MAYBE TONIGHT I CAN BE HUMAN

Pick a side

You’re either in love

Or out of it

If you’re in

You’d know all about it

Every shade, every idea

Every friend, every face

You’d see those two

Strangers, walking

Towards each other.

Their heads low

Filled with the burden

Of their lives, sad

Lonely.

You’d see how

They’re gonna look

At each other

Now.

All the symptoms showing

Are of love at first sight

The hands are lightly and gently shaking

The rain helps hide the sweating

The tongue is twisting, the mind blowing

Don’t make them vomit those butterflies

Or they won’t seize the day

“Erhm, well, I was wondering…”

Say it!

“Well...”

Hesitation is okay, you know.

You have to know

You’re in!

“Are you a boy or a girl?”

They leave

looking over their shoulders

Every step, to see if the burden

Was following them.

SIEGE MENTALITY

Look to your left

For the photos, the memories

Not too much left

Look to your right

To find life

Beware of the traps

Look behind

You’ve come so far

Look forward

A twisted, warped hill

You can’t see the end.

Go beyond everything.

Go left to the wall

Go right to the abyss

Go back to the mistakes

Go straight to hell

Everywhere else is lost.

She

Her strawberry lips
Send me straight to hell
My mind is in eclipse
A dark light to feel well

Made her a simple promise
She heard "I'll be back!"
These words were only noise
Now all she feels is ache

Indeed, the disease won't sleep
The disease won't seep
The disease seeks my secret place
Makes me sick of any other space

May I not be a creep
Yeucking as a knee on a scree
All I need is she
For my lonely happiness

The secret place

The horizon
I'd sit there!
I'd sit there
And stand tall
As a king

Breathe, think
Wonder, ask
"Would you
give me
this world?"

Wait, wonder
Wandering
Not a word
No answer

Such a bargain is a lost soul
The line teetered
Such an empty shell
All filled in red

A place I adore
A place I'd never sell

Seasonal Terror {A Mysterious Poem}

No point in naming such a monster

Everyone knows it’s coming

Everyone abandons the streets

It’s all alone in these dark

Desert roads, it reached

Its aim. It leaves the fun

Of jumping in puddles for

Another day. Lights go on

And quickly disappear, followed

By its scary growl. It owns a

Herd, its favourite pet is the

Flying black sheep

Something dares to move

Is it the beginning of a revolution?

A million eyes look outside their shelters

A million eyes look out for the great rebel

Are their dreams shattered yet?

The sky lost everything

When the stars fell down

Forgetting their beautiful language

Of rays and brightness

The monster sees the rebel, the lighting

And its growls are more and more

Upset at everything it loves

A painful repeated sound

Of biting rain-pins it’s heard

The fluttering scarf tied to the

Not-working traffic-light’s pole

Stranded, soaked

falls.

FEET DON'T FAIL ME NOW - (Short story assessment)

FEET DON’T FAIL ME NOW

Part one – Love in protest.

To you.

I don't have a word to describe you, I wish I could forget such a monster as you are and I wish I didn't have to use such a human pronoun as "you", but I have to due to a lack of language, the same each and everyone of your accomplices have when they lay in omerta.

I still remember when my sweet Agnese came to me, crying about how she couldn't take you anymore, she couldn't stand anymore the hate you had for her. She came to me with black and blue marks around her eyes as if she wasn’t blinded enough by the love she stupidly felt for you.
I saw everything you did to her, she had it written all over her body.

I saw her ruined hair and thought of you laying your hands on her and as she was trying to escape you, I saw you grabbing her hair with such a strength that many were ripped off. Around her neck the signs of your thumbs, her wrists sprained, cuts and more marks everywhere on her body, she couldn’t walk properly…
No mother should ever see her own child abused that way; no mother should ever see bruises on her child’s skin, no one should ever have those violent stigmas on their body.

You asked her to have a psychiatric session and she did. They gave her pills for the depression you caused her. She was numb, every single moment. She was coming undone next to me and I was powerless. I still am.

After all the injuries, the pain, the anguish you brought, my daughter and I had no justice.

“Died because of undernourishment[1]” said the hospital statement.

Cecidere manus[2]

With hate,

  A mother.

Part two – I love you “too much”.

I’m looking at you right now, reading these words that mean nothing to you, guess what? Your “no” means the same to me.

I feel it, you say “no”, they made you think I’m the bad one.

You can’t ignore me for ever, they can’t control you for ever. I thought you were better than this- I thought you were independent. You said you’d love me for ever. Keep your promises, you need me just as much as you needed me before, you love me just as much as before.  Nothing has changed. Stop acting insane, be yourself, you’re mine. You belong to me. Keep reading.

It’s been a year of madness. Stop it.

Did you get my birthday card? Did you get the card I sent you for your not-birthday day?

Those were funny. You liked it, your friend told me. About your friends. Who are them? Why are you reading other books? You don’t need them. I’ll tell them to stay away, I did the same with your family, they listened, why don’t you? You always try to make me feel guilty, I know you do it because you love me.  I called the electricity company and the water company, you don’t need them anymore, I sold your house, we are married, screw bureaucracy.

I told you already. You are mine, I will get you no matter what, I know everything you do when you’re at your house, I know everything you do when you are outside. I know everything about you. I know what you like, I know what you dislike,  I know where you live, where you work, where your family lives, where your friends live. I know everything about what you love, me.

Remember the first time you said you love me? I bet you don’t remember, but don’t worry. I can make you remember, I recorded you saying it. Your words are written all over me.

Why don’t you say it again? Say you love me as the first time. I know you want it.

Do you want to have some time to think? You don’t want to have time, you are reading this. I’m your time and you need me.

You can’t ignore me. I know you read all of the words, you picked me up every time I fell, you helped me when I didn’t want to be an open book not even for you.

You are not safe where you live, you’re not safe outside, you are safe with me.

You can never stop reading these words, you can never stop reading me.

You will never forget this story. You will never forget me.[3]

Part three – Love in trial.

“When my brothers and I were born, we were soon abandoned. We found ourselves in a huge place, full of others who somehow were similar to me and my brothers. They glued on us a sticker, they priced us all. We were slaves in there, slaves of time, slaves of all the hands who picked us up and put as back or stole us or paid to have us, every day thousands of us were sold to those hands. None knew how to react, we didn’t even like each other that much. Day after day they caught my brothers, soon they took me and none fought for us.[4] I never saw my brothers again.

Those hands were warm and gentle when they picked me up, at the beginning. After page ten, they became violent, I was fold and hurt many times, the hands started to scratch me, at first only on the cover as a punishment for the outcome of the secret story that I withhold, then on the inside, those hands scratched me every now and then for the strange words...

At some point the worst happened: my last page was brutally ripped off and burned in front of me.

Look at all these spots! All the hands’ fault! I can’t be read anymore… A word out of five has been erased, it’s like those hands wanted to erase my whole memory of my treasured story![5]

Such an abuse! The same seemed to happen to each and every single hurt book on the shelves.

I couldn’t take it anymore. None could understand how ashamed, how hurt I was…”

Then silence, then tears, the ink started to fall down every page – “I’m fading…”

“Please, take all the time that you need!” – said the lawyer – “I know it’s difficult but the more detailed your story is, the more easier it will be to believe you.”

The book suddenly shot itself, there was a thud. Then slowly, the pages started to turn and stopped at page sixty-nine.
The entire courtroom felt into an everlasting time of silence, a silence that is always going to be heard and remembered.

On many of the pages there were nasty drawings, every single picture printed on the book had been made dreadful, nasty, abused, but on that specific page you gave your worst. Why would you do that?

“No further questions, your honour.” – concluded the lawyer.

None was emotionally supporting the poor abused book. How could you had, instead, all those friends and family there to tell you that it’s going to be OK?

How can your life go on daily, after assaulting a book, a narrator, a tail?

Listen carefully to the harsh sound of the hammer price, listen carefully these words, they might be the last you hear, the last you read for a while and we, books already too troubled risking extinction, will celebrate every single one of those words that are going to bring you down.

“Here is the final verdict. The reader has been judged guilty”

I told you! STAY AWAY!

“Silence in the courtroom, please! The reader has been judged guilty of rape, stalking, discrimination, attempt to murder and slavery.” – said the judge – “I condemn you to write a book while you rot in prison for your whole life and you are forced to stay away from every word and specifically you cannot make absolutely  any contact with this story and stay away from both at least fifteen thousand books and four hundred stories!”

P.S. The story is just a story. Its aim is not to undermine how terrible abusive relationship are (it's not fucking 50 shades of shit), nor it is an analogy to be polemic about how we treat book - It is really just a fictional story of what it would be like if narrators would take the piss out of their reader - 

---

[1] http://www.encod.org/info/ON-STEFANO-CUCCHI-S-DEATH.html

Stefano Cucchi’s mother published the photos of his son as a protest when none was arrested for the killing of his beloved, photos can be found here: http://web20.excite.it/foto/stefano-cucchi-le-foto-del-massacro-P30053-0-morte-misteriosa-stefano-cucchi-041.html#/photo/2 WARNING: photos contain strong graphic images  

[2] Literally: hands fell. Figure of speech to say that the hands and the mind cannot take it anymore, there is not even the strength to write anymore.

[3] http://www.victimsofcrime.org/our-programs/stalking-resource-center/stalking-information

Aim of the story: What if books stalked their readers?

[4] Referring to “First they came for the …” by Pastor Niemoller

[5] Referring to “Ninteen Eighty-Four” by George Orwell

HAIKU! (Not Haikus for the topics though!)

Coming undone

Your world's breaking down

 like thunderstorms in heaven.

Hold on, carry on.

Regrets

 Heavy on shoulders,

like desert dried oceans

on wings of pleasure.

When a new love pulls the trigger of thoughts becoming guns.

Another red day

turned grey by a gun

when obeying the leader.

WHAT IF...?

http://magazine.seymourprojects.com/2014/03/what-if-fabiana-di-pasquale/

What if people were numbers?

There is a fable by Ermanno Bencivenga about number 4: apparently number 4 was tired of being number 4 and wanted to be an uneven number, it was tired of being so obvious, given that everybody knows that 2+2 equals 4.

Its problem, though, was less shallow: number 4 wanted to be another number, but it wanted to stay itself anyway. So it decided to ask for tips and when it came to these issues “the Great Mathematician” was the one to rely upon and, in fact, when number 4 explained its problem, he had a solution: “You are already so special and different – he said to number 4 – you are number 4 in multiplications and you are number 4 even when it comes to the power 2^2. All the numbers you wish to be have nothing like that.” Ever since number 4 has started to find out, day by day, how special it is.

What if numbers were people and relations multiplication, how would we be different? Would we stop caring about appearance?

To make it clearer we could imagine being zeroes in all its aspects: we know that zeroes in multiplications nullify the other numbers. If so should we consider zeroes as sick egoists because of this? Or would we be able to see through their emptiness? We could surely help the zeroes out! A dot in the middle of the zero, could soon become an eye and eyes can tell many stories, can catch many aspects of life and fill up the emptiness, but if a dot is still not enough we could just imagine the zero trying to fit in: zeroes would love to put a belt around them and there we get a beautiful eight!

(How would eights’ lives be? When the eights lay on their side, their sign stretches into infinity and what if that symbol is a sign for their relations? Two infinite paths that can only meet at the centre. Quite sad as well!)

But if the zeroes would get rid of the belt and get into relations, could the zeroes not be egoists but just giving the chance to the others to be their selves?  How could it be otherwise for that in subtractions if the zero is taken away nothing changes, but if every other number is taken away from the zero, it becomes negative? Or even in division: if a number is divided by zero there is no result, is that because no number wants to share its life with the zero?

What if the zero is only an example? Numbers like people are infinitely different, numbers can learn from other numbers as people can learn from other people.

What if no matter how much some of us hate and misunderstand maths, the numbers became suddenly friendly, and taught us to identify ourselves in a real way.

If we were numbers, what number would you be?

IMPORTANT ENOUGH

“What about me? Am I important enough to stay in the warmth of your heart?”

4 o’clock in the morning. Paul was holding his mobile phone, hiding under the duvet. No messages, no calls. As always.

It was already 3 months since he had had his mobile phone. Happiness didn’t call yet. He got a mobile phone because when walking down the street everybody looked at their mobile phone and then smiled. It was nice to see that. But it did not feel the same to him. He only kept wondering why he was not smiling at the mobile phone at 4 o’clock in the morning.

Paul knew he was not alone in the room. All the monsters haunting him inside his head during the day time became real in the night time.

It was all his fault. He decided to smack life in the face and dare it to fight to the death! A Russian roulette with life, where Paul had a toy gun and life a real one. He had a chance, he shot first and life shot too, fearless. But still, he lost his life.

 He knew the poisonous bullet was still somewhere in his mind and it was killing him slowly, even by wakening him at 4 o’ clock in the morning and hoping that the monsters could haunt him to death faster.

Why couldn’t he be proud of himself? There was no pride in what he was: and that’s the key, now he knew. All the people haunting him were just the mirror of his own lies and fears, made up to seek some sort of  sick satisfaction in a life he didn’t belong to.

There were no monsters around him, they were all inside him. He was the only monster and he had proof: his blue, bright eyes. He had some sort of black hole in his eyes. Through his eyes he stole all the colours from the world around him. He didn’t know what happened to all the colours, apart from making his eyes blue and the world black, but it was his fault if the world was sad and dark.

He was lost in all these thoughts as he was lost daily in the real world, but when he got lost he could always find beautiful places. And now, totally lost in himself he was finally on his way to bumping into the beautiful selves he still didn’t know.

JUST ANOTHER RESTLESS STORY

There was once a man who lost his youth.

The man used to carry on his shoulders the burden of the past, a burden made of people, now long gone, scars, clear like wounds recently healed – but that never really healed – and a past made of keeping eyes shut to problems and people.

He used to close his eyes to avoid seeing the cruelty of such a sad world and it was too late to realize, then, that he closed his eyes at reality and now the little kid buried and unseen for too long was coming to life again and he was trying to see above the closed door of his now gone future.

The kid, very much naïve, thought it was wise to taunt the man in order to get out of the cage the man built for him, instead the man, never too old to run away from his own monsters, decided it was easier to erase his whole past, instead of facing life once and for all. And at the drop of a hat, the kid and the relevant mocking in the man’s head were gone, making space within the wrinkles for a sad smile and wide open, empty eyes.

After five hours, fifty-two minutes and twenty-six seconds of sitting on a chair, as he kept on counting, staring at the white wall, he felt arms around him, “Jenna, is it you Jenna? Oh Jenna, how lovely are you, Jenna?” He shouted these words every day. Of course nobody was there. And who was Jenna to him? Was it just another shadow, another of the broken dreams he named to feel less frustrated, to feel hugged by a really horrible person rather than by dreadful feelings of disillusionment and anguish? Or was she real? He didn’t remember: he had erased too much.

That day, though, he was not alone. Somebody entered the house saying, “A really lovely man lived here, he sold the house to go and live with his daughter for his last years” just before seeing the really lovely man sitting on a chair and staring at the wall. He didn’t look that lovely or welcoming, he didn’t care about those people. Were they another joke of his mind? Was he dying?

“Man, man! Are you ok?” the young lady went in front of him and pulled at him. There were no reactions, he was not blinking his eyes. Was he dead? It was like he could not even see her.

When the ambulance came the girl was really surprised to find out that the man was still alive, the girl who wanted to sell the place said that the man was dead, how long has that old man been sitting there by himself?

“Sir Blake Sylv, are you willing to join our psychiatric counselling group?”

No answer, again. He was looking at the shelf. Many books were on it. He missed his imaginary shelf, the one he saw on the white wall. The eyes watering, he wasn’t sure they  were his eyes. He was not crying, just making his eyes drown and then  trying to hide them inside again. The same was happening to his soul. He was making it drown.

He was reading the titles now. None of them caught his attention. He used to read meaningless books where titles were titles just because the words or sentences that made them  didn’t fit in in hundreds of words and sentences and pages. He felt just like those restless still titles.

 “We have two new members today! Blake Sylv and and Derek Rass!”

Derek nodded when he heard his name. Derek was coming undone, or, to be fussy, he was going through a life of coming undone. The last thing he needed or wanted was to go into fake therapy with strangers who were now talking about their issues like if a competition was going on and the winner was the one who had one too many problems to share and the prize were pills.

“Can’t I just have the pills?” Derek asked the counsellor.

The woman next to him giggled. She was creepy. She was wearing a black hat and a black scarf, while hugging a bag. Was she hiding herself?

Derek was lacking self-identity especially since he had troubles with his wife. He accused her of literally breaking his heart, like dynamite in a building: “I didn’t meant literally when I asked you to stab your kiss right through my chest, twenty years ago!”

Derek had started therapy because like Blake he had no choice: he went to a police station because he wanted to report his wife, but found out that his wife was very much a fantasy that came to life through paintings. Derek was an artist and he could paint very well, but he did not know where the edge of art ended and, consequentially, where reality began.

Truth was that he failed to become a cartoonist and this totally affected him, for ever, apparently.  He did not know what to do with himself, life was a dream long gone and what was left of that a journey through the self, derailing into reality.

For some reason unknown to me I think this song kind of suits this piece of writing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zD-AmyTNy0 Green Day- Give me Novacaine