There’s a parallel world
where you and I
just stare
at each other
for hours
and make up
for lost time.
Every now and then
I say something.
Every now and then
you reply.
But your reply
doesn’t really matter.
Because nothing
can ever change
how I see you.
And nothing can ever make me
want to leave your side.
I’ll starve here, here I die.
I’ll die saying something
every now and then
and waiting for your reply.
Through the paleness
of your skin I could see
your veins,
purple, blue or grey.
The heat was more intense
when it emanated
from the stones.
And the stones
were the same colour
of your veins,
or were they purple?
They were purple
when the blood was pumping,
and the blood was only pumping
when it was in contact
with the stones.
I saw a drop of sweat
running down
your forehead
when you said
the blood
had stopped
pumping.
I looked at your veins:
they were blue,
I touched the stones:
they were cold.
Be careful
not to step
on the pieces
of what we’ve built.
The ruins
of a castle
where you
once were King.
Your crown, oh your crown
had punishment spikes,
but as torture
you preferred silence.
You like how I think,
that’s why you destroyed
the kingdom
and walked away.
But the echo, oh the echo,
it spreads
in all the directions
you said you’d follow.
I follow,
alone.
I’m on the road
to the realm of thoughts,
and the thoughts
come along.
They follow.
I give you enough space
until the space
becomes a void
you fill with water.
And there I float,
where there is nothing,
where there was nothing.
You know I will come back
and build on that nothing,
while you look at the ruins
of what you have built.
I just float on that space
between us, where you said
there’ll always be nothing.
I don’t want anything,
but I do, I want everything.
But not if you don’t want it,
then I don’t want anything.
Only I do, I do want everything.
It’s just the unilateral
mechanism
that I find exhausting.
But otherwise,
I want everything.
You have defeated me.
Only because
there was no way out,
and no way in,
and no way at all.
You knew it
but you still
deployed
the heavy
artillery,
when I was
unarmed,
disarmed,
subdued.
I surrendered
not even resisted,
not even persuaded,
absolutely convinced,
deprived of all means,
of all reason
and disposition
to be hostile.
Instead,
I was held
hostage.
I was held captive.
No charm,
no offering,
no currency
was ever enough
to pay for my ransom.
Another day
of doing the right thing
according to who knows who,
what for and for whom.
Above the conventional law
there is the law of sadness.
A law that opresses the soul
in the name of consciousness.
The doubt leaves me restless:
what is the right thing, anyway?
The dictation of my moral values
has invariably led to unhappiness.
I was waiting for your scent
when I noticed
our hands are the same size.
Your scent
hat to be dug out,
and I did it
with my hands.
But I couldn’t find it now,
I wouldn’t recognise it now,
I don’t remember it.
I dug it out
but I was suffocating you.
I suffocated you
and you let me.
Why did you let me?
We simply looked
at each other’s hands.
Every now and then
you looked at me.
You said my hands
were bigger than yours.
I said they’re the same size.
I don’t know why
you keep looking at me.
I can’t find your scent
anymore.
Your scent,
that butterfly forever gone.
The shame of a secret
you carry in you,
you carry it
because
I gave it to you.
I know you know,
you know I know,
I know your guilt,
you know my shame.
It’s the complicity I seek,
that’s all, I swear that’s all.
You carry me,
my weight
floats on the blue
of your eyes,
the blue of your shame,
the blue of my guilt.
A blue secret you carry
and everywhere
you look now is blue:
but you don’t have
to carry me:
I know you know,
that’s all, I swear that’s all.
I follow the path
of your veins
to your heart,
and your heart is blue,
that’s all, I swear.
On the day
of the void
I cried.
On the same night
we made love
to different people.
The void
devoured
the buildings,
bridges and roads
between us,
and
I saw you
struggle with
the mundane,
Love was
suddenly
too mundane
to be made.
And I cried.
A Brief Life 