I want to be my own muse

maybe if I write poems to myself
finding a pretty way to describe the stardust hidden in my hair
the perfume I leave on my scarves
the fact that my hands are always, always cold
so cold I just got used to it
maybe if I write about
how my tears taste like the sea
how my tea tastes more like sugar instead of, you know, tea
how kisses -technically- taste horrible to me
and still I find them so incredible
if I paint pictures of my neck or my chapped lips
or the way my hair just falls nicely when I just woke up
if I write about my favorite sweaters
and I sing sonnets inspired in my high heels
and how they make me feel taller
higher
four point five inches closer to the sky

maybe if I write for my muse
I can make her fall in love with me

and with that maybe
just maybe
I will
-finally-
be in love with myself

there's a lot of holes in my life
for example

my waist takes as little space as possible;
a curve is formed in each side
in order to be fitted by
somebody's hands

and i would like them to be your hands

between every bone of my spine
there's a little pause pretending to shape
a path long enough to be toured by
somebody's fingers

and i would like them to be your fingers

when i stretch my neck i find
angles in my collarbones
a piece of architecture to be traced by
somebody's mouth

and i would like it to be your mouth

but your hands hold the curves of other waist
and your fingers wander other road
and your mouth traces the lines of other architecture

and i have all of these holes

and there's a hole in my bed
and i would like to have two

mum asks
why you show your poems to strangers
but not to me?

mum doesn't know
poetry is light
but it can also be darkness
sometimes it is mostly darkness
and poetry is history
and experiences
and things you want to happen
and things you don't want to see

poetry isn't always
chocolate-filled with a coat of sugar
it isn't always pretty metaphors
and nice descriptions of nice feelings

mum doesn't know
my poems can turn a little darker
twisted just like my mind

and she doesn't know
the way I love
or the way I hate
and she would surely ask
and she would surely know who and why and what
and strangers don't know
who the hell I am talking about
and they don't care
as long as they read a good piece

mum asks

I don't reply.

We wanted to be big girls since we were little ones
we used mom's lipstick
and pretended we were mature and pretty enough
to have red, bright lips
and shiny, size six golden shoes

mum used to tell me I was pretty
and she let me use her lipstick
but I didn't really like it
so I rushed to the backyard

I tangled wild flowers in my hair
usually mixed with dandelions
and mint leaves
sometimes a couple of ladybugs came by

and after that I just stood there
being happy
and crowning myself
as the Butterfly Queen

and mum got angry
because I was a mess
and my hair was tangled
and full of dirt
seems like flowers in my hair
didn't make me pretty at all

but now I am a grown up, and I am happy too,
because I can put eyeliner without getting teary eyes
and I can tangle mint leaves in my hair:

*mum can't yell at an adult now, huh?

There's a very thin line
no one made it, but it's there
dividing the genius from the crazy.

There's a very thin line
so thin you can't even see it
so easy to cross
so difficult to stay in a side.

There's a very thin line
you don't see it
and neither the others do
althought they might try a little harder
to guess where you exactly belong.

There's a very thin line
and I don't know where I belong
I don't know if I'm an artist
or I'm just ******* insane
trying to believe beauty is anywhere
and I'm in charge of proving it.

There's a very thin line
but **** it:
maybe insanity has a hidden beauty, too.

He's beautiful, I have already mentioned this to him
but I keep on insisting because I think it's not really clear for him yet
that his beauty is both inside and outside

I mean, apart from his noble heart
and niceness befitting of a prince;
apart from his ideas and his way of thinking, his strings of thoughs
that I love to follow and where I also love getting lost in;
apart from the beauty of his likes and loves
(because you are what you love, if after all love transforms you,
and thus I am he and he is I)
even if you took apart all of his being and essence
he would still be beautiful

because he is beautiful, no matter how you see him
although he sees himself and he is not content
he is beautiful in his signature brows
in his shoulders where I anchor and his fingers which I entwine with mine
he is beautiful from the wrinkles in his face and his combed hair
to his feet, wearing shoes two sizes bigger

he is beautiful, no matter how you see him
but he is on his most when he is honest,
when he shows himself weak: in his most pure and human state,
and that usually happens at night,
either with his mind a little blurred by a little alcohol
while his tongue runs and can't say anything but urgent truths,
dyed with that love that not even alcohol can erase;
either in my arms, moved by sweet whispers, his eyes releasing tears
that rise modestly like cotton
but, as they roll, have the shine of a gemstone;
or if not by early morning while we share a single bed,
naked and iluminated by the lights of my alarm clock

he is so beautiful when he lets you see him vulnerable
or he lets you see him in love
or he lets you see him without even noticing that you're seeing him:
he is so beautiful all the time
and he is not content

he tells me he is not content, when his arms hold me tight
and his chest seems sculped exclusively for my hands;
he is not content, my best kept secret,
the boy that looks cute and shy in front of everybody's eyes
and I know in so many different layers;
he is not content being so short and so pale
being that I could use the porcelain analogy to describe his skin,
but his porcelain was adorned with freckles, and marks, and moles
and I have never seen such fine, pretty, warm porcelain
(porcelain is cold and your arms are always warm)

and his dark hair contrasts with his light skin, and his eyes go along:
black lights, stars of Bethlehem that guide the way
to reach to his pink lips that, if you kiss,
you could swear you can find salvation
or a miracle; something strange happens because it's not normal to be moved by such great happiness,
and if his mouth is salvation, the touch of his hands is holy grace

he is not content when I could honor his body
and his spirit and mind,
when my mouth could paint masterpieces in his chest
because he doesn't see shape but I see colours
and I don't know if he believes if god is an artist
but if he doesn't see himself as art, it doesnt matter
since even so, art goes all over himself like a bindweed

since even so, when god said
"let there be light"
I'm almost sure that he was made.

I believe poetry revolves around
things that can be found interesting
sometimes even magical
like

coffee
and tea
and cigarettes
and the colours of the sky
and the ashes of cigarettes
and love
and burning desire
and hate
and sour bitterness
and thoughts after midnight
and people like

*you.

People find it weird when I say that
twenty years from now
I see myself single.

It's funny,
how they incredulously raise an eyebrow
as they try to explain me
"honey, don't say that, you'll find someone someday"
as if falling in love was some kind of unwritten rule.

It may be a little rush to think
I'll spend my whole life with only myself as company
but it's actually curious to see how everybody is so into telling me
that by no means I'm going to be a sad fourty-year-old cat-lady.

Because if no one loves you when you're fourty
you surely are a sad cat-lady,
right?

Because failure means
turning thirty-five and having no marriage in sight,
turning twenty-five without at least one ex-boyfriend,
turning eighteen and have never been kissed,
right?

Because everyday I hear more and more teenage girls
worrying about turning sixteen without a kiss to remember
and that gives them so much shame they don't even mention it
as they go past other girls with a single thought running inside their minds:
"is this normal?"

This is very normal, dear.
You're not doing things wrong, on the contrary, you still have a lot of time.
But you are scared you might not be desirable.
You are scared you might turn thirty-five and still have not been desired, not even once.

But the people who love you don't define your value,
in fact nothing and nobody does
the only value that matters is the one you give to yourself
and once you value who you are,
you will be truly able to love others
and to love them deeply: a kind of love that is worth to receive.

Unfortunately, it's common to get confused
and think you will never be happy unless someone wants you.

Don't believe that,
or you might become thirty-five
married and with the feeling you're not complete and something's missing
as you go past other mothers with a single thought running inside your mind:
"is this normal?"

And that shouldn't be so normal.

I'd like to think people are like little universes.

Have you gone around crowded streets?
have you seen them?
Not like you see them when they cross the street with you:
I want to know if you wouldn't love to know
what's going through their minds.

It works like this:
choose a person,
any person will do, becasue after all,
we are all made of more or less the same things.

We are all made of thoughts like stars and constellations,
and loved ones who live inside us like planets
(my cat means a world to me)
we are made of talents that make us shine like comets
and fears that sometimes can be like black holes.

Choose a person,
any person will do, but be careful,
because decoding a universe isn't as easy as you think:
have you got one?

You finally got one.
He stepped out of the coffee shop with a latte.
He walks, and when he walks,
he moves with the intensity of a shooting star.

Go and say hi.
If he answers, and he tells you his name,
congratulations:
the door is open.
Now it's up to you to wander like a lost astronaut
in the Milky Way that a person's mind can be.

You may get to know the hidden galaxy under his skin,
and if you are a little lucky, some of it will melt with yours:
you may share worlds and form constellations with stars from both
("last night I heard this song that reminded me of you")
but there's a thing you have to remember:

this universe where we live is infinite,
and it's always expanding itself more and more,
forming more mysteries we might never reveal.

Our universes are little, but also so big
sometimes we don't even know ourselves at all.

I'm so sorry
I can't love you back.

I'm busy crying for someone
who doesn't love me back,
too.

When in love,
I spend more time hating myself
than actually loving somebody.

Maybe that is
why I am never loved back.

I
might be in love
and I
am terribly afraid.

Today I asked myself
what's the point of pretty words.

I mean,
what's the point
of writing
sighs for you
secretly
while you
dedicate yours
to someone
who's not
and
will never be
me?

And the answer was clear:

freedom.