The Rebellion

Open chances. Too many missed shots.

An intense war field. Heads of State rising and falling before the sunrise.

I obviously had to get my life back in track, and to such an intent, there is no better remedy than throwing all the shadows to be smacked down by the big wheels of time, while I ran to anywhere out of radar.

New connections and new directions. Perfect excuses to allow myself moving far out of my way just to misbehave for a night or two, after comfortably steering around the art exhibits.

It was the game I once owned, and I was diving head first into it.

In the height of the autumn, the fall of every leaf marked every single time I fell in love with a complete stranger.

I let them took my love and I, well, tried to keep some of theirs, as a piece to my – yet incomplete – puzzle.

Another winter did not take too long to lay its cold veil above us.

It was unstable times and the deep purple in the skies seemed like an evil presage.

And at the dusky evening I came to discover.

The dead came back to walk among the living; the evil in me had been kept alive.

From slowing dying cinders, it took the form of an undistinguishable walking figure among the living, scrapping plans and sending my newly built views and paradigms to a swirl – or a black hole altogether.

Whether it was the best or the worst of the timings, it is yet to be decided.

The political instability, however, was growing stronger, so I had to head to my refuge, as much before planned, leaving behind the poorly finished situation.

Another road-crossing.

Behind me, the fire deceasing into cinders yet again.

Ahead of me, the environment that brings me safety.

In the middle of a prayer for better days, I turned 26. It was midnight, and I was vanishing from sight, feeling both bemused and awed, but, at the very same time, allowing a soft note of despair and regret give me cold, annoying chills.

At that point, however, it was too late, for it was time to look ahead.

The day dawned and the sun shone – a bit timidly, for it was a cloudy winter day –, and I was feeling uncannily happy and accomplished as I stepped into the second half of my twenties.

Above the clouds, life was feeling once again exciting and there was no single possible way to have a more proper celebration for my birthday.

With the widest smile crafted on my face, I jumped into the arms of the wilderness, and, this time, it was me who became another undistinguishable figure.

Take me in your arms, Vinovia.

Not too long after, the continuous political tension burst into armed conflicts and the bloodiest battles took place.

My Capital District was being taken over by enemy after enemy whilst I did not succeed to conquer any new territory.

At that point, it became conspicuous that my war techniques were wholly out-dated.

Amidst the debris of the once imposing skyscrapers of the city, a counter-movement slowly arose, headed by my own self, to win over the repression of the tyrannous newly installed, nearly fungible Government.

While the troops fought in the countryside and the police haunted the city, my body was found to be the primary, most powerful weapon of rebellion.

Sexuality was the sole strategy.

To the rebels, every lustful encounter at the dusk became an act of protesting, of displaying, to their faces, the naked core of what cannot be taken from us.

And as we reached the biggest momentum, when the thrill skyrocketed to above the stratosphere, much beyond their reach, and we shouted the scream of liberty, we knew it.

They cannot control us.

I then found myself striding among the corpses of those fallen in battle, feeling nothing but fresh, unstoppable and eager to face the darkness, closer each day to defeating the enemy.

Back from safety, it is crystal clear that the Old City, the old status quo, is no longer luring. It simply does not make any more sense – and has not made for longer than I can even conceptualize.

That is how I know the rebellion is not over yet.

Keep fighting.

Keep the wheels spinning.

See you in the next stop.

XX

Daughter's room

The moon was shining bright. A hand raised from the cemetery. On the night of the walking dead, I heard a knocking on my door.

It was a zombie. A macabre resurrection. Just a shadow of what it used to be.

Swallowing my utter panic, I embraced it, in hopes that time would guide the way out of the horror and that cheap Stephen King movie would turn into a mild romantic comedy.

Instead, I was sent to outer space.

Gasping for oxygen outside the atmosphere, I became the lost space man, as the Earth posed as the long lost past, forming an ironically harmonic mix of messy, uneven, heterogenic, but beautiful pieces. A home, slowly fading in the darkness of my vision turning black as I lost my consciousness.

For the first time, it looked beautiful.

Sometimes, I guess, things only make sense when gazed at from a great distance – so great that it is out of reach, for good.

Still, I held hands with the firmest grip my strength would be able to, and, at the same time, played every symphony, just to grow awareness of my feelings, of what I was, of all I had to offer.

To no avail.

I was drowning in that infected love.

My soul was tainted by that infected love.

On a last, desperate endeavour to heal the infection, we adventured into the wilderness of the concrete jungles.

And that, my friend, was my last, most enduring mistake.

Among violent punches on the core of my self-esteem, I was sent to nowhere in sight.

That is when I found myself trapped on a time bubble that took me to one's glorious past I had a fairly little knowledge about.

A past with candies and fresh young blood galore. With no inch left to explore.

A past where the beauty flowed freely like a soft silk veil, caressing the nude bodies of the nameless youth, the young rebels, another troupe of extremists.

A past where I did not still exist... Framed on this present time, where I -- I no longer existed.

So I fled to the daughter's room, where the silence meets the deepest darkness.

Where I could hide from the voracious monsters haunting along and weep in peace.

My temple to keep distance from the Great Wall and its heartbreaking sight.

In there, I – at long last, for the first time – found the meaning of every song, of every teardrop, of every cry I ever heard in the height of my lukewarm empathy, of my immature and selfish way of caring of others.

I felt vulnerable and human, once again.

And as if my past had finally declared war, all the pain and suffering I may have caused seemed to be bouncing back in the bloodiest vendetta.

You were the lieutenant of the infantry. The bullets you fired were hitting me in the very core.

In the daughter's room I agonized, dying not by the blood running out my body, but by the hope vaporing out of my spirit.

Your love did not find me in the daughter's room.

I have seen your love is now strolling around the Dark Velvet Feral Art Gallery.

Your love has long left me.

I fled from this infected love you gave me.

Whilst rushing back home, all I saw was complete emptiness after a soft fog of the saddest grey.

In the alley of the unspoken words, deep in my undergrounds, there were just corpses and drunken men, gazing into the darkness, finding no point in any further movement, overpowered by the misery.

Their eyes contemplated the infiniteness of the nothing.

All the screams inside were promptly silenced; for nothing made sense; for it was all void; it was all gone, with my appetite.

My feelings twirl and tangle, making a million knots in my heartstrings, so that I can’t quite tell anything apart.

Is it envy for the glory or love for the glorious?

Is it your presence or your absence?

I can't see any answers, I can’t see any reasoning.

I left the battle for good.

x

Necrophilia

Fast breathing, when our hands held, our heads stuck together and I'd be told not to stop.

I made sure you'd feel every inch.

You wouldn't make sure I'd feel anything at all.

I did anyway.

So many hopes and expectations that, amongst the flowers and stings, a new flame would burn and a new you would outburst.

As the time passed, my hunger grew faster and I let my heart melt unconsciously, inconsequently, soon to be involved in the spikey branches of Audrey II.

You may name me Seymour; I had built my very own little shop of horrors.

Feeling suffocated and in despair, I ran on to strive for some relief on the mazy corridors of the Le Velvet Art Gallery at St. Mercy's St., no number, so I could get some fresh air on my lungs.

Step after step, shenanigan after shenanigan, I felt unattached and distant, fed up with the ice and complete lack of any attempts to boost up the innermost devices of me.

On that cold night, I was touching the rigid skin of a deceased person.

On that cold night, I felt like a necrophile.

On that cold night, I called it quits.

For the following minutes, hours, days, there was just mess inside my head. My vision was misty. The skies were blurry.

It was time to escape.

On a search for peace and entertainment, I marched southwards, to the silver sea.

In there, I was welcome by the warmest embrace of a good friend, who guided me through the Old City, where the antique meets the modern and the life seems to have bettered up a notch.

Running along the long beachfront sidewalk, I found my to reflect and reassure myself.

I was once again sure of my feelings and what sacrificed it would cost.

There was no doubt inside me.

The sun blessed our way. Turmoil and storm, however, awaited me on the way back home, facing me in the very road that took me back.

After such a delayed return, I found that, whilst I was strolling throughout the East shore, a wall was being constructed, as tall as the Empire State.

I eventually faced it.

It was a fortress.

I knocked on any random brick.

This conversation's over, I heard.

And for the very first time, I realized. It's gone.

No matter how much I punched it, the wall would not even tremble or display any sign of weakness, to my dismay, to my disgrace, to my utter agony.

From instant lovers to enemies. Something had been severed.

As the tension went unbearable, we both decided to part ways, on a decision that, yet again, seemed temporary to me.

And then, the wrong night out, just to get me suffocated.

As the dated 1990s dance beat starts to play, a lover digs deeper into the grave.

Friends become foes.

The "best" is scratched from "best pals".

I didn't quite know what exactly had annoyed me. All I knew is that I was profoundly annoyed for sure.

Inside my chest, silent screams of pain.

And behind that imposing fortress, as enormous as the Great Wall of China, lays the one you love, cold as ice, broken into millions of ice cubes.

You can't keep fighting for it, as your strength is lost. Your dignity is lost. Everything that you believe is lost.

Two halves of a perfect match, broken, unable to patch themselves into unity again.

And as the feeling is drowning in the waters of the storm, I lull myself to sleep in dry tears.

My love is dead. My lover has long deceased.

Even though I never thought I could kiss the dead.

I'm in love with a corpse.

14 Sandcastles, 14 Rock Steady Empires

Under the unbearably hot summer of late December, whilst I firmly put my put-all-aside plans on practice, and after promising heartfelt respect, we left all the way to Southern Coast Highway, for the Holidays.

And while I drove – feeling restless, but, yet, excited –, the unveiling of the ocean and the tallest skyscrapers yet seen were the always-so-shocking contemplation of, perhaps, a more interesting piece of life.

Not so sure about the outcome of such a technique, I steered, yet again, into Le Velvet art gallery, St. Mercy Street, no number, taking all possible caution to be respectful to my loved ones and, at the same time, have myself some friendly figures to place beside me, with absolutely no intentions to dive into deeper art appreciation.

And as if by magic, I was, at last, enjoying the place, enjoying the summer. With my just met childhood friends, I was strolling in the beachfront, with a remarkably empty mind, freed from all the ties and notches from ordinary life, late at night.

Life was, for once, no longer a burden, but a candy-smelling treat, funny to deal with.

It was Christmas time. I was a child building sandcastles under the sun and swimming in the ocean amidst prayers for spiritual washing.

The midnight, however, was about to arrive. I was back in town, swimming in my own sweat, but, still, glad – in some extent – to be back to one's arms.

After the countdown, the fireworks were propelled and the 13 sandcastles felt to the ground, in millions of indistinct grains.

In retrospect, the year that just flied away was seemingly nothing but a hot mess of events that my blurry, limited vision can barely distinguish.

So many happy moments, so many smiles, so many new places visited, so much love felt and distributed – yet so many unfulfilled dreams, shattered expectations, so many cries of pain, so many occasions when I found myself standing before a shadowy horizon, unable to walk through, unable to figure out the next step to take.

As 2014 starts, my spirit is filled up with good wishes and hopes, that sum up, in the hastiest speech, in movement, improvement. Wishes for a new breath of life, of hope, of enlightenment, of truly making sense.

Shall we build no more sandcastles, but truly rock steady empires; shall we walk in firm ground from now on.

As the first sunrays from 2014 touched my skin, I, in the cozy arms of sleepiness, dreamt What a lovely dawn it is.

Happy new year!