This is when…

When love is not enough. When knowing the imminent end does not scare away the hopeful hearted. When against all reason and better judgement, the burden is carried further with a companion who has outstayed the welcome. This is when the mind controls and unflinchingly witnesses the soul’s inner battle, the heart’s aching desire. When it is cruel to be alive and softly murderous to be resisting. This is when with mustered faith we must let go and fall into the unknown with will and compassion, hope for something better to come.

For the heart here cannot alter the parting facts. I regrettably know the weakness that lies in believing the mesmerizing ways of the heart in love. The tricks it pulls up its sleeves, the illusion it creates. In truth, the heart has the least to contribute. Its deception may only surface with the passing of years, decades, a lifetime. But before the end, its true colours will become apparent. The disappointment will reign on the deceived; and confused looks will throw even those that specialise in knowing the heart’s desire. This is when love is not enough. This is when the heart can no longer be enough to know. To show.

No matter how clearly I foresee each and every way the future will turn out, I allow the heart to trick me. I know that I will stand in front of you and think myself in love. I know that I will leave to never see you again, place my broken heart in your hand. I know that you will hurt. You will want to punish your heart. You will search high and low to know the end. But our hearts will not be the keepers of our love. They have never been. They have tied us together, but have never been the reason we have loved this long. The heart is a lifeless being without the soul. When we allowed our souls to fuse is when we secured our hearts’ right for each other. Made a pendant broken in two. It is up to our hearts to forgive. It is up to our souls to make one of two.

This is when I dream. This is when you ache. This is when we both realise that love is not enough. This is when I curse the day my heart learnt to love. And you, you turn to another and find solace in the arms of someone who does not carry the burdens of a prolonged love. I walk down the path that leads me towards a treacherous end. I will always think you to be the one. At an uncertain point you will offer your all to me. I will accept. We will live in love until we realise that the bond we so praised had loosened and our souls were not tied tightly enough. We fall separately to the ground. Then our hearts will beat with the same vigour they do now. Then we will say in unison again, after decades of forgetfulness, that this is when love is not enough. Not enough to weather life.

I would break for you. You would give your life for me. Never will I survive seeing your face again. My love, you say, never can I be the man that I wish for you to have.

Writer’s block unblocked

I don’t believe in writer’s block. If the words seem to not obey is because they know that for whatever they would be used would be worthless babble about unimportant or self important matters of subject. And to that, they do not want to be subjected. There is always a reason for silence. Those moments that appear tranquil, that beg for no sound, no word, no motion from anyone, arrive for a reason. To hush the urgency. To show how soothing time aimlessly passing can be. Silently seeing one’s soul crushed on a grey Sunday morning without the words to make sense. But there is a moment of stillness and without that moment, all words would lose their power. There is no such thing as a writer unable to write. That writer simply has nothing to say. Oftentimes the inability to create curls back to an unfounded notion of talentless-ness, but far from this being the case, I believe that there is much more talent in staying silent than there is in writing endlessly. Sentences that run on, chasing their own tails and in turn each other. Making sense to nobody, only being tiny bricks of a masterfully thought out building of cacophony. Then the words are overused and abused and become strangers to themselves. And this is why the writer must sometimes remain silent.

If there was no need for immediacy, then all writers would gladly succumb to the occasional silence of their souls. If only we were a little more patient, letting our hearts grow hungry and heavy, then the words to surface would be that of worth and value. With each sentence having the life span of a match, the flames flicker for a while, but then the light dies. With that the frail little bodies of the sweetly short, middle sized or lengthily run-on sentences collapse into oblivion. An abyss they surely will never have the strength to leave. Their creator now says there’s a block, but taking better care of the words that were set loose would have resulted in no blockage, just a fearless flight. Each writer tries to quench the urgency of productivity, creativity, the need to be seen now, heard now, read now, listened to now. Now is urgently screaming for now.

If there was no sadness in silence, then no cathartic eruption could result in words flowing again. Disappointment and desperation show the way to silence, who in turn shows the way to light. But there has to be a wait. The heart should not be forced to break and heal in one day. The torn soul should not be stretched between the ebb and flow.

Patiently I wait with time. I wait for the words and the words for me. Nothing blocks all what isn’t there. If my heart wants more than it can have, if my soul thinks love has been found, if my crying eyes miss the strangers from my life, then the stillness of the moment comes to hush all sounds and ground my wandering words to anchor on my soul’s infinite sea. I do them justice by letting them use me. I bend to give them way. I bow before their grace. I stay like the sparrow, kind and faithful and loving. Free to roam the lands and come back with words that make me brave to see the brokenness, make me strong and bold, unafraid to love. Because I do, still, love.

For Somebody

The cold wind is unstoppably finding its way through the cracks in the walls of my apartment. Winter is unapologetic and forceful, intent on halting life for a moment. Frozen, unable to continue with evil. Silent and obedient, the way mankind never is. It is not a success, not even for a moment. This season of white changes my city. Changes this city most fundamentally. I hardly recognise the streets, I hardly find resemblance in the people. Only when the cold sets in does the city become impolite, impatient, rude almost to its carers. Leave now, I want peace. I need a moment without you. Then we retreat to our homes where the cold air dances loops around the lamps hanging ornately from the ceiling.

I am shocked at the ambivalence of my heart. Breaking whilst landing on soft ground. Blooming for the love that it seeks to abandon. Breaking for the one that it has its eyes on. Unable to decide to mourn or celebrate. Where do eleven years disappear to? How long must the heart feel like it is betraying a memory? The cold can never get to it, but its own doing creates its demise. Running with excitement towards one whilst crying desperately for the one it is leaving behind. Were it warm, the heart would know better. Know not to want. Know not to ache. Know not to trust the winter days for the wind will stop its beating in a moment.

Softly the streets are covered with snow. All ambitions of love begin and you who want to conquer the frozen paths have to tread very lightly. The melody hums of something hopeful and broken. The beat is almost unheard, soft so as to never disturb the flakes that peacefully lie on one another. Piling up, a blanket for the heart to fall broken and bleeding. What was it that you wanted? My soul? Everything we had ever owned now becomes a distant memory. Your laugh, your hand, your ideas of a future that we never had. Now another wants a part, wants to show a new meaning of love. I need the old to be able to free my heart for the new, mould me into the person I am needed to be.

Never shield your ears from the songs that hurt. They cleanse. Never pretend like you do not need them. Each beautiful melody will turn your heart back to where it should be. Each song will make winter sweeter, the pain from the void of the old lover lesser, the hope for the new much much stronger. With each sad song I know that I could use somebody. Somebody like you.

A house of straw

Once a big wind blew with the bellows of doubt that destroyed the fragile house you built. Once the words you said out loud betrayed you. Not so long ago you thought that forever would stay for ever. Now the dark night steals each tear you cry for the days gone. Salvation has left your heart with no hope of a return.

Those bricks, you once so determined, carried close to where you both stood are now nothing but a reminder of how deep bullets can wedge their impermeable bodies. Between hearts, between souls, between the words for and ever. After you shake off the shackles, an empty shell is what remains. You seem lifeless, void of the colours that once glowed in your heart.

You asked me once to keep safe a love from long ago. It meant much to you, it made me important. You said that another will have you, now that other will be nothing more than a love from long ago. Someone else, or maybe me, will keep that love safe. A love that has died, that has lived, thrived, blossomed and now gone. Incomprehensible its story.

Incomprehensible you are to me.

One of the last days of careless summer

How I wondered, walking slowly down your streets, how long your glorious buildings would stand the mischievous sunshine. How long would you let the hopeful summer hearts roam the avenues in search of their missing halves. Would there ever be an end to the silent scorching afternoons that have graced many a days since the snows disappeared. Can I hope for your lifeline to send vaporised, misty messages into the sky. To have the bones of your ribs bend over the fumes of the autumn escaping. White lies cover the cobbles and in the spirit of change hurriedly sail to the Black Sea, forever away.

Please, do not mention winter. It is too soon. The memories burn in my brain and the ice hurts as it forms close to my heart. The poisonous air then stays trapped between the crooked and lean chimneys, between the bricks of centuries past. Then I am helpless. Then you become more bare and beautiful than any other time I have ever seen you. Stripped to the core I can turn to you and with honesty’s bare bones visible, we know that whatever is said then, stays forever imprinted, unchanged. Until the ill-formed ideas of spring, the somewhat childish enthusiasm of the first snowdrops come to erase the months before and turn our flittering hearts towards the tickling, weak, barely visible first rays of the sun.

For now I can smell the change. The bitter twist in your filthy air. Now it wraps itself around me, now it escapes every touch. It is distinct and unique. I can tell, it will be a beautiful winter. My silence will fill the piercing echoes you send through every vessel that states your dominance. Everything around you will heed and still you will not allow kindness to break the armour. There is no heart – the cry will come. I will defend your actions and your hurtful ways. I will show them that just because the storm has covered every glimpse of gentleness, you are still who you were on those lovely spring mornings.

The questions become answers. The wait becomes the natural way of life. The course that our lives take together becomes the only real thing you and I know. I fear for the day when we will have to part ways. I fear for my heart in your autumn streets. I fear for my soul on the frozen back of your river. I fear for my life amidst the careless flowers of your spring awakening. I fear summer the most, for it ends the quickest.

I stay faithfully yours, bound in deep love and painful chains.

Say something, I’m giving up on you

It’s been a long year. Cold in parts, freezing at moments, unbearable heat in waves, your voice flickering, your words swallowed whole by the echo that’s wedged between us. By the edge of the cliff I wait. A roaring thunder and you vanished, I could no longer see. It’s nearly been a year, now I wish I had the power to live somewhere else. On top of this lovely cliff is where I made my home, somehow close to you, but void of your love that once glowed. Slowly I learn what the birds tell me, but I’m waiting for you to say something. I wait just a little longer. Maybe one more day, maybe tomorrow I’ll hear that voice.

The soil is cooling down, nights bring a faint arctic breeze that will only strengthen in the days and months to come. I am prepared. I am well armed against the cold, the bitter power ending all glimpse of beautiful, coloured life. On the coattails of the northern stream I wish to whisk my armoured heart away. Close to nothing else but you. If I set off, I may freeze. If in deep slumber I am taken far from all that I know, I may imagine a world of glittering sunshine. Without a guide in that world of warmth, I may burn.

The curious passer-by offers a helping hand. I know it seems like a hopeless case – I kindly say, but trust the heart, I know I only have to wait another day. If I give up, who else will ever have the patience? The beasts of the wild would think me weak and overtake my spot in a second if I left to graze my lonely heart on a field further ahead. I’m not afraid. Come night, come rain, come cold, come any lurking carnivore: I stay, in earnest and hope: I stay, and imagine that I will hear the voice I long to hear.

I notice that the angels who stumble upon this cliff are fallen and broken. Ferocious in their intent to heal, but incomplete. With time the eyes learn to see the invisible. In my silence they sense my presence. I hear their whimpers; they bring their brokenness near, almost near enough to touch. En route to salvage the souls they have the power to still save, I expect them not to heed to my unfortunate heart’s ailment. But then I get a promise of a return, a promise I almost allow myself to believe. If only they were not fallen. If only these angels were not broken so.

A fire’s burning for now, it’s keeping me warm, it’s keeping me light. Like clockwork I hum our melody in the hope that you will this evening, finally, say something.

Ain’t it funny

How love slipped away, said his mother to her lover.
Now we’re free to choose, said his father to his lover.
And every moment was wasted, said your mother to your father.
From then on, nobody ever heard your voice in that house.
Not your mother, not your father, not your sister, they never even heard a sound.

This may break your heart, said your father to his lover.
The baby boy may not survive, said your mother to her lover.
You can leave this place any time, said your mother to your father to his lover.
The silence from the room caused no suspicion.

Sometimes staying is the hardest, said your mother to her lover.
I can’t be the one you build on, said your father to his lover.
We sat in silence, unmoved by guilt, said his father to his mother to her lover.
Darkened skies await the morning, there’s no sunshine.
No, they never even heard a sound.

I regret nothing, said your mother to your father.
Only moments ago I knew the reason, said your father to your mother.
We keep our souls intact, said his mother to his father to his lover.
And await salvation, said his father to his mother to her lover.
Without a word, the answers fell from the sky.
To his mother, to his father, to his sister, to their lovers.

So this is goodbye

My heart is aching from change. Change that must inevitably come, that must sweep across and create opportunities whilst demolishing already existing patterns. Upsetting the equilibrium that has been constructed for ease of mind. Change, like a devastating storm, a hurricane, lashes out at all corners of the soul. I break. I learn to live with the pain of letting go, whilst cherishing every memory. I break from the burden of the past. I see only pain. To mourn the time passed is the only way to celebrate its existence. The tears are heavy still and roll down my cheeks as they hurry to hit the ground and with a sound of splash announce their painful arrival at the end of the journey.

Here’s to love, to friendship. Here’s to your phantom that follows me, traces my steps back to its own, holds me captive. Here’s to the future that may hold a kind of happiness that is to this day unknown. It is certain that my heart will have to endure changes on a much larger scale yet. I am afraid that it is simply not cut out to bear the burden. I fear love will not have the bravery to call my name again.

I don’t lightly use words like forever. I know that forevers, they come and go. Some moments are easy, some others I find hard to live through. In my weakest I promise you forever and in your weakest you believe my insincerity. Then we’re both hurt and now I cannot fathom a life without you. I have not said a word and you have not promised me a thing. I will vanish as quickly as I have appeared. I will take my forevers with me and ask your ghost to kindly leave. Leave like a lover who has to say goodbye.

So let this be goodbye.
So this is goodbye.

I Hurt Too

Not by the words I said out loud, but by the ones that never made it to air. The ones that have been forced to live in my heart, silent. I hurt by the amazing ability of another soul to torment with unsung thoughts. I look not to your weaknesses but to my own frailty and flaws. I hurt by the motionless present and by the prospect of a future so still. I hurt not by your careless ways, but my own uncertainty. Clinging to doubt as if that was the only answer, wishing with every fibre in my body for something certain. I lose my footing and see myself tangled in the words you’ve said out loud to me. The ones I cared to hear.

I hurt by time. By time’s reckless rummaging through the memories. Those instances that are only apparent in the faded corners of their frames. I could cry I hurt so much. By my own choices and foolish mistakes. I cringe at the thought that I could have chosen better, done better, preformed better, loved better, missed better. When night comes to take over from the everlasting powers of the day, my heart starts to beat louder. My limbs move slower. My soul whispers and I listen. The burden of a life, the burden of an empty and meaningless life comes to haunt every single soul on this earth. Then we lie, curl up to the smallest we can be and wish that moment away. I wish it away on most nights, but tonight I admit that I hurt. Not by the words you have said out loud to me, but by the ones that never made it to my heart. I hurt by the silence that I see around me. I hurt by the rhythmless melodies and by the melodiesless rhythms. I mostly fail when I try and the days haunt me.

I hurt when I see the one who sings to me insincere. I break then. I break to shatter to a million pieces but at the end of the gentle cooing I emerge as a grand statue, not a crack, not a sign of brokenness. The face hides the darkest secrets masterfully. I am me and I hurt. Most days I will not let you see, but most days I hurt. I know that most days you hurt too. I know that every heart that has never found its way to you causes you pain. I know that uncertainty hurts you. I know that you are maimed by the thought of failure. I know that you are paralysed by self doubt. I know that you hurt just from the simple burden of a few short hours of the day. When the sun hides, when the birds stay silent. When the one who should care only turns away to never show a look of concern. I know that your heart would not beat if it never hurt. I know the streets could not greet you if they knew you were unable to hurt. The power to change can be painful, can be remarkably free.

I see chance in every morning but by night know that every hour since then breathed to hurt me. I awake with newfound bravery. I show it to you, you show it to me. Together we fight the hurt that will come and conquer, make us stronger, make us live better, make us love much, much more than we ever knew we could.

While I hurt and while you hurt, while we all hurt a little, there is a chance that we are just learning to take care of each other a little better.

are you still in love with the world?

I’m not a thief, nor have I been bestowed with powers special or exclusive. Never will I get your full attention. Never will I shine, sparkle or glitter. I am not likely to appear before you as anything else than what I am. I have no talent to disguise the raw, perhaps uncomfortable parts. I am no thief to steal the colourful feathers of others. I won’t make an impression, my face, you will not find imprinted in your mind. I won’t impress with mere words, looks or thought. You won’t catch yourself wondering how it was possible I had not come your way sooner. I am a ghost. I am a humble being, accepting and peace loving. I try not to manipulate or dictate. I appear bear before everyone. I hide nothing and I distort nothing.

I try.

I try not to hide or distort anything. I try to appear bear. I try to be a humble being. I try to be a ghost. I try to impress with thoughts, with love, with ideas about sincerity. I try to stay upright, straight, fair, just. I try to fight spinelessness in everyone. I try to learn the talents of covering the raw and uncomfortable parts. I try to sometimes show more love than I feel. I try to sparkle, shine. I try always to get your full attention. I try to imagine powers of an exclusive kind.

Now is the time for actions: to wake from paralysing slumber, to stir after the many years of stillness. To try and find the waterfall in the middle of the peaceful lake. These times are hopeful and crushing at the same time. I have befriended hope many a year ago. My faithful companion, I lean on the mature advice of the heavy hearted hope. Mostly it is a liberating ally, but at times it is a wretched being, tormenting my poor soul because it can. Yet, I wake each morning with a freshness and fullness that only hope can make me own. I praise it then, I hang ornament like compliments on its already over decorated garment. Until the end of the day when invisibly it begins to torment me anew. At night, hope is most wretched at night. In sweet dreams I wrestle with its angels, I fight a bloody battle with its white covered agents. Hope sends its army to win me over from reason and better judgement. For the whole night I fight ceaselessly and wake to defeat. Still, in the morning, again, it is hope who dictates the terms, who makes the streets appear kinder, the river cleaner, the sun brighter and love much, much closer. I am helpless in the face of such an adversary.

I cannot deny the darkness and in no way do I wish to do so. It is part of the life that I am choosing to live, that I have been given to make the most of. The dark sometimes lingers for days, weeks. It knows no time and never appears considerate of others around. Dark is dark, a lord in the soul for uncontrollable periods of time. I never grow angry at its presence, never fully wish it away. Just like hope in its wretched form, the dark can propel the soul to find ways towards the light much faster. Then it escapes and realises that it is still in love with the world. In love with every moment, with every human, with every flower, with every street and tree, bridge and building, hill and cave and river and cloud. Somehow, at times, the dark learns to smile.

I feel I’m moving towards something with the same speed that I am moving away from something else. This makes me still, but humble and patient. I wait for another year.

Love, save the empty

Let’s go to a place infected with truth
And resist with all our hearts

Seeing my face reflected in the glass of the speeding bus, alarmed by the wrinkles and the severe stare. Alarmed to see how my smiling cheeks have now turned sombre, lonely, sad in just a moment. Thoughts zig-zagging their way through my mind mostly concerned with truth. The notion holding the power to manoeuvre a fraction of a second against me and cast a veil of sorrow onto my happy state. Life and death hanging onto a moment. Love and loss hanging onto a moment. Truth and lies, the beliefs of one man, the pain of another. The void and the fullness, the loneliness and the fulfilment. The moment is king in the land of eternity.

I’m frightened and faithless. I ceased to believe in my future. I used to have faith, but faith has parted from me. Instead she has left sadness and fear. I no longer dream or chase hope with unshakable certainty. I have come to understand that the truth may be bloodier, dirtier than initially portrayed. I have found how gruesome the toil for the wishes so sacred can be. Complacency had gnawed at my heart, but now out of fear and fright I have come to accept the sadness that inevitably descends. Tried to embrace that moment, that precise moment when everything changes. When it becomes apparent that everything must and will take new form. That faith can no longer hold together the house of hope, a construction prone to consistent questioning, harsh words of caution. I am desperately trying to find a way out, to save myself from drowning by clutching a piece of floating wood. An old, crumbling, soaked trunk. Without faith, all’s bleak.

I am afraid.

To sacrifice the most precious can lead back into the fruitful kingdom of the heavenly maker? In the hope of making Truth my guide and Faith my companion, I am attempting to rid my soul of its burden. Of its useless weight, in excess, the lifeless and useless hopes and dreams. My soul’s dragging itself like a shadow behind me. Broken almost by the weight it is carrying in vain. I give them up so reluctantly. But I must, with faith escaping and sadness weaving its warm and comforting arms around every fibre of my body; I must try to rid the shackles. If I repent, I might hear an answer from the heavens above. If I offer what is unthinkably difficult to part with, I might get a reward. Like Abraham, with a heavy heart and deadly doubt, I take my one possession toward the place where all sacrifices are made. I question my own sincerity, but I give you up. For forty days and forty nights I breathe never for you. I seek never your wishes. I want nothing that’s yours. Nothing that’s you. This is my lent, purging my soul of you.

I have walked too far for you
I have waited too long for you
I have lied too many times for you
And I have followed your love ‘till there never really was at all

prague

She greeted me like an old lover. She recognised me instantly, welcomed me, and allowed me to see her all. She has changed. No longer is she the city that we knew, no longer is she careless, immature, all heart and no head. She is now cloaked in more dutiful garments. She compares herself to the likes of Paris, Brussels. She kept her Prussian pride but took ornaments from Provence. Now she is more style and grace, less of the bohemia she used to be. She grew with you. She grew with me. In time she will grow old with us, even if the stones and cobbles are changed and replaced. Her soul she shared with us, her soul you keep, her soul I keep.

I found a quiet city, a place true and sincere, taking a well deserved break from the curious eyes, the foreigners, the tourists. Come spring, she will have to dress her best and stand still for the pictures until the bitter cold arrives again. Yet she does not tire. For now she was amongst her own, a quiet and fragile city with deep wrinkles of history and love for even the smallest and newest of its inhabitants. Kindly she rested, waited for the early hour of the sundown and apologised to me for the many changes that masqueraded her parts from me. She said I would find the memories, that she has kept them safe.

I lost myself to beautiful dream: engulfed in passion with an old lover. There it was simple and then it was beautiful. There was no end and there was no reason to fear. The love that we forgot came rushing back with every touch, with every velvet glance. The rain tapping on the leaves outside sounded like applause to the quiet love we made. The city held us, kept us from prying eyes. It was a dream of the past and the future, in a place we both know so well. You and the city are still the reasons I dream each night.

This place I once called home, romanticised as it may have been, posed again as home. Could not wait for me to decide to stay. Saw me leave and could not hide the tears. I said I would be back, in a year or two, I would come again. She wanted me to stay, insisted that I make her my home again. I said Budapest waits, I cannot betray my present love. She understood only because she saw the sorrow in my eyes. She said Budapest is lucky, I said she knows very well. There is nothing I would not do for my old love, but the memories die once lifted from their precious resting place. They can be revisited, but never relived. Prague pained me, she always does, but she makes sure I land on soft grass. My heart hurt and I was unable to stop the tears. Dear Prague, don’t forget you love me, today.

Once I arrived back in Budapest, I grew calm and peace filled my heart. This love is good to me, allows me to dream, helps me find the old in the new.

Notes to an absent lover

You whisper in my ear, soft, inaudible, that heaven waits. Waits one day.
I should follow, ahead, towards the light, my heart begs me to move.
The sky above opens when your words whisper to me.
I’m coming, slowly I’m on my way.
The ghost that you are, the sweet thought that you’ve become, the wish that your face turns into convince me of heaven.
I cannot but place one foot after the other and follow you home.
But I cannot walk as fast as you want.
The fog makes you disappear, I’m alone.
Pain shrinks my faith to a size no longer visible. The bed was never taken, I have always been alone.
My tears are heavy, they drip, like thickened blood mark my face. A face of longing.
I have no power, you are my all.
Your promise of heaven keeps me on the path that sees my body break to pieces.
Your ghost, an optical illusion, a beckoning force leads me further from what I know to be true.
I am tired.
And alone.
You play with the heart so careless.
You destroy me.
The breezy meadows and sweet fruits of pine trees, the scent of hope and the sight of success help me carry on.
Burdened and bound, determined and captive, I answer your whisper.
I rest when I see the moon’s been following.
I go nowhere, stand motionless, with feet cracked and lifeless from the endless walk.
Your love calls me. I move the unmovable.
With my useless feet and burdened body, I run towards our heaven.

The story of Micó and Maszat

I wish I could travel in time. Or at least have some say in determining its velocity, the force and speed at which it changes lives. Knowing the end would bring no immediate relief, but once apparent, time travel could be a viable option to see, revisit, and rekindle with those who are gone. To lessen the pain or even make indefinite a particularly finite entity.

I’m hurting but I’m not hurt.

There are no bruises on my body, but the loss, the void is painful. Almost unbearable to live with. The life I have known thus far had companions who made every day different. Because they taught me unquestioning love. They showed me non judgemental commitment. Honest emotion embodied in the twosome that were my Micó and Maszat. Oftentimes I would be humbled by the untiring and boundless love they showed each and every day. As if we were starting anew, all past malicious intent had been forgotten. The past existed only as a platform for formidable memories and nothing more. With them I learnt about life. With them I saw love. With their help I understood the importance of devotion. With them I saw truth.

I’m hurting but I’m not hurt.

Nowhere does pain pierce at me but my heart. Where I keep them, where they have been ripped from. My loves. My friends. My siblings. My children. My past. My childhood. My innocent years gone with you. Now comes the time when I’m alone to face the evils of man and beast alike. You can’t guide me, I can no longer see. The biggest adventures and most fierce but playful fights, the quiet and calm evenings by the fire, the many many houses and many different streets, the many adversaries and the family you called your own. After a year apart, you’ve joined forces, but I’m alone. I keep your sweet faces in my memory and will start thinking about the impossible task of letting go.

Goodbye. Know you’ve given me life. Know that I’ll be hurting for a while. Know that no others could have made our lives complete. Know that the love you carry will always stay.

Know that we’re hurting, but we’re not hurt.

Gigantic Fairytale

If I tell you about my journey, about the frightening lows and enchanting heights, the open bridges, the cliffs hanging upside down, the colourless autumn and the warmest winter, would you blink and turn away? Could you hold your disbelief? For I do walk the paths, revealing magic, evolving dreams, every single second. If huts of gold, giants of tender hearts, mice of feeble nobility, lions of virtue and children with unparalleled grasps of reality do not shake your disbelief, then let me assure you that my companions along the way are all noble hearted and kind, kindred spirits, who show love the way I could never imagine. I sway with the trees, not when they are naked and void of dignity, but when they are covered in luscious green leafs of oceanic magnitude. And never do I feel lost. You cannot make me feel at unease because you, I cannot see.

There are times I wish for kind magic. I would use it wisely and only to conjure those whom my heart yearns for so dearly. Some gone, some disappeared, some out of sight, some just hiding from the very moment Honesty and Truth will take over these lands. Nothing could be sweeter than the anticipated reunion. When spring meets winter. When silently summer slips into autumn. When the cold gives way to warm, bowing with might in righteous confidence that the tables will turn and in time the warm days will heed to the bitter cold. One beast cannot have two masters, therefore they take turns. My journey is still joyous and the more love filled because of the changes I witness day in day out. If I confessed to wishing for more gentleness, would you smirk and with a shudder walk away?

I hear whispers all around. Feet shuffling, leaves rustling. A path guarded both sides by loyal followers. My friends, companions, well wishers, partners in the grandest adventures. Every single breath they keep from causing a thunderous noise, every glance they direct towards me, every movement that gestures me to continue walking down the guarded pathway and with every step taken towards the warm, fuzzy, familiar unknown, these guardian angels of mine encourage me to say out loud to you: take my hand, take my whole life too.

With that confession, with that plea, I leave my heart and soul vulnerably susceptible, unshielded from attack. But honest. Doomed for a bloody downfall, but true to my heart. And those around me, loyal and loving friends, will witness in slow motion the end of a hopeful moment, the surrender of my willing soul, my heart’s painful journey to loneliness: if you won’t take my hand, if you will never care for my life. Smiling, I’ll retreat, back to where I know I’m safe. And I’ll keep breathing, walking, seeing the magnificent beauty in the world around me. The seasons, the buildings, the mountains and rivers, the people who I know and the ones I’m yet to meet. Love will lie low, but perhaps on an unimaginable sunny, winter day, it’ll capture my heart completely. Just by surprise it’ll hold me captive ‘til my dying days.

october two

Ten years to the day. Now I scribble on my arm. I search words that express emptiness. Apprehension. I await a trip that I don’t want to take. I want to fly further. Longer. I want to be near you. But just my heart, not my head. You leave me alone and I near tears. Sadness comes to overshadow and I hide.

I fear for me. I fear for you. Mostly we’ll be fine. Reluctantly I keep telling myself that we will love again, just not each other. So goodbye, you’ve taken plenty of my time. As sad as my heart is, it is time for it to be free. It needs to love again, but not you. No longer you. It is time for me to heal, without you. So I fly. Not to you, but I fly. Away from where I am today.

And you stay. Ten years to the day, you stay. Wait for none, cry for none, find love with another because you and I have lost our chance to love one another.

We will love again but just not each other.

He Wished For Simpler Times

The voice remained unrecognised. So close to my heart but somehow foreign in a setting that seemed unfamiliar at first. But how fitting! To sing the most personal song with the person who represents the most personal emotions. Whose music tore them apart or drove them closer. Just a final splinter, breaking the skin of her hand, lodging deep into the flesh, causing havoc and pain. Just a final push and now he’s won. He won the battle, he won the fight. He’s done.

Bitter, free, peaceful and lonely. There’s anger in tranquillity and there’s motion in stillness. And I’m swept away by the desire. The grace that so unexpectedly descends. That almost lurks, awaits the right moment, then traps the soul with one carefully aimed arrow. I am caught and will forever be held captive by those notes. By these words. By this voice, by this man, by this gentle loneliness. The moment will surely pass, the sudden infatuation will subside, but the deeper yearning will stay. Its memory will forever be held dear and kept alive out of fear or envy. I gladly succumb for I know no sweeter place than the soothing heaven of his words. Carry me far from where I am. Show me a place where I belong. Your pain will find home and your fragile optimism will find shelter. The rain may soak the shoulders of your cloak, but I will see to it that your love will be returned anew.

The times they are simple no more. Yet they could be. If you knew me. Knew me now. If I could see you. See you now. I waste most of my brand new days. I waste them thinking there was a way for you to know. But I stay lonely and alone, hanging onto the threads that you so carefully orchestrate to hang between the ones who desire and you, who desires none at all. But life could not be sweeter even if it’s bitter sweet. Even if only pain knows the sweetest remedy. I would not wish to change anything, to change anyone for you. You are not who you sing to be. Nor did you ever say you were.

If times become simple again, I might have you. If I wait it out, I might know you. But till then, I will listen and learn. In awe, in disbelief, in love, in bitter loneliness. In hope, in fear, in envy.

90 days passed and 9 more to go

If the changes that surround us become obstacles in the way we live our lives, then our lives need adapting so that the changes are met with more ferocity and less hostility. Power to the powerless and courage to those who fight change like a deadly enemy. Some need to be bold, some need to give up, some need to find solace in remorse. Because change will not disappear, only follow time on the looping path of life. Lies. Sacred cycles that never break the rhythm that nature set as a course to forever follow a pattern. Autumn’s set foot. Mornings are breezy, nights are cooled by the nonchalant Moon’s stare. The days are stuffed with the last powers of the sun’s rays. Just enough to boil the asphalt, melt the tarmac that holds the tram tracks, cause havoc on the sidewalks and burn the green leaves of innocent plants. Just enough to breathe life into those who need the warmth and just enough to destruct everything that wishes to hide from the cruelty of the rising Celsius. Fight as long as you have the will to keep fighting.

My voice went silent. I lost it or cared not to make it heard for reasons that are mine. I stayed enchanted by the monumental shifts that life produced. Jumping phases, turning corners that held secrets and new ventures that I could hardly walk alone. But alone I must stay and keep enduring, living, loving and making plans just the way I want. There is stillness and silence in the hurricane that has swept across my life. Misplaced and replaced, memories deleted and made, new habits found, old ones forgotten and died. In the stillness there’s light. In the light there is hope. In hope there is a chance to view the changes in my life as the most gracious gifts that fate could ever bestow upon me. It’s just one of those days.

I look to the future for answers. They hide. I’m shy. With a life that’s reminiscent of progress and maturity, with a soul that’s tangled in words someone’s said out loud, so recklessly. I own a lot, but not time. Time could give me the greatest joy, but before I could have that to myself, I need to be bold, need to jump in the cold water, need to grow older with a boy like you. The answers might not even exist if the questions don’t. This makes me restless and what calms me only is the notion that in just a few days I will hear the sounds of heartache. The sombre voice of a lonely a man. The symphony of strings that tell tales of healing the wounds that life deepens, wrinkles that worry causes, memories that time erases. Of this, I can never get enough. Of his sweet voice I can never get enough. Of my new life I can never get enough. Of the hopeful days gleaming ahead I can never get enough. Of love I can never get enough. Of you, I can never get enough. Still I know, that today is just one of those days, just like any of those days that will pass if I crawl underneath my blanket.

The trees on my street.

My walk home is the sweetest journey for the imagination and the tired soul after a demanding and disrespectful day. My street starts where a square ends. A square buzzing with life when the weather allows. Chairs and tables, laughter, friends uniting and lovers hiding in non existent corners of a round urban formation.

This part of the historic Budapest is teeming with names that leave me bowed each time I read. Great many writers, thinkers, inventors. Their names made immortal by attaching a straight piece of this earth to them. Starting with my street:

Krúdy, writer of tales, of endless journeys of a young man in a fantastical universe. This universe being nothing less than his and his writer’s reality.
Mikszáth, standing with his huge belly and respectful moustache, pipe in hand in the middle of the square. He wrote of emotions that hold true for all eternity. He wrote what he saw to be true, no love to cover the evils of man, but with all the love in the world.
Babits, lived in a house on the square. He wrote and was the master of the tangled web of thoughts humans toil forever with. He wrote of temptation and redemption. He warned man to forgive and sewed his words carefully around the fragile idea of the individual possessing all power but emotions taking the better of him ever single time.
Irinyi, inventor of matches, shared this part of the town with these masters of the pen. He brought warmth and light to the endless dark days of winters without blue skies. Those days burned.

Each day I am reminded that the soles of remarkable men of talent decorated the cobbles that I tread lightly on. That whatever is in the present starts somewhere very far back in the past. I am not the first to see the trees of my street. I am not the first to enjoy the quiet bells of the church on my street. The bricks of my room whisper of a former owner, a high ranking priest, a cardinal or bishop who murmured Hail Marys till the morning hours. Or another who spoke of forgiveness but could never forget. Preachers who cloaked in burgundy velvet and hurried down the stairs I walk day in day out to celebrate Mass to those who chose the word of God instead of the word of emperors, the monarchy or politics.

The streets wind and withstand the test of time. They learnt to never shriek when rain taps their backs on a cool autumn night. Living with pride each day that someone great, someone good, someone in love, a child with hope, a lonely soul, a two that just forged, might be walking their backs. They don’t mind the hooves of horses, the tires of cars, the steel of tanks, the plastic of shoes, the bare feet in the summer. They want to lead you to wherever you are aiming to go. In some happy instances they want to be the destination and help you find home on the buildings they boast. There are no tricks up their sleeves.

Today was a joyously hopeful and desperately hopeless Sunday. The two always come hand in hand in my life. A moment of light and then a moment of grey. Shifting and turning until they even out or just argue the whole day. I have little control and have learnt to embrace both emotions with all of me. On days like today, my walk home means more than on hectic days filled with work and worries of another world. On days like today I have time to pay attention to the details of my lovely street. I nod to the square, marvel at the names that cover plaques on almost every single building. The houses run from 1 to 19 on my side. That’s ten. Today my street had a big day. Today my street got some new trees. The square got some lovely fresh flowers that want to grow roots at the feet of Mikszáth. The street was proud and hopeful, vowing to be a good keeper of the new creatures it must nurture. The trees will be happy on my street. They will learn who lived here before them. They will realise that their ancestors were used for Irinyi’s matches, for Babits’ somber poems and they will lift their new leaves towards the church and its bells that ring far and wide to remind all to repent. And that they will. They will repent and forgive, love and breathe oxygen for me and my cohabitants of this lovely street to LIVE.

This is for the new trees on my street. Right now, amidst the doubt and the grey, even breathing feels all right.

My salvation lies in your love.

There’s lightness to forgiveness. An airlyness that sends the soul carelessly floating at the exact moment the words I forgive you plunge from the mouth. These unimpressive collection of letters, anchors that kept the soul bound to the abyss for an eternity, now all of a sudden are freed and with it, the soul roams.

This is how I feel. But an incredible weight still holds me down.

That’s your face, your ways.

There’s a real threat I won’t survive this. I scare myself. I wish for days gone past. I drink to your health and know, so truly know, that all that we have become would never be enough for our two. It would be something doomed to break, like a dry twig, snap. I’m firmly rooted, you’re boundless. I’m greyscale, you’re Technicolor. There’s an ocean of ideas between us and none concern the present. I’m hanging between my greatest fears and dearest hopes.

You’re free, I’m still locked in your memory.
I stay, you leave.
But know that for however long it may take,
my salvation lies in your love that's past and in your love that's present.

waiting for a bearded fella

There are a lot of customs a girl my background and culture must follow in life. The likes of Christmas, Easter, name days spring to mind. But I’ve been given freedom when it comes to celebrating my birthday. Well, almost, provided it’s with family. The where is my choice. The how is my choice. So I’ve come up with a plan a few years back, almost six as I recall, to make a point of writing something for my friends who are close and who are not so much, to take with them on this day that marks my entrance into the world. Mine and many others’, but allow me to take this moment to fulfil every narcissistic desire in my body and gracefully succumb. And please, never think for a moment that I try to fan a wholly unfounded notion of accumulated wisdom over 26 years because even suggesting that would be silly. I am no preacher or knower of truth. I am no giver or selfless saint. I am no example to follow. I just have words. I cleverly borrow words to fit the occasion.

I won’t begin a tale now, I’ve no time or ideas, but I will try to make sense in these coming lines as best I can. What I know about myself and the world would come as no surprise to any of you my learned friends. The realities that I have discovered over the years pale in comparison to the ones I’m yet to find out. You’ve seen them I’m sure. You’ve lived through them I know. But when be hopeful, if not now? When have the courage, if not now? When have the wisdom and the bravery to admit to the broken parts, if not now?

A lot of things are hazy for me right now. I’m half way into finding out what it’s like to have a piece of this world, to claim as my own. What it’s like to work hard for something concrete. To use my experiences not to get fooled by bureaucracy. And it’s hard. Has been hard and will continue to be hard. But I meet these every day challenges with enthusiasm and excitement. I’m slowly also finding out how different I am now to how I was when the people who brought out the best in me were around. But this never scares me, just cautions for a wiser choice next time. I know what it’s like to miss time. I’ve personified time so many occasions in writings that now I think it’s just a good-turned-evil friend of mine from a while back. Someone I used to know well.

But before I trip and fall into the pitfalls of life’s winding and sometimes dark road, I know what I still want. These things drive me to do better and try harder. To think about change, even if implementing them would be somewhat difficult. I know that there are things I can never have and feelings that I will never know. There are places I will visit and there are people I’m yet to meet. I will make friends and I will lose some in the years to come. I will build and destruct with ease. I will forever wish for more love… but time’s tricky with that.

Before I turn a year older, I will just sit here and wait for a bearded fella. He with a heartache and a song to turn even the most desperate of days into a flood of joyful tears. I know that him I will love and I already love the way he gently loves.

Another note.

Far from the blinding lights of happiness comes a clear cry that speaks volumes on a gloomy night, a clearly dark night, on the desperateness of a failed attempt, on a futile effort to gratify the soul with hollow regret. There is time to hide for everyone who feels weak in the knees. Focus the mind on the kind spring awakening and reassure the spirit of a boundless journey through the haphazard maze of time’s fortress. Somehow we will all fly.

My new bag will carry my burden of regret, shame and even indecisiveness. In the meantime I have the chance to delude my susceptible heart into thinking of the imminent change around as the sole cause of an eventual happy ending. Change is not kind. Not to me. Not now. Not yet. Folded arms cannot reach towards the hill of forgiveness. My unwillingness to change much of my situation leaves my senses paralysed and my will helpless, stuck in an innate body and a discommendable mind. Here within lies the challenge. My challenge.

I keep wishing. I let the troubles fall off the tip of my fingers with one hasty shake, escaping the traps of the deep wrinkles of my palms. Let the sun catch them and lift their fragile bodies onto someone new. I know not how to deal with them. To me they are like children with no direction or need for care. The early April breeze keeps my hands clean, blown off it are the simple troubles of a tragic life. A kingdom with no savoury hallucinations, just images of horror that appear kind in the daylight. Smile. Write. Confused words appear and demand to be recorded on paper. The fingers lie disconnected from the mind. Excommunicate.

I need him to love me back. Now. With his sensitive heart and gentle mind. I need to know that we can survive a stormy sea that lies between us. In change I will become more of me. You will have most of me. All most of me.

My gasping soul needs you to give it time to regain its composure and grace before it can leap toward another hopeful wanderer of the night. Hold me close for now since the rain falls, cold brushes against me, dark seduced the light, the hollow shelter frightens me more than it used to comfort. Alone I have no chance to survive, even with the colours that flow from the words I steal from others. My empty cave is damp and sombre, your hand can make it a little less cruel.

I need to keep writing. Writing notes. Not just for now, but until I know I found the one that needs no more writing on the wall. It may be years still or that time may never come. I may need to write countless notes before I can finally write the one that says now I love.

a lighter load

I am uneasy. Things happen around me that make me uneasy, frightened, uncomfortable. I realize that most of the time I do exactly the same with my words. I make the reader feel uneasy, uncomfortable. But deeper do the roots of my despair lie. I feel not the fickle uneasiness of a few well chosen, painfully perfect, sharp letters. Words on paper are just wiggles of lines, succumbed to the writer’s every narcissistic effort. Their truth only shows once the writer has realised their freedom. Rarely does this happen and the reader must never end the quest and the questioning. Why. But this is not what sends me screaming into an empty corner. I fail to understand the simple things, like songs that say goodbye, like a bird almost motionless trying to glide. Love. Death. Life. Disapperance and regret, loneliness. The power that only a moment has. There is no other power like it. There is no power but it.

With every bone in my body, I wish that love can somehow be enough. That it can erect bridges between lost parts of the soul and that it can conquer the undiscovered places of the mind. Every night I pray for the unwanted love to find home. For all loves to finally find home. I ignore instances that present the fact in clear light: love is seldom enough. A teardrop cannot capture the vanity of its existence. Whilst waiting for an imperfect love I forget to calculate the time that passes in loneliness. There’s apprehension and tension, there’s eagerness and enthusiasm, but ultimately all with a bitter end for time all along has been passing mercilessly. And if love can never find the empty heart then all that is left is time gnawing away at the soul. Mercilessly.

I don’t know why some people leave and some stay behind. I don’t understand the moment everything shifts. Life into oblivion. Present into past. Love into prayer. Laughter into tears. Sadness into pain.

The only power I have is the power to whisper sincerely please don’t go.

Sharp enough to teach a lesson, soft enough to never make me bleed. But the world is cruel and cruelly it takes that which is most precious to us. Each other…

I’ve not made amends with time. I cannot forgive its nonchalance and mighty power over all. I stay away as much as I can. I remind myself that I am in awe only when I see seasons changing, when I see progression, when I see change. But I grow fearful when I see the past recorded on paper. When I see the wrinkles on my hands. When I see that those who should be here have been called away. Forever. Time has played many tricks on me, still, I murmur in this peaceful night: I can wait.

the two that broke

I need you to know, this won’t be broken.

I wouldn’t be writing this if I didn’t think that love was a noble and serious, a worthy being that latches itself susceptibly onto our souls and mars with each day that sees its grip grow fainter. Oblivious to its power but acutely aware of it, no flesh bearing man can survive without the life giving love. But so much more powerful in beauty, the graceful love that descends to build a life and tear it down at the same time brings meaning amidst the chaos, almost every single time.

Mostly just a fragile whisper. The love that I nurture is weak and shy. Even on the sunniest of days it needs my hand to walk tall in this world. Just holding the hand, just shielding the sun’s powerful rays, just boasting with confidence from a keeper so devoted, my love shines. Shines like no other. I am responsible for my love and never do I want to see it hurt. Like a little bird that’s tossed at the wind’s command, my love could not withstand the battering of the harsh outside alone. My job is to keep it safe, hold it sacred until there is someone I can share it with. How perfect spring is to let fly the loves that have been wanting to escape all winter long. Except my love. My love wants to feel the warm haven that I provide a little while longer. And I certainly don’t want to force an angelic being, an innocent deity to be corrupted by the villains the world holds on its back. Planks of wood above the water I walk on so that my love won’t get wet. There are days it fits into my little pocket. Some others it just walks beside me. On Sundays it flies.

The most important thing is to have faith in your love. Whether it’s on loan with a dear another, or whether it’s growing restless in your pocket, you have to believe that it can live on its own. Never shake in your belief that your love will know better. Over the years it will learn and will only come back to you once it’s tried all other options. But you can’t take it for granted, cannot not love it and must never ignore it. A few simple notes will lure it back to you, a melody that is sweet to its ears can hold it captive for a short while. Words that are carefully orchestrated and fan its vanity will chain it down for only a moment. Hurt no other and no other will hurt you. Love your love and it will love you back. But when it breaks, you need to heal it. It has only got you.

My love needs my promise that I will try to bestow it upon a boy who will take good care of it. I have promised, you have my love now. It is new and almost invisible to the naked eye. So small and so vulnerable it needs to hear that you think of no one else but her. That you love no one else but her. That you see no one else but her. Sometimes I think I want my love back, but I am being brave and have sent it to live in you. I fear that you will forget, I fear before I have proof of your negligent ways.

As gentle as a summer breeze this is what you need to whisper to my love: I need you to know, this won’t be broken.

Almost silent, already still

Looking back, to even just a year ago, a day like today would have come more often and with more imminent force. Now, when the days blend into each other and when there’s little else to hold onto then my own desperate self chants of an optimist’s verse, now I stop and think more. But even adjusting to a life that’s comfortable, bland and boring, rings far from what I had imagined for myself. There are only moments that allow an escape and they are only as kind as the seconds they hold. Too few. Too fast.

I wonder if it is just all that simple. Just as simple as sitting down and starting to write. Is that what a novel’s all about? Just a decision from a story teller to begin telling that story? Any story. His story or hers, theirs. Where do I keep going wrong? There will be days when the flood of emotions overwhelm me and leave me uncomfortable in my own skin. I yell a euphoric chant, slash my skin open and wail as I realise that life vividly is trying to use my talentless and semi blocked channels. There’s something awaking in me. Moving and shaping, asking for help to live. Seldom am I alert enough to realise what is happening. Writing is discipline for me. It is order not chaos. It is choice, not fate. It is painful not carefree. It is extra curricular, not a drug I need to live. It is a chore I must do. I must because if I don’t, I feel my existence a burden for society. There is already too much burden to carry, too heavy a load.

Once my body will be completely still, lifeless. My mind may stay intact and my eyes ready to tell my story. Then I will need every one of you to stand there next to me. Hold me together with love, encourage me with smiles and let go of me when I feel I’ve gone too far. I wonder which one of you will stay and which one of you will turn away. Who will read or dance, sing or talk, make me a lullaby? All my true colours will reflect on all your true intentions.

My life’s not crazy, just lonely. My ambitions are not forgotten, just have not been verbalised. My friends not absent, just distant. My love not gone, just captive by someone else. But at the end of a day like this, I feel like my soul’s been shaken by the kick to my stomach. It hurts and I yell. If you hear you could come help because I’ve found that everything works in your arms.