Hey america

Transcription of my video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqxKc670dsE

Someone once told me the grass was much greener on the other side

That’s a quote from a show which along other dreams and childhood bricks I imported from this place. Smuggled beneath the iron curtain of this is my culture and that is your flag, I started building my mind with these foundations so like raising a backup horcrux I could always feel home somewhere else.
Or at least I tried. The closest I got was a perpetual homesickness like a nostalgia for the things that never were, every time someone mentioned “America”. 

America, the land where both cowboys and astronauts had been birthed, responsible for my constant lack of attention during class time because of the battling G.I joes taking place in my head while I was rooted somewhere else. A place across the ocean that could make my mind burn with the tales of such beat mythology, drowning brick cities and paper towns being ridden by lonesome poets.

And I felt compelled to go if only to say thank you to these invisible heroes that had thrown corked up oil paintings into the sea so a boy like me, growing slowly somewhere else could enjoy them too. This oil gulf spill they left on me of daydreams and nightmares, which ill never be able to repay. And im aware these trips are supposed to feel like a flash but I felt suspended in the space that had been growing all these years between my joints.

In this culture which I now understand why is so prone to symbols and statues, to keep their godfathers walking among them, paintings of ghosts hanging hanging in their living rooms, whose stare tell them who they were and who they ought to be, like watery graves they will never allow to sink.

A nation that might embrace atheism with one hand and with the other shape statues to thank the fallen wherever they are and to remember the living that even if god doesn’t acknowledge sacrifice, they will. That produces icons and heroes as if it knew nutrition went beyond food, and a child using comic books as armor was starving somewhere, while a man pricks his finger every day with a needle to keep the flag in his porch red.

Whose yellow buses and plastic cafeterias were a high school dream that grew on me as if in some alternate universe Mr. Feeny had been my teacher, and Doug, Arnold, T.J., Mickey, Vince, Gus, Spinelli and Gretchen had waited for recess with me.

A place that birthed these magnets whose scriptures I’ve been reading since I can remember and naively assumed they were made from some dirt different than mine. But I realized they too are looking for the edge of this world, taking steps in spite of these imaginary turtles waiting at the edge to feed on the lost, learning that the strings attached are stronger than we thought, if you lean back on your end ill stumble forwards.

Here I realized the endearing fear we have of being forgotten if only by ourselves which leads to us fingerprinting everything around us, turning the coldest nights into the brightest like telling mother nature we can find beauty in everything she takes away, like telling neil, buzz and that other guy they only need to look down to remember why they went so far, to see how we lift our sons, pointing at that moon, our backyards and street lamps and say “We make stories from this, and then they become true. Not the other way around”.

Felt like alice through the mirror, meeting these electric crowds who like me had grown weary from building pedestals for our chymeras, and I had to cross the sea just to realize they never wanted to be up there. I suffered this trip because I learned the difference between tourism and journey and its that in the latter you allow the place to crawl inside your skin.

I collected snapshots of little towns with white churches, houses made for the winter parked at the seashore, burning with stories and lives I will never live. How I wish I could have been raised in each one of them. I was part of communities that try every day not to fall through the ice of this north they chose to live in.

And America, don’t think im obsessed or creepy but I’ve been picturing this moment so many times thinking of everything I would ask when I saw you. Like:
Hey America, when will you strip off your wars, when will you be angelical?
Hey America, were communists really that bad?
Hey America, how did it feel to have Louis Armstrong and Marilyn Monroe dance on your belly?
Hey America, I heard you would take in the huddled masses. Do you mind if I stay for a while?

And as I leave and you start to look more like the stamp im used to, im trying to remember what your streets felt like, how the people on them walked, how everyone carried themselves. Im gonna try to bring you down from that pedestal I had built for you. It looked cold up there. 

A poem for the Aylestone leavers.

This is for the fat girls
no, that´s not you libby
this is for the little moments
all of you saw together
for the things you left behind in that
soon to be school yard rubble
and for the marks its gravel left on your skin
make it count

This is for all the benches that took your shape
and for all those afternoons you complained about them
their hard wood never quite bending
but how you are gonna miss them
for all the chalk that went into your lungs
when it wasn´t sticking to your fingers
trying to lick it with your tongues
wondering what knowledge tasted like
make it count

This is for all the kindergarden english teachers
that dared talk to you when you only spoke with your smile
make it count
for all the times gym class felt like an evil you could outrun
make it count
for all the clocks that dind´t stop ticking when you asked them to
when you wished these hallways could keep toegether what you were
for a little while longer
because home could wait
make it count

This
is for the cat hiding under the table in german class
and for all the times you tried to feed him
pan au chocolat in paper napkins, with little jesus inside
for that time you turned a chair upside down
hoping it would turn into a tree
and for all the books, school-textes and other pretextes
you used to learn to say "I love you too" in another language
because that was school for you

You were taught all this literature, trigonometry and biology
but it felt more like botany
because you learned how to grow into each other
you are branches so intertwined, words are out of place
i see a thousand of them in every glance you exchange
and i´m left wondering
if that´s what harmony feels like

Do not settle for letting time settle
or to let all of this be washed away by this tide
this is for all the poetry teachers you ever had
and for how they tried to wake you up
for the times you went on vacations
knowing you would always come back
never realizing there would be a time when you´d say
"Fuck, this is my last"
so damn it, make it count

This is for the light that came through the class window
like sun slipping through the metal bars of a prison
and for all the maps you schemed and the tunels you digged
with spoons that were meant to lose their edge
and your pockets, their fate was to carry dirt
but the beauty, as in most things, was on the planning
and not on the breaking free
and now that you are so close to parole
you wished you could commit another crime
to be again chained to the same chain-ball
but you can´t, so make your sentence count

this is for you
this is for you
make sure that by the time this feeling returns, you are gone
because this is something you can outrun
all these years you´ve been cutting parts of yourself
to pass them around
so make that count and don´t forget each other when you do
because all that you´ve ever done, was greater than yourself
so crawl through the tunnels you made
make some more969gnn
cover them with dirt
then dig them again
for this is yours

make all those years worth something
make of those days more than just another round on this merry-go-round
we so confidently call earth
take it with both hands, look at it in the eye
let your soul wrap around it, then let it go
let the image burn into your skin like it finally decided to sink in
like you wanted the scent of these years to stick to your atoms
it´s fingerprints on your body as evidence that it happened
far too young to say they were the best days of your life
even though you are willing to bet so

Now the world knocks at your front door
so clutch the knob tightly, and open on up
run forward into it´s widespread greetin arms
which bare your name
don´t worry if your whole body trembles
that´s how it ought to be

Happy birthday Sam.

I´m sorry I couldn´t translate more. It was harder than I expected. I´ll keep on though. Meanwhile, I hope these suffice.

This is for you.

This is for the ones who are tied up to reality by the string of a balloon which burst as soon as they stopped being children. For the ones who built their bridge to this world with such fragile Lego pieces that time didn´t care they were made of plastic, he rusted them anyway. For the ones who grew up wondering when would they be shoved into that machine which would make them grownups, which would trade their dreams for things they´ve wished they´ve done, their smiles for greeting cards, their eyes which wouldn´t cease to be amazed for the tired looks in their parents face. Parents who told them they would understand it when they grew up. Understand why sometimes they bow their heads a little too much, drop their arms rather too soon, give up far too often. Or why at some point they stopped dreaming, when their ideals crashed against reality, and learned how to draw a line dividing reality from fantasy. Maybe they only learned to fear the sound hope makes when it gets crushed.

This is for all of those who were about to give in, who were about to let someone paint them gray, but were saved at the last moment. They discovered that there were people who not only read books, but also lived them, as if the pages were not mere cages of words trying to shout something at us. They found that some not only listened to music, but felt it on their bones and when they closed their eyes there were violins instead of silence, and the world mattered a little less. People who walked different and didn´t look away from what they saw in a mirror. People who never kept their dreams in one drawer and their day to day in another, who acted as if there was no line dividing reality from fantasy, as if Don Quixote had been right. And we realized we wanted to believe the same. We wanted to believe there was no such line.

This is for the ones who always knew that the most real things are the ones who can´t be grasped, but could never quite explain it. For the ones who nevertheless tried to, with their own words, never cowering behind big phrases like “What is essential is invisible to the eye” as if saying that would suffice. For the ones who knew that truth wouldn´t fit in a sentence, couldn´t be trapped into a can, or squeezed into a slogan. As if seven words could cleanse our soul, elevate us over something, or fill an empty space by themselves.

We had the impression that this life was far too predictable, far too tangible to expect from it something more than eating, sleeping and staying alive. It was then that I found out that if I piled up stones I could make a house, but if I piled up words I could make worlds. I wasn´t the only one, but we were the exception to the rule. And if you ever paid attention you must have seen us. We were the ones who read Twenty thousand leagues under the seas while the other kids learned to play football; the ones who admired Tom Sawyer´s wit while our classmates laughed with each new curse word they learned; the ones who searched for treasure maps buried in our backyards while the other girls dreamt of prom, and the other boys dreamt of hanging those girls as trophies on their walls.

In this way we raised ourselves, detached from everything which surrounded us. As we watched everyone else desperately cover the cracks made by souls which are trapped too tight inside our bodies, we expanded them till they became caverns, and without fear of exploring them we found out that to know who we were we just needed to hear the echo they gave back to us. But this left its mark on us, living in the shadows made us pale and afraid of too much sun. We wanted to believe that our days as outcasts would be repaid, that this was but a test, that we were doing the right thing, that we were martyrs. But then we grew up.

We entered adolescence, and laughed at our naiveness. Of course no one was paying attention, no one was interested in our story, and if there was some god watching over us it didn´t matter, because he never came down to comfort you. The only thing that brought us comfort was that sentence that we tried to carve on the back of our minds, “there is no such line”. It had to be true. As a gambler who thinks himself lost and goes all in, as a man who jumps from a moving train for he knows where the train is heading, as a lawyer who stands up to shout “Objection!” right before the judge´s hammer strikes the wood sealing someone´s fate, we had to believe it was true.

But the odds were against us. We realized there were no dragons to slay, for Saint George had taken care of that, nor islands to discover because NASA´s satellites saved us the trouble and with that the glory. But that couldn´t stop us, our dreams grew up with us. They became more humble, more rebellious, and they appealed to us more than ever. We learned that an adventure could consist of a shitty car, a road disappearing into the horizon and a stranger that at the end of our journey we could call “brother”.

We changed our fantasy books for stories of people who seemed to look something to hold on to, because just like us, they had trouble finding something worth grasping in this world with more stones than words. Our ghosts changed from flying white sheets to tormenting memories, and knights in shining armor to anyone who dared help us fight them. We sold all our hot wheels plastic cars and with the few coins we got in exchange we bought a poster of light blue Ford convertible of the ´60, as a monument to nostalgia. We liked that poster. We liked to think some boy had put together that car piece by piece saving it from oblivion, using sweat instead of oil, heart instead of discontinued spare parts, with that abstraction that can only experience a teenager who feels he´s doing something greater than himself.

The movies showed us people lost looking for a place where the ground wouldn´t burn their feet, letting the wind carry them like paper dolls with broken wings, crashing with others once in a while. When that happened, the friction of their frayed wings intertwining made sparks, casting flashes of light over the imperfections of each other. And they only found beauty in them. They laughed at their flaws, and the more cracked they were the harder they laughed, to make it clear they didn´t care.

We know that nowadays there are few roads disappearing into the horizon, because of the buildings growing from the ground like prison bars. We also know that there are not many light blue Ford convertibles of the ´60 out there either, because nostalgia is old fashioned. And we also know that there are every time less people who let the wind carry them. Perhaps a life with no surprises managed to seduce them at last.

But I want to believe it´s not like that. I want to believe there people sitting at the edge of the road waiting for a car to pass to stick their thumb up in the air, for one of us to shoot a flare into the sky so that none is left in the shadows, for an air current to throw us all in the same direction. Let´s keep our wings open just in case. And when that night arrives, like vigilantes dressed up as vandals, we will abuse of the innocent amount of caffeine in the cans of Coca-Cola, brandish our spray cans as broadswords, and wield them against the prison bars which once kept us captive. While everyone sleeps, we will go back to our rooms, pale and tired but smiling.

The next day I will laugh when I see all the men in suits wondering what does that sentence written on every brick wall mean.

“There´s no such line”.

Statues.

The thing with statues is that they are perfect, but they fall.

We admire, idealize and immortalize them. We look over every single flaw, o even worst, translate it into a virtue. If they are scratched we say it´s a scar telling us a story, if it´s in ruins we treat it with the solemnity we´d treat a martyr. We interpret every turn as a sublime cadence, every gesture as a message shouting to be deciphered, every chisel as the lair of a truth which is bigger than us. Amidst this urge to worship it we forget it´s made of stone. It cracks like every floor tile we´ve ever stepped on, collapses like the asphalt on our streets. It doesn´t matter how much we wish for it, we can´t rise them above other stones, we can´t make them the exception.

I'm not really talking about statues, or stones, or even less perfection, but movies have taught me to talk in metaphors whenever it´s possible. I'm actually talking about your boyfriend. I'm talking about your dad. I'm talking about that English teacher you had in highschool, about Gandalf as well as Dumbledore, about Albert Einstein, about the Knights of the Round Table, about that musician that seemed to write all of his lyrics in your name and you do nothing but watch how they grow like forests in your soul. You will be tempted to love without return, to obey without questioning, to believe in all the answers they give you, to follow a wizard into the battle as if he was a banner, to obey a moral code because the one who enforces it is noble, to rise your heart into the air with your fist hoping that it will fuse to that man who sings over the crowd, wishing that the wind could rip out your voice and take it wherever he goes.

Don´t.

None of them is incorruptible, nor as special as we wish they were. They weren´t with Dante when he visited hell, nor had a chat with Saint Peter at the doors of heaven. They are so alike us that we are afraid to even think about it. So far from being rustless, so close to being made of plaster, so perfect but crackable. But words… words never rust. We fall for them without even realizing it. We feel enlightened when we let the lyric of that song trespass our defenses and fit so easily on our insides, it´s chorus finding shelter in our folds; when we listen to a Gandalf´s speech under the gates of our castle which is about to fall, bending already upon the blows of those who are coming for us, and we believe there's a reason worth dying for wielding a sword; when we read a sentence, a single sentence that shakes us so deeply that we can´t rest until we spray paint it over every gray wall on this word, until we shout it onto the ears of every man leaving their lives behind on office cubicles, if only to go to sleep knowing that at least we tried to wake them up.

It´s okay to believe blindly, but believe in the concept, not in the man. If you are going to love without return, love an ideal, and not someone made of flesh and bone. If you are willing to give up your life, to jump into battle without thinking it twice, let it be for the cause, for the words written on that frayed banner waving in the wind, but never for the king that holds it up from his throne. Not because the king was corrupt, or a tyrant, but because he´s a man and nothing more.

As every other man who seemed indispensable for the earth to keep spinning and taught that the earth keeps spinning without them; as every other who owned the world but let it slip between his fingers, simply because they couldn´t with it´s weight; as every gargoyle that protected the gloomy cathedrals from imaginary enemies than only the could see, making their sacrifice even more noble; he will fall one day. He´ll fall because just like statues, it´s a matter of time before we become ashes again, regardless of how high we get.

But the words we say… they are perfect, and they never fall.

4/30: Little sailboat.

There´s a small sailboat on my wall

it lingers at the edge of the frame

the walls in my room are blue

I think it wants to sail through them

I rip out the frame, but gently

it didn´t wish to be born a prison

I shake the painting a bit

the boat trembles with fear and joy

it jumps of the ledge

falls to the ground slowly like a crumbled paper

gasps like a fish taken out of a fish-bowl

like a bird, flaps his sails which are wings which are broken

I pick him up softly

my hands are lighter when I hold him

my palms are weightless when I lift him up

I tell him to be more careful

then I drop it on the wall

he falls right in through the paint

stops midway to the bricks

but stays motionless as if stuck

making small wave rings

I try to give him a push but I can´t touch him anymore

I blow towards him, he moves an inch

he needs more wind, I reach for the window

feel him come to life

His sails swell up clumsily like a pidgeon

testing it´s wet feathers for the first time

he´s a tree that can´t grow leaves anymore

he´s a kid afraid of the dark outrunning a storm

he´s a sailor looking for a cove to name, to go there

every time he feels like casting roots

takes off without saying goodbye

I wish to step into it and fall asleep inside it´s wooden heart

it´s humid planks bending with my weight and the waves to rock me

But i´m too big to fit

I wave a handkerchief

he soars through the walls doing anything

but a straight line

goes out the window

doesn´t even have a shadow to hold him back

i´m glad he came with no anchor

Sometimes when I lay in bed and can´t sleep

he comes back

sails up to my roof where I can see him

and traces constellations of wakes for me

until I drift off to sleep

he´s there as well

never says thank you

but lets me lay on his planks and rocks me until I fall asleep again.

3/30: My Milos.

Let us take stones from a brick wall to make a pond

where kids can throw pennies

and learn that they sink

let us take down barbed wires from the trenches

knit them into butterflies, then let them go

knowing that no one will dare

kill them with their hands

let us feed the animals in the zoo

and make a bonfire

with the signs that tell us not to

take them out of their cages with me

watch them take over whatever is theirs

Put your face on the ground

help the ants carry their leafs

and when they try to bite us we´ll let them

if that´s what it takes to make them happy

carve words of tolerance over a church

rip out their doors made of gold

and hold them up

so that they reflect the sun

and lets it flood where it´s always dark

when night falls upon us

steal the light out of a street lamppost

put it into a bottle

and throw it where it´s needed the most

And when they call our names

trying to make us write them down

and hand them over

when you start to hear big words like

redemption

or salvation

take my hand

and run fast

we won´t ask for shelter

nor cry for help

because we never expected anything from anyone

and we won´t start now

when we are about to end

So when the sirens tell us

they outnumber us

when they command us to give in

start laughing with me

laugh like a mad man, with a grin in your face

so that they tremble when they hold us down

let it echo through the buildings

so others have time to escape

and when they strap our limbs

and cover our mouths with duct tape

tell them with your eyes

we´ve had their sanity

but we threw it away

and watched it sink like pennies on a pond.

1/30: School taught me to hate poetry.

School taught me to hate poetry

taught me to measure it

in tea spoons

because it was rude

to drink too much of it

teachers too afraid

to take a poem with their bare hands

and eat it raw

they would pick knife and fork

disect it like a corpse

until they felt brave enough to face it

then they would taste it´s dead flesh

nodding as if they had the right to approve

then forcing us to do the same

while Bukowsky and Frost weep

because kids are learning to fear them

while the dust settles over the stars

and the mountains

and the shadow of the trees

because we are forgetting

how to pronounce their names.

They thought that was love.

Everyone saw two people holding hands, except me. I saw a young man with a wide grin who thought himself ready to carry the weight of the world over his shoulders. Next to him, I saw a beautiful girl who couldn´t wait to be someone´s miss´s. But they weren´t actually holding hands, they weren´t reaching out. Between them there was a distance, a rupture. They couldn´t understand that the other one was a whole world by himself, and that ignorance kept them slightly, but crucially, apart.

Standard questions were asked as to make sure not that they knew what they were doing, but that they would follow the path so many others took. Everything was so beautiful, and it felt so right. “Yes” they answered, as a boy beaming with pride when he knows the answer in an exam, and the priest nodded like a teacher who feels he taught his students well. And of course, they thought that was love. Nobody asked him which movie could make her cry the most, or when was the last time she had dreamt with him. They didn´t care to know if he would take her in his arms by surprise and jump into the pool with their clothes on for her birthday; or if she would play with his hair while he slept, whispering in his year how much she liked him. No, nobody thought that mattered. They only knew they were both innocent and would never hurt anyone. They would use them as rag dolls and strike them together to make sparks out of each other, to keep these fires burning, to keep this whole charade running and the gears of this machine fed with the smoke that rose from their minds and bodies toasting from the friction. They didn´t have to be in love for that.

I felt the panic crept slowly through my body as I realized how many times had this happened before, and looked around in panic as if expecting to find a flaw to my argument among these people, inside these walls. But all I saw were faces urging them to keep on walking forward, to keep this snowball moving fearing it might fall apart if it stopped for a second to think why is it rolling . I wanted to stand up and tell them that they didn´t know what they were doing, to ask shouting how was everyone okay with this. But I didn´t dare, I knew they wouldn´t understand, I knew they would treat me as a madman. Between the flowers, the “You are doing the right thing, son” or the “I´m proud of you” engraved in their heads, of course this felt as the right thing to do.

But later, when the balloons are all bouncing half empty on the floor, and the champagne bottles have longed been popped, and they turned around and realize it´s only them and a janitor cleaning the floor for the next couple waiting by the door; when they went back to their brand new house, and opened all of their presents smiling to each other at each new surprise and every “Oh, how thoughtful of his part”, when the wrappings of the gifts had been torn apart leaving everything exposed, and when time went by and their own wrappings started to fall off like they always do, and they were left standing face to face with their ribcages wide open without anything else to distract them from one another… well. I wonder if they will be able to hold hands then.

When someone young dies.

You might remember this one.


Someone once told me how horrible it is when a teenager dies. From my bubble of cold logic I glanced at him, “Isn´t it horrible when anyone dies?” Apparently he felt the need to defend himself for he answered “Of course every death is cried, but when someone young dies… it´s so much worse.” For the way he said it I knew it was one of those things you can´t explain with words, so I didn´t ask him anything else. He wasn´t going to give me the answer I wanted, and I strolled away thinking “That´s stupid, all deaths are equally terrible”.

But today I realize that´s not true, and I´d like to know why. I want to be able to explain that, which is only felt, and when tried to pronounce results in muttered fragments of something in between incomprehension and indignation, an attempt to give a shape to what we all feel, a longing to name it. Some break into tears, grief, and so many other things; or they translate it into eloquent speeches about mankind and society, fantastically spoken, but used to cover what they can´t speak out loud. Others, we remain in silence, and seek to understand.

Understand… understand what makes it so terrible. Is it the innocence they snatched from him, how in his few years of existence he couldn´t have done anything that bad as to deserve death? Or is it because at this age we are so moldable and undefined, with so much to learn and so many decisions to make that such an irrevocable sentence makes us stand up before the jury and claim for justice, for benevolence? Maybe it was the years thiey stole from him, all the road he left untraveled, the lives he could have touched, the times he would have gone around the world. That´s because when we are young we are unlimited potential, unrestrained energy, ourselves in our purest state, and we still have so many shapes to assume. I think that´s why it´s so terrible, because someone dares to stop this machine when it´s starting to build up momentum, because they tell us we can´t go on even before we decided which way to go, because they extinguish us when we should be more alive than ever.

Maybe you will cry him a little without having known him, when you are alone in your room and you finally realize what happened. No, you wouldn´t be a hypocrite, because when someone young dies we all die. I didn’t know him, and here I am. Writing this.

Indulgence.

A hermit hears the cry of a newborn through the woods and among the trees finds the infant on the floor. He hastily prepares a fire to keep him warm, and backs away into the shadows to watch him sleep. He fears that his hands, rough and insensitive as they are, can hurt such a fragile creature. Days go by, when the sun is up the hermit hides and watches him play, when the sun goes down he creates a shelter around him. The sleepless nights become evident in recurrent dark circles which refuse to abandon the hermit´s eyes. He intimidates, hurts, and even kills those who attempt to harm the baby, and in doing so he becomes corrupted. Remorse and guilt dominate a man who was until now at peace with himself.

The little one grows cheerfully, as he feels that a caring and benevolent entity takes care of him. The hermit ages pale and tired from living in the shadows and working at night, and his back bends with the burden of those who commit atrocities. The child wakes up every day among fresh flowers and harmless forest creatures. The old man goes to sleep covered in dirt and surrounded by nothing else than corpses of the beasts who threatened the kid.

When the little boy grows into a young man he feels ready to meet the one who hides among the shadows. Shouting, he begs the man to reveal himself, assuring he has nothing to worry about. While describing the unconditional love he feels for him he even calls him “father”. Beaming with pride and happiness, the old man enters the clearing with tears in his eyes. His arms stretched in front of him are not trying to hide the numerous scars; they all bare the boy´s name. His tattered clothes fail to hide his thin, battered figure. His mouth twisted in an atrocious grin, as he has forgotten how to smile.

The young man who was never before seen such a horrific sight feels the terror a child would experience should a monster appear in his dreams and runs away screaming for his father. The old man, unable to catch up to him, falls to the ground, with tears in his face. Maybe of joy, or maybe of sorrow. Either way, he knows himself condemned but does not regret anything he has done and dies on the spot with the weight of the years crushing over his shoulders, but the cleanest conscience a man could have.

But then, I wonder, who would have been innocent.

We all have a second star to the right.

This is a really old one.


-Are you coming with me?

Interrupting her thoughts and thinking she had heard wrong, she looked at him surprised. How dared he break the silence? Strangely enough, she couldn’t find a single shadow in his eyes, as he smiled expectantly reaching out with his hand towards her. It was an absurd move, were she to say no, he would be left in ridicule. He must have been plotting something, perhaps he´d take away his hand in the last moment and laugh at her naivety. She was still trying to decipher his strategy when the mechanical and rusty music began to rise in the air. At the same time, hundreds of colored light bulbs turned on to bright up the night following the rhythm of the engines coming to life around them. Only then she realized where were they standing, took him by the hand without hesitating and got on that ferris wheel which they only remembered from old photographs.

-How easier it was when we didn´t turn everything into a chess game… wasn´t it? –He said looking over the rail, wondering where could he find two red balloons, if not ninety nine.

-I forgot when we ended at different sides of the board –She said, knowing there was nothing to pretend.

-We don´t have much time, do we? –Though he didn´t feel the rush to spend it with words either.

-We have all the time in the world, we just can´t realize it –And she laughed with a wide grin, like the times in which her gestures didn´t hide an attempt of seduction.

-A shooting star! -He exclaimed with an effusiveness any adult would have been ashamed of- Shall we wish for something?

-It´s weird how if you don’t pay attention it just goes by without you even noticing… and you wish you could just go back in time -She spoke as if not expecting a response, while leaning her head over his shoulder

-What, the star?

She lifted her head to look at him and found his accomplice smile in the dark. Somehow, she could not remember the times in which she believed in shooting stars. When had she started to blame them? When to ignore them? She regretted the years lost with what she had taken for maturity as she realized how the important things seemed more like empty concepts when you looked at them from the top of a ferris wheel, and how things like shooting stars appeared worth chasing.

-Of course, the star –She said, displaying the same smile all across her face

-Then…

-Yes, come on. Let´s make a wish. But don´t tell me what it is, or it won’t come true…

Strayed

This is one of the first things I ever wrote, like... 2 years ago maybe.

Some filed document gone missing, a typo mistake, or even a crooked seven that´s confused with a one. Such trivial mistakes are enough for a soul to end up on the wrong place, at the wrong time, like a package whose directions have been misread by the mail man. These souls will always try to fit in, and sometimes they will even appear to belong to where they are, but deep down they know they shouldn´t be there. Knights who were destined to wield spears on battle horses will be pierced with anguish when they grab their suit cases and ride their bicycles. Indians who were engineered to run with the wind will bite the asphalt with their bare feet, and will frown without quite knowing why. Magnanimous, wise men who would deserve a golden throne will be confined to a cubicle on an office.

Maybe the ones who control the traffic of souls are, ironically, soul-less beings. If that was the case, a slight change in directions, or maybe years, would suffice for them to laugh mischievously. To do this even more interesting they probably start working more efficiently immediately, so that the highest amount of souls go to the right place and time, making the outcast´s soul even more alienated. After all, there are many who go to the beach seeking crowds, only a few looking for sea shells.

The strayed souls will soon realize they are different. First, they will suspect there´s something wrong with them. They will probably spend most of their childhood, and if they are unlucky their adolescence, punishing themselves for being strange, trying to cut off their weird edges and polish themselves so that they fit through this slim door called acceptance, because of the stories they´ve heard of what lays on the other side. But then, sooner or later, they´ll realize it´s fucked up. Everything is. When a boy stands up to give a lady his seat and is looked upon with resentment, he will wonder when did chivalry turn into chauvinism. When a young man is surprised by the corrupt gears which make the world turn he will be called gullible, and will want to know when did innocence become the same thing as naivety. When a high-schooler walks barefoot for fear of hurting the grass he will be mocked by his classmates, and will apologize to the trees in their names. And if that wasn´t enough, they will whisper behind his back “He´s crazy, don´t talk to him”.

They will realize though, that they are not the only ones like that, and they will find shade in the monuments erected by other souls just as lost as them. Musicians, writers, artists of any kind, they all feed on the sense of strangeness that this world generates on them. The worlds they create will make much more sense that this one, even though they exist only on paper.

Fictitious characters will be more real than the people that ride the bus with us. They´ll find more truth on the lyrics of a song that on any article of the constitution, and the verses of some book will become their law. They´ll never feel lonely again, because they will know that all of these stories were made for them.

The streets read poems too.

What good can I do

for a world

fond on making new roads

when all i´m good at

is finding cracks

on the asphalt

for people

who don´t want to see them

for road signs which tell us

to overlook them

for elementary school teachers

which forbid the children

to rest their ears against their edges

and listen to their story

for policemen who order us

not to pay attention to them

for they are the chalk outlines

of unsolved murders

that everyone is willing to forget

All I want to do

is lay besides their

cracked

but still shaking bodies

whispering trembling words

about not forgetting

promise them i´ll visit

every once in a while

to talk about their glory days

while the ants march besides us

their quiet steps

too humble

too shake the ground enough

for anyone to notice them

but I do

and maybe that´s why they keep walking

or maybe they just don´t care

Alone

Once

a man grew

more than he should

trying to grab

the sky wide and blue

hoping he could pass over

the clouds

to reach god

and rip from him the truth

But then

he heard a voice claim

"No man should be that tall"

So furious he made

a furnace called hate

to melt that voice inside

which frail as a bird taken by the neck

couldn´t help but watch himself

burn

As the man added more logs to the flames

he heard someone call

"No man should be burned

for speaking his ways"

so he grabbed him too

to fuel his hate

and they weren´t the last

Soon others danced with them

to the beating rhythm

of the cracking flames

while the giant watched as he wondered

how could they lift up

their heads

if he had broken

their spines

how could they still

laugh

if he had crushed them

to dust

He ignored he had taken their feet

but their suffering turned into wings

which took them far

even past

the clouds

When he realizes

he´s all alone

he will reclaim this

cold piece of earth

his own.

Collision

It begins with a suspicion we underestimate, continues with a rumor pronounced in a low voice, heard echoing through some empty hall, advances into a sort of taboo for conversations but unavoidable in whispers, evolves to something spoken between failed attempts of hiding the awkwardness it produces, mutates into disturbed looks and hurried steps. Finally, leads to crowds in panic.

Before we realize, people are already running with their arms over their heads, ignoring whether they should be escaping from something, or trying to get somewhere. Is someone attacking us? Are we looking for something? Once we decide to pay attention we realize they are shouting at us to get ready for the crash, the collision is imminent now.

Horrified, we look for something to cling to and try to preserve what we are for as long as we can. We see how we get closer to the threshold at cruiser speed, and we hang to the tables of the floor as we watch the feeble attempts of others to tie themselves to everything they find. We shiver as we feel that this threshold´s shadow covers us already, and close our eyes wondering how hard the impact will be. What shape will our lives assume after it? Or rather, what shape will we assume…

But we feel nothing and we stand up cautiously. We check ourselves, hoping to find us taller perhaps, or turned into men, but we´ve aged only a few seconds. We look confused at those who pretend to have fallen from the commotion, or those who now walk with a false expression of maturity. We happen to glimpse someone who didn´t tie to anything at all, and laughs to himself of this big choreography. Inspecting our surroundings we see the pictures are where we left them, and we can still recognize ourselves in them. Our childhood books were not replaced by thick, dusty volumes. Even our marbles are there, on a corner, waiting for us to play with them again, someday.

I need a break so bad

I need a break so bad I would buy some tires
Just to stop them dead on their tracks
I need a break so bad I would break my own back
Just to feel something snap
I need a break so bad I would grow into a giant
To tear up the skies and make them rain
So that the water gets into all of the machines gears
And all of the people's fears
And jam them to a halt
And slam them with hope
And stillness
And silence.

Then when the metal bowls of cars are frozen
And everyone stands for an anthem unspoken
I would,
Breathe in
Breathe out
And say
"Okay, let's keep on going".

I won´t wish you a happy new year.

I won´t tell you “Happy new year”. Not because it´s not 12 o clock yet, nor because I'm far away as usual, nor because my cell phone always manages to get no signal. Nor because I don´t care about you. The more I cared about you, the more careful I would be not to tell you. And that´s because I don´t believe in the change of years, just as I don´t believe in any sudden change which doesn´t require time, sweat or blood. I don´t believe in celebrating the fact that time keeps on going, cause time doesn´t care. He did so when we weren´t around, and he never needed a party in his honor to feel like he was doing a good job.

I don´t believe this night is any different, nor we bigger, nor the world wiser. I don´t think anything changes when a champagne bottle pop´s, nor when you blow 18 candles in the dark, nor when people on the streets announce the dawn of a new era. They are moments, like the flash from a camera which doesn´t give us time to blink, like a shooting star we see through the corner of our eye and later wonder if we saw it at all, like a kid that wants to light up the night with a match but never can because matches are consumed faster than shadows, and when he refuses to let go, just burns his fingers.

And just as you don´t walk up to the Berlin wall on a random day to throw it down in the name of freedom, you can´t expect to light up the whole night with whatever it is you are carrying in your pockets. That´s because many don´t learn when they grow up, and believe maturing means buying bigger matches. But as now we know ourselves bigger than the night because we are men, we want the whole world to know we are trying to light it up, we wish to turn off darkness for a while, we are trying to tell the sun we don´t need him to see. And I see them, throwing up fireworks as if they were throwing pennies into a fountain, and I see them taking pictures below an exploding sky, wanting to burn forever. And I feel sorry for them. And I know I always think more than I should, and that I cry if someone steps on an ant, and that I turn the simplest gestures into the most tragic ones. But that won´t change today, I won´t change tonight.

Because perhaps many believe in a god who can move mountains by snapping his fingers, and that maybe we are not that far from being a mountain and our god a first of January. But if the first thing feels absurd, imagine what I think of the second one. If there´s something to do this night is to close your eyes so that the lights in the sky won´t distract you from what really matters, and in the time it takes for you to breathe in, think were you are and more or less where are you going. Then breathe it out and let go of it, smiling ever so slightly, not because this night is special, but because we have 365 nights ahead of us just like this one to do what we haven´t done yet, to grasp this world a little tighter.

And I smile, because I know one of those nights you will throw down a wall which divided you in half, you will light up the night with matches you´ve been carving yourself for a while, and that will be your finger snap. Not today, when this summer celebration inspires change, but maybe on a winter night when you visit someone´s grave. And even if the next day is a Monday dressed up in a suit and the nation doesn´t believe you deserve a holiday, I will be there toasting with you. And when you ask me why I never wished you a happy new year I will tell you I was waiting for this night, and I will raise my glass and just say “Happy revolution”.