Before going to bed

Lights are dancing on the walls at night,

flickering shadows talk to me.

The silence is too big to handle,

it suffocates us all in.

And the writing of it,

brings the sleepless tension back.

 

Can the past hear my whispers?

Can it read my lines?

 

Dropping love in the dark

I shiver.

I wouldn’t trade this silence for the world.

 

The morning’s light breeze

wards off the endless thoughts.

Keeping my mind busy

is all I can think of.


Photo: Minolta Dynax 7000i (AF 35-105mm). Fujifilm Provia 100F, 35mm film. Dwingelderveld National Park, the Netherlands, September 2020.

♠ Ode to the Now ♠

When our lives were happening,

we couldn’t stand still.

Now that our lives just are,

we cannot move forward.

 

Embracing Silence is all we can do,

embracing Stillness is all we can do,

embracing ourselves is all we can do,

embracing our weaknesses is all we can do,

 

for us,

our families,

the world,

now is the time to look inward

then gaze outward and

just BE.


Photo: Praktica MTL 5 (1.8/50). Kodak Gold 200, 35mm film. Groningen, the Netherlands. April 2020.

Refuge

Layers upon layers of restlessness,

upon layers of unburnt stars,

of overheated supernovas

and overflowing dark matter.

 

Poetry,

is my only refuge now.

 

I can’t look myself in the mirror anymore,

no reflection is looking back.

Eyes are dried out – forgotten –

almost like dying stars

we only see in our dreams.

 

The rooftop has fallen

on us

and our dreams,

it has ‘2020’ carved on it

and its debris attacks the silence

while we laugh at our own jokes.

 

If only I had time to read more.

If only I had time to watch more movies.

If only I had time to catch up on my to-do lists.

Now there is time,

but no soul to put into it.

 

The sky is dark,

like the inside of my room.

Words escape my mouth

but bounce back at the walls around me

and enter my mouth again.

 

No sounds,

No world.

 

My jaw is broken now,

the lines are blurred,

and stars flicker above me

in the night sky.

They remind me that life

is like Silence:

You fee it the most

when it is the only thing you hear.


Photo: Nikon F75 (28-100mm). LomoChrome Purple, 100-400, 35mm film. Groningen, the Netherlands. May 2020.

Shadows and lines

Lines are dancing on the walls at night,

flickering shadows talk to me.

The silence is too powerful to handle,

it suffocates us all in.

And the writing of it,

brings the sleepless tension back.

 

Can the past hear our whispers?

Can it read between the lines?

 

Love drops in the dark,

and shivers dance on the body.

I wouldn’t trade this silence for the world.

 

The morning’s light breeze

disappears the endless thoughts.

Keeping the mind busy

is all I can think of.

 

Photo: Minolta Dynax 7000i (AF 35-105mm). LomoChrome Purple, 100-400, 35mm film. Agios Ioannis, Pelion, Greece. August 2019. 

Outside my window

Outside the window

the wind howls violently,

it’s that time of year

when nature crashes silence

and together they march

on our souls’ path.

 

I can’t sleep at night,

slowly losing my breath,

while the streetlights flicker.

Time stops partially,

it crumbles underneath my pillow,

suffocating dust particles

and lost dreams.

 

Listen to my voice,

it is hemorrhaging

stardust and fear.

 

The pages filled with letters,

the books turn dusty,

my eyes hurt, swollen from the wind.

There’s an ink stain on my bedsheet.

 

Photo: Nikon F75 (28-100mm). Kodak Utramax 400, 35mm film. Stadspark Groningen, the Netherlands. December 2019.

the body issue

Being thin and flat chested

I felt like the Other,

walking, mumbling

merely existing on the margins,

trying to hold on, to remember

how it felt to be me beyond my

non-feminine existence

-distorted

 

My body never belonged to me,

it was always their property

to look and to devour,

to judge and to despise,

always not feminine enough.

With a thin, awkward body,

a tomboy,

the never belonging aura

hovered above my existence for

decades to come.

 

A wall kept growing around me,

till my heart turned into cement,

and hardened,

cold, grey and barely living

full of self-hate bricks.

 

Years passed,

my body swayed

back and forth,

in time’s soothing breeze.

The wall blossomed

with colorful flowers.

My body gained strength and

I managed to break the cement

with my bare hands.

The insecurity bricks were destroyed,

allowing the light of real beauty

to shine through.

 

Photo: Pentax P30, 35mm with Pentax-A 50mm F/2 SMC Lens. Kodak Gold film 200. The Netherlands, 2014.

Breathing

I open some windows

to escape my fate,

find birds and talk to them,

find trees and smile at them.

But every breath of air

transforms through me

into pure pain.

 

Sometimes,

I breathe pain

out of the air particles

that flee the house.

Pain I can’t escape,

pain I can’t explain.

The pain men

remind me of being

the weakness of my sex,

so deep and irresistible,

it diminishes

my very own existence

(me).

 

I close the windows

and shut the curtains,

while I breathe air in.

I close the doors

and hide the mirrors,

while I breathe pain out.

The room is finally dark.

 

Photo: Kozani, Summer of 2015, Greece. Minolta dynax 7000i, Kodak Gold, ISO 200, 35mm film.

One line a day

One line a day,

I promised myself to write,

even if it is bs.

 

One line a day,

to exorcize the evil spirits,

to de-demonize my heart,

to clear out the air of the room.

 

One line a day

might not seem enough

or good enough,

but it’s there,

written,

engraved out of the soul’s depths.

 

One line a day

is all I need to start over

fresh,

anew

like an explorer in a strange land,

but this time,

I’ve been invited over

to sit and talk

with its people.

 

One line a day,

as I wake up at dawn,

alone in my chamber,

like a maid whose

day’s work is daunting her.

 

One line a day,

as I go to bed at night,

after working hard

on earning the food

that’s waiting for you on the table.

 

One line a day,

for the pain,

the misery,

the world around me

I can’t explain,

the clouds,

the forests,

the lakes,

the dead flowers in my yard,

the travelers,

the workers,

the family,

the friends,

the light in the morning,

the darkness at night.

 

One line a day

for the words buried in me,

haunting me,

and the ones that came before me.

 

One line a day,

for tomorrow,

our dreams

and Hope.

 

Photo: Walking in Stadspark, Groningen, NL. December 2018. Minolta Dynax 7000i (AF 35-105mm). Earl Grey Lomography Film 200, 35mm film.

The Wall

I look at the wall in front of me

white and long

I stare.

There is a gap

– that numb in between –

crisp air particles

and words unspoken.

There is a whole world

that separates

the voice within us,

plain white

like Fear himself.

My voice is strange,

like the flowers I plucked for you.

There is a wall in front of me

and I stare.

Hazy blue waters

down my feet

and grey clouds

– monotonous –

cold wind caresses my face,

touches my fingertips.

Whiteness everywhere.

There is Silence

and Fear in us

– palpitations –

I try to move,

but I have the wrong

set of feet,

so I stare at the wall

with eyes closed.

Then I heard the cracks of the soul opening.

[Acceptance]

 

(Photo: Groningen, the Netherlands. January 2018. Lomo Instant camera, Double exposure. Instant Fuji Film.)

At the window [Triptych “The Light”]

Those white moments flee

out of me

they fly in the sky

swinging among silences.

Sometimes my windows

define a square prison

dressed in sunlight and

straight lines.

The year of struggle seems vague.

The moments of solitude empty.

And my coffee is cold

waiting for me on the heavy desk,

life inside it has seized

arousing something more important

than a broken circle.

(Photo: Groningen, the Netherlands. January 2018. Lomo Instant camera, Instant Fuji Film.)