Archive for October, 2024

Loneliness

Tuesday, October 22nd, 2024

Lots of sad little poetry fragments there lately, yeah. Many unpublished. I’m not doing too well… Where even to begin?

So many emotions bursting at the seams. Bittersweet sorrows, unrequited love, heartbreak like I never thought possible. I’m a mass of confused demons each pulling in every directions, dark thoughts mixed with elation, the most wonderful love for a most wonderful person who cannot return the feeling, a terrible abyss of loneliness and despair lined with the tiniest sliver of hope that this is not all for nothing….

Was it all for nothing?

When I started this journey, I knew the bargain and accepted it freely, but it feels insurmountable sometimes to reach a point where a relationship might be on the table again. I struggle so much to accept my current situation, because how likely it is that I will strike gold a third time? Find a soul as beautiful and precious as theirs, who ALSO wants me? It feels like such a ludicrous pipe dream I can’t even take it seriously. Such optimism feels borderline insulting.

And I am devastated by this. Truly, utterly heartbroken. Right person wrong time is just a fancy way of saying wrong person, and the cruel clarity of it makes me profoundly miserable.

Yes, I do therapy. But some days you just need to vent into the void.

a poetry brothel…

Saturday, October 5th, 2024

I went to something super special tonight, called prostíbulo poético, or poetry brothel. It took place in an old basement, reminiscent of a speakeasy, or maybe more accurately a Spanish interpretation of one, or one of those old-school interwar salons full of drunkards and writers, dreamers and hedonists (but aren’t we all one or the other?) with all the accoutrements of seduction and decadence, that feels both clandestine and deliciously subversive.

The event is hosted by a Madame, (obviously) who introduces her girls one by one, before they recite a piece of poetry. Then, as patrons mingle, drinks are bought and cigarettes are lit (indoors! another act of rebellion), if one doesn’t have a token, one can play dice with the Madame for one. The token is an extra, the price for asking one of the poets in a vis-a-vis, a personal recital.

In exchange for the token, the chosen poet takes you to a secluded corner, away from the crowd, and after a brief conversation, she asks you to close your eyes, and whispers a poem to your ear, just for you. Then she releases you and you both rejoin the others, and she wanders, waiting for the next one who will call to her.

It was godamn fantastic.