The beat that my heart skipped….

Spring’s set foot, permanently. I know because the hairy legs start to appear on streets. Bicycles flood the sidewalks and it seems their riders have forgotten the basic rules of traffic for they fall and crash and turn all the wrong corners. The tulips that last year were black have now returned to their original colours of yellow and red. The river’s gained so much in strength. It’s like a shy and harmless dog that’s come all the way to our hands that is reaching out to touch it. It’s sniffing our arms and legs and faces to see whether me mean harm or genuine affection. The Danube has come so close we can touch it. Street signs are up to their necks in its filthy water. The water is brining logs and dirt from the Black Forest and carrying it all the way down to the Black Sea. But between all that blackness, the Danube creates life and has done so for many years. So the fact that it’s reaching out for us, the people it serves, is just a humbling experience. It wants to be touched. It wants the sweet caress of the sun, the people, the love. It wants to feel that we respect its power. I can wipe all of you off, it thinks, but deep down it just wants to rub against the gentle hands of those who care for him.

We all must take a side. The Danube has two sides. This country therefore has two sides. The geographical sides then turn to political sides. The old battle of the reds and the oranges. I refuse to take sides because I do not think truth has a side. Truth would not align itself either or, it would stand alone in grace. But grace is not what defines the segregation of sides. That I’m not nationalistic enough because I don’t sing the anthem of a land that is only cared about in theory? That I don’t breath hypocrisy into every sentence I create? Well I just chose to be left to make my own choices. Please, let me make my own choices. Please, stop with the banalities of political rallying. Please, see that no colour can make the truth look anything else but an empty seat in this country’s Parliament.

So to take on what I believe I’m destined for. Everyone can write, but most people are not as paralysed as me. A story should be created. A narrative should be born right about now. But weaving without a thread is a rather strenuous effort and quite frankly, a pointless one. I try to stimulate my senses. I take walks, I listen to music, I watch others act, I hear others play, I wonder onto streets nobody has dared to walk on before me. But alas, the words only come to the extent of one page to be put on display on this exact forum: this ill-fated forum. Maybe I’m not mature enough to hold my thoughts together. Maybe I’m not patient enough. Ultimately, maybe I’m just not good enough.

But you…You, who dares to hold a mask all your life. You, who sees everything distorted. You…you cannot but make me want to write so your eyes would open. So where shall I start? Shall I write plain and simple? Shall I write twisted and confused? Shall I tell the story of You? Would you understand that all your steps bring those you love closer to killing them? Would you understand that the hands that hold to protect tighten into a choking clench? I would be throwing my words against a glass wall. Inaudible and by choice invisible. You try to hide behind that mask, but there’s no mask clever enough to hide what your heart shows. You, who thinks life is long enough for it to be a game, just wake up!

Then there’s love. He says one thing leads to another and that we can never escape: what leaves its mark, leave its mark. So with a branding burnt into my skin, I try to join a new herd. My cowboy will never look for me, so I need to find pastures greener than green. Damn that cowboy and damn those kisses. But I’m free. Like the one I follow, who skips and hops and flies in this world freer than anyone else I have ever known.

None of this makes any sense to you, but none of this even really matters.