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SOFIA IDA CESTARI poetry
Ingrown Cynicism a poetry collection. ©Sofia Ida Cestari 2024-2025
A mio padre, perché tutto ciò che faccio è suo. A Gabriele, per l’amore infinito e immeritato.
The Nomad
The Nomad A place is a story, and us, humans, are settlers. We look for a place to settle in and if we can’t find it we build it from the ground, we give it a name and an address. We paint the walls in and out so we can feel at home. But some of us were raised vagabonds. So if the settlers race to tighten screws and paint second coats, the nomads rushe to get away from the danger of a single story.
Something’s Scratching its Way Out
Something’s Scratching its Way Out I can’t afford a therapist but if I could, she’d sit cross-legged on an armchair, a spotless studio crowded with diplomas, she’d be so much better than me. What is it that you feel? (there’s really no way to reach me) I think of my walls, the motivational quotes, and pictures of a time I hadn’t met her. Now I chant mantras at night, a lullaby for something inside. Oh, to think I thought I tamed it… (there’s really no way to reach me) They’re very strong, might make you numb. (is there really no way to reach me?) When you feel everything all the time like it’s yours but you don’t know it the only comfort in nothingness. Nothing to crawl or scratch or bite, nothing to name, to know, to tame. Now she’d look so sad. I’m her personal, professional, loss. She’s so much better than me. (am I already gone?)
Family Business
Family Business Blood is blood is just a power game made by power-thirsty powerless men; so that when you play along you too feel nothing beating in your chest.
The Liar
The Liar I must have learnt to lie in the womb I already seemed to know that’s how you survive. Not one thing I haven’t lied about because that’s what my mother taught me you must do when you have no talent to offer. But I don’t accept it. So how do I teach myself to tell the truth?
Pond
Pond And then the darkness came and it came fast and I ran far, too far away – knowledge comes with its price and I’m to blame, I am to blame you shouldn’t have looked so close inside paved the way for parasites – the darkness swallowed me entire and I just wanted this to end felt it too deep inside my head. Beneath the skin, teared the muscles, oh the muscles, they snap one by one. The waves that crash on this little pond are meant for much a bigger sea and are so inviting, so exciting but if you come too close to shore they’ll be tsunamis, and then you’ll be done, crushed by a little pond’s wave. Such a shame that I must be blamed: but there was something down there and it had to be told.
The Overcomers
The world is cruel and we’re just victims. But you and I are softer stuff, ready to lend an ear and dance a waltz on heartbeat rhythm. The Overcomers
O b s e s s i on
Obsession I want to rip my heart out when I read of it, when I see it, when I must deviate my brain on its invisible highways that always lead back to the hole. I want to dig the monster out my chest when I meet anyone who’s known it, who’s faced it. And oh am I a terrible person for wanting it, sometimes. But what if it numbs it down a bit to know it myself? I want pity but I hide. I want comfort but I’m scared. I want reassurance but I can’t tell you why. I wonder if I’ll ever get used to it before I have to make it stop.
Teratophilia
Teratophilia I’ll have this written down on my headstone. A tale of sadness dies with me. I’ll write this in my memoir: I never knew when I was done. You’d think I sleep alone most nights. ‘cause I smile politely and do my chores. You see my monster: a quirky trait. You never knew how deep I felt it. How it crawled into my bed night after night, how I could feel its fingertips lifting my eyelids each morning or how it clung onto my chest and was the only one to hold my hand. I wish I too had never known that I looked around for one good reason, a bit of hope or that I liked seeing blood spill out of wounds to feel alive on the outside too. I wish I too had never known: too scared to live, too young to die. Too weird a life to be explained, too strong a monster to be contained.
The Opposite Of Love
My cousin believes melancholy is the ultimate feeling. She sits on the sand, wet hair dripping on her handwriting, she knows I disagree: It’s a curse, melancholy. I envy her It's not a curse to love and be loved- She talks the brave talk of young folks young enough to not know about this stuff. -Your cynicism, that’s the curse. - It’s the heart’s armour. She stands unstable on the sand, runs her little legs to the shore. Then shed it.- The opposite of love’s indifference. She dives. Young silly fool who still knows about love The Opposite Of Love
Promised Protagonist
Promised Protagonist Truly blessed with writer’s curse, I keep insisting on non-delegating. All that I do must be mine alone. Kept inside by some disorder I shall be desperate without art. I am held together by this venomous prolificness – contestant in my own reality race with no prize, not even satisfaction. – Could I ever be satisfied? I am one of my own characters, a leading one with too many paths. Indifferent to thunders and hostile palpitations, I write because I must. In words, I'm omnipotent. No perturbation bursts my bubble of inoffensiveness, in words, I'm careless and all too careful. Truly I think that in the end this unanswerable, bottomless pit of fixated letters shaped to spawn a parachute.
Talent Wasters
Talent Wasters Talent wasters dream so big, then let it go, they’re down so deep drowned in a glass of the bar’s strongest liquor. Talent wasters can’t do shit but in their minds they look so big. Talent wasters hurt so much because they know they have it all, just the effort’s what they lack. So they spend their whole damned lives wasting time on sticky bar counters is it laziness or is it fear they’re to be blamed?
Les Femmes
Les Femmes Are all I wish I could become. But they’ve fed me lies a caterpillar never changes, a change in flesh maybe but the spirit grows bitterer. Wasn’t I enough before? Is this pair of wings what makes me whole? A pair of wings… I’ve shed some skin before but only now they notice, they praise me. Only towards the end of my life I found a new wave of femininity in a long, long process of metanoia. But I do wonder is it just a new breed of liminality?
Ingrown Cynicism
Ingrown Cynicism These growing pains may shrink my joints. — echo of an echo — A fallen empire lives between my ribs. The shredded skin of fallen emperors still buried beneath the city.
The Fall
The Fall The missed pleasure of soft bodies covered in airy skin still marks the back of my eyelids. Oh boy, I feel my skin’s crawling, Oh boy, my brain is boiling. The missed thrill of impossible bodies covered in live flesh so soft and sweet it rots my teeth. Like underneath my clothing itching skin sudden turmoil under my chest destined to be a permanent maybe. Lord, waiting is the worst thing we can do. I’ll beg and steal and plead my case and only feel some faith when you are deep in my arms. Up for grabs but never held. I dream of some relief. In the heat of the moment I pray whoever’s up above to make me easier the fall.
An Actress
An Actress What is the difference between a TV set and reality? Are the people passing me by real or characters? Perhaps extras in somebody’s life but not my own. Is there someone writing how I feel? Are they scared that I don’t feel real? Is that why water must feel wetter, the cold must strike colder and I believe one day I’ll have to bow, salute and leave the stage? Is there somebody pulling the wrong strings? How many auditions must I go to to loosen up my ego? How many characters can one actor play? 40? 50? 100? I think I must’ve played more and they all had one thing in common, maybe two: an ever fierce fight to go against time and themselves. What if the character I long to play turns out to be the emptiest of them all?
Lydia
Lydia Lydia, Lydia, don’t just go! Lydia, did you know? Did you know me before? Lydia, were you me before? Lydia, Lydia, wait a second, we’re not done! You have dry eyes and steady hands, a beating heart, functioning lungs, you are the best part of me. Lydia, you can’t leave me, it’s way too soon. Lydia, please, I’ve no one left. Who were we when we were one? Did we laugh a lot? Have we done this all before? Can we do it once more? Lydia, you’re getting farther I can barely hear you. Lydia, Lydia! Tell me, don’t just go! What makes you stand this no more? Can I do this all alone? Lydia, wait, I will forget you! Can’t we change our name again? Lydia?
As Bad As a Dead Mouse
As Bad As a Dead Mouse The Evil passed us by we neither smiled or ran away. The victims’ blood drips on our back like soap water down the drain. Their muddy shoes leave heavy footprints between our vertebrae and rip the skin off these dusty bones. They’ll hang us today: a bucket under us will catch the blood we spill. There, hung, approaching lifelessness we beg and pray: not me, not I, not this time. Bled to death not the first, not the last. They’ve been lying to the bone We called the foreteller a charlatan and now my lips may freeze upon my teeth. Souls embodied must live as souls unbodied will lie.
All Done
All Done Not even 24 and I feel like I’m all done is this life I hold too dear worth this banging in my ears? Not even 24, what am I begging for? One day I’ll be a naked body against the moist soil. Can I go back to the start? A bunch of darted forefingers they all come to me and all lead to me, they all point at me. Truly sad to be this far, by 24 I’ll be all done.
Fortune’s Favourite
Fortune’s Favourite the dream still whispers to my heart So empty of love full of ambition (or egoism) I cross a stage mic on my chest, under my clothes. I speak and speak of things I know and things I don’t, I’ll make them up. My heart I poured in whiskey glasses: they spilled on paper. Plays in National Theatres. Movies in filled-up rooms. Books on library shelves I’ve always known: this is for me. I’m Fortune’s favourite and she believes in me. She tells me I shouldn’t be scared that I am to make it happen, ‘cause I have the obsession and, now, her favour.
A Case Study
A Case Study Don’t you think it's curious that some brains just work this hard to master self-destruction? Don’t it feel unfair that this harshness isn’t inherited, this egoism taught, and love isn’t heartbreaks, for all? I study what people call fate or destiny, my story must be written among those lines. But I think it’s cruel that I can’t fix my troubles yet I could name them.
Icarus
Icarus I am sick – of this silent ambition you impose. I am tired – of keeping my eyes open night after night, wondering how to make you understand Would I then get some support? Father, I am done pretending: I have it, what it takes to make it big, You don’t see it but I got plenty of it. And I don’t hide in humbleness I scream and claim my right to success. Don’t you worry I won't fly too close to the sun, I am the sun. I’m coming home to do what I was made for. And I know you’d disapprove. If you were the judge, you’d let me hang ‘cause you can’t lose if you’ve never won. If you were the judge, you’d pull the trigger shoot me dead, through and through. Dad, I’m sorry, I must take my chances. ‘cause you can’t win if you never try. When one day you’ll read this name, and feel some pride it’s yours too think it twice had you had my guts it’d be all yours, from me to you.
Grit Is What I Lack
Grit Is What I Lack I’m overskilled and under motivated, God I hate to put in the effort. Grit – is what I lack. I’m made by talent killed by laziness, and there it goes – the expertise. Instead of sweating or expanding, I stay, stuck, cursed to spend a wasted existence gasping and drowning in an effortless, filthy pond of crocodile tears. There it goes – the expertise.
Two Is A Whole
Two Is A Whole Two is a whole but there is much more. More to do in a life as dull as mine than giving in to the brain's complaints. Two is a whole and I’ll tell you more. I’ve come to take my throne elsewhere ‘cause things have changed and I can’t be one of them. Give up on your dreams start looking for the sins. Afterall, aren’t we all trying to quit something?
Advice to a Prophet
Advice to a Prophet I say you were born with them in your veins all words are words but yours and mine are not the same. Every night – a new prophecy you think it's an ordinary Mass? They keep you vigilant the modern prophet lies awake there are things she knows… (cannot be said) morph them into cryptic lines. I say again you’re born with them, they reside behind the fingertips. I say nourish them and let them bleed! There are no lies when you speak.
Heavy Is The Head
Heavy Is The Head I write out of necessity. — I write ‘cause I ran out of tears and long for the right reason to stop whining. I write out of habit ‘cause it’s become a part of me (and maybe that’s what being a writer’s all about) This writing cuts deep indemons’ skins, weakens their armoured bones and these never ending growing pains. I write out of love ‘cause the words feel real when my thoughts don’t. — I write of troubled nights and ill souls that look so similar to mine they might as well just be one. I wrote all these words about these feelings ‘cause something’s out of order and I don’t always feel real. I let them free and out this head so it may feel a little lighter and my neck may hold it straight just another night.
Open Heart Surgery
Open Heart Surgery Last night I dreamt that my heart fell out of my chest and I had to find someone to put it back in but your waiting list was infinite. What happened? You run away from a life that used to be ours I looked and looked but I’d find it only with you.
Somewhere in Northern Italy
Somewhere in Northern Italy Di casa mia I can paint the door shade, map the corridors, the rooms, the ring of the bell. I can tailor the theatre curtains, recall the outside movie projections, the positions of the musicians. Once I could ease my way on those bricks that always caught my heels when I still cared enough to wear them on Saturday nights. There are only two binaries at the station. One cinema. One theatre. One museum. One free parking space. Two bookshops. As many inhabitants as traffic lights. I was so tired of that monotony before I left. And now, nothing I crave more than coming back to this tedium that I got to call Home.
Limbo
Limbo I learnt three things. One, a place is a Story and I have too many. Two, from the moment we’re in the womb we seek walls. Three, provenience is a luxury. I speak three languages, write in two, dream in one. I am myself in none. I slowly lose my voice in all and become a mute polyglot. Back and forth. Back and forth. Wake up, pack your bags, take the plane. Going home has become a holiday. I listen to a long echo I speak and my words take time to get there. I met the sunny rain and calima and forgot about the fog. When I return to the flatness of my home and I’m amazed at how changed it is, I see that I’ve become a guest in my own Country.
Pulling Teeth
Pulling Teeth Here it is, holding down a dream so sweet I can’t lose it. My heart’s all worn out by all the dreams it touched and never grasped. It’s like my heart's got a pair of very weak hands. They touch and touch but never catch. It didn’t even catch the cues and shattered, to the rhythm of blues. I think it’s been all the misuse, the times it’s been in doubt: laying there, never fed. The dreams line up in queues, the soul filled up with resentment juice. I think it ran out of pursues never found the right amount of tears to cry and spells to cast. Hope’s become obtuse, and slowly – steadily – consciously my heart ran out of ways to seduce. Dreaming big feels like pulling teeth. I want to give up but it refuses, hasn’t yet found the right load of delight to feed its newest desire. And I train and exercise but its hands get number and number and can now barely grip onto hope alone.
Hymn For The Depraved
Hymn For The Depraved It is because I was raised on the opposite of hedonism that I write an hymn for the depraved so they may bend their broken limbs, cross their hearts and sing along. I write the hymns for the catholic kids who’ve dreamt of their teacher nuns bare; for those whose kinks are hidden well and those who flaunt them on their chests. For those who dream of new solutions and for the innocently obsessive. For the maladaptive dreamers who shape their reality like argil and blame who’s blameless – it is for them I write my words so they may rest their eyes in peace and ready for what’s to come. I write for the depraved, the crime less criminals. Innocence isn’t but a multi facade of sinless sins.
The Liar’s Offspring
The Liar’s Offspring My mother can’t really play the piano. She says it so people like her. My mother lies like she has to and I hate that all this lying has dried out love. My mother chokes the truth with lies; he’s the one who bears them all. I think my mother’s life has never known truth and for that I do hold some pity. My mother isn’t who she’d like to be. So she plays pretend a lot but she can’t play very well. My mother isn’t who she’d like to be and I’m not either. When did I start playing along?
Uncles
[...] all the lies whispered by strangers and swimming coaches, and uncles, especially uncles – Tishani Doshi It’s Tuesday morning. Make it last! I bounce back and forth, eyes closed, I think I’m too young to know what should last. Back and forth, I feel the unbearable weight of adulthood on my hips and I can feel it crawling up my back it would leak off of my chest if it weren’t flat. It’s Tuesday morning again I have to call him his real name when we’re together he says the other name turns him off. On Tuesday mornings you call me Tom. Last Tuesday he called me wife which sounds real weird ‘cause it’s what my dad calls my mum. But he says I’m a different type of wife, only part-time. Uncles
It’s Tuesday morning he’s mad at me says that I’m bleeding where I shouldn’t be. I think I’m dying. He drops me off at school and grabs my wrist. You know I love you, don’t you? I must always say it back. It’s Tuesday morning I’m at a funeral. Aunt Anita came from far away. She looked a little pleased behind some tears. What a tragedy. She held me tight. You know I love you? I do.
The Milk of Human Kindness has gone Sour
The Milk of Human Kindness has gone Sour Enchanted by the bitterness of human nature, I wander these streets I still can’t call home and I question meanings and signs. Do we hide behind the hopeless dream of a better species? Do we fool ourselves daily by suppressing parts of us? And if so, can we stop? Is it too rooted in us? In a world of recklessness and judgment, of blood floods meant to wash away the bitter taste of furious men’s illusions; a world of celebrated tragedies and of large, motionless, drops of red rain. Here we live pretending we don’t. So we hold on tight to the lingering deluded taste of peace as we take turns holding this rotting world that is, somehow, so familiar. The milk of human kindness has gone sour.
I Sometimes Forget That Fire Burns
I Sometimes Forget That Fire Burns I’ve burnt my shoulders under the sun waiting for you to come to me all out of breath: You don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to but I’m not sure I’ll be back and I don’t think I can see another rainy day not having told you what I came here to say: wherever you are, if I’m not with you, feel the sun burning your skin and you’ll soon forget that fire burns.
Honey, the Smoke Isn’t Fun Anymore
Honey, the Smoke Isn’t Fun Anymore I volunteered. Learnt to pull a trigger and stop the bleedings. They made me believe we could do much more. I’ve seen blood, bones, sweat, stolen clothes on stolen lands. I’ve seen the tanks facing South for war, the trucks coming back for bodies. Every Tuesday and every Sunday the serpent came, asked: how many? got them in the back of their cars and drove North. I’ve seen the uniforms die. Then I saw men and women die, their kids crying out frightened “mommy” and “daddy” asking me “when will they be back?” It broke my heart and brought me to tears. And then, the most terrible of things: the kids stopped crying and asking questions. At first I thought it was the shock. But they’d never ask. They didn’t need to ask what they already knew.
Madwomen on Strike
Madwomen on Strike Decried in the cradle burnt at the stake torn apart and stitched together born to learn to be my own sex. Spend your life inside your head learn to say no and stay unheard. Don't impose. something else you wanna blame me for? Don’t forget the hope you held glue it straight inside your head. They'll tell you all you can do is celebrating your mediocrity stay at war with your rude Nature. They may tell you there are somethings you should not say because you love a man. Well then let him beg for it again let him beg for your same head let him feel the powerlessness let him depend on the other sex. Yours is a bed not made for two. Leave him bleak on the cold ground to no man you will be bound.
Dead Girls Never Stay Dead
Dead Girls Never Stay Dead At night, lying in my bed I feel the heavy weight of my sisters: their tiny bodies gently piled up one on the other resting on every square millimetre of my restless body. I see them hiding behind my eyes gently pushing me forward. I know them, one by one. I’ve seen them smiling ‘til the end running barefoot after nightfall banging on doors for someone to lend a hand sinful only of being daughters. I thank them for the bravery and courage I always lacked. I honour them for the fight they’ve won for me. I still see them under the surface of my skin. I still feel their fingertips on my flesh holding me tight so I don’t fall apart– an endless lifeline on never-lost sisters. The ligaments of our bodies were knit together by love.
I do it for them: I scream their memories, loud on big stages: bard of past and present. People must hear them. I write their stories with my ink guided by their hands in every letter’s curl: my Calliopes. All the hours wide awake held in a sisterly embrace, time well wasted. Sisters, let me hold you a little tighter I’m not ready to let you go. But I needn't worry, dead girls never stay dead or so I’m told.
T h e G o d i n B e t w een
The God in Between Forgive me Father for I have sinned. I have caught a burning heart bare handed and swapped it with mine. Forgive me Father I am full of rage. I hear your sermons, they are so sweet, love for all – all the love a man can feel– and yet the Church discourages this lust that burns within me, oh this flesh becomes a fantasy and I hold it through. And I beg Queen Mary for a little compassion. Yet I know it is too late to revert to reason and free my soul of sinful tragedies. I know this love, you disagree with, must be stronger than my beliefs. ‘Cause lust makes me a man and faith, a sinner.
Beyond Perversion
Beyond Perversion Somewhere in between, a liminality unknown to man where time doesn’t yet exist. Take an ice cold bath in pure wrath, host a funeral for your gun. Here, perversion isn’t a thing, here, I can see this anger for what it used to be: a sea salted river bends its course comes so close the water burns holes in the soil. Down that hole all my experts buried their beliefs and all they left above the surface tries to eat me.
I Bit the Hand of God
I Bit the Hand of God On such a pretty cloth the banquet awaits. He sits before me. I watch him voraciously eat his meat like he hasn’t made enough. People are sinners and there is no antidote – or so I’m told. I see the rage pouring out of you I let him touch my breast but his hand slipped into my content. Armed with the poison of resentment I crushed his bones under my teeth and tasted his red blood so humanly sweet: a lump of muscle for a heart. Someone this sinful I’ve never seen. I’ll swim alone in his frozen lake if that’s his wish. But until then I’ll sleep well – my teeth mind the memory of revenge.
Pretty Little Devil
Pretty Little Devil Oh it’s such a shame one of us must be to blame Oh it’s such a shame that the other we can’t tame. Meaningful devotion, meaningless contortion in bed at night until daylight, bring me peace and let me be - for once. But no, I can’t deny this witch power you apply can’t be trusted in your presence can’t be burdened with your absence. I’m only feeling good with arms and legs wrapped tight around my body a little sweet, a little cocky on her knees she begs and once again she has secured me.
A Corpse in a Wedding Dress
A Corpse in a Wedding Dress You can whip me in a jar, you can hold me down in water until my lungs implode; you can dig your dagger in my heart lick the blood clean off the blade. You can write your manifestos and your ridiculous anthologies. You can write your one-sided history over mine, try to wipe me off your Earth and brainwash half the species or even three quarters. You can tell me what I’m made for procreate and rot you can look at my body and scream that it’s yours. You can force my corpse in a perfect trad-wife body, switch our souls on our wedding day, tell me whom to love and how to make love in my bed. You can cut me deep watch me bleed to give you heritage. You can burn me at the stake, shave the only hair you allow me and see me cry to pieces in front of a mirror you distort. You can keep me down until my bones and limbs overgrow laughing at your horror and itchiness. Use me to sweeten your bitter manly coffee; call your violence “a knife of love”. You can do with me what you wish. All that and much more.
But then don’t cry when my sisters fight your violence with reason and avenge me, murderous and angry. When you’re shown womanly violence and poured spiked champagne down your throat, beg them loud and sob your eyes dry. Watch us laugh as you die, big pleasure smile at your whining and crying, the same grin you showed your victims. And then - maybe in Hell, we will meet again, and I will get revenge a second time.
Social Sins in December
Social Sins in December They tell me life is up for grabs that I should turn this anger into something constructive, that I need to get over it. They tell me resentment is a social sin while they’re assembling their new prophecy from pieces of altered memory. They tell me to live as they say, stop blaming them for blaming me. They tell me to get over it, like I haven’t tried enough. They tell me to patch it up or it’ll scar. But the band-aids have piled up and I’ve bled through them all, the dressings have now started to peel off. You made me bleed from wounds so deep then told me to suck it up sucked the blood off and fed off it. They tell me to try yoga, pick up running or maybe pop some pills but I don’t need one more thing to depend on. They tell me – ready or not life will come – Tell me it’s not that deep but I see the bone.
They shout their lying sermons, deliver them from cozy couches and perfumed houses. Professional hypocrites. Of all these social sins I won’t be pardoned but it’s December again, it’s the poets’ month again.
What’s Very Ripe is Close to Rotten
What’s Very Ripe is Close to Rotten I always say I’ve grown into a very cynic adult but I don’t think adulthood should feel this way. Figured it’d be boring, a little serious not gut-wrenching and terrifying. Someone may say it’s in the bones and the flesh that covers them is either sweet and ripe or bitter and rotten. I’d say that mine is so ripe at times it’s rotten. But I wonder if it's because of all the sugar I forced in it. Afterall, it’s such a bitter world, a little sugar helps it down. Mine goes down in pieces, ‘cause I don’t have enough sugar to cover it all. Is it even my job at all?
The Ambitious' Vice
The Ambitious' Vice I’ll be someone someday. Call me arrogant, I wish I cared. Call me ambitious, I wish I weren’t. You’ll see my face, learn to spell my name ‘cause there is something in me something so big I sometimes can’t see – I know there is, something must be. What holds me back will perish and my success will flourish. I know: this darkness, how foolish. But this is me. I won’t be another secretary, a normal one, how scary. I will be someone someday I’ll walk around and see my name. But I must let this monster free who am I with untamed intensity?
A Banquet for a Beggar
A Banquet for a Beggar Who is the barbarian banging at my door begging to be fed? I only have my writing, a tasteless stew of words and letters, misspellings and mistakes – I don’t think these words could feed someone. I can’t let him starve, so I let him in. What if I pull all my salt in and it’s still bland? Is he so hungry he cannot taste? Who is the beggar waiting by my stage with meters and meters of beard covered in crumbs from previous, more tasteful banquets? They are rare now; he rarely sleeps with a full stomach. I can’t let him starve, so I let him in. I hope with my food he doesn’t choke. I feed him all I have and wonder if this hunger’s what you get when you mess up with life. I cannot seem to satisfy him. My rhyme’s too rare, my plot’s too thick and I often leave my titles overcook. I told him somehow my words save me from dying but don’t save anybody from starving.
Pricey Mind
Pricey Mind A hand digs deep inside the head. Lid off, dive in. I need to wash this soul of its selfish pursuits and unhappy outcomes. Hand out, drooling black blood that stains this blank white sheet of longueurs, looking for communicability and maybe a way to sweeten the bitter bite of life. For peace of mind, I bleed myself dry. Oh the tortured artists, we make spectacle of erased pieces of memory.
Telsa
Telsa Telsa likes to wander the streets alone at night she doesn’t really know fear anyway. She met Lydia out in a park. Told her that her lust is inadequate, her feelings irrelevant, her dreams, chimerical. Telsa likes to talk in big odd words, I think she might feel a little too old. She asked Lydia if she was afraid of the dark and turned the lights off just to be sure. Telsa is a weird woman. She told Lydia she knew her already. She read her some stories, told her some lies, and somehow changed her heart. Now Lydia can’t sleep, and she’s getting angrier. She avoids certain places and hates peoples’ names. She’s scared that her dreams might feed her monsters. Telsa can’t help her, she has to be mean. She is sorry but she must fill her lungs, curse under her breath.
Telsa and Lydia have become one, now they’re both me and I don’t know who’s the realer one.
The Comeback
The Comeback I sometimes think I’m made of plastic. A real-life doll, broken and unbendable. I’ll bleed for anything if it holds me together. So much time has passed and I didn’t know how much I should have changed; which parts to break and which to tame. I sometimes ask if my heart’s in the right place. And I think and think and latibulate – what kind of writer runs out of words? Time’s always wrong, either too early or too late, too fast or too slow. I have been 15 for nearly ten years and I feel just the same, probably worse. I soon will have to settle down into the ultimate void of adulthood and leave some parts of me behind. They’ll stay there while I move ahead, at times behind, either way they’ll be out of reach.
Then, when my brain will have become a hunted archive of useless information, I’ll slowly slip into oblivion and all I’ve felt will be for nothing. That’s how it feels to give everything at 15. The world has already seen all I had in me.
The Purge
The Purge I meditated, medicated, sold my soul to Jesus but this anxiety, a deadlier poison turned me into a corpse. I’m left consciousness on my bathroom floor two fingers down my throat I tried to puke it out. I prayed all Gods to purify me, fire, water, some other poison I gotta expel this out of me burn it down, drown it out something must be done. Let it in let it out it’s just stuck inside, let me be just for one night, let me get it out. Let it out, I think it’s just stuck and if I purge enough I might break free.
What a Lonely Muse
What a Lonely Muse Can the muse return to innocence? She has no virtues only disguises. Are you sick of your reality? She can make you a new one because she has none, she’s from a paracosm. What a lonely muse she must be. The muse is nothing but a vessel, a shapeshifting beast who roars real well for who cares to listen. She’s a sin-eater, at times a mirage, a god-shaped hole at the heart of your literature. She has no spine to hold her up. What a lonely life she must lead. She cannot speak, only foretells and she knows you listen well and I know you steal so well. And when you dry her out? A muse can’t last forever. She may as well be listening now to your ungrateful chitchatting, she may take it personal, you know? She may not let you use her anymore. Are you someone at all without your muse?
She must be lonely with you, she must be angry, yes, at you and your chimerical talent because she knows she should be praised. The muse is the performer, the muse is the talent maker, the muse is the life giver and she is lonely, lonely and angry.
The Soul of the Beast
The Soul of the Beast The Soul of the beast lies within me. It’s a one-piece summary of all wrongdoings, and yet she’s innocent, even forgiving. She’s made of soil, you wouldn't say, but there’s no water, seed, or godly practice within her. The soul of the beast only makes love to demons and so she grows hungrier, angrier. The soul of the beats has the shape of a mad, mad woman and she may as well be me, if I had power of fear of dying. The soul of the beast sleeps in my bed, we share pillows and dreams, she crawls under my skin but leaves no scar to be seen. The soul of the beast lives within me, even though I have one of my own to account for, she isn’t pure, but nothing beastly.
So the soul of the beast might actually belong to me. I wish she was kinder, wiser… and maybe she’s be if I fed her some patience and starved her of shame. The soul of the beast, whoever she is, isn’t as beastly as she seems. I’ll feed her some patience and take her with me.
The Encounter
The Encounter I can’t recall many nights, you know? Age wipes away the memories. But I did have a night time confession with the Moon Lady, once. Oh, She was so not like I had imagined. She wasn't silver, not white. Dark like death people’s ashes with the brightest black eyes you could ever see. She had me sing a blasphemy against love I had saved, hidden in my heart. She felt like that nameless sorrow that comes with drinks as the drunken morning dawns. She sat on the floor and forced me up, straight, loud like a bard. I treated it like the sole remedy for that sore spot deep in the folds of my flesh. How long I thought I was mute. Tied by the tongue, maybe, but tears spilled out my eyes, the blood of these wounds. I serenaded a wasted nostalgia. And when I ended this vile round of private sorrows, I stood, waiting for my golden star. But she wanted more. Her eyes tickled my shame and I forgot the sound of talking. I laid there, a woman practicing for death. I never snapped back to reality. Instead I hovered the person I could still be with a heavy burden of unsaid prayers and memorised poems still saved in my heart. When my time is up, She’ll have to pour me in my grave.
The Overcomers (II)
The Overcomers (II) The world is cruel and we’re all just victims. But how is it, mum, that the breeze feels nice? That the sun still shines? The grapes are still sweet and the notes of music lead my body out of stiffness. Mother, I may ask you then, how is it that love’s still so sweet to unbreak my heart? How is it that my eyes still see and my lungs still breathe? My love, mother’s right: it is a cruel world but you and I, we’re softer stuff, ready to lend an ear and dance a waltz on heartbeat rhythm.
A Dying Woman’s Last Words
A Dying Woman’s Last Words After the axe of death started slicing my head, I said words I had forgotten the meanings of. They resurfaced like a drowning man fighting for one last breath. I think I now realise I have a new obsession: words, words, words. But the evil doesn’t speak. It sings lullabies and serenades; whispers to the heart.
Ida
Ida Ida’s from a pathless land. She came through a rusty door, says she was pushed but cannot tell by who. She feels spellbound to spill her guts and she will do so ‘till she’s gutless. She’s tactless, stubborn and superstitious; says there’s life in everything and she’s on a quest to save everyone. She ages too fast, dreams too much. The time she has is not enough. She once knew a Lydia. She thinks she loved her. Kind, sweet, thoughtful Lydia; was worth all the love. She hasn’t seen her in a while. She then met a ginger woman, her name was Telsa but she didn’t like her as much. She said she felt everything too vividly. Now that she thinks about it, she does it too. Telsa was mean, but Ida thinks she’s meaner.
Ida and Telsa sleep together, sometimes Ida thinks they might be one. Ida’s from a roadless land so there’s no map to lead her back. Now all she has is a weird nostalgia for a place she might have never been and a someone she might have never met. Ida’s not her real name, it’s a borrowed one. And of this whole story that’s the worst part, she might take a hundredth name and still somehow be just the same.
Dry Tempest
Dry Tempest In the house of the psychotic women I felt wise and cynical as Hell, dumb as a dead’s head; drowning myself in a puddle of water. On the other side, the sea was above my head, the Earth all around but never under. With my death the world was born anew, and my constant need for revenge was finally satiated. I now was a lonely woman who sunk with her ship in a dry tempest and landed on the shore of a cemetery. Who’s the red-haired woman walking from a grave? Is it Lydia? Telsa? or Ida? I wonder who she’d been burying. How did I know her? She had the face of someone who could cause a shipwreck. I knew she wasn’t God but something similar, as close as I could get, and oh, she had some explaining to do. The little island I landed on moved and swung like my mothership but too arid and lifeless to ever be called home. Every step the woman took changed the landscape, the warmth and the animals’ claws. Now, as I get used to this country’s sun, I wish she’d let me come close and tell me what I should do to prevent the next shipwreck.
Head Cold, Head Bent
Head Cold, Head Bent Be careful what you mourn. You’ll never be yourself like right now. So keep your toes in the sand and practice your amends, as cruel as it might sound we’ll lay on the same ground; our shoulders burn under the heat of the same sun. I keep thinking of myself shot dead on the shore vulture circle and clean the bones. If I can see myself like this. If I can see myself like this. Somewhere in between birth and rigor mortis I lost this war against myself but won my freedom and self-respect. I can’t stop thinking: isn’t gasping still breathing?
Mistaken Identity
Mistaken Identity It’s clinical, not personal. There’s a shadow buried behind my shadow. It has its own mind and it looks after all the little vices that afflict me. Maybe it’s clinical and personal. I think I’ve been quiet for too long, quietness slowly merges with your bones, infects them with the illness of an illusory identity. It is just another way of performing, another performance that makes me sicker. My bones have lost their shape, my blood’s watered down, and I’m getting used to a new type of void. Performing becomes a disease I try to shove down, leave it to my shadow but whatever’s wrong with me can swim. I hate to say that she was right. There’s one last antidote I haven’t tried. Mum, you need to lend me some of your anger.
INDEX The Nomad ...........................................................................................................................7 Something’s Scratching its Way Out ....................................................................................9 Family Business...................................................................................................................11 The Liar ..............................................................................................................................13 Pond ....................................................................................................................................15 The Overcomers .................................................................................................................17 Obsession ............................................................................................................................19 Teratophilia .........................................................................................................................21 The Opposite Of Love ........................................................................................................23 Promised Protagonist ..........................................................................................................25 Talent Wasters .....................................................................................................................27 Les Femmes ........................................................................................................................29 Ingrown Cynicism ..............................................................................................................31 The Fall ...............................................................................................................................33 An Actress ...........................................................................................................................35 Lydia ...................................................................................................................................37 As Bad As a Dead Mouse....................................................................................................39 All Done .............................................................................................................................41 Fortune's Favourite .............................................................................................................43 A Case Study ......................................................................................................................45 Icarus ..................................................................................................................................47 Grit Is What I Lack .............................................................................................................49 Two Is A Whole ..................................................................................................................51 Advice to a Prophet ............................................................................................................53 Heavy Is The Head .............................................................................................................55 Open Heart Surgery ............................................................................................................57 Somewhere in Northern Italy .............................................................................................59 Limbo ..................................................................................................................................61 Pulling Teeth .......................................................................................................................63 Hymn For The Depraved ....................................................................................................65 The Liars Offspring ............................................................................................................67 Uncles .................................................................................................................................69 The Milk of Human Kindness has gone Sour .................................................................... 72 I Sometimes Forget That Fire Burns ..................................................................................74 Honey, the Smoke Isn't Fun Anymore ................................................................................76
Madwomen on Strike ............................................................................................................78 Dead Girls Never Stay Dead .................................................................................................80 The God in Between ..............................................................................................................83 Beyond Perversion ................................................................................................................85 I Bit the Hand of God ............................................................................................................87 Pretty Little Devil ..................................................................................................................89 A Corpse in a Wedding Dress ...............................................................................................91 Social Sins in December .......................................................................................................94 What’s Very Ripe is Close to Rotten .....................................................................................97 The Ambitious’ Vice ..............................................................................................................99 A Banquet for a Beggar .......................................................................................................101 Pricey Mind .........................................................................................................................103 Telsa ....................................................................................................................................105 The Comeback ....................................................................................................................107 The Purge ............................................................................................................................110 What a Lonely Muse ...........................................................................................................112 The Soul of the Beast ..........................................................................................................115 The Encounter .....................................................................................................................118 The Overcomers II ..............................................................................................................120 A Dying Woman's Last Words ............................................................................................122 Ida ........................................................................................................................................124 Dry Tempest ........................................................................................................................127 Head Cold, Head Bent .........................................................................................................129 Mistaken Identity ................................................................................................................131