#almostomorrow

[almostomorrow]

You never came back for me.

You never came back at all.

I was waiting for you, my clothes

were waiting for you

and my house was waiting for you.

A useless thing, I like a summer dress

you’re never going to see on me.

[almostomorrow]

It is a sort of game, one at which you’ve become increasingly good at Too good for your own good You play at hiding yourself You’ve been playing for years And you’ve grown to liking your nook so much that you barely come out of it at all Even when they’re asking after you. Sometimes all that hiding makes you feel a little bit lost, but you don’t mind too much As long as you keep staring straight ahead When walking by a shopwindow   Ignoring, Silencing rejecting your own reflection And thus convincing yourself that maybe you’re different that maybe you’ve got a bit better since the last time you checked On some days, the most sombre of all, you stay hidden Despite knowing that you’re the only one who is still playing at this game That everybody else has already gone home. And suddenly you miss The silent company of your childhood dolls, their tacit acceptance and their unwavering smiles. But when you too get to come home to a country which you have betrayed for another that will never love you back, And go look for them in the wooden chest in your old bedroom Those very same smiles sting you So similar to the aseptic one you started to wear when you got tired of trying to explain what’s wrong, when they ask you to point at where it hurts And they show no sign of recognition for you, either And they look as if they don’t remember ever belonging to you in the first place. And it’s again that feeling of betrayal That fierce dignity and obstinate resilience that comes out whenever you are once again made to feel like you’re but a phase something transient an inconsistent discrepancy and nothing that no one couldn't do without And that you’re fine, yes You’re perfectly fine on your own. Yet, sometimes you still meet someone who really listens when you are speaking Someone who makes it impossible for you -if only for a handful of minutes- not to see that on your own is possible but together is better Someone who can’t resist brushing his fingertips against the leaves of the trees he is briskly passing by on his way to work But by the time you’ve decided That it is safe enough to leave your nook Behind the living room curtain And switch the lights back on He has already walked past your alley and turned left, thinking there was no one home.   So you do what you did when you were nine and plates were being thrown in the kitchen despite you being right there, so helpless in the middle of it all. You kept as immobile as possible and you observed. The anger. The fear. The tears. Your mother’s, your own. Observing taught you how to be minuscule how not to be there even when being there is inevitable. And somehow that saved you Thirteen years later, You’re still observing and sometimes your eyes burn with how intensely you’re looking, sometimes exhaustion makes you sway on your feet but you keep standing. You seem immobile but it is just that you’re waiting, with hands obediently folded in your lap and eyes wide, wide open. It’s barely past eight on a mid-April Sunday You’re up already. You’ve been ready for quite some time now. A quiet knock on the door before it slips open. You turn to look at the bare light unhesitatingly coming through the kitchen window and you know you can trust it. He’s not back. You are.

M.B, Seeking to no longer hide

[almostomorrow]

“Then the feeling moves on. It does not collapse; it is not whisked away. It simply moves on, like a train that stops at a small country station, stands for a while, and then continues out of sight.” -Michael Cunningham, The Hours

[almostomorrow]

What no one ever tells you When someone leaves you for good Is how much better you are allowed to feel. It’s always about how sorry And empty you should be About how much you should miss them Now that they are gone and you are left To your own devices, Maybe it is out of respect Maybe it is for that inexplicable loyalty To that noxious person To the mistakes you’ve made Which have the person’s emblazed all over them. No one ever tells you this, But it is true. You’re free. Free like you haven’t been in so long. Clear, unlimited and serene skies Are stretching in front of you. You’re free And for every drop of them you’ve lost You’ve won back a bit of yourself. You And your tacit longing to be hugged In the way important things are hugged. You And your weird instinct to fix minor flaws When it’s already too late to stop The enormity of an unfair destiny Like taking a moment to pick up pieces Of shredded glass off the wooden kitchen floor When the whole house is in flames You And your stubbornness in believing Your faulty heart will always remain your own Since no one else is ever going to ask for it. You And your incapacity to ever forget The face of those you have let down And the pictures of them you hang on the wall Like a museum of faces you can no longer touch You And your absurdly guarded and apologetically quiet Way of carrying on loving those who you love. And yet, You. Still unbelievably soft you With such tender and hopeful dreams, As if your back had never bent under the weight Of all the things you tried to blossom into But in the end didn’t. My wish for you is not that Of guaranteeing you that one day Love will remember your way home And meet you halfway there My wish is for you to find the strength To be able to remain soft Even in the case that love won’t.

M.B, Set yourself free

[almostomorrow]

I don’t know where you are And it’s been years since I last saw your face Yet I’m sure yours are the only eyes In which I could look and find myself again. I don’t know where you are And I feel a bit ashamed to be saying That on some nights I’m scared You might no longer exist So I lay on top of my bed cover Without crying, trying to breathe. I know you still exist, somewhere. I can’t hear your voice Despite it still echoing in some distant room At the back of my permissive mind. This is what matters the most. Or maybe it isn’t. I look at your picture The only one I’ve got left of you And -for I moment- I almost laugh: I wonder if you’ve found a way To tame your hair Or to make your nails grow more quickly. I cannot remember why Nor when we stopped being. Being together. Being something together Whatever that something was. What I’ve got left of you today What I remember of you Is only the good. We did not say Goodbye. We did not shout at each other. I can’t explain why I am thinking of you And why I’m doing it now, Now and not when I should’ve long ago Maybe it is for how sweet You were in everything that you did For your unashamed honesty. Maybe it is because I don’t need your presence In my life right now And you don’t need me either But, despite this, I still love you. Maybe because writing to you Helps me remember that I have once been better than this That I’m capable of being light And happy to just be. You are between my fingertips Each time my hands became a little bit Stronger and stop shaking. You are in my hair When it shines in the April sunlight You are everywhere I’ve stopped ambling. You have disappeared. You’ve always been too enthusiastic And dissatisfied at the same time, So much that it almost scared me. I’ve always been much weaker Than you are, simply. I don’t know where you are I haven’t even tried looking for you And I probably won’t start now But today, I imagine. I imagine feeling less lonely. I imagine reaching out and meeting you halfway. I imagine even solitude needs to have confines.

M.B, Outgrowing Solitude

[almostomorrow]

They say that the moment you stop To ask yourself whether you love someone You already know the answer. They say love is something sincere, Something pure. Like a scratch on your elbow. You either have it in you or you don’t. And if you do, You cannot hide it, Like a bad cough Or like those cherry stains On your mum’s blue tablecloth When you were nine and to you Love was nothing more Than a distant and hazy But trusted blueprint for your future. You’re twenty-one now, And you’re asking yourself why. Why does it have to be like that For everyone? So monumental. So predicted, so certain? And, most of all, So irrevocably unfazed By the risk of being wrong? Why can’t it just be That sometimes it’s 7 in the morning You’ve got lectures starting in two hours And you can barely keep your eyes Open enough to count the spoons of sugar You’re putting in your tea. But he’s getting home soon From the night shift at the hospital And when you hear the keys turning in the lock And the door shutting behind him, You almost can’t wait for those eleven seconds It takes him to go down the stairs And see you already up in the kitchen. It’s seven in the morning and one minute now And yet there is nothing That you’d rather do than Sit for an hour in the tepid morning light And listen to him going on about The quirks of his patients And all the madness that is A hospital emergency room In the most vulnerable hours of the night. Why can’t it just be That sometimes it’s 7 in the evening You’ve made yourself A bowl of brown rice for dinner And everything you used Has been washed and Is already back in Its drawer or cupboard. You’ve wiped the kitchen counter twice And you even remembered To give a bit of water To the basil tree on the windowsill. But he was not there To see you do all that Because another night shift At the hospital has started And lately You’ve been getting the feeling That you don’t even exist If he is not there to look at you. Why can’t it just be That you no longer can imagine What it is like to have Something good happening to you And his not being the first face To pop up in your mind Almost as if the joy you feel Would not be even half as real If he was not there To share it with you. Why can’t it just be That you can no longer see The point of weekends If they’re not spent at home Watching cartoons with him And baking just another tray Of gingerbread biscuit, the smell of it Wafting all around the house And the warmth of his stare Seeping into your numb skin, Waking up the blood vessels And flooding them with newfound hope. Why can’t it just be That when you think of your life In one, five, twelve months You just can’t not picture Radiant Sunday mornings with Crumpled pillowcases and cheeks And his arms never leaving your waist. It might be that thirty years from now You’ll wake up one morning And realise it had been love all along And laugh at how stubbornly blind you were Whether he will be asleep On the other side of the bed or not But for now you cannot be sure For now you cannot afford the luxury Of certitude and, meanwhile, You don’t mind setting off On the bendy path of possibility Alongside him one bit.

M.B, Waiting together.

[almostomorrow]

In a few months you’ll turn 22. I bet you’re going to love it You’ve always liked when things are Neat and precise like that. 22 years of one mind-set 22 years of clinging to your values And discarding anything that Puzzles, confuses and scares you. But I know that sometimes you still regret All the things you haven’t said, Important things that you’ve overlooked, neglected A bit out of tiredness, a bit out of lack of courage. I know that sometimes you still wonder How things could have been. How things would’ve been now if you’d done something, Anything. If you had reacted, spoken up, screamed. If you had exposed yourself more, Without that perennial fear of being called out as weak. If you hadn’t thought ‘I don’t want to make a scene For people who didn’t think twice before putting me aside’ Just to protect yourself and avoid confronting Those who were there one day and weren’t the one after. But my point remains, You’re still missing the answers to the questions You’ve never asked and without those The solution to your personal enigma remains Invisible to you. I know most of the time you hate yourself For being like that, but let me ask you a question. What happens when you’re no longer used to being loved? When you can’t remember the last time someone held you And you felt like you weren’t taking on this world alone? It happens that you stop trusting, that you’re rather be by yourself. It happens that when someone tells you ‘I love you’ You answer with a half-hearted smile and think ‘Yeah, right..’ This is what happens. You’re not loved for a long time and when you find Someone who loves you for real, You’re scared to death of it. What you need to understand is that you can be beautiful Even like this, the way you are, with those eyes and that smile. That someone could want to caress your hair under the moon. That not everyone is made to be with you And you’re not made to be with anyone, either. You need to understand that so badly. That you need to love as hard as you can Those who are beside you And have been for quite a while. You need to stop holding back when you hug. You need to be start being more thankful And celebrate every tiny little victory. And who cares about all the other thousands of faceless people Who have never even touched your life And probably never will! You can leave the house and feel beautiful In the ordinary clothes you’re wearing Even if you’re still twenty pounds away from your weight goal, Even if crowded places will never be your thing, Even if some mornings while looking at yourself In just your underwear you’re still going To be able to count every single one of your insecurities. You can be beautiful, As beautiful as a flower And if you could only took your eyes off The unforgiving mirror for a few heartbeats, Maybe you’d see that for someone You already are one.

M.B, Blossoms in the dark

[almostomorrow]

I’ve always been a reserved person. I never talk, I never disturb anyone, I never ask for help. I never lose my temper, I never argue. All I do is willingly miss out on things, Almost as if I think that one day I might be rewarded For constantly sacrificing myself this way. I demand little to nothing from people, All I ever want is for them to leave me alone. I’ve never felt real love for anyone. A few times, I started to feel Something sincere for a boy or another, And opened the door for a few seconds, But I always closed it immediately after, Not out of fear that someone could find their way in But because I was scared that I might escape And never find my way back again. I’ve built and shaped my world With a miniscule studio as a model in mind, So that even when I’m handed something better I categorically refuse to knock down those walls And turn my studio into an elegant two-bedroom flat. I’ve got one box with precise measurements And I take from life solely what fits its size. Everything I stumble on that is bigger And I’ve decided I haven’t got room for, I simply let go of it. But one day you bumped into me, Your cheeks didn’t burst into Flames of shame like mine would’ve, You just smiled at me and made me forget About the ratty box under my bed Or the studio whose wallpaper patterns I had learned by heart. And now that you’re here, With your arms spread wide open, Unapologetic for how much space you’re taking up, I’m seeing for the first time how limited My view on life has always been. Now I know that I want you, Regardless of how much that scares me, Of how much empty space I could end up with And what on earth I would fill it with If you decided to walk away. I want you to sit beside me I want to able to turn around And know you’re going to be there. I want to put my hand on your thigh While we’re out having dinner with other people. And later I want to drive home with you, Make comments with you, criticise with you. I want to fall asleep, wake up, eat and talk with you. I want to talk while looking into your eyes And shout from one room to another of our home. I want to see you every day Watch you walk, watch you open the fridge And eat your favourite flavour of yogurt. I want to hear the noise of the hair-drier from the bathroom After you’ve taken a shower. I want to have arguments with you. I want you to be there when I need someone to zip my dress. I want to feel your fingertips on my bare shoulders, Both delicate and bold at the same time. I want to go to a second-hand shop and buy you A vintage t-shirt because I know you’ll love it. I want to tell you your new haircut suits you And I want you to catch my elbow when we’re walking And I trip on my own feet. More than anything, I never again  Want to have to think I need to be on my own To be okay with who I am.

M.B, Come sit with me.