The Boy and His Wings

The boy rode his flying horse galloping through snow trails turn into soft clouds full of foreign dreams. He traveled out of his farmland into boarding schools and Ivy League disciplines. He talked Economics in the big city to then change paths fulfilled by painted dreams. He flew his heart to colorful Barcelona to later find romance in Florence and end up in academical London always longing for more, always longing for change. He moved into filming thoughts into images in New York and overwhelmed by the old, found his new self in LA.

So here the boy-turn-into-this-massive-giant-man is, in LA.
Thirty-five years later for the first time longing for solid grounds.

The man traveled the universe and found the world in his chest.

Little Girl

Once upon a time, there was a little girl that lived in a fantastic jungle surrounded by the big city. She was one more element of that nature. Every morning, she’d wake up with the cicadas singing from the trees and open her wooden windows to salute the sun, the birds, the flowers. She’d get out of bed still with a head of crazy hair firing curls into the air and her wide mouth full of laughter. She’d start her day by having her bare feet absorb the dew off the damp leaves and wet earth. She’d run around the little muddy trails playing with the branches, dancing with the flowers, kissing the air. She knew every bird by their exquisite singing; every flower by their singular whiff. She’d say good morning to the little monkeys and sit down to hear the old toucan couple love stories. She’d eat breakfast off the trees, filling her little stomach with oranges, bananas, mangos… Sometimes, she’d be lucky enough to find one of the wild chickens eggs left behind, she’d crack them open and eat them raw, swallowing nature down her throat.

The little girl was curious. She wanted to know why about everything. She would walk around the big city with blue make-up shadow under her eyes, claiming they were clouds and not shadows to whoever dared to ask about her lack of conventionality. She’d hold her mother’s soft hands and widen her tiny eyes to the big world full of wonders. She yearned understanding. She’d sometimes go off on a binge of “whys” and get tired by her own interest, she’d then ask mother if she was too much of a asker and mother would tell her to never stop being. Mother told her once that curiosity was a gift that most of the adults had lost somewhere through their rough paths and that kids like her were fortunate to have it. Mother would say that the universe was a mystery and auspicious were the ones who were never satiated by what humanity had believed before them. Mother was to raise her kids to wonder, to seek, to be curious. Father had said once that she was raised to embrace the big world, to spread her wings and fly into the unknown fearlessly - “Don’t ever be a wussy, you have what it takes!” Together her parents had told her never to fear solitude. She was to never forget that they were to hold her hands through her path without needing physical closeness; their presence was to one another unforgettable. They lived inside each other. But mostly, her parents warned her to never let her loneliness stop her quest for answers, for development, for growth. She was raised for the world and not for the little jungle on their backyard.

The little girl grew into a woman. The grown woman with the little girl’s heart remembered her parents’ words. She threw herself into foreign countries, venturing away from her parents’ lands. She traveled miles and miles of earth and upon arriving she realized she had never had so many questions. The grown woman with the little girl’s heart stepped on the cement of the new world she was presenting to herself, with eyes blinded by the new. She was overflowed by all her unknown abilities. She wanted to learn.

At first she felt lonely, too lonely. She felt that it was all so far from the way of being she knew to be. She felt outcast and wrong about her identity, about her ways. The grown woman with the little girl’s heart felt many times broken into pieces by heavy society hammers, only for her to glue each of her little pieces back together, now even sturdier. Through her path, she felt inconvenient in her questioning and unwelcome in her curiosity. “It is what it is, ask no more”. She encountered robot-adults that determinedly tried to shut her down, to show her how inadequate she was being for wondering too much. “Just shut up and sing!” they shouted. She felt beaten by their severity; she just wanted to learn them. The grown woman swam oceans of hardship and unacceptance. She cried her fears into rivers that merged into the open sea and little fishes fed off her salty tears gaining wings from her nutrients. The flying fishes would then always salute her through her sailing afternoons, reminding her of the nutrience of her tears; they’d reminded her that some people sorrows were to others strength, that her sad tears once had given them wings, and it was for her to choose to do the same with her misadventures. She chose to instead of getting hurt by the robot-adults, she’d grown her compassion even stronger, sorrowed by their ignorance. The more she persisted on accepting differences the more she comprehended her own singular identity. The more she kept asking about everything the more she found out about herself.

The little girl with a grown woman’s heart became unafraid of cliffs and downfalls, she had learned how to walk back as far as she could just to gain space enough to run into the cliff as fast as possible, awakening the little wings on her ankles while shutting her eyes and fulfilling her every cell with the little girl’s old dreams, and with that, suddenly, there she was running through her invisible golden ramps over cliffs and downfalls into new heights, Crescent Heights.

The little girl with the strong woman’s heart went through time and space eager to find new truths to break, new “news” to question. She slowly started figuring out her place in the world. She found a career she loved and friends that were to love and be loved deeply. She found a new castle to reside in and a town that she could call home. In the weekends she would run the highest peeks of her land and tell the air to share with her old friends - the old toucan couple, the buzzers, the monkeys, the trees… - that she had never forgotten them, that she had learned to take them with her wherever she was. She had their magic jungle land right inside her chest, and that pumped her bloodstream every time it got weakened by the oddity of a foreign life. She had learned that home was within, traveling with her the lengths of an infinite universe of questions and consequent wisdom.

One night the strong woman with the little girl’s heart started feeling tiny rips breaking out her shoulder blades. Her skin was ripping and it did not hurt; there was something to grow out of them. She fell asleep so fast that she became unsure whether it was a dream. She opened her eyes to a bird’s sight; she was seeing the world from the sky. The little rips on her back were now yellow and red butterfly wings. She was venturing into a whole new land of unfamiliar. She flew the night away drinking the fresh air as nectar. She woke up still sore from the new movements her body was learning, surprised with the dreams that were growing out of her brain.

The strong woman with the little girl’s heart started to feed her mind with fantastic ideas. She wanted to sow dream dust over the big town, inspiring curiosity and love out of the accommodated people in their closed up condos and tiny apartments. She wanted to uncover the secret inside each human being. She wanted to ask the inappropriate, to disregard the absolute truths told, and simply break each human certainty down back to their newborn eyes. She wanted to turn out the brains, which had frozen through the years by their own unforgiving winters, into spring gardens, awakening the sleeping eyes of a gray world into new wonders. She wanted them all to hold each other’s wings and sing in unison with the birds and trees and oceans and all the nature of the living planet they all resided on. She wanted for the world to be aware of their impalpable connection.

One day the strong woman with the little girl’s heart was flying distractedly through the blue skies, when she saw his wings. She had never seen a man so golden. She froze in her flight, as if time had stopped ticking; he had to be an angel. Their eyes touched and they were lost in awe. She saw in him her reflection; she saw in his eyes the curiosity she had only seen in a mirror. She saw in his open skull gardens and forests and high-rise buildings and throbbing dreams. Who was he? Who was that angel-man? They tacitly came closer and held hands; their potency melted in sweat. They were together pure electricity. She was stunned and stung by something she had never known until. That lighting angel was to her so familiar and such a mystery at the same time. It was so effortless to fly with him and still he was an abyss of unknown. She wanted to ask. She wanted to duck dive into his secrets and learn the depths of his dreams. She wanted to share all the life in her chest with him, and she was just as curious about the life within his chest; curious, as she had never been.

Destiny, smart as it is, knew not to overwhelm their longing. It had them living busy lives in different lands. They were to learn each other little by little, never letting the passion overcome the love. Their fortresses were far apart, with thick tall walls to trespass to get in. Through the years they had both learned intricate mechanisms of how to protect the treasure inside their chests. They were then two loners living their aspirations, while letting the people around come close enough to enjoy them without getting into their selves within. They were strong in their respective drives. They were, over the years, now finally grown into two adults with little kids’ hearts inside their chests, full of curiosity and love to spread, only not yet sure enough of how to do it effectively. They were inevitably compelled to learn their differences while always aware of their thin borders and delicate grounds. They were to enter each other’s land slowly, feeling the soft earth underneath their feet while allowing the sole of their souls to learn the best paths to trespass their massive gates. Their fortresses shared walls; they were potentially the same land.

Through the metal fences you could see the vastness of that beautiful world. You could see the highest waterfalls and the greenest grass. There were colorful gardens and thousands years trees. There were nymphs and fairies playing their flutes while sowing love seeds to the flowers. There were flying birds dancing their choreography, with the clouds playing along as their background and little funny monkeys climbing weeping vines and black horses and happy squirrels and loving toucans running around the grounds… That kind of world was to be undisclosed to the masses; most of the humans saw it as too extra-ordinary to exist. Most of the humans felt that world was to be disregarded and disbelieved, and that’s why they kept its metal fences and gates so well shut. But it was there; it was real to the few ones with pure souls and unbroken dreams. Their lands were their secret worlds, still with limited tours to each other.

Day after day, they started to learn to trust their minds to each other’s yearn, unlocking their dreams and fears to each other’s curiosity. Through time, they were to discover how to open up their metal locks to one another, slowly opening up the entirety of their lives; they were to nurture each other’s pure spirit, feeding themselves big spoons of inspirations. The more they learned about each other, the less they needed to ask, the less they needed to say.

What they didn’t know was that through that process they’d awaken hidden monsters and dark secrets that lived under their lands; they would get to encounter their veiled darkness and all the obscurity that they had learn not to expose. Every ogre that protects the Heaven’s gates would come out of their respective caves, jealous of the arrival of an angel and what that could expose them to. The monsters were to be the fear one has of their own self; the darkness that comes out when one breaks down. They were the little demon over the shoulder that says, “love takes too much work, don’t be silly, forget about it.” They were there to never allow one to be completely pure, completely vulnerable. They were to be fed by the carrier inability of facing them, hoping to one day be fueled by the ugliness of one’s soul and with that, contagiously hurt everyone around. They were something so deep and scary that a human being would never be able to face it without growing an inhuman rage into their hearts. The monsters hoped to use their evil tricks to sweep the foreign angel away from their lands, just so they could get back to their corners even stronger without ever being dealt with. The monsters knew to fight even harerd this time because they were aware that only angels had the power of transforming their darkness into compassion. Those two very angels were potentially able to turn their whole shit into fresh fertilizer.

The monsters got ready for the battle, they worn their dirtiest skin and their darkest features. They came out of their caves groaning and roaring, ready for the slaughter. What they didn’t realize was that by exposing themselves out of their own prisons, the two angels became potentially able to reach within their souls.

The angels watched the monsters circling them around, a throng of stomps in their warrior rhythm. But the angels didn't back off, they held hands instead and smiled at them genuinely. The monsters got uneasy, caught by surprise. And so the angels showed even more joy in their freedom of fear. The monster stopped, puzzled in eerie. The moment had presented itself; the angels came around in soft steps and herd them into their opened wings. The monsters shook, fought and groaned, but the angels' hug was too tight for their battles. They were clearly giving in. Slowly, each monster was nurtured into newborn seeds. Caress by caress, after every soft touch of kindness, each ogre started morphing into flower seeds. And from that moment on, a flower would blossom every time a fear was turn into comfort.

Together, the angels understood that they were to cleanse each other souls of all the demons that they unnoticedly allowed to reside in their deepest galaxies within. They were to turn every recurrent nightmare into renewed strength. They were to swim into the depths of each other’s abysses, while conquering their own fears through their partnership. They were slowly growing stronger as a unit, unaware of the golden keys forming in their pockets. They were through time, sculpting master keys to each other’s fortresses, and one day, potentially, there would be no more gates to be broken, they would have finally broken in into each other’s souls.

They will then work in their love happily ever after, flying into each other’s unknown fearlessly, just as she once flew into that foreign land.

Morpheus

From afar it might be mistaken for average feathers, however, if you take a closer look, you can feel without even touching it the thousands threads of its delicate texture and the subtle shimmer of his wings; by the time the rising sunbeams could strike it, they are far gone. He is now back to humanity.

Every morning he opens his eyelids and stares at the fresh air of a new day. He squeezes them tight and flaps them again wishing it all had been reality; the night lingers.

He moves slowly but his brain is running in the speed of light. He’s ready.

For decades, he’s been giving birth to his Gods and Demons translated into little synchronized letters, swimming into words, paragraphs, chapters, entire tales. His mind processes what he feels into melodies, which flow into one another. His synapses proliferate millions of musical notes; he is overflowed with desire, it’s contagious. He walks out of his bed and covers his palpable outline with conventional pieces of clothes. The delicate blur of light that surrounds his edges is as golden as his bouncy hair curls. He opens the giant wooden door leading to the outside world and climbs onto his magic rug bewitched into a sky-blue scooter. He rides his wills through the asphalted streets of the busy city, opening seas. He watches the architecture of the massive buildings. He sees the rainbow in the millions of cars that, as cattle, crowd the paved trails of that urban jungle. He takes notices of the mass of people living their lives inside their thin bubbles. He travels in his magic-rug-scooter taking curbs by storm, riding through the throng, full of colossal ideas inside the little bag on his back. He conquers his Kingdom through the tiny slits of his eye against the wind, gulping images into information.

Every day he engages his audience chanting the ordinary into magic. He attends meetings with suited man and casually dressed fellows, he visits well decorated offices, he has lunch and dinner meetings in distinctive restaurants, he’s invited to homes and requested by several different tribes; he’s a breeder of dreams. He spreads his seeds full of great ambitions. He rides around Olympus shooting arrows of creativity into people’s minds; ideas that blossom into intricate projects, raising millions of their device of trade, which will later generate unexpected stimulation into several individuals brains, in a full circle of inspiration.

During daylight he may look human to distracted eyes, but he transcends humanity in his abilities; he’s a man filled with elaborated affections. Once the sun starts setting, he feels the wings slowly ripping his pulsing skin. The air gets thinner. His new branches get lighter by the darker the sky turns. His feet begin to disregard the boundaries of gravity; soon is time to go. His mind now plays a complex symphonic orchestra breaking all his shells open. His heart pounds fresh blood and suddenly pour hiccups of intensity out of his chest. His wings are fully-grown; time has come. The music gets clearer and louder; he starts to fly.

He opens his wings taking upon the night by his arms and travels through clandestine space tunnels. His long voyage feels barely like a couple of seconds. He disregards Time by the joy of tasting the soundless gust of the journey. He knows to slow down once the air warms up; he’s entering her land.

She sleeps soundlessly, tacitly waiting for his arrival. He lands in her room mesmerized by her fragility; little patinho. He stares for a while, photographing from far each of her corners into mind portraits. Her little butterfly wings are still frail from growing. He quietly gets underneath her sheets and sluggishly spoons her margins. Her body boils. She embraces him in silence. He caresses her cheeks with his eyelashes and kisses her nose with the tip of his. Their skins have a flawless memory of each other. She turns to him and sees through his eyes; finally into each other’s arms. They kiss and stay there for a while, just being. They squeeze tightly, blissfully. He lies on top of the full length of her body and she takes pleasure in supporting his weight. They duck dive into each other’s smell, puzzling their limbs into one another, like complex enzymes; they fit. They morph their borders into one singular unit. Their sweat balances each other’s temperatures. They are in heat.

He bites her inner tights in a feast; she kisses every tiny piece of his body and sucks his peripheries; he eats figs off her legs and licks her pink tongue. They pour naughty wishes into wetness, losing their walls into each other’s secrets. They explore their territories with endless curiosity. Their bodies dance in perfect sync, brewing hurricane, exploding in thousand sparkles turn into a firestorm of planetary magnitude. They overflow all of their fluids and finally faint into each other’s arms. They fall into the deepest dream. Love meets Soul.

He opens his eyelids and stares at the fresh air of a new day. He squeezes them tight and flaps them again, wishing it all had been reality; the night lingers.

Two Pairs of Feet

One day, while in the midst of living two parallel worlds and completely unaware of the importance of that specific day, two bodies were put in the same country, same city, same room. Two bodies that had been individually walking through space, light, sound, time, without ever knowing about each other’s existence. They were born in far apart cultures, separated by thousands of miles and only united by sharing the same planet at the same time. Bodies which paths had been built by tiny grains of sand turn into solid ground designing the trail to their destinies, and could have never foretold their throbbing fate.

Over the years, each in their own castles disconnectedly had their little feet walking on thick sand and wet grass and harsh cement and warm mud and soft snow and dry dirt-roads on remote sides of the same living system. Feet that ran their winding courses climbing the stones of time whilst turning it into fuel to their lymph; feet that blossomed into a whole body of singularity and its lungs learned to breath a complex web-net of particles that were somehow stranged neighbors rubbing each other’s walls by default. They experienced the world through the massive abyss in their tiny pupils. Pupils that swam in a pool of sterling green iris on his fair face, whereas in brown white waters within her eyes; eyes that swallow image, morphing it into knowledge, which could had never come close to touching the unbearable concept of each other’s possibilities as two, foremost as one.

They were once two idiosyncratic rivers that after running through several canyons and rocks and caves and waterfalls, would unexpectedly merge into an intricate sea, changing all its tides, just as if the full moon were permanently above.

Through decades, they had learned separately how to love and fight and persist and cry, they had learned how to relate and how to disregard, how to detach and how to engage. They had puzzled together their own little pieces into complex live structures. They were to themselves fulfilled and whole and that’s when after years of preparation, without warning, they finally clashed into each other’s shores.

They looked at each other that first moment and, from that split second on, they somehow knew their lives would never be intact anymore. The impact of the collision of their two worlds flooded into songs and poetry and movies and love letters and infinite tears of joy and intensity. They were two galaxies that when finally coexisting together had the potential to brew an entire new universe.

The stars had aligned. It was now up to them to choreograph their own planetary system.

The Thumb

It was one of those days that I couldn’t care less; no fru-fru to go to work. As usual, I had set the alarm for ten minutes prior to the time I had to be turning my car engine on, 5am. All I needed was to brush my teeth and shove some clothes into my limbs and torso and go. No brushing hair, no shower, no choosing outfit, no “read-the-news” morning crap.

I knew it was a music video, which already set me on that panic mode of “anything can go” kind of day. The fact that it was a stage job brought me some kind of peace of mind, knowing we wouldn't be moving from location to location, either have to handle the melting sun outside.

So I arrive to the stage, and as usual, immediately smile with the sea of men that I get to work with everyday. I mean, it’s a very an passant thought that I don’t even notice I’m thinking; It’s just a note into my morning.

The day starts hectic as usual. Everyone is talking about the big-shot Director of Photography we were working with. Okay, Okay, his work is pretty amazing…extremely sexy without being vulgar. It’s mostly about women; lighting them and finding their perfect angles, which he does every time. He has awards and awards and massive major accounts. He is tall and skinny, which is not exactly my type when it comes down to it; he’s gray-haired and probably around his fifties; he flirts with everything, even the couches and chairs. The man is powerful and intimidating but still able to be soft and personal. He's all over the place in his funny and sweet manner, charming the whole set with his skills.

He’s been coming my way, closer and closer every time, making comments and asking things. I don’t get flattered; it seems to me he does it to everyone. I’m not feeling him at all. Then he starts the staring thing. I know he’s constantly staring shamelessly at my face, and yes, sometimes I catch him looking at my “outline” in general, not to be too specific. Honestly, I was just trying to get by, how many of those hotshot guys we encounter every day with no qualms?

Lunchtime arrives and I go sit at a table with the Grips. I see him coming my way and I pray not to be interviewed right in front of the guys, but I knew it, he seats right in front of me non-chalant and starts the questionnaire. The guys are loving it; they couldn’t be better entertained watching his matting techniques and my escaping answers. I respond everything forcing my eyes not to look into his - just monosyllabic and reserved - oh God…so the opposite of me.

He comes closer by the end of the lunch and I can smell him. Okay, that’s when it became a problem. His smell immediately brought new feelings into the picture.It SX a nerve. How can that be? It’s so strange this chemistry thing. Out of nowhere, I felt him. He suddenly became intriguing to me.

I started to watch him being: he’s loud but gentle at the same time. He knows how to dress really well in a very simple way; perfect dark jeans that fits him to a tailor-quality, white linen button-shirt opened just enough, nice work black boots and a silver chain with at little coin dangling on his chest; He looks carelessly good. The haircut also helps; you can tell he cuts at John Frieda or something like that…who cares…it looks perfectly messy.

He is good. He knows what he wants and he has a vision. The crew is impressed. Grips and electricians are all compliments, which is very unlikely. The hot dancers are all over him, trying their best to get his attention; the director acts like his assistant, letting him make the decisions…I mean, the whole set was rocking his cradle and still, his attention was on me, every spare second he has… interesting. At that point I start to let my mind wander and wonder. I'm no longer the little sheep. My perversions are suddenly triggered and I can’t be too close to him anymore. Fuck, he distracts the shit out of me. I don’t let anyone notice. I focus on my tasks and make myself as busy as I can. The day is almost over, I’ll be okay. I’ll soon be in my car and he’ll be just a funny memory. It’s okay, it’s okay. Just walk away.

It’s a wrap. Everyone is loading their equipment into their trucks and he’s saying bye to everyone.

I hide. I go into the office, the restroom, anywhere I can be to not run into him. I had just come from one marriage, one major relationship and one engagement in a five-year span and all I wanted was some peace of mind. I’m extremely attracted to that old man, but I just didn’t want to go down the same path one more time.

Eventually, I come out of my hiding place knowing I was safe. There was no way he was still there after so long. I say bye to everyone and start heading to my car relieved.

There he is in the parking lot, taking his time doing I don’t know what…He comes with open warms and a massive smile. He hugs me tight, as if we were friends for a long time, and tells me we must get together for drinks or something. He loves the Brazilian culture and he assures me we have a lot in common – if men only knew how many times a Brazilian girl in US hears that everyday.

I try to talk to myself to not fall for it; I battle my brain while he writes his information down. I eventually hesitantly surrender. I do. I give him my info.

It was about five minutes into my drive home when I get the first text. I like it. I thought it was sweet and thoughtful. I love men that are Man enough to not play that silly phone game.

We start an intense routine of e-mails, text messages, calls the whole week. We communicate thorough the entire day; from the first good morning call until the last good night. It’s exciting. He’s just how I like: into me! And that only makes me more into him. I was flattered by the non-stop attention he was giving me, regardless how crazy busy he had been.

“Okay, lets see each other”, I finally agree.

We decide on lunch. We stop by his house first, which I firmly believe it was one of those “impress-her” moves. Lets not even talk about his car, which was totally “I-can-fuck-any-bimbo-in-town” car. Well, we get to his house and it’s just magical. It’s rustic, perfectly built and stunningly decorated. I’m falling head over heels for his taste in furniture, pictures, smell, placement of every object…I mean, in everything. I can even say that his place perfectly fits and portraits my personality to a level that I haven’t experienced, and I like to think I’ve seen many gorgeous houses.

He starts showing me his art, which was already all over the walls and it seemed one more of his “impress-me” moves. Let me tell you, my friend, it was working. He answers the phone and speaks French with someone… Come oooon, did he plan everything out before? Did he ask a friend to call him just so he could expose his French skills? I was getting overwhelmed; it was just so fucking perfect. I was there dipped in infatuation and he knew it. I had a tendency to believe that he planned it thoroughly.

We finally get out of his love-guru temple and head out to lunch. It was a flawless sunny day. I had chosen a subtle see-through summer dress and heels to play with his photographer skills. It works; he’s all about the nuances of the light on my skin and dress, it flows… I mean, the dress. We have the perfect food, even though we are so entertained talking that both of us had suddenly lost our appetites. We leave the plates full and decide to watch a movie somewhere. We go back to his place to look into movie times. We are looking at his computer screen together and our scents mingle. We get closer and closer quietly, until our cheeks touch. We smile and turn into each other. We kiss.

A little paragraph here: I must say, I was dreading the kiss. I feared a terrible sloppy or tough or shy or cold or pointy or dry or just wrong kiss. I was dreading kissing him as much as I dread kissing any foreigner. To their credit, I was lucky to find a couple of amazing kissers in the crowd, and yes I haven’t had a chance to kiss that many to compare, but being Brazilian you know, my peeps may be anything but bad lovers.

Well, back to my good-taste man. We kissed and kissed and kissed more, we both felt like ripping each other's clothes apart but we stopped ourselves and headed out to the movie theater, full of anticipation and excitement. Shit, I could already tell our chemistry and compatibility were insane. We were so comfortable and natural and at ease with each other.

We get out of the car and hold each other’s hands without thinking. We kiss and hug and laugh while walking to the movie theater, which was kind of odd to me, but okay. We feel like we’ve always known each other. He picked the last row of the theater. It’s packed. Not one available seat and that fat crowd eating their popcorns and flipping their lit cell-phones don’t bother me at all. I’m content. The trailers happen while we lose each other in our kiss forgetting everyone else.

Lights go off and his hand immediately run up my legs. I’m already wet by that time. Honestly, I got wet the moment our faces got close looking at the computer screen. His hand seems pretty determined: it goes slowly into my panties and starts caressing me on top of it. I’m in a mix of extreme excitement and embarrassment…I mean, is anyone seeing this? It seems everyone is distracted by the movie. We are clear. His fingers persist. They play and play until he pulls my panties to the side. He reached flesh, wet flesh. He pulls his finger out and licks it. He smiles at me and kisses me even more passionately.

Fuck, he’s a pervert…just like me. “I’m loving it”. I was happy and excited and anticipating more, but thinking that was enough for the time being. I was done and ready for the movie. He wasn’t. Here it comes his finger again. Okay, okay, I can handle it. It seems he’s getting a lot out of it, so let him be. He now comes with his thumb and digs right in. Wow, calm down, nice and slow…I can’t really say much, it’s not like we are alone in a room. I suddenly feel aware about the trial we go through when we are meeting someone. I was learning him, and the fact that that thought suddenly popped into my mind showed me that he suddenly felt foreign to me. He seemed to feel very strong about that thumb-fingering act since he did it for what it felt like a long time, but I’m not sure how long. I eventually forgot any excitement and was just weird out about it. When I was on the verge of getting bothered he stopped.

The rest of the movie was a mix of feelings inside my little self. Don’t ask me about the storyline but about the girth of that finger. It all felt a bit bizarre, but maybe he was just horny, which could be good. Choose a perspective, right?

We go back to his place and make out for a bit and there it comes the thumb again. Oh man, is it a fixation or what? He’s an amazing kisser and he feels good and he smells good and he’s really charming and intelligent. He has a lot going on for him but that thumb is getting under my skin, not literally, well, also literally...

Things get heated up. We stop. We both know we don’t want to be just one more for each other. We both subtly see our disposing capability and we’re both grown up enough to understand the magic of anticipation. I go home.

We text message a bunch more and send pictures back and forth that same night. I have mixed feelings, but he’s still running strong through my trial. Truth is, I liked everything about him; I was just a bit intrigued by that thumb thing.

We see each other the next day and the moment I walked into his place here it comes. The over excited thumb gets right back between my legs on the first kiss. Oh, man… come on. He stops. We talk a bit, he shows me more stuff, we start making out by the kitchen table and it feels good and we keep going and it feels even better and we keep going more and oops…suddenly he is inside me, and I don’t mean the finger. I’m a bit overwhelmed to say the least. It was too soon and too sudden. It feels good but I wasn’t prepared for it yet. I’m half into it and half having that gut feeling that turns everything into doubt.

He throws me around the house and fucks me in every corner of it, in what somehow has a Movie feeling to me. Is he choosing frames? I’m obviously going through way too more thoughts that I’d like to in a first-time-making-love encounter. As I said, we were fucking, at least he was. I couldn’t commit to that randomness. It all felt weird and he cummed without me truly caring. That was telling. Very.

We go to lunch or dinner or I don’t know. It’s all a blur to me now, since all I could handle was trying to grasp my own feelings toward that man. I remember that I cut our date short saying that I had an early call or something. I went home very confused and not knowing what to do of all those feelings. It had nothing to do with “what he’s going to think about me?” stupid thing; it has never had. Truth was, I was just starting to blossom so many good feelings about him, about us, and that sudden act kind of took away the magic. He texted me and emailed and called, but I don’t remember how my responses were; I did respond it though, every one of them.

I went a couple of days avoiding seeing him, but I still had feelings for him. I missed him and I liked him somehow, but my gut was telling me something I couldn’t gather yet.

Saturday came and he had planned a full day together…did we do it? Well, I think we partially did. I remember getting to his place and going through the thumb routine once again, which was really getting to my nerves but still somehow, bearable. Then, going to lunch and to the Amoeba Store, where we bought each other a couple of gifts. We decided to head back to his place to watch a 1960’s era movie, I’m not sure which one. I do remember the feeling I had the whole time: I was in eerie, attracted and repelled by him at the same time. We knew each other’s love and life stories by then, I knew about his daughter and ex-wife, he knew about my ex-husband and life in Brazil; we knew each other’s schedules and favorite places, we knew our similarities more than incompatibilities. He was talking about future plans and I was adapting to it. We were engaging and I didn’t want to make impulsive decisions, I mean, more than I had already done.

We get back to his place and head to his room to watch the movie. I start to put together all the little bits. He’s controlling. He’s always trying to place me in a certain spot, just like he envisions, and fuck me in a certain position, which feels a bit mindless to me. We are about to get to bed to watch the movie. He asks me to sit instead of lying down. I pretend I didn’t understand and I lay down as I wished in first place. He lies next to me complaining and kissing me at the same time. I’m weird out. I start wondering why was I putting myself through that confusion. That’s when it finally hits me: I AM NOT COMFORTABLE!

I stop kissing him, agitated by my realization and I start to think about what I want to do. How strong is my certainty? Am I completely unable to turn the discomfort through talk? Am I ready to close this chapter and move on or do I still have feelings for him? Am I through with him? How should I handle the situation? And that’s when the enemy heads my way. That chubby fucking thumb comes like a thunder devastating my secrets. It comes with no sorrow, eager to be inside me. I freeze. I’m so stunned by the complexity of my feelings that I can’t react. That thumb stays cold inside me. It moves in twirls and in rough side to side moves. Even the worst gynecologist had never made me feel that invaded. It intrudes my insides carelessly, as I was a blow-up doll. It lingers like thorns on my walls. Does he think it feels good? I’m completely motionless and mute. I’m dry, completely dry. I’m a statue and he doesn’t seem to realize it. That thumb feels so foreign to me. My core is tightened, I have a knot in my gut that squeezes my bowels out of my mouth. He doesn't stop. I want to throw up. I felt like I was being raped by a thumb. I close my eyes begging to be done and it suddenly is. he stopped.

I barely breathe in relief, when he comes to kiss me like nothing happened. I jump out of bed with astuteness, and stare at him blankly. He looks at me in eerie. “What happened?” he asks. He couldn’t tell my uneasiness at all? It all clears in my mind. The whole problem was that I didn’t want to impose my ways from the beginning. I wanted to unveil his fetishes and perversions without telling him what felt right or wrong to me. I didn’t want to impose walls, but just to see what he was into and check if I was too, letting myself shine through my windows freely little by little. But you know what? It didn’t even worth explaining. I was done.

I made up the lamest excuse and dressed in less than 30 seconds, while already going down the stairs. He ran after me seeming perplexed. He stopped me before I was about to slam the door after me. I didn’t want to show him my true feelings anymore. He held me tight by the door and kissed me. He asked about the DGA screening we were to watch the next day and I said I had to check on some stuff. He claimed we had already planned it for a long time and I had to make up to him from my crazy exit. I said “yes, yes, sure.” and left without looking back.

I got into my car and cried. I cried for not hearing my gut. Cried for exposing myself to those feelings. I cried for being too young to understand to meet first and engage later, and with that every nutty sex act may be welcome. However, without intimacy is just dirty and empty somehow.

I didn’t show up for the DGA thing the next day; I didn’t answer my phone and I actually left my place so he couldn’t find me. I got a couple of sad and disappointed messages but no angry ones, which relieved me. I was going to vanish for good but I couldn’t walk away like that. I called him a couple of days later saying that “it’s not you it’s me bullshit” and he got it right away. It didn’t worth explaining.

Weirdly enough, we still email here and there, but he’s to me The Prince turn into Frog. I could excuse myself saying that it was all because of that fat intruding thumb that has no idea how to ring a bell, but truly it was about comprehending that maybe intimacy should come prior to sex.

Lesson learned.

O Estrangeiro

Um dia bati de cara com meu reflexo
Me deparei comigo
Rosto que quase desconheço

Hoje acordei e deixei meu rosto no espelho
Lá estatelado
Olhando para mim sem piscar

Bifurcou
A língua mudou
O tempo
A paisagem
O povo
A cara, a minha cara

Sou eu americanizada
Pertencida de Pátria
E invadida de Metrópole

Sou eu ornamentada de vermelho, azul e branco
Ando passagem no trânsito
Dizendo “Hi, how are you?” para estranho
E tremendo de saudade da bola na areia de Ipanema

Sou Brasileira
Sou filha da minha pátria amada
Que daqui, olhando de longe
Me convenço de que é só um mais traçinho no mapa

Fiquei desapegada
Puro fingimento
Evitando cutucar ferida aberta
Deixando lembrança quietinha em encruzilhada de mim
Dormindo sono de Cinderela que morre de medo de ser acordada

Sou filha dessa terceira cultura
Mistura de pandeiro com bate estaca
Salada interplanetária de valores e estereótipos
Mas não sou estereotipo nenhum
Sou única e singular
Ainda surpresa com essa ferida exposta
Essa mulher dragão que encara o mundo
Com alma órfã de Irmãos Coragem

E agora me olhando dessa perspectiva reaberta
Vejo um eu todo novo
E grito alto mais uma vez
PARA O MUNDO QUE EU QUERO DESCER

Desci
Agora segura as pontas aí
Que lá vem eu
Dessa vez nadando com a corrente

O Dia Sempre Raia

Acordei triste no Havaí. Despertei de pesadelo na quinta hora da manhã no quarto e sala do airbnb que eu alugava no hawaii. Essa coisa de States tem dessas vantagens, saí corrida à fora pela orla do north shore com o céu ainda escuro. Corri corri, o dia foi raiando junto e eu me levando pro paraíso terno dos meus sonhos zens: o exato mar que em meio ao mundo rachando eu cerro os olhos bem fechados e sonho em estar boiando ali, no azul quente, transparente e liso que é Waimea no verão. Nadei sem freio com o dia se abrindo no meio, braçada a braçada desatando os nós do peito, quando do nada comecei a ouvir sinfonia de mil agudos dentro d’água. Foi aí que vi o que o mar tinha me trazido, bem ali no meu rodeio um bando enorme de golfinhos performáticos saltava em cambalhotas enquanto o sol nascia num gradual do rosa pro amarelo. Eles saltavam e eu mergulhava com eles, boiava em meio ao bando em vislumbre profundo do que tem de mais lindo nesse mundo. E eu chorei, chorei que nem criança de tanta lindeza e felicidade que me invadiu. Tudo que me apertava ficou ameno. Eles tomaram seu tempo, se foram, o sol raiado e eu voltei a nadar. Ah mar.

#tbseaworld

Running Shoes

Her running shoes were the one to blame. All she needed was to make the decision to get her life back in track and they would immediately hide in a secret corner of the tiny little studio to never be found again.

For the past three years her life was about living off memories of what she used to be, more importantly, memories of what she could have had become. Apparently, at thirty-five years old, it was then too late. "The golden days” were long past, she often recalled.

Lately, it seemed that it was all going south in a spiral of unfortunate events, or of no events whatsoever, which was even more poignant. She firmly believed it was all somehow related to the twenty-something pounds she had gained over the last few years. A couple of months prior, she had woken up in the wee hours of a winter morning and couldn’t get back to sleep anymore, thinking about how lame her life had become.

She developed a habit of feeding melancholy and would go over and over the recollections of her old self. She’d remembered her dancing classes and how her clothes used to fit; she’d smirk, recalling how offended she used to get by construction workers hitting on her. She’d often evoke memories of walking naked back and forth around that same little apartment, just to gaze at the mirrors every time she passed by one. She’d open her skinny drawer and stare at how tiny her tank tops, shorts, skirts used to be. She’d go over every detail of that last time she was kissed - she could have never guessed that was to be her last kiss for what it felt like a lifetime by then. Old days she used to get excited about friendly gatherings and social events, excited about showing herself off.

Truth was, she had become frightened of personal encounters, always fearing the same old small-talk questions about her current life, current status, current goals. She remembered her old dreams and all the certainties she used to have about her future; about herself. Who was that pale chubby girl with the sad eyes in the mirror? Since when her idea of excitement became a bag of kettle corn, or Twinkles, or Twizzlers, or pretty much anything sweet enough to counterbalance her emptiness? And please, let's not forget the damn sitcoms; it was hard to understand how much she liked them… Overall, it was really about getting her mind busy with anything frugal enough to take the focus away from her own short comings.

That was her life in a nutshell: a mindless routine of recurring non-sense. At the office, her morning excitement was to look forward to the 10am mail drop-off, which meant that half of the morning was gone. Then it was lunch in two more languid hours. She’d open the cold plastic tupperware with some pasta she cooked the night before and reheated it for two minutes and twenty-seven seconds in the microwave. She’d eat alone in the white kitchen table, separating the excess of the sauce to the sides of the plate. She’d read the Classifieds, promising herself the three years in the mortgage office were still only temporary. She would finish eating on time to make sure she could load the dishwasher with everyone’s sloppiness before getting back to the front desk at 1pm sharp. She’d then get back to her PC desktop trying to excite herself about the possibility of new emails non work-related. As usual, even her Facebook account was yet untouched by any friendly encounters. The rest of the afternoon would move in turtle-time, stretching each of its seconds in its sadistic way.

She’d stare at the wall clock by the front door, watching its ticking, praying for one more day of work to be done; one less day of her life to be gone. Technically, her weekdays were a succession of wasted seconds summing seventy-two hundred minutes, in which all she wanted was to be over with it. Then, the next twenty-eight hundred and eighty minutes that the weekend consisted of, mostly felt like a blur of food and TV. Years would fly by in slow clock ticks. The last time-passer of the day was waiting for the Fedex pick-up at 4pm. She knew that after that it was only one more hour and she’ll be seating in her rusty red 1989 Kia, listening to KissFM and smoking her light GPC cigarette in the jammed LA traffic.

She would stop by the Armenian Liquor Store by her street corner, get her usual night snacks and wonder how much longer would it take her to start getting into the big bottle of rum on the top shelf of the mirrored store wall and become an alcoholic simply out of boredom. She would then think about her auntie Gertrude that died of cirrhosis - she was miserable, yes she was - but at least it didn’t seem that she was sober enough to realize it too often. That was it, she just wished she could ignore all the pathetic positivism and happiness that resided all the way deep into her core and just live miserably-ever-after without minding it. But no, she had to have her freaking consciousness making her feel guilty as hell for her self-abandonment.

Her nights were pretty blank. No voice messages in the machine, no mail but bills, no friends wondering how was her day, no late booty calls. Her fat old cat would always vanish unless there was some nasty canned food involved, and her mom was even more depressed and disappointed at her own life than she was, so that was a weekly call she tended to dread. Her couch was ripping its leather and her bedsprings would squeak every time she breathed. Books would require too much thinking and they had the ultimate risk of inspiring an atomic bomb inside her chaos within, which she desperately refrained from facing. She actually refrained from any strong emotions unless they were related to someone else’s reality; mostly reality shows.

She often tried to grasp when she had started being such a hater. The same girls that used to motivate her to be better swiftly became instant envy triggers. Hot girls started to arouse anger out of her. She would despise their hotness and justify it by thoughts about their apparent superficiality, due to the hours they’d certainly wasted in a stupid gym and a salon just to look that way - I mean, get a life, right? Just like she did.

Once in a blue moon she would have porn dreams. She’d wake up with the taste of cum in her tongue and try to relive every moment of it. She’d shut her eyelids in an attempt to fall back into sleep, begging for the dream not to be done. She’d wish she could have those every night, they really felt just like reality, or how that reality should feel at least. She was used to fantasizing about some men she crossed paths with, however she couldn’t truly imagine any of them ever being attracted to her.

That’s how she first got into online dating. Unfortunately, she had lost her faith on EHarmony. She went in six frustrated dates with the random guys from the pictures, in which she awkwardly tried to only expose the best of herself. She dressed just as that article on Cosmopolitan had said a woman should dress for a first date: casual and sexy, without being vulgar or looking like she wasted too much time to put herself together, that “I happened to wake up looking this good” look. She would get to her date fashionably late, seeming overly busy - as advised - and always notice how old the posted pictures of the guys must have been. She liked to think she still had some dignity left to only post current pictures - “good angle” ones. She would avoid talking about her tragedies and misfortunes; she’d in fact watch out about talking at all, always fearing saying too much. But overall, she would avoid over-eating, that was always an easy trap for her to fall into, almost as easy as asking for the to-go box, but come on, that could be perhaps the only tasty meal of a long long time. She’d pay as much attention as possible to what the guy would talk about and she’d try to disguise her disappointment in their shallowness finding something endearing about the guy, even if it was just an earlobe. She’d generally go home feeling a bit raped by her self-exposure, but usually with an aftertaste of “it wasn’t that bad”. Even if she wasn’t entirely attracted to the guy, she always hoped to hear from him; anything but rejection. Still, there was never a second date, not even a call back. It all only made her feel worst about her state of self. All the guys she had met seemed somehow compromised and fucked up anyway, or at least that was the last excuse she could find to regain some kind of self-esteem.

She had tried every Diet under the sky above. South Beach, Atkin, Master Cleanse, the Melon diet, the Brown Rice Diet, the Moon, The Liquids Diet…there were usually great results that would last for a week or so, and then she was right back to her old ways, reassured that she was too old for a permanent body change. She wondered sometimes if she was somehow subconsciously setting herself to failure with those strict regimes and unrealistic goals, but she’d quickly erase those thoughts out of her mind, concerned about getting too deep into her own secrets. Little by little, she took away the mirrors that used to reside on her walls, only leaving behind that half-body one that made her torso and face look really thin, it must have been the angle.

That night she was daydreaming about PinkBerry, about two blocks away from her place: too close for a car ride, too far to walk in her Pajamas. She wasn’t much into walking, especially because she tended to feel watched by the cars driving by. Everything but attention. She battled with herself for about four of her favorite weekly TV shows duration, over getting out of her stationary mode. She really wanted some frozen yogurt she thought, she wanted as bad as a toddler wants his breast-fed milk; she needed it.

She decided to walk out of her door just as she was dressed: lose polyester navy-blue pants, gray college sweatshirt, pink socks and purple Crocs. I mean, it wasn’t like she was going to run into someone or something, it was just two blocks walk after all.

It was a warm spring night. The sidewalks were completely empty and the streetlights looked cold. She was safe, no pedestrians in sight for the next two blocks.

She was running for a bit over forty-five minutes by then. She had taken out her tank top - which was soaked by sweat - and was left to her shorts and sports bra running up Sunset Boulevard. When tired, her IPod music would fuel her to set a stronger pace. She would run every night after long consuming days at work. She loved her job and looked forward to leaving all the stress behind over wide strides. Her breath would sometimes try to trick her into feeling overly exhausted but she knew her legs could move for at least a couple more hours. She enjoyed practicing that self-control. She would run with no exact route or destiny, run to undress all her hang-ups, run to clear her mind. Overall, she was happy. She was finally starting to feel like she was accomplishing the goals she set for herself for so long. She knew there was no ending line; it was about self-realization. All she wanted was to improve; she wanted to improve her mind as much as her body. Running was her therapy. She liked to run in busy streets, she enjoyed thinking about the people staring at her from their cars while driving back from work - the ones unhappy and overwhelmed. She would run the sidewalks against the up-coming traffic just so she could be observed face to face. She wanted to be looked at, to be admired, to be recognized. She could feed off jealousy and envy with no qualms, but overall, she truly believed she could somehow be an inspiration to them, just as a random runner once inspired her. Truth was, she was proud of herself. About to hit thirty-six and her body was close to the best shape of her life, her job was fulfilling and her boyfriend had learned through the last years to become the best man one could ask for. She had grown into an accomplished and content woman and in a beautiful relationship. Who could have imagine after all…It didn’t matter anymore, that’s who she was now. She was exactly who she wanted to be.

She was running with rhythm up Sunset. A girl jaywalked to her sidewalk a couple of blocks away, slowly heading her way.

She looked down at her pink socks shining through the circled holes of her Crocs. “Jeez, I’m hopeless,” she thought for a second. “Sidewalks are such a filthy thing,” she drifted. She looked up and saw a girl about two blocks away running toward her. “Oh, no…a runner. That’s all I need right now. Great. Here she comes...No way this girl is in fucking shorts and sports bra! No fucking way…come on, it’s still spring! Oh, and there you go, see, I knew it! I can tell already: the girl is ridiculously hot. Yeah, yeah, don’t cross the street please, come my way, come right at me, make me feel like the villain-cowboy-horse-shit one more time, please do it. I’m probably chemically addicted to it by now anyway.” She breathed heavily. She felt intimidated. She felt sad, really sad. Her eyes filled with dense tears. She was overflowing. She looked down. She wanted to melt into dirt; she wanted to morph into an ant, cockroach, anything invisible to that reality running right into her. She had thousands flashbacks of her old body, old smile, old strength, old ways. She suddenly felt an intrinsic feeling of self that could change easy tides into grand storms. She unexpectedly wanted to face the girl. She wanted to stare at every piece of her like a scientific study and see inside her aspirations. She wanted to see the girl's reflection in her mirror. She wanted to transcend their two bodies into one, and from that moment, become only the best of herself. She wanted to change.

They were now steps away from each other. She couldn’t help. She looked into the girl and the girl’s eyes locked right into hers. The girl’s ponytail was swinging side to side while her body bounced with the strong strides against the sidewalk. She stared straight into the girl’s abyss and saw the bowels of her own destiny. She looked at the girl's features and it was her own face.

She stopped. It all became a blur. There was no other girl. She froze in awe for what it could have been seconds or hours. It hit her. She turn around and started walking fast pace back to her place.

Enough was enough; she knew where her running shoes were.

Little Crush

It’s an infantile crush
Just cute and sweet
And exciting to be around each other
It ends there
We both know the slight probability of ever being able to be together
We don’t go that far in our willingness

The sexual tension gets close to unbearable at times
The electricity that runs between our bodies is almost palpable
And we both smile with that second (and third, forth and so on) look at each other

It’s good to know
It’s fun to tease and wonder

I don’t think about him when he's not around
Maybe for the impossibility of the situation
Maybe because I shouldn't be that into him

Initially, I was actually not even attracted to him
It was the Playlist
Freaking ITunes Playlist that popped out of his computer
He got me by the ears

I had a thousands prior preconceptions about him
His style
His title
His ways
And song after song, I started respecting him more and more
I look at him for the first time again
And out of nowhere I realized a crush was growing from within

And then it came the brain
The words
The ideas
The creativity

A bunch of little details were revealed
Same food I like
Same countries I love
Same cultures I'm interested
Same movies
Same artists

He’s out of the ordinary
So young and so accomplished

I suddenly admire him
All the smoke clears out
I see him for what he is
A brilliant sweet man
That I’ll never get too close to fall
And never too far not to feel it

It’s all fun and games
And in this one
No one gets hurt

D Day

It's 30 minutes past 5 in the morning
Eyes wide opened in the dark
My heart still beats

Minutes stretch each of its seconds
Pulling the rope of time from both sides
Mind is insistently awake
Running full blow in thousands of circles and spirals
It's now 5 hours until the rest of my life

Since when the air has become so thin?

All the dreams and hopes have been suspended in a parallel reality for over 6 months now
Days of caution and awareness
Body waiting to move its wheels
And the little feet under my legs
have been softly stepping through this thin glass my ground became
I'm on stand by

I choose to skip the suffering
Choose to skip the fear and nervousness
And all the darkness that uncertainty can bring
I chose to trust the Gods of Destiny
And allow its development to unveil itself without interference
Believing there must be a greater plan
There must be a reason for all this non sense
Life present itself in weird ways

There is no time for self sorrow
I'm not a victim
30 years of choosing what it's best for me
And suddenly, it's all out of my hands
It's not tragic but poetic
I'm taking it

I will live

Onion Rings

He lives in a far far land
Speaking language of Kings

He’s tall and hilarious
Witty and goofy
Just my size
Customized and ordered with precision
With his big green eyes
Sweet laughing me away
He’s just right

And I think about holding his hand along the way
Laughter in the morning
Naked in bed
Sandwich of each other
I think about his after shower smell
His hands running around my corners
Our moods
Our modes
Us in silence in the car
Us two dancing together
Singing
Being
I think about his weight on my body
Skin on skin
His lips pressing against mine
Our heartbeats

I want to be his and only his
I want him to own me and I own him and we own each other
I want to dive into his abyss
Get to the core of our secrets

I want to grow together
Share
Everything

And we’ll make songs and write poem after poem
We’ll make love to the full moon
And kiss for weeks losing our minds into each other souls
We’ll live life in twirls

I want to be with him
One alone and two together

Enough

I saw you in my dream last night again
You stayed for a while
I woke up with your taste in my mouth
Running through my bloodstream

This morning I sweat you off running the jungle
I swam Waimea washing you away
I duck dived into an infinite blue sea
Carrying you Rock away from my shore

It's been so long since I've been trying to erase you
To hide you in my drawer of precious things

I've accepted it to be true
I've left destiny up to time to take care of it
I was trying to save you for later
But I'm finally giving up on believing

I'm forcing myself to stop feeling this thing
This tricky intuition that made you so special
And all the vulnerability that abruptly overflew off me
All the intensity pumping my chest
All my guards surprisingly put down
I've been turn inside out

The unbreakable warrior peeled off its skin
And that loving little girl so well-chained to one of my corners has been suddenly freed
I've became so tender through liking you

It's no fun liking alone though

I'm convincing myself I'm wrong
I must be tripping
It has nothing to do with fate
It must be just that I'm probably sore from rejection
It must have not anything to do with that annoying feeling that told me
You felt right

It can't be right

It's been too long that I've been sewing this trap for myself
Feeding you in me
Closing my slot without fulfilling it

I'm so tired of liking you

I'm letting it go

O Quarteto Feliz

As duas se ajeitam em seus assentos de couro no carro com os braçinhos cruzados para fora de suas respectivas janelas, vidradas no clube do bolinha rolando do lado de fora.

Elas assistem estupefatas os meninos no playground.

Os meninos se conhecem desde sempre
Ali, bem em frente aos olhos delas, se forma aquela alma masculina de conversa de homem
Eles falam de esporte
Eles sacaneam todo mundo e um ao outro
Eles falam grosso
Eles riem mais alto

Os quatro encostados contra a parede contam estórias
Parodiam memórias
Imitam os colegas de trabalho

 
Os quatro homens ali se divertindo sem preocupações maiores
Se permitem por um fragmento do tempo serem de novo meninos
Com sua fanfarra e juventude
Com suas risadas enormes que geram furacão de felicidade que contagia qualquer passante

Os quatro gargalham alto que chegam a contorcer o corpo de graça

Os quatro meninos estão felizes
Por aquele momento
Eles deixam o cabelo grisalho na pasta do trabalho
E voltam à arquibancada de cimento do recreio
Toda uma névoa do passado os entorna e revigora 

Os meninos tem no olhar o sorriso da primeira bicicleta

Enquanto a novata ri por fora da superfície desses homens meninos

A amiga, já acostumada

entende só pelo o tom o que é contado,

E ri para si vendo o profundo mais belo dos meninos homens

A Árvore

Um tronco de árvore dividido ao meio
Tronco fundado em raiz que corre quilometro debaixo da terra debaixo dos dedinhos longos da menina de cachinhos dourados
Ela molha as florzinhas rosas e amarelas que brotam aos pés do tronco
Ela sopra as pétalas com desejos suicida que elas se despetalem ao vento
Ela sopra cheia de vontades avessas
As flores resistem

A árvore cresce soberana
Majestade de suas bifurcações

A árvore mora em floresta encantada por gigantes que dançam com o vento balançando seus longos cepos e cantando em sinfonia com a brisa
Milhares de raios de sol desenham labirintos de luz entre as folhas e galhos
Milhares de raios de sol desenham labirintos de sombras entre as folhas e galhos
Luz e escuridão

Frio
Cérebro rasga ao meio e vira do avesso
Caos
Corpo suspenso e mar infértil
Esperando ralo, válvula de escape, buraco
Qualquer saída dessa esquina de mundo

Menina, ela precisa atravessar
Precisa tomar caminho construído com pedras tão pequeninas que podem ser confundidas com areia
Menina semeia desejos em gestos largos
Joga os braços para o alto brincando com o universo

Chega de pedregulho
Dá descanso para menina
Deixa ela voar com endereço
Deixa ela em paz por um soluço de tempo

A menina sonha sonhos de astronauta
Escada pro céu
Degrau por degrau
Ela corre em passos largos e para exausta nas curvas mais abertas
Ela se joga no chão e se espreguiça inteira
Invadida pelo abismo em seu peito
Seus braços e pernas arranham o solo de algodão e concreto
Ela levanta e corre em cima de nuvem preta de chuva

Ela chove
Ela despenca lá do alto e freia em susto
A menina se estabiliza na superfície suspensa à beira de desfiladeiro
Buraco negro cantando seu nome
Ela flutua

Menina forte que morre de medo
E as vezes esquece de ser Amazona e vira passarinho no ninho sozinho
Ela fecha a porta e encara o rosto no espelho
“Será que eu sou feliz?”

Menina chora calada no banheiro
Ela se tranca no quadrado frio e sentada na privada bege chora quietinha
Ela lambe lágrima salgada com gosto de esperança e ri oceano
Faz graça de si própria
Chora mais um pouquinho

A menina se sente tão sozinha que chega a abrir o sutiã achando que é ele que causa aquele aperto no peito
Né não
É o peito mesmo

A árvore não para de crescer
Se finca lá, seja vento, chuva, sol
Se alimenta de luz e terra com seus milhões de galinhos que se multiplicam em milhões de vertentes
Milhões de possibilidades
A árvore
A terra
Os galhos
As folhas
Raiz

A árvore transborda sua seiva quase mel entre cada curvinha de seu corpo gigante
Sangue de tronco pingando amarelo-ouro em folhas secas
Folhas secas que já foram brotinhos e adultas verdíssimas banhadas de fotossíntese
Folhas que se nutriram dos galhos, do sol, do ar, da terra
E depois caíram, secaram, desintegraram, viraram poeira
A árvore e seus ciclos
A menina e suas estações

A menina canta alto sozinha e gargalha ao vento
Ela quer abraçar o mundo
Ela quer abraçar mas mais do que tudo ser abraçada
A menina quer amar

A menina corre montanha e conquista o mundo quando chega lá em cima
Ela salta em passos enormes suando fantasmas e monstros secretos
E o dia amanhece e escurece e a noite invade o céu de estrela e a lua encara a menina de frente
Ela encara de volta

A menina corre na areia quente queimada de sol e respira partículas de vida
Ela respira fundo e sente arrepio do pé a cabeça
Ela se joga no mar de peito aberto cheio de desejo
Menina, mulher, criança, velhinha com anseio de compartilhar
A menina quer amar

Outro dia ela se pegou rezando no escuro debaixo da coberta de olho fechado e tomou susto quando viu que tava a rezar
Justo ela
Pensou um pouquinho e aceitou ritual
Gostou de virar desejo em prece e resolveu dar mais uma rezadinha, por que não?

E as vezes no banho debaixo de água quase fervente
Ela pensa na vida toda em flashes e filmetes
Ela deixa a água correr sobre o rosto
E enxurrada de memória explode em bolhas de sabão
O corpo dormente desiste de brigar com o mundo por aquele instante
O corpo não mais resiste e se entrega a água corrente

Nossa, ela vem pensando é demais
A cabeça vive a mil
Transbordando perguntas e conclusões
E quando se joga cansada no colchão
O corpo dorme mas a cabeça explode de questão
Ela fica lá, horas e horas calada no escuro
Fritando em deserto sem miragem
Rolando de um lado pro outro
Procurando conforto
A menina abraça travesseiro para tentar tapar buraco

De noite a menina fica mais vazia
Seu corpo não cabe em sua pele
Ela abre a porta de casa e quebra a casca daquele ovo gigante que ela é
Ela senta em sua cama e descama sua pele de cobra e fica ali
Crua, nua, se encarando assustada

A menina está cansada de brigar
De batalhar
De obstáculo
Chega, tá na hora de lhe dar umas férias
A menina quer poder ler o futuro
Só aquele futuro próximo que tanto cabe
Futuro assombrado por milhões de janelas a se abrir

A menina voa entre mil galáxias dentro de sua cabecinha cheia de cachinhos louros
A menina abre as asas querendo engolir universo

Ah vai, deixa a menina quieta
Deixa ela brotar, enraizar
Deixa a menina criar caminho
Deixa ela ser
Deixa ela estar

***

If I Leave I'll live

My Disney Princess Half

(Continuing "My Predator Half")

I've been punished for my honesty, punished for my rawness. I've been potentially banned from the lover's seat and thrown at the fuck buddy bench since opening up about my sexuality. I've been looked down as a desensitized woman with horny porn fetishes that sees men as naked shadows haunting legs around town. I've been mistaken for a cold stoned heart hunter that dismisses love.

What the hell??? I never meant that.

I do appreciate men as much as they appreciate women. And lets be honest here, a part of being single is the sudden ability to notice people around your world that you usually wouldn't take the time of the day to analyze. It's all so new; it feels almost like an anthropological study of a strange tribe. There is this undeniably open slot in my heart standing by to be fulfilled, and until I find the guy - and take my time to make sure it's right - I feel completely free to explore my perversions through observation.

I'm far from undressing every man I look at. Sometimes, whenever they forget the pressure to prove their masculinity, I catch myself intrigued and somehow infatuated by their vulnerability, that's when I watch them. That does not make me want to jump on their faces either to be fucked by them; it just makes me appreciate their manhood. Contrarily to what it may seems, I do not think about a cock when I look at a guy I like, it's actually the opposite. As my dear Manu says, my clit is on my brain; I see the charm, the wisdom, the personality first, the rest is all playfulness.

It's a double standard. It's ok for men to be ferocious and voracious; It's ok to want to eat women alive and to make open remarks about every skirt that passes by; It's ok to masturbate, to watch porn, to talk about sex disregarding true feelings, it's okay to be dirty; yet, we women can see through it and invest in them, knowing there is a much softer layer underneath the Macho Shell, no matter how thick they let it get. But for women...You are either the girlfriend material type or the depraved fuck, either the prey or the predator. Either or.

I truly believe I'm both.
I'm all in one.

Aren't we all?

My perversions don't take away my romanticism. My erotic fantasies don't overpower my yearn for love. My obscenity is fueled by intimacy and complicity. My sexuality comes along with the need for the right person to share it with.

It might be that I'm just unusually comfortable with my sexuality, but I'm as human as any other man and woman. I feel as lonely, or sad, or excited or melancholic or cheerful, or in love as anyone else. Ultimately, we all want the same things.

Love and happiness.

I want to be loved as much as any Christian girl would. I want to be two and one alone as much as any virgin with marriage dreams would. I want to be cared for and watched over, to be caressed and looked with tenderness as much as any Disney Princess would. I want to be the apple of his eye. I want to love and be loved and cry and laugh together. Tenderness and voracity, hunger and fulfillment, perversion and love, they all walking together.

I may be a liberal queen with family dreams, I just don't allow myself to fall under our society pressure to follow their format - I'm figuring out my own.

I don't look for strict definitions to my being. I don't fit in any specific profile. I'm good and bad, angel and devil, amoral and ethical, perverted and loving, I'm all of it. I don't have the need to restrict my margins, either to hide my perspective of this Human, All-Too-Human world. I accept my paradoxes and contradictions with a soul free of judgment. I welcome my humanity and the complexity of it disregarding acceptance.

Still, I want to be loved.

Tolerance

But, isn't finding the right person about how compatible you are with their imperfections?

The Elevator

When I walk in the hall he’s already standing there. At first, he dismissively glances at me, but it seems that his eyes are immediately drawn back. He quickly stares, he notices that I noticed. Our eyes meet and quickly run separate ways.

Then there is the mirror. It takes a second until we realize we are both checking each other out through the mirror. A smirk. I don’t know where to put my hands; I don’t know how to keep still. I push the button knowing that he has already done it, our eyes play hide and seek.

The door opens. He holds back motioning for me to get in first.
“thank you”, “it’s a pleasure”, “lobby?” “yes”

I’m looking away sensing his presence. I can smell him, I hear his breath. He puts his hands in his pockets, he is looking at me. Is he a hotel guest? Is he alone? Where is he heading? How does it feel to be in his arms?

Our eyes keep meeting back and forth, grasping details.

I notice his clothes first
Tailor quality silk black suit
Turquoise button shirt underneath
Purple tie with thin yellow stripes
Shiny black dress shoes
Breitling Watch

He’s tall. He looks fit. Strong but soft hands, carefully messed up hair. Dark complexions. Blue eyes, sterling blue. Thick bottom lips. He opens a smile, he’s sizing me up. His head slightly turns to the side, as it to look into it better. He notices I'm observing him and turns his head away. The elevator stops. I sigh. We both motion to get out and our shoulders touch softly bouncing each other back. The door opens.

We touched, it reminisces. Our eyes rest in each other.

Two people stare at us trying to get into the elevator. We step back to opposite sides. Our observed voracity flows through the air openly, you could feel it. The four of us stand in a silence that could crash thin glass.

I look at him, he looks back, I look down. I get shy, very shy. It hits me how timid I can get when facing strangers that I’m attracted to, I simply tend to shut down and scare myself away.

He’s now openly watching me. I glance and his eyes linger for more. I motion to search for something in my purse. I feel silly for faking it, I stop. I lean against the wall and look up. He’s staring right into my eyes. I’m trying hard to escape from his hypnosis. What if he could be The One for me?

The door opens, the couple leaves first. We stand motionless for a split second, our eyes meet one last time. I wonder.

I walk away in large steps pretending purpose. I’m actually just a scared cat.

He says something to me from far. I don’t look back.

15 Minutes Of Fame (Fitting Day)

I’m left in this windowless room
Me and Vi in each corner of this long table
Both in silence
Lost in our tasks
Lost in our minds
While the city wheels run full blow

We glance at each other here and there
We bond in our loneliness and patience
We stand by to stand by
We run to wait
We dance to the biz’s music
Going from forgotten to suddenly highly demanded

We can hear our circus on the room nearby
We hear the Polaroid snapshots
The incessant phone rings
The stressed voices overpowering each other
We hear the gossip whispers
And the models complains

I close my eyes
I can picture every one of the thirty or so faces hanging in there
Hanging on their hang ups

I fill up my empty minutes with Bukowski’s words
Between text messages, emails and radio transmissions
I look busy
But there is a huge slot of pulsing energy ready to be requested
I’m alert on the starting line
Yearning to feel useful
But they move in their own flow
They play their own song
It looks like a slow day

I stare at the blank screen
I surf the Internet
I read my book
I take small sips of water

I feel haunted by the thousands of clothes
Hanging on this sea of wardrobe wracks I’m surrounded by
I see them alive
I feel sorrow for their fate


They will soon be filled by pale skinny bodies
They will be running around Page Street and Seacliff Beach
Arranging themselves into their hangers curves
Resting their fabric into live skins
Searching for the right light
Posing for the cold lenses of a fancy camera

They will be live and colorful for the photos
Glamorized by accessories, hairstyles, make up
Each piece will have its own important denomination
Their names will be heard over and over again
With an entire crew running after them
Frazzled and screaming if any piece sneaks away for a split second

They will be fundamental
Ultimately, the show is about them
But human ego tends to often overshadow that priority

We’ll be seating around
Running into our overtime
While waiting for the fights to be over
And decisions to be made
They will make, the clothes will
They will be seen in Fashion magazines
And freeway billboards
They will stand tall on the stores walls

Legions of young girls will stare from close
Following their trend
Eager to look just like the girl in the picture
Thousands of young boys will stare from close
Watching their trend
Yearning to be with the girl from the picture

The hero clothes will be then just flat images
They will be turn into dimensionless portraits
Hoping to be seen by the piercing eyes of the fashion world

Their actual lives will be shortly lived
They will expire after the three shooting days
Mindlessly folded on their way back to their cardboard coffin
That will be buried on a dusty stock room of the headquarters
They won’t be worn again
They will be left alone in their melancholy
Remembering the golden hours of their fifteen minutes of fame

The Elephant

She comes out of her steel truck
Moving her sovereignty slowly
She walks calmly
Like she was one of us

She doesn't bother our mindless presence
She doesn't mind our differences

She is there quietly eating
And we suddenly walk in like a sect
Poking her
Taking pictures
Standing around like curious monkeys
Interrupting her peaceful world of instincts
With random commands and stupid orders
all it matters is our shallow satisfaction

She doesn't mind our hostile humanity
Dipped in sorrow and infatuation

She is there
Simply being

I watch her awareness
She looks distracted with her meal
But every civilian move is noted with a head nod

She's gentle
She subtly chooses to allow us being around her

I'm lost in her
Fulfilled with respect and curiosity
I feel her power
Her age
her wisdom
I feel her patience and peace
Massive as she is
Taking her time

She is here and only here
There is no past or future but instincts
All the years she's been on this earth

I'm standing in eerie
Intrigued by the life she leads
Wondering the world through her eyes and paws
I think about every single one of the scars she carries on her thick skin
I wonder how does she feels
How much she knows

There she is
So foreign to this movie crew
There right on top of her
Taking their Kodak moments with the elephant
While not seeing her at all

Humans
Don't they know
Don't they understand

I'm fascinated
More compelled to her than any human in this crew
Wishing I had a little more of her "elephance" in me

I'm left here
Wishing it was just me and her
Learning our similarities
Without intruding our differences

Me and her
Just here and now

Me and her
Just being

Spell

You know what it's the fucked up part
I truly know that you ought to be part of my life
There is no way out of this certainty
It simply is
I can feel it right here in my gut
I can't run from this knot in my chest
It's freaking intense
It's like a spell

I've tried to deny it
Fight it
I've tried to erase with replacements in every level
I've tried to talk to myself out of it
And find the origin of this feeling that must be mad
Must be unfounded
Must be some kind of a rejection complex or something like it

But then, underneath all my self battle
There is this storm brewing in my core every time I think about you
And lets be honest here
It happens all the time
Everything brings you to my mind

I just want to turn the other way
And move on
I want to say the hell with all this bullshit
Truth is he must not be into me
It's just all crazy shit in my head
I got to walk away
But then, when I'm almost starting to believe it
The feeling comes back even stronger
Compressing the entirety of my body from within

See, it's right here
I've been feeling it
Since the moment I started
Thinking about writing these exact thoughts
Here in this blank screen

I lose my breath a bit
My heart beats faster
I feel uneasy
My whole body squeezes
It's physical
Still, it's not painful at all
It just feels like a deep sense
A knowing
A certainty

It makes me wonder if that's the kind of feeling
A psychic has about things
It's a clear intuition
It doesn't recite words
It's not a voice in my brain
Either makes a logical sense of any sort
It's just is

And even if time goes by
And people come and go through our lives
Even if we forget each other
And life takes us into different paths
Somehow I know we'll eventually be part of each other's lives
And it will be sooner than later

We are bound to be together

My Predator Half

I've been feeling like a predator going through my 1/3 life crisis

I've always looked at men with perverted eyes
I take an incredible pleasure from observing them

I can feel their grips
And how their hands would run through a woman's body
I can picture their smile when they are in love
And all the tenderness flashing out of their lingering eyes
I can see the child on them
But also the tiger within
I can feel their pain and happiness
Crying of a broken heart or broken dreams

I imagine how they whisper when making love
And their horsey voices in the mornings
I watch their calves going up and down the streets
Their forearms holding tight to their wheels

I picture them naked
I imagine them jerking off alone in their dark bedrooms, living rooms, showers
I think about what kind of horny thoughts would trigger their minds
I imagine how their bodies shiver when they cum

I love men and everything about them

I can now tell from far the thrivers from the complainers
The ones that shut down when hurt
The ones that go right back into their teenager fighting tools when not able to handle a situation
Or the ones that use their sorrows as character builders
I can smell from miles away their types and methods and techniques

I've been arrogant on my wisdom
I may get broken in pretty soon from the high I'm getting off this pseudo knowledge

Here is where my 1/3 life crisis begins

I want to eat and be eaten by them
I want to explore and discover men like promise lands
I want to own and be owned

And all that sounds great
Problem is
Age, and as a consequence, experience (blah)
Brought this crazy high standard into my peanut brain

It's almost like there are no men perfect enough
for my imperfections

He's not smart enough
He's not handsome enough
He doesn't like his job
He's not creative
He's too artsy
He doesn't have a twisted sense of humor
He jokes too much
He's too proper
He is not philosophical enough
He's too trashy
He's too trendy
He dresses badly
He's too metro
He's not cultured enough
He's a snob
He's not sexual enough
His kiss is not my kind
He is too abandoned
He's not bad ass enough
He's just a bad ass and nothing more
He's not affectionate
He's too into me
He's not into me enough

Fuck
There is always a red flag to be found
Not allowing me to fall enough to at least get some ass
I mean dick, out of it

It's been a good year or so since I was able to just have fun
Maybe longer
And it's not like I'm looking for a boyfriend
...
Or maybe it is
And I'm just too cynical to accept my own romanticism

Tony has warned me
I'm still insisting on act upon a certain kind of thought process
That simply doesn't match my maturity level anymore
I grew up
But I keep insisting on this denial crap
I've been trying to fool my brain
But my body stops me from doing it
It pisses off the shit out of me
I don't even get wet anymore
It's ridiculous
And, I mean, I'm attracted to the men I go out on dates with
But I guess, not enough to take it to the next level

I went on a road trip full of porn fantasies
Eager to turn my masturbation dreams into actions
There he was
Hot and available
Eager to jump all over me
I couldn't even spoon him though
I couldn't get hard, and by that I mean myself
He, in the other hand, was hard the whole weekend around
Poor man

I didn't even try
One thing there is no way I can do is the charity fuck
Not anymore
I got back from the road trip not only hornier
But now with frustration added to the hot pot

So what
Am I waiting for the right guy
Even though just to think about that kind of bourgeois mentality makes me puke a bit in my mouth?
Am I the suburban queen with marriage dreams?
Have I been brain washed?

So I got my fuck buddy, right
I got this really stunning man
Serving me anytime I feel the need

He lives close by
He's as hot as it gets
And he's one call away

I actually heard something about him the other day that made him suddenly even hotter
Apparently, every vanity girl on the commercial world has been trying to get under his pants for the past years and no luck
So far no one have gotten the trophy
And myself, secretly the lucky one
(It wouldn't be fair to his pristine reputation to rub in my conquer on the horny little girls, besides, I never thrived to be envied for my sexual achievements)
Well, I treat him solely as the obscure object of my desire

Yes, yes, I must admit
I considered him for the boyfriend post for a second
But he was quickly demoted to the boytoy level
Once I gave him the space and he didn't managed it well

Back to fuck buddy basis

He lives minutes away
He walks into the door with dinner and dessert
We drink wine on my little dinner table and laugh to dim lights
He washes the dishes and immediately gets naked in a very smooth move
All his clothing dropping down in a matter of seconds
I find it endearing

He stands there bare on my living room
With the biggest bright smile
And his emerald eyes full of tenderness
Which makes me love him for the time being

I hold him by the hands
And take him to the slaughterhouse

We spoon and watch a couple of Family Guy episodes
Making out while still admittedly paying attention to the TV show
Long kisses interrupted by laughter
We eventually get lost into our bodies
Turn off the TV and fuck for a while

It used to take longer
He couldn't cum for a while and we eventually figured out that the Planned Parenthood condoms sucked
How predictable
Now with the new upgraded Whole Foods Japanese condoms we are done in half hour or so

I used to have more fun with him
It's now finally getting old
I'm losing interest
His ripped body has been looking more and more dull to my predator eyes
His smile doesn't soften me as much anymore

I guess around the time I was considering him as a boyfriend it had more to it
I used to feel this buzz around him
Now it's just a hard dick
That kisses really well
And it comes with a smoking body
A delicious laughter too
He does have a very sweet child-like trait to him
I got to give him that

See, when I put down in paper, he's great
Everything I could ask for
But I just don't have that for him anymore

We used to spoon
But I've been only forking him lately

Farewell

I spotted him first thing in the morning. I approached him randomly about some parking matter and we simultaneously had that split second that runs for what seems to be hours, when you first look into someone's eyes that you can feel there is a storm brewing your way.

The five day traveling job suddenly became exciting, and it was still 4am into a foggy first day of shooting.

Initially, I ditched the dirty thoughts with reasonable explanations to my reservations about dating coworkers. I avoided looking. I kept myself busy. I noticed him again. And again and again and again. He would seat right next to me and look straight into my face and chuckle while asking me something. I was trying to focus on the job. I tried to be short on my answers and not look at him too much. I looked.

He was gorgeous. He had taken out the beanie and the jacket since we're inside the location, by that point. His jaws had a strong square angle and his puffy lips hugged his almost childish smile. His teeth were slightly crooked, what made him even more endearing. His scruffy dirty-blond beard looked so soft it begged to be rubbed against my lips and his emerald eyes pierced through my thoughts. He was stunning. Every muscle of his body was the right size; his posture neared a Greek God. He did have his share of Greek. He was Croatian, from a far far away Island of the Adriatic Sea. He was built and tall, and genuine and somehow even pure. He was a grown ass man. A men's man, malicious and flirtatious; tender and dangerous. He was enigma.

I needed to hear him. I needed to get to know him and look out for every red flag I could find to excuse myself from falling into another precocious relationship.

We ran into each other at a convenience store after work. He tried to scare me from behind an isle but all he could get was a huge smile popping out of my face. There was no way out. This train was bound to glory.

We kissed that night. I've run into a different coworker at the hotel elevator after the convenience store encounter and ended up heading to the room everyone was hanging out. Soon, I came to find out that the room belonged to my Greek Statue. He came out of the shower in towel and stopped for a second startled that I was right there hanging out in his room. He chuckled. He had that "you know what I'm thinking" look, I'm pretty sure I had it too.

Everyone eventually left, and as predictable as it gets, in about ten minutes we are all over each other. I liked being under his body weight; I liked his kiss, his taste, his smile. I decided to head to my room before it got out of hand, just so I could save some anticipation for later. I didn't want to have it too easy; I didn't want to lose my curiosity that quick, not with him.

The job went as well as it could get, even though we went through some heavy rain and even hail, all it mattered was that he was always close by to inspire my naughty thoughts.

Every spare moment it was all about watching him work
Him carrying his Art Department heavy shit around
Him with a screw gun or a chainsaw working on wood projects
Him driving that 5 ton monster truck like a Mini
Everything so small compared to his scale of man power

His masculinity intimidated me
And that couldn't be more of a turn on
I've never expected to get wet watching a man chew and spit tobacco
He made me. Again and again and again
His voice on the radio
His interaction with his coworkers
His way of just being
Everything about that man was a massive turn on to me

So it comes out that he's my neighbor
No, seriously, blocks away kind of neighbor
Which makes it that much easier to turn it into a weekly basis thing
Escalating to a many times a week kind of deal

We have fun
We ran together
We had brunches in cool cafes
And dinners we cooked for hours and hours
We love desserts and we were always hunting for a new one
We watched Seinfeld and Family Guy like we had never watched it without each other

We traveled separately
And missed each other like crazy
But we shared that with each other very subtly

We fell for each other but we played it
We longed the same things but we hid it
We wanted more but none of us brought it up
We secretly knew it
But we were too cool to be the first one to give it away

Then our time expired
The games and the lack of sincerity ripped us apart
We built a dull routine
Of no first-hand answered calls and late callbacks
We became unavailable and cynical
Eventually, all that was left was the reminisce of what it could have been

It's too late
We both know
We don't want to let it go
We don't want to let it go
We still see each other

It's been almost six months
It's been too long
I now want to let it go
I still have fun being around him
But it's not enough anymore

So long, farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye