Momentos bajo cero (AEN)

21 de marzo, 2019

Quisiera congelar este momento, este instante en donde me acoges en tus ojos,

donde me abrazas con tu sonrisa, 

donde desaparecemos del mundo otra vez. 

Alguna vez dijimos que volveríamos a estar juntos, 

quizás en un par de años, no más...

Ingenuamente creí que eso era una eternidad,

ahora ya casi ha pasado una década, 

¿un par de años?

Eso sólo fue un pestañeo. 

Y te veo ahora y no puedo creer que eres un hombre, 

un hombre con sueños y planes,

un hombre con responsabilidades y éxitos,

un hombre con el que por momentos quisiera pasar el resto de mi vida, 

una vida de escucharte, de verte dormir, de hacerte reír,

una vida de sentirte y destruir camas, sillones y asientos traseros de autos, 

una vida de sorprenderte, de enamorarte, de soñarte. 

Te quiero tanto...

tanto como he intentado no hacerlo. 

Hasta hace poco acepté que no quererte es imposible, tan imposible como estar contigo. 

Así, me remito sólo a los momentos que se derriten entre nuestros dedos, 

que se entrelazan y se separan,

a los instantes que se escurren entre nuestros besos y abrazos, 

a las memorias que prevalecen en mis sueños. 

A veces quisiera adelantar mi vida otra década sólo para saber si tú y yo finalmente coincidiremos,

sólo para saber si el nombre que yace impreso en mi historia desde sus inicios oficiales será el mismo nombre que terminará a su lado. (Y sólo tú entenderás esto)

Pero no puedo hacer eso. 

Sólo me resta seguir viviendo, como lo he hecho hasta ahora, 

conservando en mi memoria nuestros momentos y

algo entre nosotros

algo que espero nunca termine. 

Pequeña Lu

Timeless (AEN)

How can I describe the way that you fragment my thoughts, separate my senses, and invade each and every single synapsis in my mind.

Your eyes... unveiling my soul, looking though me as if mine were the last trace of hope from humanity, as if I was that island you have been searching for years, decades, an eternity. I can't figure out what color are those iris, I just see your pupils dilating, opening like an abyss to a universe yet to explore.

I could lose myself in your eyes forever. I do not even need to touch you to understand that I have lost myself, I will never be the same, I can't go back.

Please, don't stop looking at me. Ever.

How do you do it? How do you make your eyes smile like this? Am I smiling too? If we could stretch this fragment of our lives forever...

And you hold my hand.
Is this real?
I feel so much love that my eyes are going to exploit in waves of emotions. I guess that I am crying do to all the nostalgia accumulated in my heart. Or maybe it is fear. I am afraid that you will disappear, just like everybody else did before.

I feel your hand, warm, soft.
I blink quickly, trying to clean my eyes. I don't want you to find out that I am about to cry, although I know that it is too late for that.

Unexpectedly, you share with me an accomplice smile. I see that your pupils start to fill with tears as well, like an oasis of understanding.

We start to laugh.
The peaceful tides of your happiness clean my tears and take my fears away, leaving me with overwhelming expectation.

Silence.

You look at me again, I want to say something but I am afraid of breaking the moment. No words could explain what you mean to me.

You get closer...
Closer.
And we close our eyes as the world evaporates.

A letter for love (AEN)

February 13, 2018

Listen to Downtown by Majical Cloudz when reading this. 

I wish I could tell you how much you mean to me.

How you make me shiver when I wake up after dreaming about you. 

How you make me laugh, cry, or lose my breath while I stay still, remembering you.

And I know I moved on, we all need to get going with our lives. 

You are so far away, in every sense, in every dimension.

Yet, there are these brief and sporadic moments when I feel your heart beating inside mine. 

When I want to expand my energy for thousands of kilometers just to reach you, 

to feel you,

to breath your breath,

to touch your touch...

Linger, linger there... in that surreal moment when we existed, when we lived. 

Did all really happened?

Sharp memories of you are becoming foggy fantasies, fantasies of us. 

And I love you so fucking much, even now, when we don't talk anymore. 

At least not as often as we used to.

I hope that you know that. 

And words are running through my mind as fast as my synapses exploit while writing this. 

All the lexicon in my English or Spanish cannot express the numbness I feel,

I am paralyzed.
My mind is hypnotized by thoughts of you...

You will be forever mine, in the ephemeral time we shared,

and I will be forever yours.

Thank you for changing me, 

for completing my human condition,

because even now, that we are nothing, you make me feel alive. 

Alive in this love that prevails without you. 

I hope to see you again someday, 

and perhaps it wont be too late...
Because, regardless of everything,
I am going crazy, crazy for you. 

Forever yours,

Lu'ey

Mist of love (AEN)

14.01.2018

And just like that, it happened. 

I have always thought that it is a total cliché to say that you find love whenever you are looking for something else. Well... I am part of that cliché now, welcome to the infatuation ride... Again.

It was not love at first sight, I have to admit that. When we first met, I simply thought that he was an ok guy. It was until the second time I met him, when I realized how much I actually liked him. And I feel totally lost right now, as if I just landed into a forbidden aphrodisiac land, in the middle of a misty platform. And all that fog keeps you alert... Should I go down and find out what is out there? What about all the previous predators that have eaten my beating heart alive in all the other exotic beaches and oasis?

I am scared to shit. 

Yeah, I admit that too. 

When one has been passing from island to island looking for one to settle, one can get not only tired, but hurt. We all carry our love scars, battle stories, all the post-romantic-war syndrome package. This new island came across while I was minding my own business, flying my plane in quite pleasant weather. I feel like a normal human being again, fine. 

My cabin here is warm and safe... why risk it?

And Lucia debated with herself, to love or not to love?

As you, dear reader, may know, she has been up and down in the past couple decades and all she has gotten has been the pieces of her own heart for her to put back together. 

Love, what an interesting thought. That little ticklish feeling in your stomach. That stupid smile on your face. That unexpected rush of energy and irrational positivism. 

Amazing love.

But we all know that love is not just that. Love is sacrifice, love is commitment, love is pain, and love is a battlefield (yeah, like the song). Perhaps the greatest battles on Earth have not been fought over religion, politics, or power. Perhaps they have been fought for love. Not everyone is brave enough to keep love, for finding it is quite simple in contrast to what comes after the "meet cute" moment. 

And... who is crazy enough to fight for love these days? Times when people want everything easy and fast. When the divorce rate keeps going up year after year. When the new generations do not believe in marriage or institutions. Sorry, I realized that I am turning a little political now, and I am just a humble narrator in this story, ha!

So, what is love?

Are we willing to risk who we are for it, to change who we are for a glimpse of that life-changing decision? 

No one is the same after giving up for love. 

No one shouldn't. 

For real love brings out the best version of ourselves, we can't see things in the same way after that. But to reach this bliss, this top of the world, we must understand that love is not selfish and that it can't be controlled. Love may also not be eternal. It may fade, and with that one may fade as well if one is not strong enough to move on.

I can't assure you that fighting the love fight is worth it. I am just a product of someone else's imagination, I have never been in love! But, having the knowledge of all the songs, books, movies, poems, paintings, sculptures, and you name it that have been created in its honor, I have to guess that it should be worth it. 

And Lucia kept thinking about him, with that stupid long smile on her face. 

Yeah, I am scared to shit to come off of this plane, I see the mist and wonder if my story will end up as one of Stephen King or Stephenie Mayer (quite a comparison, right?). Well... maybe it will end as neither of them. We all are the writers of our own stories... unique, mesmerizing, and daring. And isn't it what I am doing? Writing..?

And she came off the plane. 

What will happen next, only love knows. 

Nothing about us (AEN)

04.01.2018

I met him.

Again.

After years of not seeing his laughter, I found his expecting set of brown eyes in the middle of the night, in the middle of the crowded city. 

It hit me, like a plane crash. 

He was smooth and elegant, just as I remembered him. He did the same cracking sound with his fingers whenever something was funny enough to make him laugh. I felt proud of myself whenever I accomplished to bring out that intoxicating sound out of his mouth. I love his laughter... 

He still held me in the same way as before, gently, softly. 

Somehow he makes me feel special, but many times I wonder if he is like this with everyone.

We had dinner, talked about our lives and how we had changed or not. And, as a cruel joke from faith, I found myself doing something I thought would be impossible at this point of my life: I reconsidered us. 

US

There is something about it... 

Something about us.

Of course, it was a silly, brutal, and irrational thought. 

It was a matter of few days, after that cozy and passionate night, to understand that some things will never change. For him, I am just a pastime and an old friend. Nothing more. 

There will always be an excuse to avoid any sort of commitment. It will never be the right time, or better said, I will never be the right one. 

And, I am too old for these games. 

However, for a moment, it was nice to feel hope again. Love hope. It made me feel alive, it was a long time since I had corny thoughts and a reason to play a stupid romantic film and watch it as a romantic story and not as science fiction. 

It's been months that I have felt that love stories are science fiction. Something impossible to happen to me. I feel like a little alien in the world of weddings, babies, and couples. But, I must say, that I consider myself a cute alien, a happy alien.

Anyways, going back to that guy...

Whatever we are, that handsome monster and I, I will never understand. The monster that makes me linger for a brief instant of bliss followed by a wreckage, where my heart is torn apart again, where I come to my senses and understand that he will never be nothing more than that.

A monster,

my monster... 

I wish that he knew, how much he means to me. 

Now it is time to send all this nonsense to my subconscious, again. I am old enough to understand when things will not happen, I am not that naive anymore.

Something about us. 

But not enough...

Perhaps it is time to accept that it is actually nothing. 

As I said earlier, it hit me like a plane crash. And what hit me was not to see him, to kiss him, to embrace him; it was to understand that for him it is nothing...

A monster and an alien.
Well... didn't sound as a good match anyways.

Invisible Time (AEN)

And there she was... walking through the crowd.

Life feels so fragile at times. For her, time had become a rather complex concept; as the years passed, she could not feel any older. She felt as young as the people she met, as young as her dreams, as young as her heart.

And she looked around, remembering everything she had seen and wondering why she was blessed with that chance, the chance of becoming a reckless nomad.

However, humans need to put their feet on the floor, for time does pass. Suddenly, seeing little kids holding the hands of their mothers felt as something she wanted to have. A little sparkle of life, a new hope for this world, a pure excuse to give herself to someone who would need her. And she would tell him stories about the world, about India, Japan, China, Poland, Netherlands, Brazil, France, Italy, Nigeria, Morocco, and many more. Stories of love, stories of friendship, stories of craziness and of hope.

Time, so relative.

While sitting in the subway train, she stared at the window and got lost in the images outside.

I wonder where are you, my dear. 
I wish I could tell you all I had seen and felt; the dreams I had and the hopes I kept. 
I still don't understand when or where I will find my way back to you, my fear is that this will never happen and that we will fade. 

We keep walking alone. 
We keep finding our way towards our destiny and to what we will give to this world. 
I want to make a better world, I don't think that anything else will fill this craving but to give myself to humanity as an exchange for all the blessings I have received. The question is... what should I do to make this world better?

I wonder what you would say, what you would suggest. 

I do realize that I want to share my life with someone... as I see that you are gone, I wonder who that would be. At times I feel that he might never appear at all. 

I am not afraid, whenever I am about to collapse there is always something that reminds me that we need to keep hope and continue. And God is there, as our best pal and most loyal friend. 

I pray for Him to keep you blessed, to keep you happy. And as I look at all these people through the window, minding their own business, I imagine you walking somewhere in between them... 

And she arrived to her destination. She stood up and was so absent minded that forgot her bag, which was pointed out by a kind man. As she left the train, holding her belongings, she shred a tear. She climbed the stairs up to the exit and wondered who that thoughtful man was, perhaps was God observing her.

And she did not feel alone, for she never is.

Navratri and sweet proposals (AEN)

October 19, 2015

It happened.

He did not see it coming, that this girl would shake his world. Shake it harder than those Indian barefoot complicated steps. She was dancing among the crowd, just as another Indian girl in that Navratri night. 

But she was not Indian. Not at all. 

And, as she hugged an African fellow, he realized, she can't possibly be an Indian. Indian girls don't show much her emotions, it is part of their culture not to display affection in public. Latin American girls are possibly the closest opposite to this. They cry, laugh, hug, kiss, dance, cry more, laugh again... There is something about Latin American people in general: due to his international experience, he had confirmed that regardless of gender, these peculiar beings were always the most easy going, extroverted, and loud specimen of humanity. The fact that he came from Eastern Europe made it even more obvious. 

Anyways, going back to latino girl, she kept dancing. She was doing great: no shoes, long skirt, lovely hair, cute steps.

-Who are you looking at? Agustin asked him. 

But Aleks didn't say anything. He just stared. Agustin looked in the direction he was looking at. 

-Are you checking out that blonde? 

-No. The brunette, in pink skirt. 

-The one that just fell down?!

This was my second Navratri night. What's Navratri? It is a Gujarati festival in India, where people dance nine days in a role to praise the nine forms of Shakri/Devi. Sounds very poetic; however, now it is also an excuse to hang out with friends until late night, show more skin than it is usually well seen by society, and all in all have an amazing night, even in week days. For me? Well... I took it as an opportunity to learn more about Indian culture and to dance, even teach some steps! Nothing classy, just the full version of Macarena, which, for instance, I don't even like! Whatever, in Asia, even that mechanical dance has become an exotic treat for me! 

And well... as usual, it happened: I fell down in the middle of the circle... 

Despite of her terribly fall, she was laughing herself out. I couldn't help it, I had to go and meet her. This seemed as the perfect excuse. I confess that I am usually a very reserved person and quite clumsy with girls, but India had given me some unexpected confidence. When most people look at you and think that you are handsome, just because you are different, you start to believe that it is true after some time. I am positive that when I am back to my hometown people wont even notice me among the crowd; but in India, getting lost among the population is practically impossible for someone like me. 

And he was almost there, extending his hand, when his way was blocked by an Indian who helped his mistress in need. She stood up, laughing, fixing her outfit. That was the moment when things would collapse for both expats... 

I naturally felt quite stupid, falling down as an idiot, while trying to make a fancy step. That is the problem when one gets clothes borrowed, they don't quite fit as expected. Being an expat, I didn't have proper traditional Navratri outfits, so I asked my friends for some clothes. In this specific case, the skirt was too long and consequently I finally ended up stepping on it, rest is old story. These things always happen to me! I guess I have to accept that I am a little cartoon character: small, funny, hilarious, and dramatic. But I was not feeling miserable at all, shit happens, all the time. Why feel bad about it?

Story of my life, I never get to impress a girl. Now, shall I just turn around and go back to my dancing circle, or...?

-Are you ok?

-Hmm... Yes. 

Where did he come from? Is he really talking to me?

Great! I talked to her... Now what should I say? Perhaps just...

-I'm Aleksander. 

-Lucia. Nice to meet you. 

Awkward moment, silence. 

-Have you been here for a long time? He finally said. 

-Well... enough to get all the typical Indian ups and downs. Three months. 

-Me too! How calm I had never seen you before?

-I was trapped in this sort of small village, working in a project. Although it was truly inspiring.

-Sounds more interesting than my story... 

-Are you opening some market in Europe for some Indian company?

-How do you know that?

-I told you I had been here enough time... Most of my friends are doing these kind of jobs, or helping an NGO. 

-No, how do you know that I am from Europe?

-Let's just say that I have a gift!

And she laugh. He smiled, it had been quite a long time since he had not heard a laughter like hers, loud, contagious, and sincere. 

I like this girl. 

-So, Aleksander, I think that we are in the way of dancers... 

-Oh, right! I didn't notice, sorry. 

-Wait, don't move out it, dance with me. 

-I am not a great dancer. 

-Me neither. 

-I saw you dancing, you were great, even while you fell. 

-Ha ha ha, very funny.

-It's true! 

-Ok, then I will teach you. 

-Really?

-Yeah, why not?

-Well, but only if you let me get you a Thumbs Up afterwards.

-Oh, proposing already? 

-But it is a sweet proposal, isn't it?

Well... I was not that bad at flirting after all. Ok, I will confess, this trick was thought by my Indian neighbor, although I had never tried it before. 

-Do you say this to all girls you meet?

Maybe it wont work after all...

-No, this is actually the first time. Don't look at me like that! This is really the first time!

-Ok, Thumbs Up it is! She said as she made herself a thumbs up sign with both hands. 

Awesome, it worked! 

He also thumbs up his fingers, just before he got hit by an Indian dancer. 

-Are you ok? ha ha ha! Maybe the proposal is not that sweet after all! Come, dance, we can start with Macarena. 

And both expats danced until their legs allowed them to. Well, I am sure they could have danced more, but as every hour passed by, their need to go out and talk grew a little more. 

-Ready for Thumbs up?

She just thumbs up her fingers, and smiled in the cutest way he had ever seen. 

And that was the end of life as both of them knew it.