Confessions

A collection of short bursts of inspiration, written at different points of my life. I have finally finished them and decided to put them together under one name.

The Preacher and The Girl

I see her. Through the glass and plastic, and steel; she is there staring out of the dirty bus window. We have 25 seconds, in the boiling, scalding, sun or in the teeth clenching cold. We always have 25 seconds. Amidst the chaos of cars and people and dust and snow, we stare into each other’s eyes, looking for a soul. The red of the traffic light blinks to green and splashes the windshield of the bus and I know my time is up. The parish is gone, whizzing in their cars scattering like flies from a decomposing corpse. I see her bundled in thick scarves. I see her in a dress with her bare shoulders, red from the summer sun. I see her when I close my eyes at night. In every dream, I ask her name and every time she just stares at me. It is 25 seconds of romance and lust. 

The light colors the night red as the cars stop at the intersection. I know that this is my moment; I straighten my jacket and grab my tattered Bible. “Mam I am here to talk to you about our Lord and Savior. If you have any sins I am here to listen to your confession.” the window of the car hastily goes up and the middle-aged woman purposefully stares ahead.  I do not give up; I walk down the column of cars and spread the holy words. From afar I look real, all dressed in black. If you look up close you could see the dirty stains on my sleeves, the holes in my suite where time tried to feed on me. If you look up close, you can see the dark circles under my eyes, the wrinkles and the sickness. Through a wasteland of roaring engines and poisonous fumes I walk and lead my troupe of paupers, washing people’s windshields for scraps of food. 

I see her every day, through that fly spotted window; her eyes sharp as needles and dark as a hell whole; her face chiseled of stone. 

I know where she lives; I have followed her many times. I’ve seen her get off the bus and head through the small alley. She never changes her route, like an animal she knows only one way home. I have stood under her window, watching the light go on and off. Once I snuck in her apartment building and stood at her door. I never knocked. What would I tell her? What would she see of me when she opens the door �" a shabby little man, all dressed in black with a faded cross on his breast. Once, I even paid the bus fare just to ride with her and sat two seats behind her. She was so close; I could taste her sweet scent over the musty smell of the bus. She did not notice me, nor did I want her to. What we had, were just 25 seconds. A quick flash of her dark eyes through a crowd of people, and an eternity for me to gaze upon her face and hope that her empty eyes see me; during those 25 seconds I loved her like I haven’t loved anything else. 

Even when I know I will close my eyes forever, her face still materializes in my mind and she is smiling for the first time. And I know this smile is mine and nobody else’s. 

The Lunatic and the Girl

I am locked in the darkroom of my own mind. I see through holes in my skull and I am paralyzed. I open my mouth and words come out but my ears perceive something else. I foam at the mouth and yell incomprehensive things. At night, I curl up like a dog on a piece of cardboard while my teeth clench with the December cold. 

Today I am at my favorite spot, with the people. Some of them are moving others are frozen in peculiar shapes. But I do not care. I rattle my old tin can, full of loose change and buttons. “All my friends are dead and gone”, my mouth yells at passersby.  And I try to remember some of those friends, but their memory is erased and I see blank faces staring back at me. I do not know these people, yet I yell at them. “My friends are dead, and soon all of you will die.”  I swing my tin can at a man and hit him in the back. My treasure falls to the ground with rusty metallic sound and rolls a few feet away. There, I’ve lost the only thing I had left in this world. 

My mind clouds and somebody else’s life start playing before my useless eyes. The tape is ripped and I cannot recognize anyone; only one, a girl with dark flowing hair and kind eyes. She knows me and smiles lovingly and I know I smile back. Her slender hands embrace me and I can feel her breath on my face. Her eyes are dark holes in her face, promising something more. Her lips move, closing around the words, weaving sentences, but I am deaf. I am deaf and blind for her.  We sit down and we read; I am sure we read a book. I can see my arms holding it and turning the pages. Her head tilts up and I can see her joy.

My mind clears of the memory and I find myself lying sideways on the pavement. I have moved and my tin can is nowhere to be found. All my buttons are scattered somewhere. The last thing that connected me to the humankind is gone. I am trapped in the body of this slobbering piece of meat. I drag my feet to a corner and settle in for the night, saving my energy for yet another screaming match.

And I dream; holding the book again. I see my name, glowing on the covers as if written in neon letters.  I am sure I wrote this book. I wrote it for her and she was proud of me, but I was too proud of myself. I felt small and meek with her. Not the writer I should be. She loved the story, yes she did, but I wanted more, so much more. I wanted the world to know who I am. She was not the world to me, she was just a girl. So I left one night, gathering my things, leaving just a few lonely socks on the floor of her apartment. 

Now all my friends are dead, and I am dead to her. I lost my book, I lost my tin can, and I lost my buttons too. I am left with this useless body, waiting for the day it will leave me too. 

Girl and Mirror

Girl

I stand before the liquid glass and what I see disgusts me. The bulging sideways of my body, the stubby little legs, I am but a joke. I go through life unnoticed, and I know I am built for better things. 

I walk down the streets where we used to laugh and every step makes my heart skip a beat. I pick up the pieces of memory we left behind and I throw them at the walls of my skull, so they can shatter till I cannot recognize them.

I walk past empty buildings with their eyes closed; I see the spot where we threw pebbles in the water. A few more steps lead me to the tiny niche we read poetry. Even though you are gone and now my hands are shoved in my pockets, I feel your presence right next to me, a ghost of something that was too good to be true. 

A flight of stairs, a door and an empty room with its walls slowly closing in on me; I look in the mirror and I see you tangled in my flowing hair. A leg here, a hand there and all your words cutting close to my skull. I grab the scissors, I hope this helps. If I remove everything you loved about me, will I be able to forget?

Mirror

I bang my fists on the see through material. “You are beautiful” I scream, but my voice is unheard. And so I run, after her, always one step behind. I see her through the glass windows of my world. I see her in my mirror and I see her in the puddles on the streets.

Suddenly my darkness brightens and I see her through the murky water.  She is on the small bridge and kicks a few stones in. There, I am standing on the same bridge with the same sky and trees, only my world is wet and watery. She walks away and I am left in darkness. And then again some light on and off as she passes by shop windows and then darkness again. No reflection here, but I know where this path goes and I can wager that she is sitting on the cold, stone bench in the church niche. It was rainy once and I saw her through a puddle on the ground. She was with a girl and they read poetry. I stopped to wonder, who might she be, but she never shared her name. 

After that rainy afternoon, her eyes were shining and she saw herself beautiful, I know that because she spent a lot of time looking at me. But now, she is alone again, lurking the world of her misery, leaving me in darkness. 

 * *  * 

    She came home last night, with a crazed gaze she grabbed the scissors and cut our hair, our beautiful long hair. She left me in the darkness again. 

The Silence and the Girl

I meet you when you come home. I fill up your empty room and drown you. You hear me when you walk outside, you hear me in the voices of the passersby.  You feel me in your bones. I am the thing that shoots from your heart and reddens your eyes. I am the only thing you have left. 

I am the absence of his footsteps by your side. And I am the coldness of the sheets that grabs you when you sleep. I am the noise in the night that startles you and I am the only one there to hold you. 

I am your empty body; I am behind your eyes. My long fingers are squeezing your heart every time your thoughts fly to him. I am the sound that you let out when you cry and I am the one that catches your tears.

And every time you see tenderness and love, I will fill up your heart, and every time you feel like calling, I will greet you with my presence. I am the thing that he gave you and I will never go away. 

I hold you by the hand, and I will possess every person that you meet. I will devour their words and turn them into mine. And you will no longer hear, nor feel.

I am what you are left with. 

The Tears and the Girl

Our life is short. We came together to this world and more often than not we are caused by pain. I have heard from others that sometimes, people create us out of happiness. Alas, our purpose was much grimmer. 

We came and went on a daily basis. Either in the shower, mixing up with water, or flowing down her cheeks plopping on whatever surface she was leaning on. Usually, we ended on her pillow. We were crushed by her face, soaking the white linen. 

Once, we ended up on a piece of paper. She was writing, barely seeing her letter, because we were in the way. She blinked and several of my brothers landed on the inky scribbles. I personally landed on “love” which repeated over and over in her sentences. 

Once she was ready she sealed us shut. We saw daylight a few days later. The face wasn’t the same, but it was familiar. He never even read it; he just crumpled us together with the ink and threw us in the fire. 

We screamed and begged him to read the words we smeared, but our sizzling was too loud for his ears and so we died, together with love and other beautiful words, unread and unnoticed. 

 

The Other Girl

Your heart stopped aching I can see. You wake up in the morning and you barely drag your feet. Pain no longer shoots from your heart when you pass a familiar street. But your mind is pestering. Oh, how you hope to see him on your doorstep. 

You walk the streets no longer hunched and you turn your eyes to where pain waits to attack. And there she goes, growling with her sharp, yellow teeth, threatening to bite.  You slow your stride and stop to wonder “Will I be able to outrun this beast or I will just fall down and weep?”

Silence still talks to you at night, holding you in his firm grasp. Raspy voices in your ears whisper, telling you of dark nightmares. In the middle of the night, you wake up screaming, wailing. In the dark corners of your room, lurk your dead memories.

They breathe and moan with you, shuffling for one more bite. Pain leads them towards your bed while silence holds you down. Your demons are upon you, my dear. How I wish I could tell you, right here from where I stand, that in the future this will pass. 

Your eyes snap open and you exhale a hidden scream. It is light again; time to suffer through another day. 

Death and the Girl

Death stares at me through wrinkled eyes. It is toothless with hands crippled by arthritis. One eye turned to the living, the blind one stares into infinity. Its face is deformed by age, muttering memories long gone. Death has unkempt nails and smells of piss. It rattles its bones, covered with skin and cusses the living. 

I see death. It’s on the corner of the street, screaming incoherently. It has a can of buttons, memories of a different life. Death is in the eyes of a girl, looking through the glass of her soul. It is but a name on the lips of a dying man. Death is her name, whispered in feverish madness. 

Death peeks at me through the mirror, masked as my own reflection. She holds the scissors and cuts the words right off my head. Death is but a reflection in a puddle on a rainy day. It laughs at me as I throw the stones.  

Death is tears, screaming on the burning pages of my letters. Death was your gentle touch at night. Death is a single word you never heard. Death is silence. 

Life and The Girl

I’ve been trying to run away from life. I ran faster and further away. My feet are bleeding, my heart is aching and I can feel my breath coming out in little, miserable whelps. 

I ran to different countries, where I thought I would find myself. I ran to education, where I thought I would feel more at home. I wanted the dust on the books to be my best friend and the frustratingly long lines of texts to hold me at night. 

I ran to a different town. I ran to a job, which fills up the emptiness in me. I ran to a busy nightlife, where I thought I will run into the arms of someone else. I ran to depression, which slices up my insides. I ran to loneliness, which I thought I would rule. I ran to other people, but they run the other way. I ran to friends, but they run a few steps ahead of me. 

 Now life is catching up with me, and there is no place to run.  

Acceptance

The tram screamed with pain and spilled guts of empty-eyed people. They scattered like insects in the warm twilight, chattering noisily, throwing their words at me. 

Hours upon hours of emptiness.

I still hear his voice where there is silence. His hands stroke my hair, although he is long gone. The pain is no longer excruciating. It’s a throb, ever pulsing. I wish I could sell my memories of you online. I wish I could cut my meat and cut you off as well. But you are still tangled in me. 

I close my eyes and I paint over our memories. Wherever you were, there is a big, white spot. I block your face from the inside of my eyes. I mute your voice in hope I’ll go deaf. 

I wish I could tear out my heart out and mail it back to you.