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”.