Fight

Today she decides to stay hungry. It makes things easier.
There is no weighing the portions, no scanning the ingredients, no avoiding the snacks.

There is only the sharpness of the hawk. She moves around the house like a predator, inspecting signs that could signal her path. She will not taste.

He is shrewd. He knows about her plans, picked them up from underneath her window on his way to the zoo. He feels like the eagle today, he will make her listen to him. At strategic places he drops maple cupcakes, croissants, summer salads: near yesterday's pillow, on top of the cold shower, in the silver cigarette box.

She is recalcitrant. She acts as if nothing is there, looking away when her nose detects the ambush. She bends down and puts on an armor, it gives her the readiness to fight. There is no flow, only a clear goal at the end of the day. The determination of not giving in.

He invents new tricks: seasons her friends' conversations with his name, cooking her favorite rib eye steak with bell pepper sauce- carelessly leaving it on her doorstep.

Her stubbornness grows. The kitchen smells are everywhere, she finds them in her bed, detects them in her morning coffee. They pop up in the evening breeze. The armor gets dented.

At one point she cannot take it anymore. Fed up. The smells have to go. She is ready to pay.

For a good result certain limbs will have to be cut, olfactories will have to be taken away.

Activate

The question is how to get your sanity back.

It might hit you, one morning, that you're stirring your coffee too long.
For two hours you are trying to mix the black with the black.
Possibly you are stuck, in a thought, or just alongside the road.
The milk is next to you on the table, the sugar on the bottom of the cup. You are wondering how to get moving again - how to get the chili in the stew.

There are some ways to proceed.
First you try mimicking the busy life. Force getting up at 8. Picking up three fights and having the checklist done. Dressing up as if important stuff to do. Saying 'hello', saying 'how are you?'. By noon you have run out of things to run for.

Then you could still cook the food. Impress the husband with a nasi goreng on the table, lead a Stepford's wives' life. The baby, the kitchen, the smile. There is no explaining to do.

Or, there is the office job. The structured day plan, the lunch away from the desk, the gossip near the coffee machine.

The baby and the scheme.
The unacceptable alternatives.



(picture taken from http://pascalcampion.blogspot.com)

full moon

So for lives to come
when too dark a night
I'll turn into an animal
trusting you, howling wolf,
to help me find the water
to lavish my
awaiting
heart

Leaving myself

This night I left myself.
I couldn't help it.

Hurriedly I did some attempts to prevent. Swallowed sticky whisky, gobbled down black chocolate, hoping for the glue. Long skinny fingers trying to grab just anything.

But the threads were too weak, they broke off immediately. It were all uncontrolled nervous gestures to hold on.

And then it was too late. There was total separation. A person that used to be me was shaking on the bed.

I tried to return, but the way back was full of barricades, thoughts that had no meaning, no chance of getting through. Quickly I even lost that sight, and with a broken voice called friends to ask whether they had seen me around, whether they could pinpoint me all right. Some had vague ideas, they had seen me the other day. The hints they gave me turned out to be useless all along.

It was me who had to return. Only I knew the directions. Vaguely, but I knew. Tonight I will try to stay.



The only piece I can play:

"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes".

Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

Goethe sagte: Wuensche sind Vorgefuehle dessen, was wir zu leisten im Stande sind

Staying

Everyone felt the wave was coming.

They had been predicting it.

Sailor-men standing at the shore, with their hands above their eyes, pointing at the distance. They told me to let her flow. To let her get me without protest.

I was hiding in the barn, looking at the wooden wall, with my hands on the straw. Head down, black eyes. There was a small stove in the corner, and a kettle was boiling. Some women were protecting the door. They were whispering, looked in my direction at set times, making sure I was fine. Men tried to get inside, but my guards sent them out ruthlessly.

The first wave came from below.
It hit me fast.
More intrusive than expected. For seconds I couldn't breathe, gasping, trying to get my head above the waterline.

The second one broke me down. My body rose up - ready to fight, not wanting to give up so quickly. An Indian woman came up to me, and pushed me back. She forced me to stay on the bed. Another one rubbed my waist. They were gentle, but their faces emotionless. They offered tea. Food was too dangerous.

With the third the sweat streamed down my hair. Black mixed with red. There was no screaming, all voice had stopped. Maybe my organs were on the outside, blood everywhere. The oldest of the women knew it was about time. She came closer, our eyes met. They tried to tell me something.

And suddenly I remembered.
It was what I had known all along, but it had been erased by a too easy life. In a split second, right before the final stroke, I finally knew what to do. My veins confronted the wave and I,
I managed
to
___sur
_____ren
________der.

End

We all know the silent dinners.

The wife. The husband. Not having anything to say.
We see them in restaurants sitting next to us. They pop up at our table.
We recognize them through the windows of the empty streets.
We turn away our heads, not wanting to take part in that meal.

I am sitting in a restaurant now, looking at the man across the table.
He is eating. Creamy duck soup. We are silent.
I wonder how I ended up here. Why I came this way. What I should do with the menu.
Maybe I should gobble down my food. To stuff myself with ingredients. Talk to the nice couple from the next table.

Or maybe I have sit through it. Be silent for a while. Feel how it scares the bones out of me.

And then I should start to talk. Express what the silence means. That we have no more to say.



Wonderful picture taken from http://pascalcampion.blogspot.com/

Men

They called this war a cloud over the land
But they made the weather
And then they stand in the rain and say:
"It's raining".

---------------

He ain't coming back, you know that
You must know that in your heart

---------------

Waiting for you is my last breath of courage

---------------

Are you alive? I pray to God you are

If you are fighting stop fighting
If you are marching stop marching

---------------

Come back to me. Come back to me. That is my request

---------------

for j.

For so long I have looked up to the sky
Decades I have spent expecting
Something to fall down on my head
To touch me from above
To stir my shoulder on the go
I have scanned and searched
And waited for it to come
Until my neck started aching
With cramps and stiffness
With brittleness in my bones

But today I looked down
I looked at the earth beneath my feet
There was a barrenness and a cold
And I noticed the work the efforts that had to be done
The seeds that had to be planted
For the rice that has to grow
And the plants that will rise from below
Because then, with my knees on the ground
I can pick them
clean them
And boil them into a dish
For the world to get old