Skip to main content

All the faces I've loved


All the faces of men I've loved
visit me in the quiet night of my noisy brain
All the ones I once loved
and came to hate
or forget
or pretend to have forgotten
Lost in the cloud of indifference 
I've carefully created

All of them come back 
filling the emptiness 
of my broken beaten banal heart
In this quiet night of my crowded noisy brain

They march firmly towards me
stop and stare
Inches away
and shoot their questions
right between my shortsighted eyes
Why?
Why not?
How much?
How little?

They give me no time to answer
They move and vanish
like ghosts of the Christmas past
Some fierce and revengeful 
pass on the judgement they've held in long

You! They shout
Too bold!
Too coward!
Too hot!
Too cold!
Too little!
Too much!

I try to touch a face or another

I remember them
Especially the ones I've hidden so well from myself
"Hey, look at you!
I thought you were no more!"
I remember
Their certainties and fears
their smiles of welcome
their smirks of unwanted goodbyes

I want to say:
I have loved you
To some of them
I want to say:
I have hated and loved you
To one or another:
Won’t you to stay a little longer?

There is no time
And like the white sweet smoke 
of a Narguilé pipe
they are all gone

Comments

  1. Here's what was strong for me: "Too bold! / Too coward! / Too hot! / Too cold! / Too little! / Too much!" It made me think of how we as women get the message over and over and over again, that it is MEN's perceptions OF us that define us. NOT!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you so much for reading it and giving me feedback! It makes me happy to know you found strength in this piece. Hope you drop by again! :-)

      Delete
  2. Funny, my memories of all the men I loved are blank canvas. I'm not a painter, so they will continue to be blank canvas, in eternal indifference, for I have no wish to paint on those memories.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I upset people (This may be the first of a series)

I feel I upset many people. Maybe it is something I do, but the feeling I get is that what upsets them is the way I live, the choices I make. People get upset with me when they hear I don't believe in God. If I tell them that I once did, but have lost my faith after I lost my first child, a premature baby, they fail to grasp the complexity of it. They look at me with irritating condescendent pityful eyes and they think I can be "fixed." To be fair, maybe I fail to help them understand that after what happened to me, God as I came to know it and most people of Christian beliefs do, is of no use to me.  God proved himself either nonexistent or useless to me when my first born died and when I almost followed him due to Eclampsia and Hellp Syndrome (Go ahead and google it! Unless you are doctor or had someone in the family who had this, you will never know it.) He did not save my baby and he did not spare me the excruciating suffering I had to endure. And if you think I...

No espelho

  Olhei hoje para o espelho e me vi mais serena, me enxerguei com mais leveza. Não que esteja de fato mais leve, eu acho. Ou será que estou? Tenho ainda infinitas incertezas e dúvidas aos milhares, mas a imagem que me olhou de volta do espelho, não me olha com tristeza, dor pânico.     A imagem que vejo nesse espelho é de     calma, no olhar certa paz, talvez de se entender humana, imperfeita e aceitar essa condição.     Aqui, deste lado que estou, me observando no espelho, sinto ainda o coração encolher como se uma mão o quisesse esmagar. Encolhe-se para sobreviver e expande-se em seguida. Ao encolher-se, a respiração dá uma pausa e uma bolha de cristal sobe em refluxo, pausando ali no meio da goela. Assim que pode, o coração retorna a seu pulsar, seu ir e vir. Permanecem ali as dúvidas, as exigências, as demandas, mas também os desejos de só ser, irresponsavelmente ser e atender a cada quimera. Porque a vida é curta! A vida é sopro!    E o ...

The kind of person who lights candles

  I am the kind of person who lights candles. This is now, not then. it is a recently acquired habit, one that has done me well. I light up candles every day. In the beginning of each class I set up an intention, I focus and I light the candle. I ask myself to be the light, to be the container, not the conduit. I am now the kind of person Who walks barefoot on the grass of my backyard and lets herself shower in the improbable rain of Brasilia in May.  The four elements rest now on my desk making my therapist smile when told about them, making her proud of myself and my journey. I am the kind of person that feels the connection with the elements, and nature and the universe, so new. I am again a newborn being. And it is not the first time, I have once died and it’s no secret. This time, however, I did not have to die. I had only to shed the old skin, the one who served me no more. I am still the kind of person who looks in the mirror and who wonders who this new being is. This...