Astra

 You saw the excitement in my face as we kept moving north. Through the car window I basked in the beauty of the landscape. Great white plains laid before me broken by sparse wooded areas covered in snow. Small snow flakes coming down from cloudy skies fill in the gaps of a stereotypical Christmas postcard. 

"What's a hot blooded man in a cold environment going to feel like?" was a question that came to mind while we silently drove in direction of your hometown. That made me laugh and I asked myself if I was prepared for what was coming. The snow was really the least of my concerns. It was your whole backstory and all that came with it that created these questions inside.

Later, in the evening, after our arrival we went for a walk through the covered fields while you took my hand and showed me where and how your childhood was spent, where your roots belonged and where I would fit in all of this. 

Looking back now, this was more than 10 years ago but whenever I see snow I cannot help but smile and think about fjords, your blue eyes and how dumb our jokes were and how they fueled our day to day lives. "I was happy once" I said to myself with a slight smirk and went back to work.

dialogue

we have come so far to be understood, we created new ways of connecting ourselves to all, to an infinite and boundless flow of information. from rudimentary grunts, wild gestures and childish symbols, we needed mediums to pass on our unwritten biology to our offspring. we released our inner worlds and fears into tales and pictures, into the sole purpose of being understood and maybe more important, to be heard or seen. 

the gift of communication lies within our desire to express ourselves. the magnificence of thought is laid in audible interjections. complicated equations are brought to simplicity by the sheer power of voice or characters. the same ones that took us from rejoice to pain, from sacred and intimate emotions to raw battle cries. 

we have found ways of recreation within this primal urge of understanding and the discourse is what seems to define us through non physical connections, making music as close as one of the most stunning ways to communicate. 

one of man's greatest achievements is the ability to make others imagine what he feels and is with great pain that the sound we hear the most is hate. our ancestors certainly are turning in their graves seeing how we vilify what was one of man's greatest achievements.

concrete

 a pair of shoes lies abandoned next to a soiled bench. a couple of teens light their cigarettes and stare at the homeless man at the entrance of the supermarket. it reeks of urine in that little corner next to the columns and the hotter it becomes the more nauseating it is. An elderly man is walking his dog, unfazed by all of this. he looks like he has seen this picture many times, with different characters in different places. indifference reigns amongst the passers by.

the tram spews bustling citizens and denizens on the street and someone turns on a portable speaker which cries what some call music. a beggar joins the scene, using the sound as he crazily dances for money. everyone is dressed in dull or neutral colors such as grey,blue or black. the contrast is stark when we see the fast food places or big billboards and signs, full of colors and dreams that one cannot afford.

a man rushes for the train station while hundreds of others line up at the public transportation stops. some go home while some only wished they were heading that way. their faces are drab, their movement is automatic. tall grey and glass buildings hide the ocasional rays of sun coming from a grey sky. sirens at a distance complete the picture as such are the tales of the city. nobody talks everybody walks,  a reflection at the tram window reveals my face and without hesitation i think - im one of them, but I don't know if I'm going home after all...

Aqua

 the muffled thuds of the waves upon the rock, echoed regularly without falter. the promontory stood defiantly inert at the mercy of the waters. the incessant and relentless powers that be, clash without hesitation on an infinite parade, a wrestle of the eons, an immortal struggle.

there at the darkness of night i found some solace in such an inhospitable place, there where the fear of the great unknown stood before me. - a dichotomy - i thought, caving in to the feeling of of division. soon enough other emotions came to be and for a moment i forgot that i was not alone.

throughout these self reasonings, i realized that your presence was a mirrored projection of my wants and want nots, a mere husk of my physical desires which do not represent a fully whole.

 suddenly ashamed by my own conclusions i hid my true nature before you and amongst the sound of the tides I decided to immerse myself in the ever giving, ever unforgiving ocean of my mind, for better or worse.

Continuum

The brain falters, and the breath shortens. The heart rushes its march and pupils dilate. I just cant be quiet, as my hands reach for my sweating forehead. I feel my body contract and expand with every breath i take. My mind races through all of those innuendos and reveries. It is almost inhumane the way i feel right now. My eyes follow every second of your moves and i cant brush off the urge to reach out to you.

I refuse to utter any words as im afraid to break the spell im under and i slowly surrender to my natural impulses. My mouth becomes dry and i clear my throat as if i was looking for water because i feel as parched as the barren desert. The music intoxicates me and cradles my utmost desires to get up form my chair and take you. 

And surely like any other inebriating and feverish dream, i wake up and realize that through all of those obsessive processes, in none of them i found the comfort of your embrace. 

beacons

 

i have been contemplating this painting for years now, and its a timeless classic. i share its emotions and its classical struggle. once in a while when i find myself in Paris i have the chance to admire it. today i contemplate it from a screen and even though im not physcally in front of the painting itself, it evokes so many memories in me, that i feel transported beyond the scenario of this representation but into its many concepts inside me.

the flotsam brake the waves while a bunch of men cling on their last hopes. the blueish and grey tones convert your awe into fear while you admire the scenography of the injured and dehidrated, the dead and the barely alive. it reeks of rot and inhumane. from what we know, Géricault was much invested in telling us a story, which event as gruesome as it was deserved do be immortal in history.

The Raft of the Medusa is masterful example of art, concept and anatomy. but it is so much more than that, it's a tale of how humans are resilient in the hardest of moments, it's a tale of courage within the vile harships of life. and because of that, like a moth to a flame, im attracted to what i conisider is a mirror of some aspects of my life or myself even.

even though the composition is as heavy as it can be, it finishes in a focal point where a man waves for what it seems to be a beacon in the middle of unknown. in small point in the horizon where he seems to spot a glimmer of solace. while i admire this, a plethora of thoughts run through an emotional spectrum, and i force myself to i close my eyes because i still hope that small beacon is still there, and that it just takes one moment of belief to turn our lives around. i pray that we may one day find strength in hope.

mirror

 

setting aside some flaws and the minor deadly sins, i preached righteousness like a fervent prophet, i championed justice as its immaculte paladin, i abhorred the vile and deceitful lies like a healthy man in a colony of lepers. i proudly held my values as the pinnacle of virtue on the chasm of the world.

until today, for when we look in the mirror, the reflection we see shows us the best version of ourselves. or so the mind tricks us to believe. because in all of my actions, others were driven aside by my pursuit, my own selfish drive of the unscarred

i was never a "good soul" i think. and i thought i was. i was absolutely convinced of that. but looking back now i'm not so sure of my morals, the sanctity of my actions and the purity of my thoughts.

i dare to ask now, how many hearts have i broken, how much pain have i inflicted on others knowing and not-knowing, how much despair i caused and how many white lies have blackened other lives

and as i shamefully look away from the mirror i brazenly admit that we lie to ourselves everyday, and today is no exception.