open diary

23 years old aspiring writer from Europe// communication & public relations student

[v-italite]

There is something beautiful about me, in my childhood bedroom, smoking on the window like i used to when i was 16. There is something beautiful left in this city i call mine. There is something terrifying in this silence that stretches for miles. There is the smell of the unknown on my mother’s skin. There is the touch of the past on my breasts and the knocking of the future on my door, while we make love.

[v-italite]

running its course

this thing never should have started,

and i knew we were living

on borrowed time, i wanted

to stretch it to other continents,

to cover entire seas with it, i wanted

to close you inside of it, you

my favorite exotic bird, i wanted

to watch as you tried to free yourself

from this crushing embrace.

your bones cracked the other day

and now i'm left with this cage in which

i lay naked around the feathers

you left behind.

[v-italite]

As you made your way back to the car with your luggage,

I stared at the door in disbelief. You don't know

that I could tell you apart in a crowd

just by the back of your head, like that time

I almost got lost in the supermarket -

I recognized the shape of you just by

your lingering thoughts, your mouth

shut with words you never wanted to say, I begged

and begged, and ripped the skin on my knees

on the altar of this love, and yet

I could not recognize you anymore.

[v-italite]

Just like that, it was over.

My hands were trembling when he gave back his ring, saying he was done with me, done with us, as if I were a commodity, a doll, an action figure that he bended in all the right ways until her leg broke and she became unusable. And, for the first time, the girl who never dared to blame anybody, blamed someone who was not herself.

Bigger, darker than before, the sky unfolded in thousands of shades of blue unknown to me. I was left alone on his planet, in our bed that seemed infinite in the absence of his body. He didn't care to look back, not even once. He didn't dare to remove his toothbrush. This decision, it didn't belong to me. I was dreaming of white dresses and cradles when he came crashing down onto us. He left me alone to gather the pieces of my dream.

And, for the first time, I dare to hate. I hate you for ruining my life, for making me give up on hope, I hate you for clipping my wings when I was just learning to fly, I hate you for not looking me in the eye when you shot the last bullet. You didn't even care to look at my body, ripped open, on the ground, didn't even care that my blood was spilling all over our love.

I never had any hard feelings towards ex-lovers. I was one to find good things in everybody, yet, this time, I don't think there was anything good in you, apart from lies and illusions, apart from your people pleasing tendencies that never extended to me, as if I were less than a person, more of an object that belonged to you, a pretty thing to put on your shelf, a speaking doll that didn't know when to stop. You punished me for my love, you made me feel small, you were nothing but an empty promise.

Did you ever believe in our love, or was it all for fun? Was it all a game of proving something to yourself? Were you scared of growing old without someone by your side, like I was? And now I'm left to wonder if you wonder about me. Do you know that I have to depend on strangers to get by, to ask for crumbles of human connection, to have my coworkers hug me with pity?! Do you know how dehumanizing it is to be nobody's child?! Just a girl who changed countries for the sake of love, abandoned, discarded, used and abused, now roaming the streets like a stray dog, hiding in the shadows, ready to attack.

I never hated my ex-lovers, but now I hate you. And do you know what the worst part is? That I would've taken you back if you had returned in time, I would've erased everything, I would've convinced my mother again that you were a good man and you cared about me, but now it's useless. Thank you for teaching me to never cross my boundaries for a man I didn't even love in the first place, a man I settled for because he seemed calm and sweet, different from the other stormy lovers, but, in the end, this man proved to be worse than all of them.

Thank you for being my life's biggest failure. I hope you never come back, and if you do, I promise I will have the strength to not accept you.

[v-italite]

When he chose to be with you he didn’t do it wholeheartedly.

Remember that night with that ceiling so high, your neighbors throwing parties

You were never invited to, remember how he took the wrong turn 3 times,

Remember his hand on your tight, remember crying for help,

Remember when you hid and lied and cheated on men

Better than him, but also worse,

Remember that he never wanted to be buried in your ground, his heart will always be back home,

Remember that you have a home, remember you can always return,

And if you do, remember to do it wholeheartedly.

[v-italite]

“I feel good by myself”, he says,

In the aftermath, you touch the empty side of the bed

and imagine victory where defeat lies with its hot breath on your neck,

imagine his hands running down your soft sides, in the aftermath

you sort of forget the color of his eyes when he refuses

to watch you when you speak, you wonder

if your looks could kill, would he already be dead, you wonder

if your poison was ever his type, you wonder

if you’re good enough - you think you aren’t, maybe

this is why he always chooses himself, you try

to not demonize him, you forget

that sometimes people show you who they are,

but he never did.

[v-italite]

Say a prayer

Say a prayer, come get down on your knees baby,

tell me about the hundreth summer you spent inside,

drawing shapes on your bedroom ceiling

that vaguely resemble me.

Say a prayer, come closer to me baby,

put your hot lips on mine and swear

to surrender to this illusion of a fleeting feeling,

swear to never build another home

inside these crumbling walls.

Say a prayer, make the sign with your tongue

three times, it's an oath that keeps us

together, intertwined like siamese beasts

in the womb of mother earth,

ready to be birthed.

Say a prayer, love, sign the contract,

I promise the truth and nothing but the truth

in exchange of a single lie, in all my life

I shall never pray before a fake God, come on,

Say a prayer, oh sweet darling, say it now,

turn your back to the door, take my hand,

and reach nirvana.

[v-italite]

Double life

I.

Discomfort marks the boundary.

One early symptom was the boundary.

If the pain descends to your left palm

You should call for help.

 II.

Which came first,

The need or the system?

Deceit is an axiom

When spoken in your mother tongue.

 III.

In utopia he found relief.

Order was preferred

Before improvement was discovered.

Watch out for signs.

 IV.

How do you kill something you love?

A body is a weapon.

Loving is a transaction and you’re

Unable to give enough.

 V.

I hear the child howling like wolves at the moon.

The invention of suffering.

When teeth emerge, demand for special care

Becomes an early symptom.

[v-italite]

Somewhere tulips will soon be in bloom.

Before the hill, the field unfolds in a thousand shades of green,

And there is still so much dust left

To walk barefoot in.

Somewhere there are faces in a dusty frame - faces that I know,

Dancing in your absence. From up on the hill

I can see their shadows on the walls.

Somewhere there is blood that bonds.

I remember the first time I saw my baby feet so similar to yours,

It is maybe in the shape of our nails that we come together:

Father gave me my hands, but the legs that took me far

Belong to you.

Somewhere we meet in the middle.

In the mirror, all the women who were before become me,

I see them in the sharpness of my teeth, and lately

I seem to chase memory like dogs chase days,

Running in circles through the maze that begins and ends

With you.

[v-italite]

an ode to time

This new life has a new high ceiling and white walls and maybe

this isn’t our first life together

but a new one,

a new way to fill this space with furniture too heavy

to carry on our own - you grab

my heaviest box. For the first time nothing gets lost

and my socks are all in pairs.

Look at you! My gosh, how sweet your morning kisses, how

careful the way you arrange your books in that

tiny bookcase we got - tiny bookcase

tiny table for two in my heart

that only has room for one - that’s you.

Look at this little life, a kaleidoscope of moments

I never dared to wish for, I wonder

if this routine could eat me alive, what a priviledge to be ! (sharing my bed with you, I mean.)

The brailles that only your spine spells under my fingers

is the new language of love, no doubt.

[v-italite]

untitled love poem

between your fingers i unhinge like the perfect full sun. you make me shine so bright i sometimes forget that people lie and kiss with the same mouth and i wish you to be different. scratch that. i write you to be different. in the incommensurable space you hold between your arms i bury my head and feel my hair curling at the ends with passion. i inhale the scent - my mother’s skin belongs to you. you’ve got that space behind the ear that only i get to kiss, those traces your body leaves on the mattress in your wake, like happiness’ aftermath, that familiar nonchalance of skipping school and reading poetry under the desk, and the green of your eyes gleams with the hope of being the safe space i make you to be, therefore, i dare to love.

[v-italite]

There is no point in writing happy poems

There is no point in art if it doesn’t make you bleed Or so I think, but there is a point In feeling the best you’ve ever felt in years, In growing out your hair, In holding hands and cuddling closer Inch by inch, taking over something Palpable, alive, like your body, Like your soul, There is a point in taking up all this space. “You left your stuff all over the kitchen counter” you say And I answer “Yes” because There is a point in leaving traces of me All over your life, even though There is no point in writing happy poems.  

[v-italite]

Our lives may just be an agglomeration of unfortunate circumstances That end in unspeakable mistakes, Yet when you sing off-tune in the shower, When you interlace your fingers with mine, I feel like this bus-ride we share is too short. (And I pray with every Piece of me) I pray to the same God as before, (My faith never changed) I bow before this never-ending kindness you harbor, I open my body like a casket and you Lay down, (still very alive, both of us) And I fall asleep in your shadow, This love I feel Towering over me.

[v-italite]

I was 20 years old and everything was beautiful

I was 20 years old and my best friend still lived 20 seconds away from me. I knew when the seasons changed by the shift in the air, how the clouds moved above this city I called mine, how to sleep on the left side of my body and not feel my heart drop.                                  (There was always somebody home.)

 I was 20 years old and falling out of love with the love of my life. Around my ring finger, a promise I didn’t know how to keep wrapped itself, but I was only 20 years old and somehow excluding myself from this narrative didn’t seem cruel.                                     (I called it “chasing my dreams”.)

 I was 20 years old and got everything I asked for, the world was an oyster and God, a loving father to his spoiled little girl. I built empires on ashes and set them ablaze without knowing what the matches in my hands were for.                                      (Somehow I didn’t feel the burn.)

 I was 20 years old and I had nothing to grieve over apart from this made-up pain I created to keep me going, “It makes me write better”, I thought but the pages were blank and my life kept living itself.                                      (Out of the happy moments.)

[v-italite]

Is this what you wanted?

Did those words fill the void you call by my name? Did her hands touch you where you would have wanted me to touch? And did the people at our table satisfy your need for violence? I wonder if you will ever grab the gun and shoot - Should you be given the chance, that is - Is my blood pouring on the floor, under my chair, enough of a sacrifice for your cowardice? 

Grab me by the collar, look my insecurities in the eyes (At least mine if you can’t face yours), tell me about how you’ve healed - now, did you really? I know I didn’t. And tell me how you’ve read my poems, how only you have seen past them. (you didn’t really)  You call me “An interesting person” and I pretend  I don’t feel like a guinea pig under your stupid magnifying glass.

My skin is burning from all the lights in this crowded restaurant - Blood-sucking vampire woman you make me up to be And you know it, you dare shoot your arrows At everything I love, and in the end you’re right: You and I is nothing but a closed time-space continuum that I crumpled in a paper ball and  Threw to the dogs to play with - you never meant anything to me. Now read this poem and tell me: does this satisfy your thirst of me?

[v-italite]

only impostors talk about “impostor syndrome”

i eat my worries at midnight and

i let them ferment in my throat, let them make their way up and feel them pouring out of my years - very nonchalant, very unapologetic. i eat my worries at lunch while i feel their eyes burning the back of my head i know what they think - the past is never kind, i feel them burning holes through the skull of the man in front of me and he smiles in his usual quiet way, i fear today he’ll break bad too. my body is a masquerade, a Venetian ball, nothing but a plan made by an evil mastermind that is supposed to be me but i don’t feel like the antagonist, you see, in my story everyone is the main character but myself, i forget about me for episodes on end, yet why do they remember me so well? “the society of spectacle” they called it back in the 60’s, “commodity fetishism” I think is a more appropriate term for this picture and in this small town-big girl situation even the walls can hear me, even the walls can eat me whole.

[v-italite]

Mine

Say it again: I am No luxury, no cotton-candy-flavored, Thin-legged girl. I am disastrous me and he, He is just unapologetically himself. This is my “Eureka” moment: In his bed, my loose ends are wrapping around each other And I keep my thigh between his legs as to Stop him from getting away. I remember him laughing while his body Pulsated into mine – a man made of feathers, He weights the weight of a thousand white pillows. I have yet to meet a feather that doesn’t float. How many times have I written a boy into “The One”? Don’t answer that. I feel the vomit reaching the back of my throat; The experts call it Hyperreality: me, falling in love with you is the “Inability to distinguish reality from simulation of reality” You wrap your arms around my naked body: “Mine”.