Reflections in the Mirror of a Distorted Mind II

I didn't want to come here… Oh I've already told you that. How much money have I already spent by repeating myself. That's not much. Yes, I have money. Enough to pay you anyway. I think you are developing a tick. Or a tack. Your eye is trembling. The right one. No. Wait. Don't get angry. Not yet. Okay now, okay, I surrender. Let me tell you a true story.

*

There was once a girl that was called Helena. Yes, that Helena. Helena was a beautiful girl and had always been popular with boys. And with girls as well, mind you. Helena was blessed, or at least so everyone thought, because she had everything a girl would ever want. The looks, the wits, the wealth. But deep down she was as miserable as miserable people come. She wanted something else in life. What exactly, she couldn't tell. So while the lips were smiling, the eyes were sad. And while her body was blossoming her soul was fading. For hers, you know, was an ancient soul. She could see things that others could not. She could feel things. Really feel. When I met her she was at a crossroad in her life I guess. She was falling apart and trying desperately to find something to hold onto. I was in the exact opposite state. At a good place. Which thanks to her turned bad. Her sorrow swallowed me whole, but somehow my presence in her life was enough to keep her floating over the murky waters of her graceless existence. And here comes out the poet in me. But I digress. No, I don't. To make a long story short I fell for her, and, here I am…

*

Do I blame her for my depression? Did you really have to ask that? Of course I do. Before I met her I was… I was… Truth is I never was happy. Nor unhappy. But I was content. She took that away from me. Now I'm mostly unhappy. And I mask my misery behind wide smiles. I smile the questions away. Not yours obviously, since you don't ask many. Why don't you? No I am not upset. I'm not. Did you see what I did there? No? Well, once I've used an apostrophe, just like now, and once I did not. If my sister is bipolar I guess I am bi-parallel or something. Does that make any sense?

*

You think perhaps we should take a break here. You think? You don't know? Are my fifty minutes over already? Well, time flies by in this office. Sorry, practice. But how can a space be a practice? I know you didn't say that. I'm just wondering. Couldn't it simply be a practice space? I mean they are both words. I see a spark in your eyes. Am I an interesting patient after all? A nut job? I guess I am. I find me interesting. What? You want to talk about my mother? Are you crazy? I mean did you know my mother? My mother was… My mother was a figment of my father's imagination. As I am of hers. We are all fictions. Mostly bad ones. Oh, you wanted to know how she was as person. Let me see…

Part I

To be continued.

The image was taken from here.

 

Short Cuts 4

That night trip to the falls. Magic. I don't have to ask you. I know you remember. How could you not?

The blanket on the rocks. The sweet red wine. The whisper of the trees and the thunder of the water. And the stars above. A sky unlike any other. A wonder unlike any other.

***

Where are you now? What are you doing? Is that flame that once pierced your eyes and engulfed my soul gone?

I wish not. As I wish you'll seize to fight. You'll never find happiness where others do. You scare people. They can't handle your honesty. And that's my fault.

***

Friends move on. Friends make new friends. Friends forget. And sometimes are forgotten. But not lovers.

Young love is an ode to the misery to come. And yet. Give me young love and I'll be willing to sacrifice everything at its shrine. Now that I know better.

***

They say that people can't save us. We can only save ourselves. But how can that be? How can that be?

If there are no people in your life, there's nothing to bind you to this world. People may be our killers, but they can also be our saviors. Different people. The ones who are right for us.

Make me, I'm begging you. Make me into someone else. But, alas, I know you cannot hear me...

The image was taken from here.

 

Short Cuts 3

Someone once told me that I was going to drink my life away. I wish they were right, but they were wrong. I know how I'm going to die. Out of boredom. Like my favorite poet did.

Death. It follows my thoughts wherever I go. It breathes into my ear. It makes me want to live. And die.

***

Is there a part of you that still loves me? I wonder. But why would there be? Your eyes are now open. To all my flaws.

And yet. I always think tenderly for you. Because what I had with you was truth itself. Our love made me who I was meant to be. No matter that I hate who I am.

***

The first words. Those I didn't write for you. But that is of no importance. She's now yet another picture in the pantheon of my life. While you are more.

The muse. The conscience. The first person that ever made me admit my mistakes. And whom I've failed.

***

The songs. The music that we've heard lying on a carpet in my house. The lyrics we sang along to.

Your paintings. Your failing. Because you could create miracles if you put your mind to it. But you never believed in you. I still see them. Every day. As a reminder of…

To be continued.

The image was taken from here.

 

Via - Chapter 1

I have killed my daughter. Or, actually, no. No, I haven't. I have simply killed her soul. And that is worse. But she regained it. At least partly. And that is good.

My thoughts come out in shards and splinters, torn or chipped off from the mosaic of a dreadful life. That's how my life has been. Until now. Now it's simply sad and pathetic. Can I call this progress?

Where do I begin? Telling my story I mean. Dreams? I used to have some. Plans? I didn't even have the time to make. Love? A word well known, but a feeling almost alien to me; erotic love.

I do have hope though, and it resides on the face of my daughter. Her name is Chara, which means joy in Greek, but joy is something that she found very late in life, and for that I am to blame. I am to blame for everything actually, everything bad that ever happened to her.

The past. I remember it. I can't escape it. I used to be good when I was young. I was a good daughter, a good student, a good Christian. And when I grew up a bit I became a good spouse, a good housewife. And I became bad; a bad mother.

I never loved my husband. Never. Because I had no word in choosing him. My father did that for me. It was the late 80's and at the time we were living in a village south of Nicosia, here in Cyprus, that could remind someone of Europe in the fifties. The law of the father was the only law of the house, and no one dared disobey. So, just after I finished school and though I wanted to go and study at the university in Athens, he just picked a groom for me and that was that.

At the time I couldn't even describe how sad I felt about this turn of events. Depressed? I didn't even know the meaning of the word back then. Angry? Oh yes, I was angry, but I kept that inside because there was no meaning in expressing the fury that was boiling within. Disappointed? Definitely.

I haven't talked about this to anyone yet because, well because, I am me. And the me of today has no friends and no allies. And I haven't even dared say it to my daughter, though these days our relationship has started getting a little bit better. OK, there it goes, the big secret: I have only loved one man in my life, and that was my teen love, Panagiotis.

Oh him. Him I could love for ever after! But I haven't seen him for a lifetime. The last time we've met was when we were both eighteen, twenty-seven years ago. I remember. His dark eyes. His tender gaze. Our first kiss at the back of the classroom during a break. The way he held me in his arms at the final school dance, the party of our lives.

I was taller than him but that didn't matter. I was a better student but that was of no importance. His eyes and his arms, that's my version of paradise. A paradise that I long to rediscover, but where and with whom? Isn't every paradise of the past a paradise lost?

Where is he? What has he done with his life? There are ways to find out, but I wonder as to whether I should even try to do that, as I'm certain that he's moved on with his life, that he is happy. Who am I to intrude? But…

I want to know. All I have to do is strike a few keys, type in his name, and see what comes up. So easy. Oh blessed epoch. When I was young a simple phone call was considered a-kind-of luxury in our part of the world. Do it! I command myself. Do it. I have to. Otherwise I won't sleep all night, as I'll keep thinking about him.

I type his name. I hit enter. I wait. Not for long. A common name and surname. Too many results, from Cyprus, Greece, England, Australia and South Africa. I go through the links, visiting profile pages in social media and webpages, and I finally spot his profile. He aged well. I check his About link. It says nothing about his work and there's no mention of any family relations. I feel myself smiling. Just a little.

I scroll down his posts. There are links to some articles, youtube videos, and photos from some places he visited and with some friends. I try to see if I can recognize someone else in them but I don't. New friends probably. Or relatives. I don't know.

I go back to his profile picture. It's a good one. Close up. His hair is longer than I remember, his eyes the same black, though they seem a little sad or thoughtful, I'm not sure. I look at the other photos. They are bright there. I can't help from wondering about what happened to him. I have this feeling that there's been quite a bit of suffering in his life. Or maybe I'm just projecting.

I turn off the screen. I take a sip from my glass. Vodka with ice. Russian. Always Russian. The ice is about to disappear at the bottom of the glass and the drink will soon turn warm. I don't mind.

I drink a lot these days, perhaps out of boredom, or probably because it would be impossible for me to forget my circumstances, even for a little while, otherwise. An author said: "You know me. I like thinkers, but I love drinkers…" Would he love me?

"You are pathetic," I can almost hear you scream that in my ears, but I don't care about what you think. If you were in my shoes you'd most likely react just the way I do. Loneliness is a bitch, and something has to tame it. Chara, my daughter, my savior, is not here right now, so vodka will have to do.

A note on the title: In Greek "Via" means violence and that's what this book is about; violence against women. But in the Latin languages the word has a completely different meaning, a meaning that also resonates when it comes to this story, and that's exactly the reason that I chose it.

The image was taken from here.

 

A Eulogy for Love - Chapter 7

When age chills the blood, when our pleasures are past
For years fleet away with the wings of the dove
The dearest remembrance will still be the last,
Our sweetest memorial, the first kiss of love.

Lord Byron

Yet another day is about to kiss us goodbye. And yet once again I'm here with you to share in the loneliness of the coming night. An eerie silence seems to have taken over the cemetery grounds though the sounds of the city can still reach my ears from afar. The smooth air of August is a bit warm but its breath is getting cooler by the minute. The sun is sharing its last red smile with us. The pale city lights one by one come to life… Banish the light! It tortures me, it denies my soul to me.

Eleni, I sit here, over your grave, and think that the whole world begins and ends at this sacred spot. If my mission was to travel the world all I had to do would be to walk around this patch of land that blankets your body and return to the place that I'm sitting right now. A trip around the world, a trip around a lonesome soul.

I close my eyes. The real world turns black, but through this darkness emerges like a shining light you. Your essence. You are smiling and the air all around me changes scent, it now carries yours. The, oh so few, birds I can now hear sing with your voice. I feel a hot breathe on my neck and as I open my eyes it all dissolves. For how long will you, my beloved, haunt my life, my every waking moment and my dreams?

I knew you so well and yet so little. I could read your every glance, listen to your silences, guess your thoughts, and often enough I spelled the words that you wanted to say. I knew you more than my own self. I could understand you. I could see why you insisted staying with Marios but kept it a secret, I never let slip a hint that I could understand. It would be impossible for us to one day live together. I knew you so well and yet so little, since I could never have imagined that one day you'd decide to put an end to your life. Suicide is only a solution for the cowards, you used to say, and stupid as I was I believed you.

The world, or rather life, is a great mystery and I doubt that there's anyone out there who can fully comprehend it. Is there anyone that can truly understand how life changes from one moment to the next, how nothing is granted, how the wheels of fortune can sometimes bring about some unexpected and terrifying events in our lives, how tomorrow for a lot of us may never come?

Now, like a deserted island I wander into your lands of solitude, with the dolor of the west as my constant comrade.

I could never have imagined (I know I repeat myself, but I have no choice, my words are too poor to express my deep grief) that when I came back from my last journey you'll no longer be here, and along with you all my friends would be lost. Now I am but a refugee of love, someone who has no country. Because my homeland, my religion and my family were you. To you it was that I've always wanted to return, and not to a city, to a land.

I am to blame for what happened. It was me that got you carried away and thrown into the vortex of my madness. It was me that turned his hand into a deadly weapon powered by jealousy. It was me that made you drink that poison that ended up sending you into a bleak never-never land. It was all my fault!

I don't think that it's easy for someone to understand what it feels like to live day after day with a knife nailed in your heart that doesn't kill you. The pain of twisting it around with all you've got, of pushing deeper inside, and not dying. It's unbearable being alive in the graveyard of life.

I have never before felt in so much pain. And never before had I felt so strong the need to rise up again from the abyss I found myself in and stand firm on my feet, and follow my lonely path that more likely than not will lead me to nothingness or simply nowhere.

I look at the stars as one after the other almost shyly show their faces in the city sky. If what they say is true, if every time a child is born on this earth a new star appears in the heaven above, then I wonder which star lost its glow and faded away when you died. I'm so sad that I have chosen in the skies above the brightest of stars to shed for you their sorrowful light.

This morning, when I've finally managed to abandon myself to sleep, you visited my dreams once more. I saw you smile, as usual, but behind you there was nothing, a spotless white canvass, the infinite. But, all of a sudden I saw another face breaking away from yours and coming into the light. It was the face of a girl of roughly your age which I have never seen in my life ever before. Then you smiled at me, smiled at her and vanished. I took her by the hand and together we strolled into the unknown. I wonder what that meant.

To be continued.

The image was taken from here.