The lineage of a man’s impoverished family just has to go on, so put your feelings aside and act, but fast, before your smile leaves wrinkles around your mouth, before the very first strand of hair losses its melanin, before your veins start bulging from under your skin, before your eyes see every sunset and every sea.

Only after should you think, after your bones lose their strength and the heels of your feet no longer feel the ground beneath them.

You’ll realise, maybe too late, that you can’t stand that face, so similar to yours, wilder, free. Hands softer, eyes still bright. You’ll realise that in the place of a diploma stands a family photo, faces too blurred now to make out.

Instead of French you learned how his mother cooked the steak, how a woman should treat a man.

How easy it is to fall victim to a twisted culture, a controlling religion, an abusive father, maybe a child is just the price you have to pay for quiet. a working pair of hands, a glass of water when you’re old, a financial plan, a carnacious desire.

Gut-wrenching nausea, a stomach swiveling thought:

Are you made for bigger things?

A man’s stomach stretching, his skin thin, convulsing movements, in their journey suffocating his every organ. Inside grows a seed of unbelievable proportions; his body splits in two, and from inside him crawls another just alike, hair, teeth and bones.

Leaving behind the man’s shell, wet and cold; hair, teeth and bones.

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Not a partner, not an equal, a reflection of my mind on the body of a man, soulless and empty, knows me better than I know myself. Because he is me; just the love and the strong hands and a perpetual obsession, a room growing darker and warmer as the moon rises.

Can’t see through my intentions, only green eyes and blondish brown hair and fading freckles across the bridge of his nose, and a mole on his chin.

Knows I’m smarter, dream bigger, i can’t help it. He’s just the heat he emanates, I don’t wish to know him, my back always turned and eyes always closed. I am the muse of all his paintings and the subject of all his poems.

Everything but my face, my body; calloused hands and quiet men.

Love is fun when it doesn’t last, before the nights stop fading away in the morning sun, before blood starts lighting up his veins, and now you see him as a man, not a lover.

Do men love?

Not how he loved his mother, conditioned, or like how your father loved you, condescendingly. An unhealthy affair, bones and muscle growing tired as the days pass you by, unchanged bedsheets and fear, of the man laying so close to you now.

Through his eyes I see those of a woman, I catch her looking back at me, blondish brown hair and freckles and a mole; I hold her hand, kiss her lips, and I lay down for one more day.

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Not far from London, so we treated ourselves every summer. It looked almost prehistoric, with towering chalk-white cliffs, but our favorite thing was going “fossil hunting”. I must have read somewhere that it was riddled with fossils of small crustaceans.

The sky and water, crystal blue and blindingly bright, meet at the horizon and merge completely, you wouldn’t know where one ended and the other started.

The photograph depicts one of many simple blue roofed houses, with the long characteristic chimneys, around the walls, gold dry bushes of patchy grass. In the distance, the white cliffs reflect on the water on the left side, glowing a light cyan, on the right, the sun hits them with the orange sunshine rays of the early afternoon. You know how, after some time special things become mundane, this one never did; I could forever lay on my back and stare at the weaves hitting each other and breaking down.

But the reason I choose this photo was because of the memory that surrounds it. The ride there had to be slightly more than two hours, that time could easily turn into three or even four, as we liked driving slow and listening to the radio. James had a Chevrolet Cavalier, they weren’t so popular in Britain and he absolutely loved it. That’s when we began this tradition of ours, one that we continued even after little Amelie was born.

We would often get on the road at around 5:00p.m. just so we could catch the sunset in the blue metallic convertible, with my hair tangling as it flew long behind me in bundles. Arriving at almost 9:00p.m. the sky was a dark orange, right before the sun could say goodbye.

You can’t see us in the photo, and it doesn’t have anything written on the back, but I’m very sure it was the mid to let ‘80s. At the time I had bangs and puffy, untamed hair, but everybody did. I loved wearing short buttoned trousers that reached far above my waist, i would hold them up with thick leather belts, usually brown with silver hardware, flowy button shirts, made of thin linen and cotton, perfect for the hot summers we rarely had.

Eye makeup was heavy and wild, I’d contour my eyes much bigger, drawing lashes long below my own. women were going for a simple, vulnerable appearance that never quite worked for me, I always wore long uncomfortable heels and flared jeans. Do you remember that?

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The cobblestone path courting us deep inside and over the horizon, through faded plastic flower crowns and piles of cheap plastic candles, next to the mighty gravestones, each one of them bigger and more intricate than the next. Our itinerary was often changing, each year bringing us a new stop on our journey. The forgotten relatives patiently waiting their turn, of which just one stood silently on the left wing- of which I heard many stories in my early years, stories of a grand fire, one that left the crosses covered with a thick layer of ash; a story which now seems unfamiliar to whoever I bring it up to. This side where nature overtook each photo and engraved name, roots penetrating through the graves, weeds growing around the lengths of the crosses who hadn’t been visited in years. Met with a dirt path stepping over graves I couldn’t quite make out, arriving at the resting place of a grandfather, one of the only with a light candle, one of the only with a distinguishable name.

Each one has a story; my mother knew them all. Small crosses reaching just slightly above my knee, of children either mauled or beaten to death, no flowers or cheap candles in sight.

From up here you can see it all, every house, the same metal roof which made a light rain sound like a thunderstorm. Layers of colored paint peeling off in thick sheets, crumbling in pieces. Stray dogs barking, despite the lack of reason, rule the narrow unpaved stone streets. The houses look abandoned, but the dirty clothes hanging on the metal line tell a different story; they’re all lived in, but during cold winters less than half of the chimneys let out smoke. The people are quiet, winter brings death to the rural life, even in the twenty first century. Here everybody owns their houses, passed down from generation to generation, the cement walls do no good in keeping the cold out. How many will die this winter? How many of them have worked their entire lives to be forgotten by the system.

They stare and gossip, spit, and mumble. Every first ray of spring sunshine puts a sickle and shovel in their calloused hands; the local, and only, store fills with men and women drinking despite their empty stomach and weak hearts.

Few go to the church, still in use, but rarely full, old women filling the priest’s pockets with the little pension they have.

They all know each other, they always have. The always grey scenery, the harsh autumn winds, moving a creaking wooden window, back and forth, the curtains always drawn, behind them movement can be seen, the village is slowly shrinking.

The night brings with it an eerie darkness the moon is powerless to cure. From hundreds of houses, a handful of them create the night skyline, some lights shouldn’t be there, deep in the valleys or too far from the village. Sound travels oddly clearer at night, gallops of horses, the one sound I always hear late at night and forget about in the morning.

An old tale from my village speaks of long-limbed pale women, whose eyes glow faintly in the night. As one goes, one summer night, three sisters were breaking the corn of the cobs, sitting in a circle with their parents and talking, happenings from the town, the world.

Those nights were for the people; the land was theirs, far before the industrialization of agriculture communism brought. The mother froze all of a sudden, as if she saw the “ village jester sitting in the mayors chair”, her eyes widened, a piercing gaze, met with silence, one daughter turned her head and noticed in the distance the faded figures of two thin women, unmoved, peaking from behind the house’s corner, dressed in white. The mother let out a single trembling breath, but if she could speak, she would have said “these are Ielele”. They were staring at them like a mother would, with pity and something I could only describe as love. One spoke on a deep and shaky tone, something no one quite made out, but the mother answered, “we’re working”, In the blink of an eye the sisters rushed and hid under the bed, crying and pushing their way into the wall. Then someone loudly turned the key in the door as a sweet melody flew over the house, a song made for angels. They often came back to disturb the sisters, calling them by name.

“Brides” they were often called, they disappeared in the mid twentieth century when the religion lacking communists came to power, nobody ever saw them again.

Everywhere you’ll find a similar story, ruins, poverty, sadness, these people have and they want nothing; as younger generations leave their parents behind and the elders die alone either this or next winter, buried in the small overcrowded cemetery, their crosses soon engulfed and erased my nature and time. These houses left empty and dark, maybe then the tall brides will come back, to watch over working people and sing sweet death songs.

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There’s one unforgiveable flaw, one where young minds preserve old ideas through a lack of documentation and thirst for having their voices heard. All want to be involved, politically, socially and culturally in their present and future, being neutral is often seen like a weakness- You must speak up, be heard, even when you clearly lack the context and information necessary.

This has lately resulted in young people repeating history through their actions and ideologies, seeking public approval while deeply misunderstanding social issues because of their role in society and claustrophobic world view.

Since the Palestinian-Israelian conflict has begun, people were quick to pick sides, even in the absence of the people’s and the land’s history. Having been exposed to a certain group of online personalities, my choice and most other’s was made for us, only difference being, I understand, that in the era of information, consuming propaganda and false news can be just as easy as consuming any other type of content. When putting pride aside to view the world through a clear lens, one formed by hundreds of voices and articles and documentaries, you’ll no longer need a third party to narrate the world for you, you’ll be fully capable thinking for yourself.

Plenty of people pick a team, like the suffering of thousands is a game in P.E class, they crave a feeling of unity and community, brought by people coming together to support a common cause, but they couldn’t care less about said cause.

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A rise in antisemitism in ‘woke” democrats and “open-minded” people, in their minds to support one group means hating the other, like a medieval knight dying for land they don’t own- I don’t know what’s worse, the incapability of differentiating between religion, ethnicity and nationality or simply refusing to understand how military conflicts start.

I was arguing with such a friend a while back, an avid pro-Palestinian, so am I, bringing up the history of the land, I came to find out she lacked the basic information that would explain the migration of jews to the holy land, she couldn’t tell me the capital of Israel, nor why the land was so important religiously, repeating that, she didn’t care for Israel, so she “shouldn’t be expected to know anything about it”, an opinion many other’s share.

A valid question would be, how exactly had she formed a political opinion based on just feelings, well, I suppose she didn’t, but dozens of hours each week of doom-scrolling have planted into her mind pieces of the puzzle, only later to realize that she possessed them.

You could say she was quite lucky to find herself on that side of the internet, otherwise her, and others alike could have been easily manipulated to believe almost anything else. We usually hear supporters of politicians state that “ no matter what X does, I’ll always support them”, such statement is mental slavery and reveals that your political views are not influenced by good and moral actions, but by a part of your brain that feels it wants to be blindly lead. “X” managing to keep people’s support through anything, means the support is unlimited and the people useless, with their empty shells now you have control of thousands.

Such scenarios apply to religion as well, weak minded people need a savior, whether it is a god or a politician, We’re devolving spiritually, with more and more young people finding “peace” in religion, in books written when we were clueless scientifically, when most people didn’t have rights and freedom, so no wonder these new Christians and Muslims are mostly men, they benefit by living separated from their morals, now in someone else’s hands, free of accountability in “god’s plan”.

Islam would never be a “religion of peace” as long as men preach it, because men aren’t peaceful. “It is the culture not the religion” became an aimless argument, those two have always been one and the same, intertwined, that’s why religion is influenced by the culture of the people living in certain areas, not a divine power, but created by people, by geography most of all. “The Quran doesn’t force women to cover up” It could have very well said anything else, even if it doesn’t directly discriminate the female sex, it’s followers do, the words of a powerful god remain but words on paper, a result of an ancient mind controlling politics and people even after hundreds of years, could have never lead to a better future, all of the genocides and wars, the fate of women in the twenty-first century being controlled by the voices of the past.

You could make the case, that modern women, in most places, can make their own choices, but even though not forced, the laws of the world seep through their minds, the result of many other’s who didn’t have a choice or a voice.

Countless violent conflicts all around the world, fought my young men, started by seventy year old billionaires, harming poor men, women and children.

Facing a person that build their world views and knowledge on internet propaganda with a real like scenario where they are made to chose one of two sides they were thought to support, will reveal the extend of their morals and sympathy. The problems of immigrants in Western Europe, femicides and erasure of female spaces, the recent choices of a particular president, all complex topics that need to be understood and studied, they all have a history and they’ll all have an outcome, refusing to learn our history we’re all bound to repeat it.

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There’s a beautiful implication that comes with every first day of every first month of the year- looking back one last time before you finally close the door of that phase of your life forever, trying to forget and reinvent yourself.

You tell yourself “One last time” as your eyes get tired from the strong artificial light emitting from the cellphone in your hand; you get up “one last time”, envious and jealous, you linger around the kitchen, opening every cabinet and staring thoughtlessly at the fridge as it starts to make a high pitched beeping sound, you’re shaken awake.

What have you accomplished this past year? A powerfully deep and intimate love, like a cloud of smoke moving throughout the house only to escape by climbing out of the chimney, leaving a nose burning sensation and a dark smell already sinking into the couch pillows and the rug.

Have you created more than you’ve consumed? Filling each and every one of those intimidating blank pages you kept putting aside, buying a new notebook every year, they sit in a pile in your closet. Packaging your future in a tidy and organized manner makes it more appealing; it transforms it into a ritual, a path to self fulfilment.

I find myself outgrowing my body at a rapid pace, everything I know and learn can no longer fit into the small fragile body of a young woman. I can’t feel satisfied, with every page I read and every page I write, my awareness of myself and my human condition becomes a heavy rock pressing right on my chest. We often don’t realize we change as it happens, only when comparing ourselves with our past versions are the differences revealed; so are the details that fought to remain the same, deeply engraved in our daily lives, to painfully attached to fully let go of them. But I do, I feel as if my bones are too massive for the skin that wraps around them, they’ll soon perforate it, surely- my organs to tight in my ribcage, they spill over one another and my heart is no longer where it used to be, my brain may liquify and flow through my throat into my stomach.

I no longer fit my old clothes, so I will desert them and finish my journey stripped of the confinements of my past self. Through this solitude I’ve either outgrown my childhood room or the walls are closing in on me; it wants me out- every word on the paper, wiped clean and rewrote, bounces off the four walls, after each hit, gaining a larger meaning, a burning intensity.

I scrape the dried paint of my wooden desk with my nails, the paintbrushes now rotten in the murky old water, I can easily snap them in half with just two fingers; a dark blueish brown, the result of countless destroyed canvases, in an attempt to regain my inner passion- I’ve chosen to spiritually abandon- through creation.

A waste of time I could have spent doing nothing else; instead, I had to try, two possibilities showing themselves to me, striving or failing. Having not tried, the outcome would have been pre-established.

No light can enter my room after 19:00 p.m.; summer afternoons have never been colder and darker than watching life unfold from inside this house. I used to lay down on the scorching hot concrete looking at the crystal blue sky, tracing my finger over the airplane trails, some spanning across the entirety of the skyline, I often viewed it as a race, or I would patiently wait for them to collide, only to come to the realization that one’s much lower than the other.

I felt small outside, the grass and sun not bothered by my presence, my thoughts didn’t feel as deep, my body felt to big now for everything that composed it, light as a grain of sand, my bones hollow, my skin loosely wrapped around them like a present you didn’t put much thought into.

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• Sex and The City

Welcome to the age of innocence.

No one has breakfast at Tiffany’s and no one has affairs to remember.

You’re most probably not Samantha. Everybody’s Carrie Bradshaw, if you’re cool you’re Standford.

You’re living an unrealistic sexually liberating life through the lens of a woman in her late thirties in the heart of New York City. There are thousands of women like you, dreaming of the fast paced dramatic nature of a big always awake city, of free women and disposable men.

All their stories of bad sex nights and Martini glasses end with a “fulfilling” career of a wife and mother, slowly becoming what they’ve always hated, slightly drifting away from their values as they fall in love with what’s left of the most eligible bachelors of NYC.

It was never just an explicit show about “having sex like men” as much as it should have been, the time forced them into motherhood and marriage.

Something so depraved being made in the 90’s, I couldn’t help but notice we’ve grown increasingly more conservative, socially, politically and most of all sexually. SATC broke down many walls and build the foundation for sexual expression in modern women and TV culture.

“The Fuck Buddy”

“Old Dogs, New Dicks”

Every young woman’s dream is to make a living solely of off writing a weekly column about her unfulfilling sex life and her friends’ darkest secrets. How can she afford that apartment?!?

• Gilmore Girls

The brightest dream of an overachieving older daughter- good grades, cute vintage clothes and an overly emotionally attached mother.

Rory’s life has always been laid out in front of her, truly what else could she have done beside becoming an academic weapon. slowly losing her spark and head start in life by moving in with her mom at thirty years old, a failed writer.

The more privilege she had the more she stopped caring and trying, her love life always getting in the way of doing what was right.

Your millionaire grandparents funding your entire education, she turned entirely ungrateful and bitter.

Don’t get me started on Lorelai and her pausing her life to accommodate a man who didn’t want to ever change.

Creating an unhealthy bond with her adult daughter, keeping her attached mentally to the idea of herself that no longer exists, she never really grew up.

• Gossip Girl

What would Blair Waldorf do?

My fashion sense was truly never the same after experiencing the emotional train wreck and the satirically bad characters that this fan fiction of a show has to offer.

I’m trying my best to avoid talking about the incest-spirited main relationship of the show between the attention seeking alcoholic and the evil Wattpad writer with no friends. Also the rapey scenes at the very start of the series everyone chose to forget.

If you’re only watching for the mean high school girl experience and the impeccable fashion portrayed, combining vintage fashion from the 20’s and 80’s with modern Upper East side elements to create a new vision of fashion in the early 2000’s- then this can remain in your memory an archive of the messy teenage life you’ve never got to experience, because you’re not a multi millionaire with emotionally absent parental figures.

life is too short to argue with people just say “i gotta go” and move on

XOXO Gossip Girl

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What I consumed was up to me, not shoved down my throat by an algorithm that thinks it knows what I like; it’s actually the opposite, at times, finding what you’re looking for is a long journey, just to- when you finally find it- realize that the subtitles are only in Spanish for some reason.

I’ve consumed 241 films in the past two and a half years.

All of them coming together to create a mosaic of myself, why I am the way that I am, the way that I speak, dress, think. When I write laying face down in my bed with my feet up in the air, I might subconsciously do it the way Susana does in “Girl, Interrupted”. When Summer comes and I’m left with my own self I might feel like Sara Takatsuki from “When Marnie was here”

I view my life through a lens somebody else created, not real- I feel their feelings, I live through my own eyes like a character in a film.

• The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari 1920

You must become Caligari!

Francis, a young man, recalls in his memory the horrible experiences he and his fiancée Jane recently went through. Francis and his friend Alan visit The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, an exhibit where the mysterious doctor shows the somnambulist Cesare, and awakens him for some moments from his death-like sleep.

I cannot be the only one that thinks that cinema in the 20’s was much more creative and experimental, a fever dream put to paper then to the big screens.

Art finds its way in our daily lives, somehow, as we are just the result of all the movies, songs, books, that we surround ourselves with.

• House 1977

In the heart of a violet forest, an old house awaits young girls.

Hoping to find a sense of connection to her late mother, Gorgeous takes a trip with her friends to visit her aunt's ancestral house in the countryside. The girls soon discover that there is more to the old house than meets the eye.

I watched House on a scorching summer afternoon and I felt like I was being eaten alive by the action, consumed. It had left within me a sense of meaning, so full of life.

• Haru 1996

A young Tokyo businessman joins an online movie forum and develops a special bond with one of its members through back and forth e-mails.

“Haru” felt real, portraying the lonely reality of most young people, even today, an inability to connect deeply and a desire to escape the mundane daily life, that remains, just that, a burning wish.

• August in the Water 1995

A teenage girl gains supernatural power after an accident and comes to understand her place in the universe.

The atmosphere swallows you into the dreamy reality of young minds.

• Angel’s Egg 1985

Under a sky where clouds make sound as they move.

In the ruins of a strange city, a young girl takes care of a large egg she holds carefully in her arms. She bonds with a boy who is searching for a bird he saw in a dream.

A life long duty to live and protect what you love most. The world is an empty war zone.

• Millennium Actress 2001

The magic of movies, the mystery of memory.

Documentary filmmaker Genya Tachibana has tracked down the legendary actress Chiyoko Fujiwara, who mysteriously vanished at the height of her career. When he presents her with a key she had lost and thought was gone forever, the filmmaker could not have imagined that it would not only unlock the long-held secrets of Chiyoko’s life... but also his own.

How anime often has the power to influence western media while being influenced by western media. The role of a lifetime, a story of chasing and chasing and disappearing.

How would I act and speak by myself without a cinematic image of it?1

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That being said, This is a list of my favorite movies of every years since 2007, for some it was truly a hard decision, while for other years I had nothing to choose from so l picked a movie I merely tolerated while it was playing in the background of my life.

2007- No Country for Old Men

This movie manages to depict one of the greatest villains in movie history. A stone cold Psychopath that won't let anything get in his path. The movie is a continuous chance, no time to catch your breath, just run.

4.5/5

2008- The dark Knight

An iconic, almost comedic depiction of the beloved villain of our childhoods. This movie is more about The Joker than it is about Batman. Heath Ledger gives it his all in this amazing role of a lifetime, finishing his acting legacy.

4/5

2009- Inglorious Bastards

Quentin Tarantino invented cinema, I'm fully aware I sound like a film bro, but when it comes to the characters, no one does it like him-they are all so complex, not just in this masterpiece but in every single one of his creations.

4.5/5

2010-Incendies

If you still haven't watched this, what are you doing? The plot twist of all plot twists, beautifully written and incredibly sad and devastating. The confusing story about family and culture everybody needs to see

once.

5/5

2011- From Up On Poppy Hill

Not many movies to choose from, between this and Love Actually... A Ghibli movie with an unmatched atmosphere and vibe, reminded me of Spirited Away, in a sense, but more down to earth and everyday-like.

3.3/5

2012- Django Unchained

The story of a free slave fighting for himself and the woman he loves. Not the first or the last Tarantino movie you’ll see so get used to it. Really beautifully filmed, the characters are deep and hurt and that is portrayed throughout the entire movie through some of the best actors I’ve ever seen.

4.3/5

2013- The Wind Rises

A story of love and perseverance- in a dream like reality, Ghibli does it again, probably one of my favorite movies of them, but that would be a really hard choice I’m not willing to make. WATCH

4.4/5

2014-Whiplash

A painfully awkward and uncomfortable story about being eaten alive by your passion, bit by bit every, The protagonist gives it his all in the detriment of his mental health and vision of his true talent

4/5

2015- The Witch

A dark and mysterious Folklore tale deeply rooted in religious psychosis and the unknown. This being made on such a small budget is incredible.

3.8/5

2016- Split

A story about the peculiar case of a split personality disorders with a fictional side. The different “characters” played by the same actor all exude such a different essence in a horrific way.

4/5

2017- Blade runner 2049

The loneliness of a far future, everyone protects their one interests no matter the cost. Deals with the mental illness of the main character, making it a film bro movie even more, but I guess, sometimes they have good taste.

4/5

2018- Spider-Man into the spider-verse

I’m an artist, so this movie was like the sweetest treat, such a pleasure to watch, besides the good timeless story, it looks AMAZING.

5/5

2019- Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Told you! damn, I love this poster. The story of Hollywood’s holden age and all the disgusting and unfair elements that come with money and fame.

4.5/5

2020- I’m thinking of ending things

A fever dream in which not even the viewer can tell what’s real or not. The atmosphere is warm, but inside our character’s head a fight takes place, one it seems they all lose.

3.5/5

2021-A classic Horror Story

Five people travelling by camper crash into a tree. When they recover, the road they were driving on has been replaced by an impenetrable forest and a wooden house. Overall a goodish movie.

2.8/5

2022- Babylon

Quite similar to “Once Upon a time in Hollywood”. Hollywood's transition from silent films to sound films in the late 1920s. The image of the sex and drugs creating their world inside the private parties of the richest.

5/5 Controversial lowkey

2023- The holdovers

I watched this movie without knowing when it was released and I actually thought it was 20 years old. I have a judgmental attitude towards new film I’m trying to get rid of, the white light, the language used just puts me off but, this was really a breath of fresh air.

3.5/5

2024- A quite Place Day One

I expected the movie series to go bad at the end but they managed to make it just as good as the first and the second.

4/5

2025- Frankenstein

Only monsters play God. The lights, the fashion, the monster. Very different from the classic book of Mary Shelley and i think that’s exactly what I truly loved about it, the originality of Guillermo.

5/5

So… That was not so long. I have, in front of me a lifetime of art to explore and consume, I can just hope that cinematography does not continue the same path it has taken in the last couple of years.

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All the different colors could have also been the result of her forever worsening eyesight, her ability to crochet remains the thriving of her muscle memory, having made all her own clothes her whole entire life, since the age of twelve that is.

Her thick and meaty fingers, at the end of which she had short and stubby nails colored in a pumpkin shade of orange, chipped at the very tips and around the whole cuticle, leaving the color mostly in the middle of her nail bed. Her light grey roots must have been left to grow out for what looks like the past two years, now reaching all the way down to her ears, below, still an artificial light brown, appearing to shine just like gold in the warm afternoon sun of October. Her round thick framed glasses hang out the chest pocket of her white shirt, now nothing more than an accessory or something she’s gotten so used to she can’t let it go completely.

She’s pale, like porcelain, somewhat translucent besides her full red cheeks, not a result of the warmth of the fire, but of her genetics; just like her late mother, a full and round woman, always red in the face, always smiling with her paper thin pink lips, so much her eyes would turn into just to dark lines across her face. You could read the wrinkles on her face like a map of her happiest moments and her life story, using your hand to trace them like reading braille.

A doll like little girl makes a lot of noise entering the room, could be to alert her grandma of her presence. Dressed in a pink and white festive dress, a thousand layers under her puffy skirt gives her the appearance of a ballerina in a vintage jewelry box, the type that would spin around and sing when you would open it.

-Is the scarf for me? She says endearingly as she crawls in her grandmas lap, struggling with her big uncomfortable dress and tight pointy sandals, paired with long white socks just below her knees.

-No sweetie, it is for your mother, but I’d be happy to make you one as well! Said the woman putting away the sharp metal hooks and moving her legs up and down to make Holly giggle and jump with the rhythm.

The news of her childhood best friend have reached her not so long ago, she died in a terrible car accident on her way to London to see her two nieces- unable to attend her funeral, having left Britain more than a decade ago and with her disability, she has somewhat paralyzed, rarely, if ever, did she leave that swaying wooden chair, glancing out the window as if she could she something no one else could, spending every minute occupying her old hands with the soft yarn balls and the cold metal crochet hooks.

-Were you two good friends? Vic, I mean… asked little Holly, always so empathetic she never shied away from expressing her feelings- in that way they were very different, her grandma Esmeralda always kept to herself, scared of inconveniencing others.

-The best… replied Esme, lifting her hand to point at her vanity drawer, in it a square shoes box fillet with opened letters.

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I’ve always lived for myself, done what I wanted when I wanted it, alone, after hours of overthinking, of course. The past five summers are to blame for my superiority complex and arrogance, when there’s no one else to compare yourself to…. I believe I’ve grown through loneliness, I now know and see myself the way others have for so long.

I’m lonely by choice, I’ve grown to love being alone, separated from the rest of the world, watching from the outside, observing; but it wasn’t always a choice. When I was younger, I was like any other child, anxious but sociable and playful, strangely, I remember perfectly when that stopped being the case. When I started watching my friends play from inside my bedroom window- I was jealous, I wanted to play too, but my body was frozen, I couldn’t move- and with every weekend, every summer, it started feeling like something I could never escape again.

Time passed me by and I had nothing to show for it, a bloody scar on my left knee, that I’ll be picking at for the next two months, a surface injury along my arm, that will never fully heal.

The effects of solitude are visible in every human interaction I take part in, or they used to be. This year I’ve felt free of responsibility, free from the burden of making a good first impression, I don’t, anymore, live through others and their perceptions of me. I’ve learned to be selfish.

You try too hard, they will always notice that, they notice when you search for the right thing to say before opening your mouth, they notice when everything you say get’s ignored and brushed off, they notice when you look around for a familiar face in the crowd.

Throughout my solitude I’ve grown socially, people seem to notice that as well. I know notice when they fidget with their fingers to find something to say to me and it disgusts me. When I see myself through others I can’t help but pity them, but I can no longer fully understand them, I can’t pick their brain apart anymore.

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“On the moving paths, the black ships lead”

The brightest star in the whole sky- one faithful night, mighty and courageous, from the depths of the unknown a glorious young man grows. Appearing in the girl’s room, his body so cold it froze her’s, his eyes so bright she couldn’t look at his face.

He showed himself so beautiful, like a devil does in a sweet dream.

Their love remained impossible, to be loved he must change.

He traveled through the whole galaxy, above him, a sea of stars, below, just as many, none quite as bright as him.

Going back in time to the creation of the world, to the birth of every celestial being.

His wish, to become a mortal, could never be granted to him.

Those faces of clay, live and die.

He, he shines brighter than even the sun in the night sky.

The princess in her castle falls deeply in love with a human, a simple, possible love. Her devoted server, teaches her amour, from petal to petal.

Their souls forever intertwined as she calls for her star one last time, to bless her path in her new journey.

But his once yearning soul, now turned stone cold. He, in his world feels undying and numb.

Why do you care, figure of clay if it’s me or another?

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If you liked this small and simple version of it I wrote myself, consider reading “Luceafărul” by Mihai Eminescu, the longest, and most beautiful Romanian poem ever written.

I loved those years of self discovery and freedom, when you were allowed to fail and try again and life didn’t feel like it was ending when you made the smallest of mistakes. My parents came to see me, in that cheap shinny dark navy cape, I looked so silly wearing that obnoxious cap on my head, I needed to hold it with my left hand in almost every picture. They seemed so proud, I haven’t seen that look in their eyes since.

But this photo is not of me or my proud father or teary eyed mother, it is a blurry colored photo of the main school building, somewhat far on the left, on the right leaving space for that massive Beech tree, the bark of which filled with the engravings of Highschool sweethearts and childhood friends, I’m glad we were never like that, right?

It shows a sunny day of May, where nothing felt real, like a dream, where all the noise fills your ears-the happy screams of kids who never thought they’d see this day and others already envisioning their next twenty years, though, most young women were still hoping to marry young and start a family. That wasn’t my dream life, I was picturing my future in the busy streets of cold New York, in a small upper east side apartment turned art studio, spending every paycheck on clothes and fashion magazines. Heeled boots clinking on the asphalt sidewalk, waving down a taxi while i put out my half smoked cigarette on the side of a tin garbage can and slip the other half back into the Marlboro pack; and other dirty dreams of a teenage girl infatuated with American life in the late 70’s. I did, in fact, make it to New York, but you already know that, my life much less fabulous, by my film standards, than I’ve described it, but still a breath of fresh air.

Glancing back at the photo, there’s something dreamy about it, nostalgic like a sweet memory, the warm light hitting the lens perfectly, giving everything a gloomy and bright appearance.

You were in Salford at this time, near Manchester, otherwise you would have been right next to me every step of the way; I still have the postcard of Lowry Bridge you sent me, it reads:

“My dear Vic, I wish I could have been with you on this confusing day in your now adult life. I know it feels like every wall is closing in on you, but you’re wrong, this is where your life start, not where it ends. Every year you’ll be met with a different challenge and you’ll discover a whole new side of yourself, stronger, wiser. Pretend I’m there with you when you throw that graduation cap high into the air.

Love Esme”

You talked to me like a mother, a mentor, like you’ve lived it all, but you were still just a kid, just as unprepared as me for what was to come.

That same beautiful cursive handwriting, it belongs in a museum, all you’ve ever written does, the intimacy of the words engraved forever on paper; no one was prepared, they didn’t understand you.

I’ll write soon again.

Victoria

Maybe I shouldn’t try to contact you after all this time, but I think, now, we’re both in a clear space of mind… It worried me greatly when you stopped writing, I now understand it as the result of the tragic loss of your eyesight- you just loved writing so much… . I can’t possibly imagine how that pain must have felt, you then, from what I’ve heard, went back to living with your sister, whom will hopefully be the one to read this to you, like she so beautifully would read to us as little kids, laying on the wet grass, in those cold summer mornings.

I’ll try, as best I can, to describe to you a handful of photographs I came across while looking through the big wooden chest my father build for us, the one with the shinny key I used to wear around my neck, tied with a thick piece of yellow string. Photos of me, of you, of us, some you’ve never seen before, other you know so well.

I chose from hundreds of photos, from hundreds of faces you’ll never be able to see again and others you’ve never seen, my husband, James, my daughter Amelie, she looks so much like you, chestnut hair falls, so wavy, on her forehead, hundreds of freckles ride the round curves of her pink cheeks and over the bridge of her small nose, her green eyes, in the light they glimmer like water drops on tree leaves on warm spring mornings after a cold and rainy night.

I think I’m slowly deviating from my original goal as the memories flow back to me, so I’ll start. The first photo, looks to be twenty years older than it actually is, on the back, in bold letters, it says “The summer of 1970”, I must have been around eleven years old, that would have made you thirteen.

The photo is not quite black and white, with a yellowish tint over it, either intentional or from staying in that wooden box all these years. In it, the two of us, my right hand wrapped around the back of your neck, over your shoulders, you hold on to my shirt at the waist, we’re both smiling- your smile, from one ear to the other, your braces reflecting in the little sun London ever gets. We’re somewhere just outside the city, a nearby village in the country side, at my family’s vacation house; That house, build in 1835, home to so many people, generations, families, I used to believe it was haunted by those souls trapped in its walls.

On the right side, that massive oak tree that kept us shaded in the summer afternoons, the one we used to rest our backs up against off, read to one another, gossip… you so often complained about your mother, how she controlled you, how you felt invisible, about your father, his anger, turned into violence, into absence, an I’d spent hours holding your head in my lap now soaked with tears.

But I don’t look as happy as you do in the photo, almost as if I’m looking through the camera, maybe at the one taking the photo, though I don’t recall who it might have been. Behind us, a dirt path leading far into the distant horizon, where the camera can no longer capture it.

I’m wearing my favorite lace shirt, you’re also wearing one of mine, I remember you not bringing any clothes, but i never minded sharing. I had just cut my hair, all by myself, with a pair of dull school craft scissors, just below my ears, uneven, my bangs just barely reached the middle of my forehead; my beautiful blond hair, my mother was devastated, holding the wavy bundles of hair on the bathroom floor, I’m sure you remember, not even your presence stopped her anger, but I look so proud of myself here.

Your sight, still perfect at that time, so I probably don’t need to spend more of my time describing the color of the grass or the sky, and I doubt I’ll soon forget the oak and that warm sunset the London city clouds hide from us, leaving just the dull and grey sky, so we try really hard to give our lives color.

I hope I revived within you the memories of a better time, the memories we share, and I hope this letter finds you well, just as full of life as I remember you, despite it all.

Your oldest friend Victoria

Cut the knitting thread into equal length pieces and fit them through the small holes of the globes, make two knots around the bald tree branch. the star looks the same it did in the old yellowish photograph your mother kept hanging in the living room. Your grandfather lifts her above his head, the photo taken right as she, with her small hand, places the ornament at the top of the tree.

From the oven, the smell of the steak bathes the whole kitchen in a heavenly and familiar smell. Outside, the harsh cold, pushes the carolers to your doorstep, they sing beautifully, their voices trembling. You fill their bags with candy and tangerines, “Merry Christmas!”.

Your mother digs her hands in the yellow dough; you’re her little helper, adding flour when her fingers start to stick together. Cutting the Turkish delight into little cubes, you slip one into your mouth, breaking the tea biscuits, melting the chocolate over the gas stove; Christmas becomes a smell in your memory, of candles and powder sugar.

It hasn’t snowed in a couple of years but the holiday has always been about the warmth inside; as your father locks the door, carolers are no longer welcome, the bag of tangerines has emptied.

My journal is less a series of entries and more a collection of my everyday thoughts, about, usually quite useless subjects, but sometimes, a fire awakens inside me and I run to my notebook ready to fill the pages with, what I deem, are crystal clear reflections of my mind on paper.

The first page of my journal reads:

Have you ever wanted to participate in an internet fight but were scared of the idea of an “internet footprint”, or just thought those people weren’t worth your time?

I’ll write my personal opinions on some topics I found on apps like Twitter.

Spending a lot of my time on social media, sometimes, I come across certain things I don’t agree with; in our day and age almost everybody, no matter how poor, owns a mobile phone, so it becomes easy being exposed to very different opinions, especially one’s we aren’t used to.

I’ve noticed, in the past couple of years, a rise in conservatism, misogyny, racism and other harmful and hateful ideologies, that uneducated people have the liberty to publicly share on social platforms, manipulating young and impressionable people. Debating a respectful, educated person is, almost, an enjoyable experience, in which you both can learn and expand your horizons; however, an ignorant person will always hold on to their ego and refuse to acknowledge anything other than what they are used to.

Hearing heinous stories of rape, child marriage, genital mutilation, sex trafficking, not just on the news, the internet or in books, but in real life as well, from strangers to my closest friends, from third world countries to my neighbourhood, from Islam to Christianity. Painful and tiring.

Going on social media just to hear a privileged man from a first world country talk about the '“problems” he and other men face, “male loneliness epidemic”, Onlyfans, porn, which I would also argue, they are important topics of discussion, but they’re only brought up when women face injustices in our society. Compare these things to what I mentioned women go through and you’ll be left questioning what exactly goes on in a man’s mind when making these associations, what kind of morals does he lack to prioritize mere inconveniences over suffering.

The immigration problems in Europe aren’t just about cultural and religious differences between people, they are most of all, in my opinion, about gender. I don’t doubt most immigrants don’t have in mind to commit illegalities, I should know that, as an eastern European, we’ve always been viewed as lesser than in the west. I don’t often hear any news about Arab or North African women raping or terrorizing the citizens of London or Berlin. I think the male aggression only rises when met with poverty and freedom.

You’d have to be blind and unwilling to open your eyes to not see the differences between how men and women are treated in our societies, to have access to all this information and still chose to live in a lie, make yourself believe you’re just, if not more, oppressed, maybe because it makes you feel special or you get some type of satisfaction from discrediting women’s experiences.

“Rape as a weapon of war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo”

“Children executed and women raped in front of their families as M23 militia unleashes fresh terror on DRC”

“Afghan women are being pushed out of nearly every sphere of life”

Slowly killing and erasing women as a whole, men still feel that women life more privileged lives, that they are evil and weak and that equality is a thing of the past.

In the past ten to fifteen years, male achievement in school has been dropping considerably; The men of this generation are uneducated by choice, no wonder there is a rise in harmful ideologies.

This summer will pass.

And slowly I’ll forget,                                                

But it won't be fully gone,

It’s waiting for me,

For the fruits to ripen,

For the flowers to bloom,

For my skin to show,

So, it can sink it’s sharp teeth into me,

Once again...

Sweet

Flowing from my mouth to my elbows

Between my fingers like honey,

So sweet and undeserved.

I thought you won’t survive the cold

Spring mornings.

Desires

Foggy visions on the horizon,

It takes everything in me to crawl through the heat.

It morphs its appearance to satisfy my desires.

But, in the end, it can’t offer me what I want

  Veins

How can the sun catch a glimpse of my pale skin...

It’ll feel like death,

How I went my whole life,

Depriving myself of this happiness.

Worth

My hands tremble and my eyesight’s getting worse,

My back hurts and my fingers bend around the brush.

I’m scared you’ll remain a distant memory,

Of my worth and talent,

As I keep putting off our meeting.

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-Are you here on business? Said the driver aware of the complete lack of that kind of thing in these areas. The man nods. He's thin and sits somewhere at just under two meters tall, dressed in all black clothes that don’t quite protect him from the harsh cold, pale translucent skin veils his boney body, his long fingers almost purple from the cold, struggle to find the pockets of his coat.

-Hope you liked it, not much to see, but the people are very warm.

Said the driver not believing a word that came out of his own mouth. Before he can ask the man anything else, the car’s engine interrupts him with a high pitch screeching sound, after which, a thin, cigarette like sheet of black smoke protrudes from under the beaten hood.

A yellow Zhiguli, with no plate numbers, slowly carries the men, almost floating above the white sea of never ending thick frozen snow, flattening under the weight of the tires. Leaving behind the certitude of the men’s existence , the car’s route, that by morning will be fully buried by a fresh layer of snow.

It is 4:30 a.m. and further away from the foggy village; no street signs, no light, besides the car’s, which is dim and not helpful, They’ll just have to trust the driver, Rurik.

The name “Rurik” has old Norse origins, not the man’s actual name but he carries it proudly, it means “glory”, something Rurik never got to experience in the heart of the world’s  most secluded prison.

Rurik is not Russian, he’s Lithuanian like his late grandparents. He’s stuck amongst people whom he can’t connect with.  He lives in a small communist apartment build on top of a layer of permafrost, slowly sinking each time the sun rises, which, luckily for him, doesn’t happen very often.

These glorious brutalist buildings in the middle of nowhere are the result of a massive wave of migration that took the village by storm more than 60 years ago. When the people’s of the Soviet Union, poorer than they’ve ever been, were sent to work in a industrial plant for steel manufacturing. For that injustice Rurik has always blamed his grandparents, and later his father, for not leaving when he had the chance. This is Rurik’s first time meeting someone from the west, his car doesn’t take him very far and he hasn’t left the province in years.

He struggles to remember a day in which the sun, warm and kind, touched his face, a day without snow, a day in which he didn’t have to bend his back carrying wood, so he didn’t freeze to death in his small apartment, all alone.

Rurik loves to read, Russian literature, left to him by his old father, he doesn’t understand much. In the past people didn’t even know their exact birth date, since there were no certificates or civil records, Rurik was himself, one of those people, that just lived, without knowing how or why. His life was not a gift, and of that, he was reminded everyday.

The road, further away from the industrial plant turns into a mere dirt path, filled with pot holes, Rurik making sure he doesn’t miss any of them. He realizes he hadn’t asked the man for his name.

-I can’t believe it! I forgot to ask you your name...

- .... ( the man doesn’t even look Rurik’s way)

With his right hand Rurik straightens the rearview mirror to look at the man, as his left hand rests out of the window, holding a wrinkled and cheap cigarette, he hardly can suck the smoke out of, under his full grey moustache.

A stack of letters, postcards and stamp sheets thrown carelessly an the passenger seat, some dating to the 30’s, none from or for Rurik. As he crushes his cigarette, smoked all they way to the fingertips, on the side of his car, next to the other dozen perfectly round burn marks, he hears the man whispering in a weird dialect, Rurik couldn’t quite make out, but thinks is Slavic.

They drive deeper and deeper into the darkness, snow slowly starts to fade away, the path narrows until it completely disappears and shadows of tall buildings appear on the horizon.

Rurik could not believe his tired eyes, all his life he had tried to leave the secluded nightmare he was unwillingly born in, and never have his eyes been blessed by a sight such as this.

Eventually the car slows down until it fully stops. In front of them, a rusted barrier and behind it a line of train tracks, a sign so faded it’s unreadable. He turns off the engine. The silence is total, no wind, no animals, until... in the distance he can make out the faded sound of a train horn. The traveler opens his door and gets out, as the dark blue light of the early morning makes everything slightly more visible.

Rurik clenches the door handle, looking at the strange man, the train sounds to be closer and closer. A deafening sound rings in his ears as the train stops right in front of the man, a warm light almost melting the windows. The train doors open and close behind the man, that doesn’t, not once, glances back at the car. As fast as it came, the train left, cutting through the air like a knife.

When the dust settled, the horizon was empty. No city, no buildings and no train tracks. Rurik doesn’t want to believe it, he opens the car door and runs to the place the barrier and the tracks were. He starts digging with his bare hands, puffing and coughing, until he can no longer feel his old fingers. He looks in the distance, all he can see are trees, he falls down to his knees, sobbing and holding his hands between his thighs.

He doesn’t have the power to get up and face the reality, his car is useless and soon enough, it starts snowing, pilling on top of him. Nothing but a dune of snow, hiding him from the eyes of god and the laughs of the forest.

As the light fades from his eyes and the blood drains from his face, pouring out from the cracks in his dry hands, almost black at the fingertips; he hears as faintly as humanly possible a train horn in the distance.

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it’ll mean a lot

So why then are our houses, churches and walls filled with holy faces?

Humans have always sought to beautify their homes, their personal spaces, their places of worship. I don’t think I’m mistaken in saying our believes are grounded in visual imagery. It’s somewhat comforting associating a face to the name, that face being a human’s might help even more in feeling seen and understood.

Being born in an eastern European society, even when I stopped being religious, religion was no less part of my everyday life, it is more than just a belief, in orthodoxy, it’s religion, culture and politics, that unfortunately go hand in hand, painfully coexisting in the twenty first century.

As far back as I can remember, my childhood home was and still is full of icons; orthodox icons are slightly different from westerns one’s, there’s a science behind them, behind the eyes, the lips, the hands, the colors, they almost don’t look human, with a glowing burnt sienna skin with long stiff fingers, with longing faces. Madonna and Child has always looked somewhat uncanny but comforting and nostalgic.

In comparison with western icons, they look alive and in eternal pain, captured perfectly by the hands that have studied each and every brushstroke for years. An art slowly being lost due to time. What does a glowing white face with bright blue eyes symbolize for them? A white veil on her virgin head, covering her blond wavy hair. My Mary wears dark navy with gold embroidered detailing, she has a yellowish-brown face and empty black eyes, she holds her child so tight, their faces look like Klimt’s “The Kiss”. She walked from house to house to birth her savior always denied, her face looks helpless.

Covered in gold, the beautiful excellence of the poverty these faithful people face. Enormously large columns, gold chapels stand tall above the harsh winters we once used to have, when left in the dark only light by candle.

Russian historians believed certain rules had to be followed for the creation of a proper icon. Iisus’ face looks like melted candle wax, his eyes not kind nor forgiving, he looked vengeful, tired. Mary, a virgin fourteen year old child holding her god, his abnormally small face merges into hers, showing every emotion and none all at once.

My mother had an immense icon altar in our house, countless gold framed paintings, holy water, dried flower petals. I never saw her pray. Religion is all that surrounds us, in other branches of Christianity, Sunday morning church might be a routine, even expected, in Romania, people aren’t religious, but they believe in god, it is abnormal to be a nonbeliever, but perfectly normal to drink, smoke, not pray or be violent.

Every easter morning, we eat bread and drink red wine, the body and blood, and for most it’s just that, no question. Religion lives through people, in their hate, it explains it, forgives it.

Religion enforced the feeling of unity, of a community, made people feel purposeless without it. Stepping foot into a two hundred year old church, you star questioning your lack of fate, you feel small and weak.

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Nobody is born with their own definite style or taste. They are a collection of all the things they consume throughout their lives, all the movies they watch, all the books they read, all the people they talk to.

A gallery of all the love, the hate, your mother’s tears, your father’s anger. You slowly grow into their habits, a mosaic of the two most influential figures in your life and the things they poured into you, their first time being parents.

What creative people tend to understand more than others is that nothing is original, nothing comes out of nowhere, especially in the modern world, where it is becoming harder and harder to think for yourself and create without a reference. Everything is build on top of already existing ideas and concepts.

The world is forever evolving, new information keeps being added to an original base, new elements are discovered, a new way of viewing our lives. Sometimes I think If I had been born a thousand years ago, could I had been an intellectual or would ideas of something new had been just as difficult to conceptualize as they are now. That must mean we aren’t stuck, creatively, our brains are just incapable of understanding something that doesn’t yet exist.

When writing a school essay, and researching the ideas of the classics, by combining every theory, you could surprise yourself by forming an “original” thought, meaning, for a moment, going off script your brain formed a notion millions of other had before you; but if you truly believe that the concept is yours, it very well could be.

Have confidence in what you do and be impossible to ignore, one day, a person might care to look, and others will be thrilled to do the same.

Life is about creating one’s self, write, write, write, all day, everyday, paint, paint, paint; create the best version of yourself by merging the best elements of your favorite people. Stealing isn’t flattering, it doesn’t need to be, it’s insulting, keep doing it until you build a person you’re proud of. Often you’ll only ever be allowed to steal what others willingly throw at you, and you’ll be hungrily picking the pieces up, because authenticity is magnetic, people look for muses all around.

When we steal we become a museum of things we love, unpolished and true, and we turn it into art, art we hang inside our personality’s museum.

Everything is a personal gain, original or not, when your goal is to create and experience life, even through others, even through their eyes, their words.

I glance at my paintings and I still, after ten years, see Van Gogh in the brushstrokes, Monet in the pale colors, Klimt in the details. But my art looks nothing like “Almond Blossom”, “Woman with a parasol” or “The kiss”, it looks like me, like my trembling hands against the cheap canvas, like my bad posture, crouched above the painting late at night, like my flower garden outside my window in the summer.