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 Sep 2014 Marco ASF Couto
jt
Routine
 Sep 2014 Marco ASF Couto
jt
Inspired by As I Walked Out One Evening by W.H. Auden

As I walked out one evening under the blanket of dark blue sky
Thinking about the week to come
Will the days be remembered, or rather wasted and forgotten?
Each tired child thinks the same thought.

Sunday nights slip into Monday mornings
Mondays slowly become Tuesdays;
Yet somehow the days become one
Each tired child unable to differentiate each day from the last

Wake up, brush teeth, brush hair, repeat.
Math, English, read, write, factor, and repeat.
Return home, work, eat, sleep and then repeat.
Each tired child thinks, “Is this really living?”

Stuck in a labyrinth of concrete
Routine forces every move
Taunted by the warm blanket left behind, only to leave a blanket of papers
Each tired child stares at the ticking clock.

Thoughts interrupted by bells at the same time
Routine consumes every thought
Each indistinguishable day
Where each child struggles to lift heavy eyelids.  

Same faces seen every day
Same places seen every day
Weeks blur into months, which in turn disappear in the minds
Each tired child fights every robotic move.

Closing doors and opening books
The teachers scream and roll their eyes
Where thoughts aren’t thoughts unless they are in Times New Roman
Each tired child strives to be heard.

As I walked out one evening under the blanket of dark blue sky
Thinking about the years to come
Routine is inescapable while spontaneity is a distant myth dreamt up in the minds
Of each tired adult who forgets what it’s like to be a child.
He was sitting still in front of his majestic grand piano, looking for an inspiration in the most desert part of his heart.  He couldn’t create something wonderful if it hasn’t touched him, it must have been part his, part universal, connected and combined in the purest art of all.
Silence.  
The memory of sweet homeland and childhood.
In his mind he could see a little boy, lost in the water while the storm was getting closer and closer. The fear of unknown was getting from the fingertips till the top of his head, this image was haunting him. Nobody could save him, it was getting darker and colder, he was losing his breath, his will was taken, he was left alone in despair.  
             But then his fingers touched the keys and the charm was thrown. His pain revealed in the enchanted melody of nostalgia which he could never express with his words. Everything around seemed to follow the captivating tune, with his music he bewitched the world. It was his way of screaming for help, revealing the pain, but this would never be understood, the others only followed the sweet melody which was too wonderful to make it stop. The water kept floating.
          Frederick kept playing, reaching further sheets and layers of his mind, his body in convulsions, sweat falling on the keys. Was he crying? I missed it so many times, just like everyone else, I just wanted to listen to his melody. He would never be understood by us, just a rare paradise bird singing his song using his fingers. Maybe he loved his piano because it was the only thing which let him be, let him reveal all the secrets of his soul that only music could understand. Behind the instrument he knew exactly what to do, he drew unforgettable images, wrote words of love, lasting, romance and pain, mostly pain.
             The music was his fortune, the music was his torture, letting him see more suffering inside him, feeding him with uncertainties about himself and life… but keeping him aware, that it is in deed the only reason for him to be alive. Even though the rest never understood the sharp notes and the essence of sad melodies, he was still reaching their souls, the parts of the souls which would always answer to the pure beauty. There was that part of art which would never be understood, even by the author, but you would still feel the shivers.
                 Apart from his music he was lost, out of space, lonely in affairs of life. The feelings were connecting and breaking at the same time, love and hate, joy and sadness, he must have kept playing faster and faster, running away and getting closer. He was the lonely boy losing his breath under the water, he needed support and logic in this crazy world. Things were breaking into pieces with every note, nothing in life was just black and white, at least in music he could see the beauty of mathematical perfection, every sentence put in the right tempo gave him comfort and peace. Sharp notes which exposed his anxiety made him sure of the concrete stability in music, the only thing he had under control, the only thing he could really understand, the only thing in which he didn’t need to pretend, he was himself, with his goods and bads, and mostly the bads.
His fingers were reaching to the final chords. He touched the keyboard once again, giving it gentle goodbye, his confession was over. He had to rest now, the little boy for safe for a moment, the music has rescued him.
This boy was one of a kind. I knew he was the love of my life, but I was afraid I wasn’t the only one sharing the same belief. As I said, he was the one of a kind, special in the natural and comforting way he made You feel around him. He was too humble for the talents he had and way too smart for the beauty he owned.
 I couldn’t always guess what he felt when he played his music, but I could always know when he felt sad. He didn’t talk much, but he enjoyed writing little stories about other people, capturing them as they were. I believe he knew much more about them then they knew about themselves.
I didn’t always know what his purpose was, but somehow he was amazingly sure in his uncertainty. I wished I could see the world with his eyes, I wished I could look to the people as he did. In his eyes You could see the reflection of the world’s loveliness. He always found a way to surprise me, either with the things he knew, could or have done. He knew exactly how to touch your soul, or at least he knew how to reach mine, and as he was the only person able to do this I knew that he was special and made for the greatest things.

Sometimes I feared I loved him enough to die of pain of belonging.  I couldn’t stand the thought of life without him or of life with different him.  I couldn’t stand the pain of being close enough to feel the envy of losing him for something else and I knew I simply couldn’t live without that pain either. But I was happy though.  I was extremely fortunate as he loved me and I loved him back like nothing else in the world. I wouldn’t trade any moment with me lying on his chest, kissing my forehead, touching my hair for anything in the world. He was simply the sweetest thing and the aim of all my actions.
I wished for the long and happy life with him as I was sure everything would turn out to be wonderful in his hands. He was the first boy who made me dream of getting married and I loved him dearly, praying to God every single night to keep him from danger and misfortune.

Still I lost him.

I have felt I was going crazy in madness of late hour, noises and images were blurred, my actions automatic. I was living, but I wasn’t alive, all my will was gone, his absence was unbearable. Nothing was ever going to make any sense. I was lost without him for ever.
Eating a tomato soup made her more sentimental, as if there was a whole history
of shared meals with her family in that single bowl.
She couldn't deny who she was and from where she came from, as soon as her tongue got used to the richness of her country taste. The weirdness of cuisine and the specifics of character defined her and reached her bottom, which she couldn't discover without knowing what ground has shaped her body and a soul.
The day she went she could only see a fraction of her father's despair in his eyes full of love and pride. She couldn't feel more puzzled with  all the sour-sweet emotions, but the train has already started, and the image of her father, standing straight on the platform number three trying to smile while waving his hand, was moving away. (...)
 Dec 2013 Marco ASF Couto
Abby
No one likes an ending,
but without an ending how
can you call a beginning a beginning?
There is no birth
without the shadow of death
nor death without remembrance of the beginning.
To remember is to forget,
and vice versa,
for no detail is spared but at the expense of another,
deeds forgotten,
friendships faded,
the glint of an ending reflecting a beginning.
And sometimes we can't predict
what beginning we'll see,
thrown back at us in those last seconds,
be it shadow or reflection or a scene in our mind's eye,
so when the nights are too short
and the days ahead longer than we can know,
beginnings fade to endings
through darkness and light,
and sleep is the title
which comes before the beginning.
In response to "Wake Up!" by Marco ASF Couto
You marked me as a tattoo which can't go and reminds me of you in every moment I reach to the happiness with someone else.
Every time I catch the look of someone else and smile back it starts burning my heart and makes me let it go, keeps reminding it may end in catastrophic consequences, as I will always know I went through far more with you.
In that coffee shop I met someone who reminded me of You, but it was only a delusion of pretty eyes and gentle manners. He liked to think of the future and all the things we could do,  while he drank his sugar-free tea in the painful silence.
Why did you mark me so deeply when you let it go?
That day I couldn't look to his eyes without thinking of yours.
I couldn't bare his kisses so different from yours.
I wouldn't enjoy his cold feet under the sheets like I enjoyed yours.
I couldn't say I love you without thinking of what I have promised to You.
Perhaps on your side these were only pretty lines, which could turn into catchy songs on the other day.
https://www.facebook.com/ZuzanMatuszewska
We were cleaning each other tears with our hands and kisses,  and today we clean the rests of jam and sauces  from our familiar faces in the comfort of our last moments.
The minutes to the departure which seemed to break us,  never managed to take our sense nor patience,
as when things  are so important that you hardly believe in their logic of attracting with a power that no one has given a chance.
I doubt I deserved this amount of joy.
But they doubted in the ability to take the suffer of what is unknown.
So perhaps we are all mistaken creating uncertainties and leaving too early.
And if there is more happiness on the other side of the gate... Then I only wish we could cross it together.
music to listen while reading poetry ;) https://www.facebook.com/ZuzanMatuszewska

— The End —