And you are a coward...

‘I’m sorry! I’m sorry!’

It’s like a mantra on your lips that is just starting to be enough, even for me. It’s out there, you said it and there is no going back, no second chance.

How do you think great loves end? Is it big, messy, public and humiliating, or just like a flame that at one point died down, ceasing to exist?

I think it depends on the two people that were once in love and the way they were. It’s suffocating; it chokes you, that feeling that you have lost something so important, so beautiful, it is simply overwhelming. It’s like for one second your mind stopped, just because it could not comprehend the pain, the loss, the other half that isn’t there anymore.

Did I ever tell you how it happened with them? That one day he realized that he simply didn’t love her anymore. Do you know how that feels, how it eats you up from the inside? How it ruined her for the rest of the days that were to come? That from that point onward and every other relationship would be defined by him; that glimpses are painful, and smiles tear you up inside?

Do you know how it feels to live everyday with the fear that the person you love will just wake up one day and realize that he stopped being the person that loved you back?

Cowards should not exist, at least not in love, because their actions are pitiful. They denigrate everything that was important; they ruin every single memory that was beautiful, just so they don’t have to say they’re sorry, sorry they stopped loving you. And they make you doubt every touch, and every kiss and every thought. They make you question your feelings and yourself, when in reality, love simply rotted away, because some are just incapable of such emotions.

So, when the time comes, I want to be the one that wakes up one morning and realizes that my heart does not belong to you anymore.

Because, otherwise, I am afraid that you will be a coward.

And you see, cowards should not exist, at least not in love…

Glimpses of time and space

I close my eyes and a memory invades my senses. I can feel myself slipping easily and comfortably into it. I’m sitting high above the floor, on my stomach, with your hands around me, and your strong heartbeat throbbing underneath my left breast. The windows are opened wide, while the room is warm and nice, filled with the smells from the rain outside. Raindrops are hitting the metallic window frame, creating a soothing noise. It’s like there is nothing else out there but you and I in the warmth of the room, and the rain. The illusion of time simply disintegrates in front of my eyes, the idea of something before this or of something after is simply nonexistent. There is no space and there is no time, just the two of us happy to be here, now, together.

My eyes are closed, while the wind is tangling my hair, whisking away a lock that escaped my messy loop. The air is cold, it smells of rain and grass and green, while all around us the temperature is lowering, creating the illusion that we have slipped into a different world, where the air is fresh and the heat is welcomed. You are in the driver’s seat, with your 70’s glasses – to protect you from the light; and your white t-shirt – just in case it rains again. Music is filling my ears, the beat accelerating my heart, while the speed increases my adrenalin level. I know you feel it too, the anticipation, the suspense, the need to keep going. I know I could do this indefinitely, sitting in the car, while you drive, taking us somewhere, anywhere.

I open my eyes and the site that first greets me is of your hair, falling over your closed eyelids. You’re sleeping calmly on the other half of the pillow, with your right arm loosely around my middle. I can hear the noises outside, I can see the first glimpses of morning coming from the window, and still, I am reluctant to move, to go anywhere, to disturb our peace and quiet. Trying to blink the sleep away, I see you watching me and I realise that you have been awake for a while, waiting for me to open my eyes.

And I smile.

And you smile.

And it’s morning.

‘It’s been 9 months, 14 days and 3 hours since I have been stuck in this place. In this wonderful place where life is simply pulled out of me bit by bit, where my soul is broken into a million pieces, leaving me haunted and empty. I can hear patrolling outside, heavy steps hitting the muddy ground. Rain has been coming down in gallons for the past few days, it is sad and wet, while even time seems to have stopped altogether… seconds into hours, hours into days and days into weeks. This year is the longest of my life, this year is my entire life, because there is no future beyond it and I can’t remember a past before it. Have I ever lived in another time and in another place?!

I don’t remember anymore. I go outside. The cigarette in my hand in tattered and ruined, but I smoke it anyway. It is the only one I have left. The smoke is filling my lungs, killing me little by little, but not fast enough for my liking. I am sitting in the door, trying to avoid the rain. I crush what is left of my fag in the mud bellow my feet. My boots are almost broken, the water is sipping through the holes in the sole and my socks are getting dirtier. Hmm … I don’t care anymore, if it’s cold or warm it is the same to me. I take a few more steps outside; my face now invaded by a thousand small drops of water. It’s cold and clean. I can feel for a split second once again, a difference from everything else around me at this point. It’s gone. It left as soon as it came. But that, I want that back, the ability to feel, the ability to understand things around me once again.

No matter how much pain is inflicted on me, I can’t sense it after so much time, even in the shower I don’t feel anything anymore. I am dead on the inside. My body has stopped responding to the life around it.

I re-enter the room I just vacated. It is damp and the smell of mould is invading my senses. The bed in the corner is wet and the mattress is ruined, while the sprints are digging into my back every time I sit on it. Pointless.

I put the gun on the wooden table. I trace the cold metal with my forefinger. Fascinating. To be able to feel again, to be able to hold her and love her once more. What more could I wish for?!’

From outside the barrack two men sitting for a smoke away from the pouring rain hear a gun shot.
Pity…

[photo: Angel, Falling : Final by *GwenGothIllustration, www.deviantart.com]

On a rainy day, two people are walking hand-in-hand down an alley, all wet and cold. They are there, in the middle of this storm, but nothing can make them walk any faster, hurry them along or destroy their rhythm. If the sun was shining and the wind was blowing steadily on a beautiful spring day, they would have maintained this same pace, because no matter what, they are on a walk.

Five streets away, a little beggar girl is trying with all her might to hide a small stray cat in the folds of her ripped sweater. She is sitting at a corner of an isolated street, between cardboards and pieces of old clothes, where the water can’t get so easily, wanting to be as far away from the rain as possible. That corner is her home, or at least has been for the last 3 weeks. She is lonely and scared, but not for herself, because she knows that she can handle anything, but for the little life in her hands, that is shivering strongly, or maybe they are her shivers.

On another narrow street, not even 50 meters from the little girl, an old woman is on her hands and knees in the ever rising water. On the pavement, in front of her are bits and pieces of old papers and materials. She is trying to gather them all back in the wooden box in her hand. But everything is pointless; the water is soaking them fast, blurring the writhing and ruining the soft materials. The moment she picks up one of the black and white photos, the paper in her trembling wrinkled hand disintegrates, and the image is lost forever. The smiling faces, the happy memories are all fading now, with the water washing all over them. The tears in her eyes mingle with the raindrops, while she tries pointlessly to pick everything up.

Two alleys down the road, an old man is struggling to get away from the pouring rain. He can’t walk without his cane, which now, because of the wet pavement, is even harder to use. He is sick, so very sick, and pneumonia would be deadly for his weakening body. But he knows that no matter how fast he will try, his house is much too far away. He forgot to take his pills an hour ago, and now he is here, caught in the storm. He is continuously repeating in his mind that he has to take his medicine as soon as he gets home; but he will forget again, and because he is now soaked to the bones, his neighbor will have to call the doctor again tonight, one last time.

On a rainy day…

[photo: www/flickr.com/photos/greenka2000/1651247515/ ]

[to be read slowly with a lazy air and long pauses between words]
'It's the 3rd of August today... still.
Dear Diary,
Life's a bitch. It's been a while since I have written anything. I guess I was either too bored or too entertained to find time for this. Right now I am actually really sad, angry, pissed off, sick of everything, bored to death, lazy, comfortable, with a strong need to scream at the top of my lungs. [...]I want to through up.[...] No, I'm not bulimic, it's just my stomach... of course I am not going to do it. I'm not suicidal. [...] Yet...
Scream...
Swallow...
Lick my lips... they're dry...
Drink some water. It's tasteless... it's warm... I want to spit it out. I don't... It would make too much of a mess... I would actually have to get up and clean the spot it hits. Too much trouble. So I swallow it.
The phone is ringing. Who cares?!
It's annoying. I should shut it off.
I'm too bored. He will give up eventually.
Outside it is still hot, if I go out there, I will start sweating. No, thank you. It's hard enough to breathe in here, why make it more difficult?!
I swallow again.
'I don't care anymore', lyrics. They sound nice... in another language. The song has ended. Pity. Hmm... this one is too cheerful. Whatever... stopped listening anyway. Noise in the background.
Shit...
I knocked off the water glass. Great...
I should get up... maybe I should have spit the water earlier too. It is too late now anyway.
Swallow...
Close my eyes...
Death... Sleep... whatever...'
[my take on a fictional diary of a very bored young woman... ]

[photo: www.cookiemag.com/homefront/mrsyoung ]

It's raining steadily outside. You're in front of a window, sitting on pillows and looking at the puddles that are just forming bellow you, on the pavement.
You breathe in, and when you exhale, the glass in front of you becomes foggy and the view blurrier. You start drawing patterns with your forefinger on the cold window. A raindrop touches that exact spot on the other side of the glass, where your finger is. It's cold. You can feel it, the difference in temperatures. Outside and inside. It's cold, it's soothing, just like kissing cold wet lips when you are a little bit too warm. It calms you down, it eases your senses. Your finger gets a kiss from a raindrop. Then the gravitational forces start kicking in and it starts to fall, to slide down the glass, until in reaches the wooden frame. You feel the need to trace it down, to prolong the feeling, but you know you can't, it would ruin the pattern on the window. So you let it fall.
Outside of you, of your room, of your building, it's still raining, the water is still gathering bellow. Your forehead is touching the glass window and you close your eyes. It's still cold and you can still feel it, nothing has changed. You breathe in deep and with your right hand you wipe the drawing from the window. It's just a name, as once it belonged to a face, just another face; and the clock keeps ticking and the time keeps flying by...

[photo: www.picasaweb.google.com/bowlerportraits/Illustrations#5133227264484009410 ]

Childhood dreams and childhood hopes. Wishes and desires all mingled in a tight ball of thin thread, so delicate that it can unwind at any moment, which will eventually happen in different places at various moments in time. When you stop being a child, when dreams stop being filled with blue butterflies and pink roses, when reality starts keeping you grounded to the world, you see pieces of thin thread being blown away by a cruel wind. And you finally wake up, reality is knocking hard at your door, making it impossible for you to keep dreaming and wishing for something better. You are here and you are alone and that is how it will always be...
There is no one to keep you company, to hold your hand while passing through this world, to wipe your tears or to support you when you are falling.
Loneliness is miserable, is destructive, it eats you from the inside, little by little until all your doubts overwhelm you.
You reach the end, and you sit there, at the edge of the abyss, trying to look beyond the darkness down there, and you can't decipher anything; you are scared and you are crying and wish for someone to put his arms around you and whisper in your ear that everything is going to be fine... but you don't feel strong arms embracing you... you don't feel anything so you close your eyes, tears coursing down your face; and you fall...

[photo: www.muhabire.blogcu.com/2260205]