TPM

E se tudo estiver perdido, e se não houver amor que resolva diferença? E se simplicidade for só uma artimanha da monotonia, e conflito seja fundamental para desenvolvimento?

Será que não posso estar feliz demais para estar bem, e felicidade só vale a pena em doses homeopáticas, doses as quais a gente chora e sente saudade e luta a vida inteira para sentir de novo, mas quando sente não sabe direito o que fazer com ela?

E se esse amor for amor passageiro com gosto de eterno, mais um no caminho, mas uma história, mais uma preparação? Nããããão, eu não aguento mais!

Só de pensar em andar por aí atrás de amor-para-sempre, date after date, sexo sem intimidade, solteirice divertidíssima-uhuuuu... nossa, ninguém merece. Aí, olho esse mundão vasto cheio de desesperados por amor e me deparo com meu amor lindo bem aqui do meu lado, olhando no meu olho, transbordando paciência, assistindo meu pequeno ataque de precariedade enquanto me faz carinho em silêncio.

Quinze minutos atrás, lá estava eu, deitada toda tranqüila nos braços desse homem que tanto amo e num ataque repentino de paranóia, comecei a questionar a profundidade da reciprocidade, me revirando de um lado para o outro, cabeça correndo a mil kilômetros por hora nessa estrada esburacada por insegurança, borbulhando lágrimas desnecessárias, cheia de duvidas, jogando pela janela tudo o que vínhamos alimentando à primeira sombra de incerteza.

E se eu for mais uma mulherzinha idiota que uma vez por mês entra em crise hormonal e numa cajadada só mata o único coelho que eu quero e sempre quis? E se eu calar minha boca, minha cabeça animal, minhas sinapses direitistas ignorantes cheias de formatos e convenções, e aceitar esse mistério do que é simples, insegurança desse mundo novo dos namoros fáceis de amar, Terra dos Seres Felizes, e parar de neurotizar cada pensamentozinho possível?

Sossega, leoa. Sossega e vai para cama amar o homem que você tanto ama!

PS: E reza para essa TPM maldita passar logo.

Long Distance (No Distance)

Disregard the ticking clock
Time is just a dusty trap scheming against our longings

Forget any given concept about hours
Seconds tend to get selfish in their loneliness
Trying to over-expand their splatter of importance
When we are apart

Ignore the geographical gap
Distance stretches its arms in a thug of war
Pulling both sides to its center

We meet in the middle
Tectonic plates sliding in together like God-made matching enzymes
Counter parts of a two-piece puzzle
Together complete

And every morning
I wake up drinking what reminisces of your taste in my mouth
I find in the breeze the whiff of your armpit
I touch your hands through the prints you left on my skin
I hear your laughter in every madly barking dog
Every tanned man over 6 feet tall wears your face for a second

You ask me about the empty space between our bodies
Don’t you see? It’s filled up with air
We’ve never ceased rubbing each other’s surfaces

The only geography I know
Is the vastness of your Land
My only concept of Time
Is what slips between our threads when I'm lost in your abyss

Nothing can come between us

I'm here
I'm yours
I'll wait

Nuestros Abismos

Dirigiste sin destino
Directo para el centro de todos mis secretos
Y alocaste dentro de mi pecho
Nadando mis mares mediterráneos

Yo, sin pensar, desavisada, deje entrar
Y aquí esta
Molestando la calmaría del monótono
Bañando me con tu tormenta de entusiasmo
Ah, como me haces borracha de felicidad

Miro lo escuro de mi miente
Y te vejo bien en frente de mi cara
Tu mirada atravesando mis ojos
Viendo me por detrás de todas las cortinas

No hay humo
Todo esta bien claro
No hay nada a ser dicho
Nada a programar se
Apenas la libertad del momento
Y que se sea infinito mientras dure
(Y mejor que dure para siempre, si aún queda alguna esperanza en Dios)

Ahora, aquí mi encuentro lejos de ti
Pero totalmente pertenecida de tu carne
Cada poro transpirando tu olor
Cada gota sudando tu sumo
Cada entrada recordando tus extremidades

Tetas, coxas, buceta
Mi rompes con toda la fuerza
Sonríes ríos entre mis piernas
Y yo desaguo mi flujos en tu cuerpo melado
Corriendo nuestras fronteras
Muriendo todos los segundos en raciones homeopáticas

Soy tuya
Tu cabrita danada safada sapeca
Buceando en tu cama
Rolando en tus sabanas
Y implorando en susurros tu mercy-turn-into-nectar

Seriamente
(Y para eso até junto dos deditos de mi manos para enfatizar)
Creyó, que for safety reasons, and that reason only
No debemos parar

Quiero proseguir sucumbiendo a nuestros abismos
Para el siempre de todos los siempres
Amor de todos los amores

Venga acá
Vengas me amar

USA

For seven years I have tried to fit in

Little child longing for the class’ acceptance

Struggling with inadequacy

Either explaining or fighting in the loneliness of my weirdness

But I’m not weird

I’m just not them

I’ve never been

I will never be

Genesis

They have opened the golden gates
They tangle their glory in front of my face
They offer me the status of the rich, the nectar of the Gods
They invite me in with promises of fame and fortune
Selling their acclaimed format of happiness

I stand motionless
I don’t want their happiness
Whose dream am I supposed to live?

Conformity had confused me
I had adapted to what they told me about success
I had forged a Master Plan of way of living that was never mine
I had surrendered to their army of compliance
And accepted a fate written down prior to my own will

But wait
There was hope left
I didn’t know but I still knew better

So there I went blindfolded by my innocent ignorance
Crossing continents
Searching for something
I didn’t know exactly what

I closed my eyes
And flew unintentionally into my destine
Just to hit face first against my shallowness

God, I’d been wrong!
How the hell had I been living?

I found myself landing in Joy
Thick smoke immediately dissipating
And a forgotten humanity squeezed epiphany out of my chest

It was all so clear
There it was
Me

And by Me, I mean the Me that I most like out of myself
That Amazonian identity of woman that jumps head first into the world
That has no fear of downfalls
And no hesitation towards happiness

Fuck precaution
Life is a sip of light in the vastness of this universe
Throw me into the black hole
Stir galaxies within me
Pare o mundo que eu quero descer!

I jumped in
And swam my mediterranean Sea
I ran across my borders
I biked the streets of my depth
To finally reawaken my Titan within

Life was blown into my nostrils

And in the seven night
After founding my own Genesis
And resting on my Sun-day
I climbed the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil
I caressed softly the Serpent skin
And took a full bite of the succulent Apple
Unaware of having invited my Adam in

I opened my eyes and there He was
Tribal Man-giant smiling at me
Palpable mirage watering my desert
Offering freely his bare heart to my hunger
No fig’s leaves needed
No shame welcomed

Go ahead and throw us out of the Garden
We will build our own

I’d be happy to bear the pain of childbirth over and over again
And live 930 years
As long as my Adam is with me

Close your golden gates
Our land has no fences

I rather swim my oceans than climb your mounts

I have found Home in the land and chest of my lover
Home sweet home

And here we are
Full of life and
Filled with love

Here I am
Libertad

A Day

That moment right before falling asleep
When the eyelids succumb to its weight
And the body verges numbness
Reality blends with subconscious
And I get saddened by the eminence of the next day

Morning Afternoon Night
Past Present Future
Beginning Middle End

One less day of life
One day closer to death
Fuck that

Eyes, open up
Shake off the dreams
Brush away the urgency of the cycle to come
Steer me back into consciousness, Please
Awake awake!

Come back, my dear Day
I urge you to stay for at least a few more minutes
Let me taste you one last time

Hold my hands tight
And cease later

Overflow

Throw me the life-vest
I've been drowning in emotions

NY

New York New York
Wait for me

I'm about to catch up with you

Mothafucking You, Again

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Where is my teacup?

I know, I know
One is made to be self-sufficient
Independent
Happy in their ultimate loneliness

I’ve been told to be ashamed of needing
Never long for a man, little girl
You can take the world alone

Copy that
I learned that lesson
I’m very good standing on my feet
Could run across mountains and rivers, storms and deserts
Without grasping for air

That’s not the point
Yes, I am self-sufficient
But it's not about what is sufficient, is it?
I want more

Cheer to the ones that stand happy alone
Never longing for a family
Believing that love is distraction

Distract me all you want
Call me dependent
Call me even needy (argh)
All I know
And I know it for fact
Is that I want to share

So blow away the ego smoke
Stop pretending I’m better off on my own

I’m here bored in my single-dome
Often wondering how do you look like
How does your body weight over mine
Where is the meeting place they’ve written down for us

Let me clear my throat:
I can’t wait to meet You

Half of myself, said Plato’s in his Symposium
All humans were hermaphrodite
Cut in gender halves just past creation
To perpetually wander around aimlessly
Searching for their respective concaves or convexes

Bring me my convex, please

I’ve disregarded the description list
I have accepted the damn fate to introduce me to you

Forget the exact qualities
Stereotypes
And close calls to perfection
Reveal the flaws
I have quite a few of my own, too (not that many)

The hell with seeking the right ingredients
I don’t want to know the recipe
Just bring me my meal!

I’m not here praying for surface
I wish for the depth of a parallel universe where two people forget all rules
Land where all Past is left behind
Past that only handcuffs me to yellow memories and shallow longings

I want to move forward

I’m tired of chasing the rabbit through a bottomless hole
I want the fantasy
Where is my teacup?

I just want to share it

LA Emptiness

Don't like walking in LA
The emptiness of the streets makes me uncomfortable

If I must
I rather run

Run away

Modern World

I know, I know
You don't have time for feelings.

One Man Land

More and more I know
Life with you would be lonely

Your world is too small
All the countries and seasons you go through in a day
Do not widen your margins

Your land is one man and one man only

You swim alone
Stuck under water
Filling up your minutes with pressure
You suffocate

I watch from far
You don’t want to be saved

I see you there at the corner
Walled in great commitments
Wishing I could crack you open and awaken your eyes

Turn off the AC and open the window
Look at the world outside
Forget the accomplishments and start living them

Still, I watch you quietly

I’ve longed you for days and days
And here I stand on our last hour
Sitting on your couch
Your presence pulsing quietly on the table
Five miles across the room

We are going to break

Magical Bubble (Why Can't We Be Friends?)

I know your tricks
You’re trying to erase me again
Hide me in that little cave you shoved me when we first met

Your reasoning has been well exposed
I get it
But it's just that thing you do about trying to hate me
(You can’t hate me, no way)
I can't understand

We had our magical bubble
Fairy-dust and twilight
The ocean in your eyes was my escape

Your narrative
The poetry of your thoughts
The gentleness of your ways
It kept hovering me

The taste of dream left in my mouth
Turned every feeling into tenderness

But my care for you is parallel to reality
Not a slight intention to be intrusive
It hears you from afar
And shares secret in whispers

There is no space for future
For reliving what we had
The Present has swallowed it
It froze in the Past

The bubble has popped

But Why can't we be friends?
Why can't we be friends?

Lust?

I woke up one day in my late twenties
And the warm body by my side
Was just a hollow reminisce of my old ways

Friends with benefits had no more profit

I sat there
Staring at my longing
Wishing my cure was a kiss away
But my emptiness felt even fuller

And I prayed
I prayed and prayed

Oh Lord, let me fuck
Let me fuck just for the sake of it

But no, romanticism turned off all the intentions
Love
Eros whispered in my ear

I yelled at my brain:
What kind of fuckery is this?
It stared right back at me
Unaffected by my plead

I try to insist

I wander around double looking at men
Measuring them by inch
Perversion in every pore
I transpire fire

Come closer and you’ll see
It’s all bullshit
Love has hit me

No exclusivity on the longing
Forget the perfect-lover list I wrote that Saturday afternoon
It's just the idea
The concept of sharing intimacy with complicity
Nakedness that’s not only skin
Much more
All the stuff within

And it only frustrates me to know better
To watch myself watching them
The men
Wishing their taste could be my medicine

That bottle is empty
If I were to head their direction
I’d walk right through them

You grew up little girl
Look at the woman in the mirror

Just Friends?

While here I was, sitting by my table, thinking about you.

I spent the whole morning a bit lost in your land, emerged in your mismatched pupils while wondering the taste of your tongue.

I sat there with your warm hands rubbing my fingers and I longed your delicacy more than ever. I wanted to touch you, to hold you, to hug you so tight so to forget our margins and disregard the boundaries of matter. I listened to your soft voice while watching you being you, laughing, talking, gesturing, and I couldn’t help but drifting into your vulnerability. I saw your eyes fill up with salty tears and all I wanted was to swim on them, to float on your secrets and duck dive into your abyss, to later peacefully sleep in your nest.

I want to hear more, to know more, to learn you from cover to current always craving the next chapter.

You are very magical to me.

You are this ocean of tides clashing into my shore, pulling me closer and close. I see a broken little bird within and all I want is to nurture it, to rock you in my arms and breast feed you with the golden nectar love is.

With care comes fear, comes the ghosts of shattered possibilities and potential lost. I have the same wonders and hesitations about getting too close, too lost in each other, afraid of, later on, losing you. And I must remind myself that fear is so paralyzing, and really only destructive to the brewing intensities that usually tend to seem easier to deny than to live. Fear is that twisted defense mechanism that overall stops one from living instead of simply existing. Fear is the stupid ego fighting hard the gut feeling we learn so hard to disregard.

And when I finally come to find myself fulfilled with the fundamental liberty whole feelings require, I realize that overall life it’s to be lived more, and anticipated less. So, with that in mind, I won’t attempt to abruptly change our dynamic. I’ll simply let it be, I’ll let us keep playing this song we’ve been subtly making, without trying to set the pace, to set the tone, the course. I’ll sing along our slow tune and let time work out our longing paths, always wishing to never be too far to forget your texture, and maybe one day, closer than just enough.

Doing Great

Since your name, coming out of your mouth, gets bigger every day
And your self-sorrow has overcome any consciousness left
I accept your self-proclamation of grandiosity
As the only way to undermine your insecurities

I just wish you could only admit how afraid you are
I see fear in your eyes
And I wish to long to care for you

But you’ve been long jaded

If there was a splash of self-criticism left
We might have had better luck as accomplices
But, no
I watch your sad reflection in the mirror
I hear your everyday bullshit about how great you’ve been doing
And I want to grab you by the shoulders
And shake up the foundation to your lies

I know better
I know you enough to easily identify your hypocrisy
You lay there pretending it's all right
I pretend I believe

And there are days that I want to hold your hand and bring you back
Days that I’m immersed in salvation
The cure

Who am I to cure?

Yes, yes
You could be my project
But I see through it
I see your whole theatrics of perfection buried in flaws

I let it go
Immersed in sympathy
Fuck sympathy

I want the truth
It lies beneath your one inch layer of depth
It stenches what remained of your purity

Your innocence has been broken
But I have my own pieces to pick up
The hell with empty shells

If you could only want it more than me
I got to save myself first

Small Death

I suck his tongue
He bites my lip
I spread wide open my secret

He slips inside
Drums my walls
Pounds waves through my every layer
I quiver

He hammers into my core
Streams melt down my inner thighs
spilling over my margins
He overflows me

He plays free through my convexes
He conquers my concaves
I submit

I’m his hostage and refugee
Naughty whore and little girl
Shy student and sexy mistress
We are free

He pulls my hair
Rides his little ponyhoe
Whipping my round ass with his bare hand
He dominates me

I supplicate release
He says please
I succumb to a colossal implosion
I surrender

I want to taste him
I long his milk
I plead for his nectar over my surface
We let it be

I feel his body tightening
He holds my hips
He kisses my lips
The tide grows
He shakes
I can hear his heart beat

He holds for a second
Constringes preceding eruption
And in the most delicious moan
Gives in

Small death within

One

The horizon is clear and the wind insists:
I’m ready. I’m ready. I’m ready.

Send the troops.
I just want one in six billion.

Foreign

In a culture in which success is material and tangible; where career comes prior to relationships and joy and happiness are rewards never path; in a society in which off-days should be taken in secret and relationships are weight, since you better choose work over love - priorities are priorities -, Love is underrated.

In a land where intelligence is brain, is logic, is being rational and practical, sentimentalism is drama and sensitiveness is weakness. A land where bad experiences are turn into trauma instead of growth, while people go through life closing themselves in their hard shells full of old scars instead of opening their minds to fill up with new understandings; in which you should be appropriate and polite, and never ask, never tell, never show what you truly feel; where people are full of hollow “how are yous” and “luv yas” but real Love brings a storm of “unwelcome” emotions, and any latent change of landscape in one’s heart is potentially the worst nightmare of every man, once anything out of the comfort zone may be severely dangerous to the habitual heart-frequency and may lead to serious evolution. In a society in which happiness is a linear road of consequent events: get the job/buy the house/find the girl/propose /get marry/have little ones/live-how-they-told-you-to-ever-after; Life is underrated.

In a culture where the words “psycho-somatic” and “intuition” must come straight from a “tree-hugger-talk” and if you do therapy you might as well get used to being asked: “what happened?” A culture where emotions are disposable, discarded and unvalued and mostly to be hidden and disregarded; where detachment and individualism are positive traits and “having a life” is a privilege; I finally come to ask myself what happened to our humanity? What happened to the ability of living instead of existing? What happened to not trying to map out so perfectly the present and future so to leave some room for the unimaginable, intangible, and unexpected serendipity to naturally unveil?

I stand here with myself, walking around the room full of longings and wonders. I stand on the notion that life is to be flexibly lived, full of spontaneity and risk, and I know so well to let life happen while I make my uberly important plans.

I don’t want to not risk it. I’m not afraid of getting hurt.

I here open my arms and offer my chest to the storm. I bare my soul from fears and allow my body to fly into all my indefinite corners. I strip all the darkness and joy I have in my abyss. I accept to fall, to break into million crumbs. I’m okay with getting hurt and cut and smashed by all the forces I’m here exposing. I yearn major implosions and inner tornados on my vast oceans. I’m unafraid. I'm fearless. And all the silly walls that my arms can build, all the guards and self-consciousness is to be buried in elation.

And here seating with my heart in my chest, I realize how much fiber I have in my muscles, how much air I breathe into my lungs; I feel my warm blood swimming its stream and my cells throbbing in expansion. I am developing, overflowing, transforming. I am a new muscle that keeps ripping apart to consequently grow. I am to wonder, to change, to improve. Bring me the earthquake. Shake my entire ground. Break me apart and I reborn again. I survive. I relive. I evolve. I am to go through life fully, embracing every intensity that in my way arises. I am to jump in, duck dive, get on the ride.
I am to venture into my virgin lands, wandering through secret jungles and forests. I am to encounter the secrets of my infinite and to venture into my every concealed cave.
I am. And I am to Live.

Ultra-Passado

Miguel. Road, Salgado. Doce, muito doce. Memória que não apaga nem depois de dezesseis anos passados. Passado que volta e meia escorrega no presente e voa embora de novo sem notícias de retorno. Menino que viveu em segredo até aquela noite que eu o vi atrás da minha porta, queimado, pretinho, olho brilhando, cachinhos cheios de idéias fumegantes dentro de cabeça brilhante. Miguel que foi meu primeiro grande amor. Amor contra corrente que esperou o tempo certo, esperou, persistiu, insistiu, mas que acabou por ser a hora errada. Nunca foi a nossa hora. Miguel de tantos encontros desencontrados, de tantas estórias. Haja história. Miguel que cresceu, casou, deu cria. Miguel que virou homem do outro lado do mundo em que eu vim a virar mulher. E eu daqui, saindo de um namoro e já quase que caindo em outro, guardando o coração sem querer o dar desavisado, eu depois das minhas tantas viagens e estórias ainda tenho você guardado em alguma gaveta em mim. E no meio de dia apertado me deparo com sua foto, filha no colo e me choco com como memória pode ter cheiro, gosto, textura. Te olho aí, cheio de presente e vejo como o passado é antigo. Ultrapassado. Te olho de longe e fico feliz pelo teu caminho. Contemplo sua vida e sorrio imaginando seu momento. Te deixo ir embora da cabeça sem antes deixar de te escrever esse pequeno tributo a sua importância em mim. Não sei se o tempo vai levar, se a vida vai desenrolar, degringolar, mas a verdade é que de tempo e tempo me deparo contigo e nunca é vazio. Sento aqui na minha mesa ao som de Novos Baianos e a menina dança, deixa a menina dançar.

Love and Pain

What is love worth if not for a power of creation? Isn’t the internal wheel overall turned so to switch the course of the every day ordinary? Isn’t love a tide of new, in which the old can be re-seen with newborn eyes? Isn’t love to awaken the soul and open the heart and rip it out of the glass box our chest is and let it throb lively on the table?

So, love is not just about happiness and comfort but also about pain and transformation. It’s about breaking the old into a tsunami of new intensities and inspirations, and in that light the outcome really doesn’t matter but the courage to put the core into the process and allow the flesh to be raw. It’s about vulnerability to offer the open chest and when the wound opens, only big balls can afford to go through it without running away overwhelmed by fear.

Love is there to create heartfelt poetry and transformational books and remarkable movies and powerful art. Love is here for me so I can write better letters and cry denser tears and crack old concepts and step humbly into what I don’t know.

Love, and now pain, is here so I can grow out of the mediocrity of the normality and touch the land of the uncertain. And I see my insecurities and face my self-esteem and bump into my fears and touch my rejection complex and all the obscurity hidden inside my soul. Pain is here so I change my course and rethink what I thought so well that I knew for sure. Love and pain are here so to transpire sweat and blood and tears to then turn it all into gardens in my brain and life.

So let the pain come in and flush the still water, turn my swamp into running river, turn my lazy blood into splashing waterfalls of flux sprinting through my bloodstream. Love and pain are here so to prove that I’m alive.

The Woods

Little girl is lost in the woods
The sun has set and she suddenly woke up from her daze
She is surprised to be scared of the dark
But there she is full of fear

Little girl sits in a tree hole haunted by the forest inside her head
She has been lonely for too long
She has walked three times the length of the earth
And lived thousand lives in six years
But she is tired of the quest
Her heart has imposed her a rest
And she wishes for a tender embrace from the long branched tree

Little girl feeds her soul with salty tears and deep sighs
She has longed for so long
She has raised herself for that moment
She is ready but the moment haven’t arrived

Little girl is a mere statue of her being
She has tried to play and laugh and distract the earthquake cracking her head in half
But the earth doesn’t stop moving
There is a blizzard in her soul
She avoids looking at the hole in her chest
She can’t bear walking her tiny feet through the snow anymore
She wants to run from her own thoughts
But her strength is drained by her sadness

Little girl feels hollow as an old fallen tree
She lies on the ground buried in dry leaves
Yearning the comfort of her wholeness back to her breath
But she has lost the rhythm
She is paralyzed by the inertia of her emptiness

Little girl disregards her own margins and turns into air
She is cold breeze that has forgotten how to grip the heat of the sun
She flies through arctic mountains and gets overwhelmed by their depth
She looks down into her abyss and feels vertigo in her soul

Little girl misses the warmth within
She misses running the green grass fields freely
And skipping to the singing birds
But she can’t forge happiness
She stares at the water and sees heavy clouds as her reflection
She collapses into the river and melts into stream

Little girl is cold current running aimlessly through rough rocks
She lets herself go
Wishing for the river to choose her path
She can’t fight the flow anymore
She floats instead of swimming

Little girl misses home
She misses the comfort of the old textures
She closes her eyes and remembers her mother soft embrace
Her dad strong hand holding tight to her little one
She misses belonging to them but mostly to herself

Little girl knows that she is not alone
But man, she has been lonely
She misses living in the daylight
But now all she has is grieve inside
There are thousand deaths in her chest
Every inch of her body mourns what it isn’t anymore
The old still lives within
And she quietly prays for the space to vacate

Her heart has been broken in tiny parts
And it rips as a growing muscle
Her devastation burns every bush that she walks by
And her desolation turns blue into gray
Her world has been black and white

Little girl lays in the tree hole and hugs her own self
She keeps repeating out loud that she’s going to be okay
She will eventually turn her pain into gardens
And bounce around a bed of colored flowers
But it all feels still far from blossoming
It’s winter in her land

Little girl longs for spring
But for now the tree hole is where she is

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.