordable to the masses, I can see how it led to a modern trend of 'wanting to travel' and 'see the world'. Social networks alone are awash with evidence that travels have become one of the most lucrative and trendiest new forms of a 'hobby', especially in-between a mind-numbing 9-to-5 job and the weight of many other daily burdens often accompanied by a lingering sense of being stuck in a rut.

I felt the bug, too. Suddenly, the rut of my existence was becoming intolerable, and I started dreaming of far-away shores and exotic landscapes. That new-found 'itch' within bothered me because I was also aware that I didn't agree with travelling for the sake of it - but I didn't know why. I knew it wasn't 'right' for me to feel that urge, and yet I couldn't find the reason or argument somewhere in my mind that led me to remain defiant in the face of it.

Stuck as I've always been in major, busy cities it's probably easy to see how little it takes for someone like me to get excited about far-away reaches. But then in the past few months I started to understand the reason why I knew deep down that excitement and the urge it fed were misplaced. It will never be about where I go, how much I see or how much I travel. It's fundamentally about the ability to appreciate where I'm at right now. And if I feel like adventure, or feel thirsty for more earthly beauty, I don't need to go far at all. I just have to take the time to see it.

Between a globe-trotter who travels to places in the same way one would collect stamps and someone who's never really moved much or far at all but has learned to capture the right angle for beauty right where they are, I feel the latter will have experienced far more in life than the former.

Motivation

What is the real source of motivation? What actually motivates us to do anything at all? On the most basic level, it's rather easy to see what motivates us to take any action. Survival instincts alone prompt us to feed, drink and seek shelter, for instance. If something attacks us, we might even be prompted to defend ourselves. What about everything else, then? What about everything else that doesn't fall under the survival/basic category?

Others.

It seems that everything else is intrinsically linked to other people when it comes to the motivation to do anything outside survival. But there was a time when I couldn't even follow the most basic survival instincts, and during that time when I was letting my own self go there was nothing anyone could have said to me that would have made a difference. I only got better when something within me decided that it wanted to. In other words, I started taking care of my own survival because I wanted to.

I seem to have recovered the inner motivation to live, but when it comes to motivation in the world, I have none. Solitude and isolation can do that to you, I suppose, and again it hints at the fact that without other people in the background it's very easy to be rendered unmotivated to do anything in particular.

Or perhaps I have no passion left whatsoever. Perhaps seeing the world for what it is in the cold light of reality not only killed my idealism but also whatever fire I had within. It's not that my imagination and dreams are dead as such, it's just that I no longer even see the point in being motivated by them.

I feel as though I'm immersed in some kind of limbo in time. Even though time goes on and I grow older with every day that passes by, I feel frozen in place at the same time.

I understand better now that the main goals in this life are about making money and do whatever we like with it. Most people will spend that money on creating a certain lifestyle in which they'll fill their time with hobbies, travels, or 'fun' of all sorts. Most of them will do that focused on a central theme: family. They'll leave one nest to create another, and in-between doing that fun and hobbies will fill the voids. I know deep down it will never be what I was always seeking.

You know something is wrong with you when even your own mother starts asking about your 'writing'. You know it must be quite bad when she tells you she worries you'll never finish what you started writing and that you should really get back into it, even if it means leaving your 'real' job behind for a while.

I'm not sure when exactly she started changing her tune with me. She used to see my writing as a hobby, something I liked doing in my spare time, and whenever I would tell her I wished I could focus on it completely, she would remind me that I wasn't being realistic. In many ways I thought she was right, of course. Who's going to feed and shelter a struggling writer lost in her own universe?

I think her view changed after a chance encounter with an old writer a couple of years ago. She befriended his wife and had a glimpse of their lifestyle, their home, but most importantly she saw his office full of random books, research, the sheer amount of a mess all around...  They worked as a team. He had been struggling for the most part of his life, but she had been there to support him because she loved him, but most importantly because she believed in him; and now they were both equally supporting each other... My mother then said to me seeing his office and the way he worked reminded her of me when I was immersed in writing. She said she hadn't realised I was really doing something all the 'real' writers were doing. I saw something like vague regret in her eyes when she said that, as though she'd always seen all I'd been doing as a mere plaything. She'd never taken it seriously.

And now... now that I feel so empty and unmotivated to do anything... now she tells me: "Why aren't you writing?"

I'm making excuses, of course. I'm not sure why I can't write anything much these days. The stories are still inside my head, alive and vibrant, but my hands just won't type the words.

I remember taking a break from writing a particular story I'd spent two years working on right before my finals at university because I needed to focus on cramming my head with all the information needed to pass the exams. I remember thinking at the time that it would only be for a couple of months... that it would be a useful break to see if I still felt like writing the story afterwards. But then, just as I was about to resume the writing unexpected diversions occurred that distracted me so much I didn't even realise a year had passed. And then the more time went by, the more difficult it felt to go back to the story.

I wish I could make myself be like most people who write out there - they can just take a notebook, sit at a café and write. Sometimes they get stuck so they go away to a beautiful place to find inspiration again.

None of these tricks work with me. I can only ever write when there is a particular balance inside my head - when I can reach a state of almost perfect calm within. That means no stress, no pressure, no expectations (especially my own). But my daily life has been filled with exactly those for the last 2 years, meaning that I have found it most impossible to slip back into that needed state of almost perfect calm that allows me to open that door within from where the writing can flow. It wouldn't matter that I had a couple of days in the middle of nowhere, because I would know that it was only for a couple of days, and that knowledge would keep the anxiety alive.

But again, I'm making excuses. I know what is really holding me back. I have to make a choice. And it isn't  a choice based on external factors. It's about embracing who you are and accepting that many things 'of the world' will never be a part of it. So long as I remain dithering on the threshold, torn between my own self  and the pull of so many external 'temptations' I will remain feeling as though I'm stuck in a limbo.

No matter what we do, no matter what we may think is important, health and death are the ultimate deal breakers. Both of them hold all the power, really, in the realm of the living.

I often ask myself what life is about. There are about as many beliefs and thoughts on the subject as there are people in the world. Maybe all life is about is the memories we create along the way, and I know that sounds cliché, but a cliché doesn't have to mean it's wrong. It can just be stating the obvious. If I look at life with the aim of creating as many vibrant memories as possible - and not necessarily all of them 'good' memories - I can look back at a patchwork in time that was my existence. The more colourful, the more beautiful the drifting back in time even as we reflect back on what was once experienced as harsh. Memories and dreams are made out of the same stuff, they both dwell within the mind, yet the crucial difference between the two is that the former can bring about a sense of completion or regret, while the latter never truly occurred in reality and if a life is filled more by dreams than memories then only regrets are likely to be felt in the end.

Confronting my worst fears is starting to take its toll on me. I did think at first that the more I'd confront them, the easier it ought to become over time - a bit like confronting phobias full-on to cure them. Well... it doesn't seem to be working, or rather it is in the sense that I'm learning to deal with situations better, but inside it is really exhausting me. And I feel it.

I tell myself that I'll continue pushing myself till I really can't cope at all anymore. I'll go as far as I can, confronting what frightens me the most till I really can't take it, and then perhaps I will find it only natural to retreat back within myself. What keeps me going is the thought that I'm currently creating very odd memories which I know I will some day look back on with a certain sense of satisfaction, even just because the occurrences on which those memories are based were so unlikely.

Yes... looking at life as a process that involves creating memories does help. It helps even just to pay more attention to what we do have, appreciating the people we sometimes forget to care about but that we do love deeply. It makes you want to create more special moments, moments that will add colour to your look-back in time later on... Things like that.

I wish I was better at socialising with others, or maybe what I really wish is the chance to actually meet others who are better suited to my own character and weirdness. Unfortunately, the more your personality and way of thinking diverge from the mainstream, the less likely you are to find others 'like' you. And then there is also the fact that someone 'like me' may actually not be what's good for me at all. I am dark, brooding, over-thinking and abstract - my opposite would have to be full of light with a hunger for life itself and most importantly concrete. Only then would the dynamics work.

All my thoughts are influenced by particular occurrences in my daily life, I have to say. I've reached an age where most of my peers are now getting married and starting families. The few that aren't happen to be focused on a career, and I seem to fall into that group. It's not that I chose to, but this is what happens when one just never really makes choices - choices are made for you, one way or the other.

When one has no words, there is always music, 

and music transcends language.

 It always has, 

and always will.

Fear

It seems the weight of responsibilities really serves to emphasise the prospect of failure, but beyond that there is also the fact that if one digs deep enough within themselves, they're likely to encounter Fear as the ultimate controlling force in one's life.

It seems all I've really found out about myself in the end is this gigantic pool of fear inside, and it is that very feeling that infiltrates all my actions and decisions like venom travelling through one's veins. Day in, day out, everything about what I do or don't do is constantly under the influence of this fear lying right at the bottom of my very being, and as it remains hidden, almost out of sight for the most part - hidden within my depths - I rarely realise that everything I do or don't do is truly dictated by it. And thus Fear shapes my life, my existence as a whole.

Facing that dark pool within is like... standing face to face with a rabid dog, or something. It doesn't matter that I know, or that I've grown aware of its existence - on the contrary. Now, it feels like it is taunting me overtly. It's like finding out who your worst enemy is, only to have the latter sneer in your face.

"So you know it was always me playing tricks on you, holding you back, confusing you, keeping you petrified in place," says the Fear.

"Yes... I can see you so clearly now," says I.

"Good for you... You do realise I'll never go away, right? You do realise that I'm such an intrinsic part of you  there is nothing you can do to overcome me?"

"I do... I really do. You'll never go away, I know that."

No, it will never really go away. Fear is just one of these feelings that just are. The best we can hope to accomplish is limit the extent of its control. But here's what I've come to understand about such things as Fear governing one's life: Fear is like a weak muscle in one's body that will never get stronger on its own, and that's exactly why the only thing left to do is to strengthen all the others so that they can eventually take over the weakest link. So I understand that it's not about fighting, but more about building around the said weakness so that one day the surrounding structure can cope fully without any help or bother from that weakest part of I, and that applies even to the notion of Fear.

The tricky part is that Fear makes you afraid of so many things... so much so that sometimes even attempting to build your other 'muscles' becomes some sort of impossible task. They say when you're afraid you should confront your fear to overcome it. That means I have to confront a lot of things in life because everything about Reality has always frightened me beyond belief.

I am afraid of everything. I fear others, I fear failure, I fear change, I fear the unknown, I fear Life itself as much I fear death... the list goes on. And for each thing that I fear, the only thing I can do is make myself confront each and every single one of them, or as many as I have time to confront while I'm alive.

When fear turns out to be your biggest denominator, the idea that life is all about 'fun' or 'seeking pleasures' becomes ridiculous. It sure ain't the case for me. Every moment I push myself to face the world isn't a pleasure in any way, it's a constant battle, a war of wits within between what I feel I need to do and the Fear trying to entice me back into hiding. And every single day it feels like an enormous battle just to face what would appear trivial to so many others. Soldiering on even though within yourself you feel so scared you could cry to the point of bursting into a thousand tears.

Another night, another ghost... but this one always gets my imagination going. I found a picture of my father as a child, courtesy of one of his old classmates having the great idea of posting a classroom picture and actually tagging him in it.

I have to say it is rather odd to stare at the picture of your 'father' as a child considering it is the first and only time you've ever 'seen' him. It's like staring at a strange limbo in time that prompts you to think: "Wow, and so a mere 11 years after that photo was taken I was born. I bet you didn't see that one coming, huh."

No, he hadn't seen it coming. In the end, the story was a very basic and uninspired one. He'd always known about me, but he'd felt 'too' young and I was an accident. I wasn't supposed to happen, I wasn't 'planned' and I guess when you come from a very traditional Italian family where the Mama rules the house with a heavy rolling accent, the fact that I happened out of wedlock made it an even bigger taboo. But then there was also this one message I ever received from him over two years ago already, and in that message, though he spent most of his time trying to justify himself, there was one mention I did take into consideration. It had to do with my mother, and how he said he knew she didn't love him.

What I always found fascinating is how they'd met in the first place. My mother, always terse with words, never really liked to tell me much, always sighing that 'it was such a long time ago, honey, I just don't remember much'. One day she made the effort and told me what I can only assume is the truth.

It was back in the days when she barely spoke the language of the country she'd recently moved to. She was in her early 20s, waiting for a bus that just wouldn't come. As she waited by the stop, a flashy car stopped by her side and he asked if he could give her a lift. She refused, scared senseless that he might be some pervert even though he looked just as young as she was. He insisted. She told him to get lost, that she was fine waiting for that bus. He didn't leave and drew out his identity papers to assure her he didn't mean any harm. She hesitated for another while and then, as the bus just would not come, she decided to get in the car. And that marked the start of a short-lived relationship that would eventually spawn my own existence.

And that's how babies are made. It can be as random and meaningless as my own coming into existence. But sometimes I'm struck by the thought that if it weren't for that one particular bus being late, I would never have come to exist at all. Two strangers meeting at random, linked only by a particular turn of events. Remove that turn of events, and the strangers would never have been linked at any point. And I would not be here writing these very words.

Interlude

Words from another life...

In the shadows I stood in the morning, in agony at night,

From all the nightmares that sprung out of worries.

The wind that tore away the city’s garments

Was moaning in echoes, gliding across the pavement.

I was holding in my hands the completed jewellery box

Of all my sufferings, of all my lost dreams,

But always I kept slipping on a flooded ground,

And the box was breaking, one breach at a time.

The naked, blackened  trees were barring the way,

Stopping me in my tracks, I offered them the box

So they could wear its content

But they threw the box away, and the wind without fail

Was spitting in my face to make me fall again.

It was in this manner that the box was unlocked

And that I saw inside, in the midst of pieces,

Seven splinters, all fragments

From a piece of green wood

Kept alive by a mourning sky.

(1998)

----------

Repressing one’s passions, or setting them free,

The tormented lives the hours of the damned.

Perhaps summer is too warm, or winter far too cold,

Or is the wind more violent than an intoxicating sun?

Going against one’s desires, or allowing them slowly

To form and be born at last in the heart of one’s turmoils.

Refusing one’s fate and breaking its helm,

Perhaps then happiness sought after for so long,

But also Utopia, endless dreams whose fabric

Gets tangled and gets ripped in the grip of doubt.

Going against one’s nature, swaying from the path,

For more empty hopes, toward only more pain.

Repressing one’s own thoughts, forgetting, erasing,

This pretty golden path, straight and so well defined,

Opening up to new worlds instead that were unexpected

And live like a river's flow that can never be caught,

Drifting away without halt, toward distant shores,

Even if the boat can suddenly sink

Without being able to stop it, and give in to pain

To make one’s dreams come true, and change one’s fate.

Repressing one’s passions, or setting them free,

The tormented lives the hours of the damned.

(1999)

------

It’s a long bar counter

Full of liquors and dry nuts,

Of flavours soft and bitter.

If  your lips are dry

Quench your thirst with liquor,

There exists no better

Than inside this bar.

All the people look alike,

They are drunk and their hands are shaking,

Bleary eyes and slumped shoulders,

They argue or they mock each other.

Whiskey and beer meet on the way,

The good drinkers slur their words and watch

Their neighbour sleep at the table.

The one serving chats to the old lady

Who lost her man at war

And never ceases to sigh and moan;

Suddenly an old man falls to the ground,

A man in suit holds out a hand,

Holding a glass in the other.

The door is flung open and another enters,

Some empty eyes following him

As he sits by the counter

To ask, ready to fight,

For a drink.

-----

Rebirth of the word

Give me a word,

I shall give it a colour,

I will turn ugly into a clear blue,

And beauty into a soft crimson.

Flowers will take the colour

Of the most vivid tones,

A red house, a blue sky,

A dreamy field and mauve butterflies.

The stone will transcend its coldness

Against a wall splattered in gold,

Red sun, emerald rivers,

Milky fog, and words are born

From a need to abandon

The absurdity

Of black and white words

Written with the driest ink.

So give me a word,

So I can breathe some life into

Nature, the crow

That lurks like a sentinel

Of death; I will turn it into

A flow of shadows mixed with gold

To give back the magic

To fairies, and silver to warlocks.

Give me therefore a word

So they never appear all the same,

Just give me a single word,

Sad, ugly or concrete,

I shall turn the notions,

One by one gathered back,

Into a rainbow.

-----

Love is no more.

Children cut up heart-shaped figures

From a gold-rimmed notebook.

Outside, the sky is no longer truly blue,

Perhaps it still is, but it bleeds in the morning,

And will bleed again tonight.

Love is no more.

Houses inside which shadows are moving,

People meeting at random and shouting: “I love you!”

The air is heavy like an iron lid

Weighing on the wonderful heads of readers

Who still wait for an angel with arrows

Made of silver.

Love is no more.

Landscapes the soul felt so deep

Are now wrapped in a thick coat

Of bland moods, a dead nature

That shuffles its feet like a dead man...

Love is no more!

Children cut up heart-shaped figures,

Blood trickles down the sea of delusions:

This era will bring only tears

Despite the ardent rays of sunshine

That pierce through tragedies.

Love is no more…

Days might as well stretch forever,

And regrets might as well get lost in hazy sobs

Falling on the city, one morning.

Others as the perfect mirror

I feel tempted to say that others reflect a more accurate image of ourselves than any actual mirror could ever hope to accomplish. I've grown incredibly aware of how my interactions, or lack of, with others are ultimately showing me more of who I am than any amount of conjectures inside my head. We just don't pay attention to it most of the time; or we get into the habit of dis-association whereby we kid ourselves into thinking that we have nothing to do with others' reactions or behaviours towards us.

But social dynamics are mostly based on a game, or perhaps I should call it a 'dance', of give and take, from the more obvious to the most elusive base (ie. subconscious actions/reactions, gestures, choice of words or lack of). Every time we're faced with a person, we're seeing a different configuration that could have been us. Sometimes that configuration happens to be like a perfect echo of ourselves, sometimes that configuration is like a mirror image of who we are inside, which we could never stand and therefore spent years hiding from the world. Whatever the configuration, people reflect one another - from a mere glimpse to an almost perfect mirror image.

The inner world we all have for ourselves is like a realm of 'what could be', but in itself it never actually is you in reality. What draws out who you are is the world at large, its people and chain of events pushing you to pick the choices that will highlight what you're really made of.

Right now, I'm just a sorry ass. It took almost 30 years of my life to realise that. Before that, there were always some excuses to hide behind. There was always something else to blame, or it was just easier leaving it all to rest with my own sense of helplessness. Don't get me wrong, shit happens all the time - sometimes it can be so bad that it will affect you to the point of breaking, but even in the worst situations, it's how we decide to see it that will define the outcome.

I knew about all this, or sort of understood in my own head that it was the case, but it wasn't before I confronted the illusory image I had of myself with others that I started to realise its crucial importance. And so the more I confront my own sense of self with that of others around me, this world at large, the more 'the mirror crack'd'.

Scattered

I seem to understand core issues surrounding my social unease, yet I still fail to see how my better understanding can help in any way.

The same sorts of themes have been dancing in my head these past few weeks - that of not fitting in, and the endless wondering as to why.

But I do know why. There is nowhere I can actually go where I would readily 'belong'. One way or another, no matter where I go, I will be reminded of my 'hybrid' status. What I mean is that even though I was born in one country and grew up immersed in its culture and language, I was always made to feel as though I wasn't 'really' from there due to my foreign surname. Yet my parents never taught me their native language, making me today as much of a foreigner in their home country.

Today I find myself living in yet another country where my accent always gives away the fact that I am, again, an outsider.

I look in the mirror and I see the dark hair, dark eyes and features of someone far more Mediterranean than the part of my family I happen to know, reminding me that there is a whole half of me in terms of origins that is from yet somewhere else.

I effectively ended up in a situation where I have no roots as such. It's like standing with your feet on either side of a chasm, with no means of choosing one side or the other. The notion of origins for me has taken such an abstract and alien one for my person that yes, I shouldn't be surprised to find myself struggling to fit in anywhere in particular.

This led me to reflect on the few social bonds I've managed to form over the past decade or so, and the fact is that 99% of the time, the type of people I 'fit in' with are either misfits for one reason or other, or they, like me, have been drifting away from their native land and origins for a while. I get on with them because suddenly we're on the same sort of wavelength.  Our situations might differ - or rather the detail as to why we don't fit in differs -  but we can bond over the fact that we understand this basic lack of 'fitting in'... this missing link, somewhere, that ends up allowing for an actual connection.

Trying to interact with 'natives' - in whichever country - is like talking to someone standing on the other side of a glass wall. We can interact, but we won't understand each other. They won't understand why I ended up the strange way I appear to them, and I won't understand what comes across to me as mind limitation from them. By natives, I suppose I mean most - but not all - people who spend their lives in the same country speaking that country's native language. Anyone secure in their sense of origins or who comfortably belongs.

So I know why I feel out of place, because I've been made to feel so since I was little and started going to school. There was always something 'different' to emphasise about me...

I know and understand these factors in my existence that led me from point A to point B, yet I can't see how to make peace with it. Maybe that's something only time and self-acceptance can do in this particular case.