Decrescent

I wait until all the lights go off
And everyone falls asleep
I wait in front of my cold cup of tea
And long forgotten about it
All these hours that I here forever sit
And look up the window
How the night turns dark
And you'll forget my name
I know it must be so
Some of these days
Until the year is complete
And so the moon in your heart for me
It slowly decreases until there's nothing left
But air, very thin
And then the sun, a replacement
Where, not so long ago,
Only I have been.

A miracle

Let's take the first train out of the city
I say to my friend
"Sure, you do that
And I'm taking the first bus home"
I sigh.
We are smoking two dead cigarettes
Somewhere on a street
In this dead city
Ever so dead these last few days
You sit and say
Only a miracle could make you
Move yourself up from that bench
I say let's go find it
But you think I'm not the right person for it
Your miracle
And that you'd get bored with only me
As if we needed something else
In the cold dead night
Other than two mouths that know each other
And can easily shut up
While we save our heat
To reach the end of this dark
Until the new year comes up.

Frozen

I lie on your shoulder
Freezing cold, with two glasses of wine
And not so warm gloves
Your mom is talking with you on the phone
And shouts for a minute
I pull myself closer to you and whisper
'I'm glad you're not like that'
My only normal friend
My only friend.
I reach home with glass
Instead of fingers and toes
I remember how I saw a man
With reindeer horns
As I was walking down the road
It's funny how it doesn't hurt
When you no longer feel nothing at all
I have this frozen body
And warm water that feels too cold
I take a shower that is more like a bath
By the looks of my tub.
You always come in after a while
To ask if anything is wrong
And get closer to check
In case I tell you a lie
One of these days, since you are not here at all
I might never stop that water from running
And turn forever cold.

Sweater meshes

We have a pointy needle on the wall
And sharp claws at the end of our cat's paws
But them I can't ask you to hammer back in
For unraveling my sweaters' meshes.
We live in a house full of cups and spoons
And a kitchen full of teabags
That plugs our sink's flushing sometimes
But you don't complain
As other people do
Just like you don't complain
When you hear me flush my nose
Or make funny laughs
While I sit all heavy on your belly
Like a pie
Or a cub.
We have a washing machine
All full of laundry
But you sit in front of the TV barefoot
While I tell you how your feet are wet
They wet my Santa socks
As we keep them stuck together
Paws on paws
And I spin my teaspoon
In my cup of tea
But they are just cold, you see.
One of these hours
I'll send you out to buy some bread
The coke you like
And a pack of cigarettes
For you finished mine
While I was asleep
But for now we'll just stick
With the tea
In front of the TV
Turn off the movie on channel three
That's already started
And watch Ice Age from my CD
Until our hungry bellies growl
With discontent.

Roasted chicken

There are three types of salad in our fridge
And two cakes
Actually only one
Done in bigger proportions
Because it's the one I like best
Actually the only one I can make.
There are three types of salad in our fridge
And two cakes.
And I'm eating my mother's peanuts
In the cupboard under the desk
But I send you out to buy some chicken
A roasted chicken to eat for lunch
Even though it's already dinnertime.
Charlie and the chocolate factory
Is running in the distance
And I'm wearing my favorite sweater
For three days already
You get up and say
How you don't like
Their British accent
And leave for the  super
That's only open 'til seven.

Pear shampoo

I wash my hair
I ask you to boil me
A cup of tea
And I go in the balcony
To hang the washing out.
I hear the cat scratching
Some wooden tiles on the floor
As I sit on the corner of the bed
With one hand holding the dryer
Next to my hair
And with the other writing down
Some words I saved in my phone
You come in to tell me
Tea water is ready
And to put something on
Or I'll catch a cold
You rest a moment
To say my hair smells like pears
You come closer to check
It smells like that indeed, you say
Then go back to your computer games
This is just another ordinary day.

The 25th

It was the 25th.
I left the house after a while
And went out to see my father
Who was alone on Christmas day.
I personally didn't feel like going out
I was getting used to the air in my house
As I always do
After some days of inactivity
Laying down, just laying down
With no wish and no agenda
To wake up or to walk out.
Finally: there I was
Not as cold as I expected
Surely not as crowded
It's funny how the road seems to climb
Like out of a dream
As you leave the old familiar path
Near the block
That suddenly seems strange
Every new year
Every few days
The world is a strange place to me.
No people on the streets
No wind in the air
You feel like floating
And your body is light
On this cold deserted planet
Outside your house.

This is a day I can't hear the cars
And the blocks have sweat
In this purple light
Next to the bus station where I wait
Not sitting on the little bench
Like so many times before
For I already feel relaxed
Like in a sleep, my mind someplace else.
I wonder why are there so little people
Walking their dogs in jackets
(Both them and their pets)
I wonder who is walking who.
I wonder why are there so little cars
Outside on the streets,
And why are they even there at all
Where are they going to
When people are resting behind purple lights
And sweaty blocks
Perhaps even sweaty sheets
But my eye doesn't reach that far
And from out here
It all seems dead all the same
No matter the day, the year
And the hour
This whole scenery repeats.

The loan

I just can't grow any further
My roots are nearing their ends.
So are my flowers
They can offer no more to the world
From whom they borrowed
A short amount of time
Which, up until this day
They haven't honored
With nothing of value.
So now, the hour has come
That I give it back to you -
My time of sorrow.

Leaning

Leaning forward with my head
Pressed over bathroom tiles
I remember how I never feel safe
Except for when I have hot water
Pouring over my soft parts.
I always feel like almost out
Of an embrace
That no human
With their legs crossed over me
Can offer
In my most intimate parts.
I wonder
When will the time come
To not feel that space
That breaks me apart
And to feel warm
Underneath something else than water
To fill my unsure heart.

Touch has a memory

I cannot unsee
What I have seen
I cannot unfeel
What I have felt
This is why I never touched
Out of fear a body
Will leave holes in it
That in absence,
Would kill me whole
Whenever I thought about you
Too much.

The absent-minded

Sometimes the skin is so soft
You can't even feel it
And every touch becomes absent
Just like your floating body
On the floor
This would be the best time
To try and hurt myself
Cut and let that forgotten pain go
A hole in the body
For the hole in the heart
You spent so much time trying to ignore.
And now as your mind goes dizzy
It suddenly seems so easy
The way the world stops
And you can finally let go.

Lines

"I am afraid that if I stretch too much
My arms around you
They might break your lines"
The lines that keep your body together
And alone from me.
That's what you said me that day
The day it suddenly turned cold
And your hug too stone as ice
To touch me lightly like it did before
You suddenly wanted to break me
Because you were angry
But you couldn't, you see
I'm not that easily broken
And you are never that angry at me.

Recreate

In class they tell us to bend on one side
Like a banana, looking at its feet.
The body is a faceless curve now
It has nothing more to hide, with its ends bent
Forming a clean cut where it used to split.
It can speak clear to the world now
It wants nothing from it
Just a small space
Underneath the ground
To live in quiet
And rest for a while
Watching little figures float
On the surface of the earth
While he can recreate himself
Away from dirt,
Away in time,
Happily curved around a thought
There, where the light can't touch it
Its ghost of love
That could last an eternity.

Clean paper

I opened up my notebook
Wishing to write
About how I feel
These days I haven't been really good at that
Telling how I feel
Even though I have drowned
Repeatedly
Bending over the bathtub
In dark days
With my hair wet, and my face wet
Over thoughts I can't stop
Don't want to stop
From hearing.
I have cried so much
Inside my head
That my lips when they open
They don't know what to say
Or how to move
They just close back
They don't know how to form a thought
And deliver it to the other.
When I raise my hand across the table
You won't feel my warmth
For that didn't happen
I never moved
Never touched
Never delivered.

Did I have a good day?
No, I had a forced day,
A forced happiness,
Forced survival
Like any other day
Like months and years
No end
Just lies
Lives I can not bear to have
In my head alone
And nothing touching my sight
I long to see something real
More than anything else these days
When I hold my breath to hear
Your voice speaking my name.

The green sweater

I made myself beautiful today
Put on some lipstick
And the green sweater
You brought me last Christmas.
I left the house really happy
For I was going to see you
Walk with you in the city
For the first time in months.
We were out for a proper date
One week before the holidays
When I was going away.

I left the house feeling happy
Only to hear you complain
That I ruined your day
You didn't remember about any date
And told me you were going to spend
Your last free day at home, to sleep.

I made myself beautiful today
Put on some lipstick
And your favorite sweater,
That for some reason
I put it away,
And came back feeling nothing
For you didn't want me to stay.

Christmas spirit

Christmas is just an excuse
For sad people to gather around
Spend money, eat and pretend
Like they are a family
Like they are happy
And like they love each other
When none of it is true.

Christmas is just an excuse
For sad people
To pretend.
For some of us
There is no energy left.

Christmas is just an excuse
For people to pretend like they are people
When what they really are
Is faceless machines:
I look at you only from eyes down
They are inexpressive anyways.
They gather only to talk
But never to listen
They gather to eat
But never to taste
And they raise only to touch
But never to feel
When they are touched back.

What present will you bring me
This Christmas?
Is it something I want
Or the chance to realize
You don't know anything about me?
Is it just a family gathering
Or the time you offer each other
Some love?
Is it a day in a year,
Permanent happiness
Or nothing at all?

What present will you bring me
This Christmas
Is it just an excuse
To sit in a chair
Surrounded by strangers
I didn't see in a year
And who, if weren't for Christmas,
Wouldn't bother to give
A cup of call?

Is it for Christmas?
Or is it just an excuse
For me to feel
Nothing at all.

False memories

It seemed only natural that I should see my ghost
Sitting calmly one day in the same room as me
Perfectly reachable to the touch of others
When I thought about it so much inside my head.
The only question for me was
When will that day come?

I have all sorts of ghosts
That live in there
Ghosts of the past
Ghosts I haven't met
Ghosts of myself
Of the people that I am
All at the same time.
I become a different one
Each time I make contact
I am someone else for everybody
But what more than a walking ghost?
A living dead
I am all the people that I've met
I am all the people I've been with
Now that they've all left
What remained is nothing but a ghost
Without a body to love.

What if one day my ghost came back home?
Is the memory of a dream false if it never happened
Or if it's just in my head?
I have so many memories of you,
Even though we've never met
You've lived in my head for so long
That now, when I look around
The space around me has traces
Of where our minds touched in winter nights
The only time where we can be together:
The light is not erasing you
Nor your feet on the floor
Cuz you don't have any
The warmth doesn't melt your body
Your soft, cotton skin
For I can never grab it
And the fact that you are just a ghost
Is not really a big thing
Because i can feel it -
Everything.

Social being

I only like to meet you when it's dark
And you can't see my face
As I slowly adapt my breath
And my face
With its stubborn teeth
To the act of talking.

You see, other people
When leaving their house
Need to adjust their eyes
At the sight of dark.
When leaving my house
I need to adjust my eyes at the sight
Of people.

Closure

We were intimate without touching
Like birds must be
Sharing a brench
Some smidgens of bread
Or better - some insects
In the lucky days.
Always flying at one another
Always reaching with their beaks
Almost as about to share a secret
But what words could come out
From their teethless mouths
Always reaching
Never touching
But everyday feeling
That this day, shivering together
In the cold winter, sharing a brench
They were closer
Always a bit more closer
Than the day before.

Scene of the crime

Before their last breath
Insects die with their legs crossed.
I remember this is how you left me
That final time I let
You inside my heart and in my bones
A creature other than my own
Inhabit my bitter self
And what you did was push me aside
Calling me names about my shrunk body
That couldn't relax for the stranger outside.
That was also the first time
And I've been with you ever since
Without loving you a single bit.
But my poor heart kept trying
As my flesh couldn't forgive
The marks you left on my open body
That first time when you didn't love me
A single bit.

Reflection

When I look in the reflection on my entry glass
At the door to my house
I try to take a picture of it, so I can show you
How I look like in the evening, when I come home
But the camera stops with a flash
And you can't see my reflection.
I'm like a ghost
Only I can see myself.

I hate it when people try to make contact
Confessing to me
About their feelings
Or declarations of love.
It always feels like they want something
And I have nothing to offer.
It's like at some point I've been broken
And all of my feelings have fallen apart,
Down somewhere,
And I can't reach them.
Lately I've been feeling
I don't want to anymore.
And the little that I have left
Is to survive only
The ultimate quest
The ultimate wish:
To shrink.
So don't accidentaly rub your leg
Against mine
Nor push me with your elbow
In sign of joke -
It's not funny.
And don't kiss me on my cheeks
At goodbye -
I don't kiss.
I don't touch you
So don't touch me back.

I hate it.
I fear it.
I cry over it. Late at night. Every night.
You don't know repugnance like I do.
So don't reach for me
Please
I'm not there.