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

Labels

Labels:

Comments

  1. UnknownSeptember 6, 2018 at 11:24 PM

    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. Lorena Sales dos SantosSeptember 13, 2018 at 4:57 AM

      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. Claudia GregoriJanuary 30, 2019 at 5:29 AM

    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...
4 comments
Read more

Once

I once dated a werewolf            Eyes like flashlights           showing the path I once walked the path I found lost words I found lost pain I once threw my car from a bridge In the highest speed When street lights seemed like flying arrows and the water from the lake was a dark brick wall I once threw stones at the windows of the moon and sailed a boat of stardust in a lightless night I crossed the borders in disguise and spoke a million tongues I now decided to forget I once danced with a king on top of the highest tower No one ever saw the king No one, but me I once was a speck of dust I once was a grain of sand I was part of a hurricane And I landed on another land I once dreamt new dreams and wrote them on napkins I once wrote poems on spaceships and lies on  pages of ancient books no one ever read I once took a look I once took a pick I once took a bite It did not do the trick  ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The child that did not stay

I remember expecting a child that never came, a child I never held in my arms. I remember expecting a child who would have his father's hair, his kind eyes.  He would be curious of the world and I would follow closely all the things he would see with enchanted eyes. Everything would be new for his new eyes. Those were the words of a song about someone else's child, a song I used to listen to while waiting for this child. I remember dreaming of his future, of his smiles. I remember my hopes for him. He did not want me, this child. He did not stay.  He was not interested in the playground in front of the building we live. He was not interested in having my hand holding his while he walked his first steps. He did not care about the flowers, leaves, little dry sticks that fall from the trees in our neighbourhood. He did not want to listen to the slightly out of tune lullabies I was going to sing or the stories I would read at bedtime. He did not even care for the milk, all th...
1 comment
Read more