I am a rock

Sitting on his balcony. Wrapped up in three layers of fleece. We're sitting on the floor, hiding from the icy winds. In front of us, a sea of candles. My throat is sore, too much smoke has passed down there the latest hours. His fingers are too cold to play the guitar, mine to cold to handle le tire-bouchon. Next to us, a bowl filled with hot water - no one likes the red too cold..

His silhouette in the light of the playful flames, with a curtain of smoke. Like a dragon, silver smoke sips through his nostrils. Warm breath, glittering eyes. I like solitude. But tonight, I am glad not to be alone. For the first time, I think I appreciate him the way I should. A rock to depend on.

mess

The twinkling glimpse of a catastrophe. Before it hits you, you realise that you are already in the middle of it. Start crawling, no need of turning back when you got death on your side, ready to let you taste of his wine. 


This is how it always ends. One little situation creates tons of emotions, places thoughts in my head. Thoughts impossible to get rid of. A chaos created by an emotional storm inside of me. Such a vital state of mind though. Without it, I don't think I would be able to feel passionate about other things. Comfortable, saved. It is a grey zone. Forbidden to talk about out loud. Not really accepted. But is it not like this, that after the time we spent feeling anxious and misplaced - all other feelings are welcomed and experienced as uncomplicated and so much more clear?


All I know for fact is that I'm so exhausted for walking around with all these thoughts, too heavy to bear, too heavy to deal with. I just don't know what to do with it all. How do you do it?

from the past

So I must go to France. Of course. It will do you some good, my mother told me. Yet I heard the fear in her voice. Whenever I visit my father, she is worried that I might not come home. It is strange and we have been discussing it for years, still it's just the way she is. C is stable, her mother called last night. Anxious woman with a high-pitched voice. She once told us that when she was young she tried to make it darker by drinking a lot of whisky. Then she understood, her face turned crimson red and she left us with our mouths open. She is a lovely lady, that's for sure.


So my booked tickets made me dig in my wardrobe, and I found treasures. Old photo albums. My father is a photographer, meaning I have every minute of my life from France memorised in thousands of photos. In our old house he had a installed a dark room in one of our walk-in-closets. So there is not only a lot of photos taken, there are a lot of photos developed. Result - hundreds of albums. Invaluable for me. I have always been a sucker for the written word, for the illustrated images. 


Found one of her. Fathers wife that is. From one of the parties in the old house. She wore long black silk dresses. When she finally put on some heels, became an amazon and whirled around in the house - as the perfect hostess she was. As a child I loved to hide under tables. When she came looking for me, the skirt always reminded me of running horses. The silk fabric waved and showed off her shapely legs. We were both as proud of her, father and I. She was the foundation, the supporting pillar of our happy family. After her decease, it just wasn't was the same.. 

drained

Exhausted. As a result of no sleep, to many thoughts, too heavy to bear. My head is banging. Haven't been able to close my eyes even for a second, to much going on inside of me. My headache is not from drinking to many bottles of wine last night. I would like to bang it in to the wall. Because that kind of pain I can take. But this, this is something else..


I escaped last night. When I woke up from my coma I realised that I haven't met him for a few days. Just the distraction I needed. So I went to his place. We made up a fire, emptied a couple of bottles, smoked each other down to the filter and made love, whenever our subjects of discussion ran out. I ended up sitting naked in front of the fire, staring. Together we fed the fire with old Elle mags, and she licked everything we gave her. I saw the thin smiles of spotlight girls disappear into it. For a second I thought about c, but then he kissed my neck, continuing down my spine - and I forgot about all the sadness and choose to live in the moment, as of right now.

Who is C?

Took me quite some time to realise what he'd said. What had just happened. And then I needed to figure out what to do. I hid in my room, let the tears come, the screams, the memories.. C is my great love. My only friend. My femme fatale. We grew up together, sharing everything - heartbreaks, favourite clothes and family troubles. She was my sister. She already had quite a few, but for me she was the only one. When we moved away, we wrote letters. Hundreds of them. I have saved them all, in three rusty boxes. They contain every thought, every laugh and every cry we have ever had. Together or in solitude. 


She struggles. She have the biggest heart, the most fair smile. She is weak in her mind, but strong in her fists. We've been through this before. I have had that call before. Because underneath the beauty lies something dark, something that carves out her soul, break her bones quietly from the inside. Something that she will never recover from. I know. For a long, long time I was the only one who did. We shared it. Like sisters. Then something pulled me out of the water, gave me the oxygen I needed to continue. Saved me from myself. But no one did the same for her. She just continued to drown, one day at the time. I was never enough. Though I yelled at her, stroke her hair and whispered softly in her ear, cried beside her hospital bed, picked her up from the floor and said that I was done - she never stopped. She wouldn't even consider it. There was never something else. Just that. 

numb night, saturday it is

So, my father called. I needed the night to recover. I needed the time to sort out the thoughts, to figure out the words, to let it sink in. After 53 minutes since the first giggly sound from mother, she jumped off the chair and walked across the dining area and up the stairs covered in soft velvet. She knocked, did not wait for an answer and entered my kingdom of solitude. She handed me the phone without a word, turned around and left. Mon coeur, enfin! was his first words. The six following minutes contained phrases without any real meaning. He described that when a glimpse of sunshine came, he turned his face against it, just to feel a little bit closer to us, his loved ones. He told me that he visited Christophe et Jean-François the other day. Their big house on the countryside was my childhood heaven. Big house filled with surrealistic art, antique porcelain behind glass doors and books, so many rooms just for books. I could hide away from the world for hours behind hundreds of bookshelves, reading dusty books that made me cough. He told me that he missed me. That I should come visit, some time very soon. I will, I thought quietly to myself. He sounded so eager to get me there, not like usual, but as the world and our future depended on it. I shivered when I understood that the funny undertone in his voice was panic..


C is hospitalised chérie. You must come home. She needs you, they need you, I need you.

A punch in the face. A sudden indisposition. A lump in my throat. Then all black. I fell on the floor, dropped the phone under my bed. Mother came running when she heard the noise. She helped me up in my bed, picked up the phone and closed the door behind her. A few minutes later she came back, wrinkles on her forehead and a troubled face. She brought me tea in my favourite cup, asked if I wanted company and went off again. She knows me too well. 


I left my tea untouched. Situations like that require something stronger, something calming, something to numb the feelings. So I spent the night in my window sill, shivering, numb, anxious and totally empty. Long time no see, I haven't had one of those nights in a very long time. It was overwhelming so I spent most of the day in bed while listening to tragic jazz tones . Mother left me alone. I smoked cigarettes, put rum in my tea and continued to be numb. I can't think about the consequences quite yet, I need some more time..

paris calling

Came home this afternoon and heard giggle from the kitchen. It was mother. She was sitting on a chair, dangling with her legs. The image of a little girl. I knew who she was talking to. There is only one person whose calls will transfer her into that. I knew it had to be my father on the other line..


My father. Tall, dark and mysterious. The one they talk about in movies, the one they describe in literature. He lives in Paris, Jean-François. Mother ones lived with him but decided to move back home to England, because she missed the weather she explained. But I knew that was not the real reason. So she moved, well we moved. But they continued to be together. Long distance romance. Every once in a while he'd be in England and they'd carry on like nothing had happened. Same thing when we were in France. Then father met his french love and they moved in together. But nothing could change the great love between my parents. One or two or even three persons to love is only natural. And I got along really well with his new female friend. So who would care..


So our lives were filled with love. Everybody loved everybody. C'est l'amour, elle est comme ça, explained my father. And I never questioned it. I never thought about it as something other than perfectly normal. I just lived with it, like everyone else..

walking down memorylane

Dutiful Wednesday. Loads to do, will not do any. Long for the summer or spring, well at least for a warm breeze that gently strokes my cheek. I miss the colorful blindness you get from staring in to the sun too long. I miss the freckles on my knees. I miss sable under my feet. So I run, far far away. Days like these are made for wine, cigarettes and endless daydreaming. I sit in the window sill and I remember..


We ran through the grass. The dewdrops licked my ankles wet. We were hundreds, well at least a dozen. Sky painted softly in apricot. Afternoon had turned into evening, night and now morning. We were out on an adventure in the woods. Surrounded by green. We made fires, danced around them singing softly, shouting loudly. We built a community, for just one night. 


I met him for the first time out there. I loved his curls and I adored his voice. He sang to me that night and he spoke french like a native. We shared wine bottles, cigarettes and breaths. We made love under the stars, like one of those virgin cliches. Still it was no cliche. He swept me away, heart body and mind all at once. And I found myself lying on my back out on a field. The others just a few feet away. He tucked his shirt under my head and touched my collar bone with his fingertips while whispering the world was made for us and no one but us