vignettes
a season's bits and pieces
1. the road
my hair feel wild on my head, wind-beaten and knotted they dance on the flow coming through the window of the passenger seat, damp, rough on the edges and sticking on my neck.
we have about 600 km on our backs. we're mostly running on diesel, caffeine, roadside canteens and curiosity of where the next right turn might lead. If avoiding tolls was a sport we'd be world champions.
trips like these always manage to get you out of your comfort zone for multiple reasons. they either strip you of the literal meaning of comfort, like when you're parked right next to a music festival and have no back up plan for another sleeping spot or when you have to become way too intimate with... nature.
the last few days have been a whirlwind, I can't tell days or places apart, and my brain has given up on trying to work those memory cogwheels. everything's dense, everything's chaotic and everything's shaped into a compressed pile of fragmental experiences. one thing stands out though. the never ending roads, especially the ones not covered in asphalt.
the type of dirt roads that going down on makes you grip the nearest handle bar until your knuckles get visibly white even for your pale skin, your abdomen clenches as if preparing for impact any second now, a cramp is lurking around the corner to take your breath away —literally— your face makes expressions you've never made before and your mind is repeating a single thought "either the car breaks down or I will". you also gobbled down a light meal 15 minutes ago and your stomach now feels more like a washing machine than a part of your internal system. by the time the tires meet the asphalt again, you've already digested everything and/or you're ready to let it out on the windshield.
think roller coasters, but this time screaming at the top of your lungs isn't the most efficient and safest way of expressing the adrenaline rush.
and after the intensity I suddenly find myself back in a weird type of peacefulness.
the type you share with family at 3 am in the morning, while discussing what time you'd have to get up for the casserole to be ready by lunchtime. waking up and making coffee to bring with on the first dogwalk of the day at the crack of dawn.
2. the party
Every time it gets dark,
I get this weird feeling,
like everyone is going to a party without me,
like the world has somewhere to be
and I’m still stuck in yesterday’s clothes.
Laughter echoes from places I can’t name.
Not loud, but enough to remind me it’s not mine.
The fan spins like it has a purpose.
I pretend breathing counts as one.
I don’t even want to be at the party.
I just want someone to notice
I wasn’t there.
3. the taxi
it's late, bus lines out of service
I'm standing under lampposts and scouring through the traffic
I'm looking for a taxi
but all I can think about is
what the people passing me by
think of me, standing on the crosswalk
4. the memory
have you ever noticed how certain people's scent lingers? On our skin, on our clothes, on our bedsheets, sometimes even on our hair?
It's almost like a memory trying to etch itself in vibrance and vividness. A subtle whisper of the moments that were just there, a breath ago.
have you ever noticed how it always happens on the most right of times, almost ironically? like a tether keeping you grounded, like a kiss goodbye, like a tear that slips out of the corner of your eye after a long time of missing the salt around your lashes.
and then, every time you feel it in the air, it brings you back. back to that afternoon, when you felt tired but the people around you made it disappear.
back to that night, outside the theater, when the cigarette smoke overpowered the heavy sweetness of fresh bouquets. when the need for a little more time turned into "one more cigarette" and he'd light yours up without giving it too much thought, like he always did, as if nothing had changed. back to the way he looked at your lips at every inhale; longingly and curiously.
sweetness and smoke and flowers and citrus. the blend of memories. an anchor to the tenderness of familiar hands and melodic voices, that used to serenade you summers ago.
a scent that becomes a mark. it holds you gently when you drift off and greets you warmly when you wake.
and when it eventually fades, the next time it finds its way back to you, you hold on to it like a lifeline, as if it's the very first time.
5. the dictionary
falling down the rabbit hole of listening to the first tracks one of my favorite artists ever uploaded to the public (ear). this guy has been making me tear up with his lines. it's the perfect concoction of piano styled beats dressed with poetry bars. philosophy, confessions, heavy judgement of one's self, choices and inner world, the meaning of (found) family with a mix of religious characters here and there, all compose what this person is and what he has been through. he represents everything that hip-hop is and everything it should be. a fresh unique style that deviates from just the money, the game and the fame. rather it delivers raw emotion with a punch right to the teeth. you never see it coming and that's the best thing about it.
I feel blessed to be a witness and on the receiving end of this artist’s life’s work. it compels me to ponder and philosophize and maybe even write, just like now. the one thing I can't help but think the most is what must it feel like to constantly have words purring out of you, like an overflowing river. the turmoil in your own soul when you're writing and writing, hoping for a few seconds of silence. and then I admire and most definitely envy the emotional depth, the perception and how they can put the right fucking words in the right fucking places.
i want nothing more in my life than to have said something profound once before I die. that's all I want. i want to find those words, stitch them together and know that I made something unique. it's not even about literacy, but I'm seriously one step away from buying a dictionary. my words have to be somewhere in there. I just gotta find them.
i love the fragmentation way of writing, very lovely <33