4 swans at the seine
a esplêdida cobertura do hotel tour d'argent, a qual jamais visitarei, reflete as luzes amareladas da rua
como o rio sena à noite, no quai notre dame, por onde se aquietam 4 cisnes brancos
a catedral que continua a ser reparada
e o padeiro fumando seu cigarro aqui fora, suas mãos cinzentas: dois trabalhos infinitos
fim de noite ou início de dia
já impresso na memória afetiva
na próxima vez que ouvir essa música, com certeza chorarei
stranger
time flies
and i feel alone all the time, no matter how many new friends i have (not a lot, anyway)
sunday afternoon, coming back from work, i saw a big family walking down my street, probably heading back from sunday lunch at grandmother i guess, supposing she still alive, i hope, kids were energetic, babies sound asleep, parents slightly drunk, but much, much happier than the faces i saw minutes ago on the RER. i wondered what they ate. probably a nice barbecue. i bet they had a fig tree. or maybe just a simple meal, in a simple apartment.
beautiful sunday outside
i am home alone
again
all of a sudden i remember the hot long weekends i spent at my tiny studio during university times in campinas, where my neighboor had a swimming pool i couldn’t see, but i could hear the splashes, the laughter, the smell of charcoal and grilled meat.
no one should be alone on sundays.
and i miss the ones back home, who truly know me, the person i am, not the stranger i became
in fact i miss a lot of things
i miss the family i always resented, the way we speak, the way we eat, the way we behave, the shittiest of things, blablabla
and yes, i also miss their lives going by, events, births, deaths, growing ups, etc
but mostly, i am missing things i don’t even get to hear of, because they have no importance whatsoever
the little things
no one tells me anymore
because we only talk about “what’s new in life”
i hate what’s new in life. what’s new in life is that a french person can totally talk to me and not let me understand a single word if they want to, what’s new is that i’m only here for money at this point, what’s new is that my husband’s work is fucking with health and our couple life, what’s new is that i have been crying a lot and that i hate my food and that i am suffering from ptsd ever since that man broke into our house
and i am standing still, like watching the train i just lost go past me by the fucking quai
now i have to wait 20 minutes
i am now that overseas person in the family, someone who they only have a vague idea of what they are doing, why they left, if they are doing well in life
of course i am doing well in life, life is nothing but roses in the first world, bien sûr, no one thinks i am miserable
no one can know
louisa call me a stranger today in a literal translation from the french “etrangère”, by mistake, i think
but it hurt
nonetheless.
why do you hate men so much?
to the man who taught me at the age of 7 what the word “dick” was, when he asked me on the street, on broad day light when i was walking with my mother to the supermarket, if i would like to “touch his dick”. we were holding hands and at the moment he said this i knew it was bad because she squeezed my hard very hard, as if to protect me;
to the drunk couple of friends who threw a screwdriver on me at the street from the 3rd floor while i walked to work at 4am, just for the fun of it. they laughed like hell. it fell one inch away from me;
to the man with his dog on the street at night who told me, after i passed by him, that his dog was very hungry and i that i should be careful;
to my high school sweetheart who removed the condom without asking me during our first time having sex, and who also came inside me nonetheless. he blocked me on social media when i asked him why he did this. he said i was trying to ruin his reputation;
to my first boyfriend (21y) who broke up with me after i told him i was too young to have sex (14y);
to all the male friends who ghosted me because i saw them as just friends and didn’t want to have sex with them;
to one of my previous boyfriends who threw objects on me when he was angry;
to the same man, who tried to convince me to stop therapy and stop following my dream of becoming a professional cook, because i would be moving away from his city and therefore his range of control;
to the man who broke into my house while we slept one night;
to the male chef who said i was too small to be a baker;
to the male chef who tried to dissuade me from pursuing a job in his bakery saying that all his bakers were such strong men that they had even been to the army;
to the male chef who described how he fucked his wife every morning and made me listen during work;
to my best friend’s brother (18y) who forcibly kissed me on the mouth when i was 8 years old;
to the same man, who sexually abused his own sister and gaslight her so her parents wouldn’t believe her;
to the same man, who always beat up his girlfriend when he snorted too much cocaine and who sued her from trying to escape the country with their son;
to my friend’s father, who would drink too much almost every night, threaten her mother and tell his own daughter that she was a slut, at the age of 12;
to the man who got my friend pregnant (20y) and told her it was her problem;
to all the men who stared at me on the street or suggested themselves sexually on me in public countless times, and who made me feel bad for wearing shorts, skirts, dresses, cleavage, tight jeans, sleeveless t-shirts, make up, unshaved legs;
to the man who tried to rub his penis me on the packed subway, ever so softly imagining no one would notice;
not every man,
but always a man.
“how many times you wrote a poem because you couldn’t kill yourself” (via facebook)
not the first
you are not the first man that left my life because of unreciprocated feelings, unmet expectations and unfulfilled sexual desires.
also not the first that made me doubt my ways of expressing myself or behaving to men.
not even the first that made me question the legitimacy of friendship between men and women.
nor the first one who said everything they wanted to say and then asked me to keep my distance, not allowing me to say anything in return, condemning me to silence and completely ignoring me because they were unwilling to face rejection.
not the first man in my life that punished me for rejecting them, as if i had always planned to break their heart. as if i had never truly cared about them.
and most definitely not the first man who left, but who still lingers around my social media because they are just too proud to actually come talk to me.
but you are, indeed, the first one i miss.
calling another by my name
i heard you back the other night
adeus ou até logo?
o vapor do café sobe a conversa vai longe.
meu avô perdeu a memória recente, recentemente. talvez por isso esteja mergulhando cada vez mais profundamente em suas memórias de 1950, quando viajava entre o paraná e o mato grosso em comércio de café, quando ainda possuía forças para carpintar, quando ainda tinha 4 filhos e não apenas 3… minha avó escuta atentamente, pronta para corrigir detalhes ou pedir-lhe para encurtar um pouco essas estórias…
mas eu não conseguia prestar muita atenção nelas; talvez essa fosse a última vez que eu o escutaria em vida, na minha vida. era tudo em que eu conseguia pensar. essas despedidas são esquisitas, nunca sei se serão as últimas.
adeus ou até logo?
(via litsnaps)
“When you are in possession of knowledge that would shatter the person you adore if they knew, you love them more by realizing that every small thing they do—from eating ice cream to laughing at something on television to asking your opinion about a hairstyle—is no longer a small thing but some grand event in the universe. It’s like you’ve already died, but somehow been able to come back and appreciate what’s truly precious. I warn you, though, there is loneliness in knowing.”— Simon Van Booy, from The Presence of Absence (Godine, 2022