25.3.20

Stay healthy

So this is life now.
All the fires that have been burning inside me just weeks ago, no, days only, have gone out. Silence around me and inside me. More calmness than I had in years. Peace, not to be confused with happiness. It's remarkable how quick and easy it was to accept this new normalcy.
We write history, stay home, it was never that easy to (hopefully) save the world. Okay, maybe we leave some behind, maybe once again we can see the arbitrariness that was given to the executive just like that, too easy to say now that they know what they‘re doing, oh they know what they‘re doing, alright, the signature on the free ticket hasn‘t even dried yet. A bit of control over the situation for the small price of a few lives, a few homeless here, a few refugees there, what's the world cost, I'll take two.
Only a few lives for the safety of the rest, the dregs are rejects, and just above that float the really important ones – applause! Standing ovations for the relevant! Appreciation for your daily bread, which you might not actually be able to buy because the shelves are empty when you, oh relevant one, finally get to do your shopping too, but that's no problem because you sure have our APPRECIATION, be proud of yourself! Because we‘ll only be in writing, we admire you, enduring the stress and let yourself be treated like shit by those who you are keeping alive, keeping everything running, it is so easy to forget who treats you like shit as long as we just clap loud enough. Maybe play the ode to joy in the evenings. Ignoring that your job has been hard for ages, not rarely unbearable. NOW you are important, congratulations, here is your participation trophy, and then we can hopefully forget soon why you were important and be important again ourselves.
The realization that we are not actually important when things get rough tastes bittersweet. Never has our work seemed less meaningful, never has it felt so empty to just keep going on but at least it gives us a bit of purpose, a bit of security while the world around us breaks apart. We don‘t have anything else, after all, we can‘t drown our depressions in booze and meaningless sex, not even a hug between friends to let us forget our pain for a moment. When things get rough it‘s clear who stays alone with their thoughts. How many will the virus kill, how many the economy, how many the solitude? What will we tell our grandchildren if we survived all of this? What will we say in a couple of decades?
So this is life now. We write this story. Let‘s hope that it's going to be a good one. One that we can tell without being ashamed. Be kind to each other. We have nothing else left.
Stay healthy.

4.3.20

Take your broken heart, make it into art

If you had a dollar for every time I said this
for every time I quoted Carrie Fisher
you‘d be a millionaire.
If I had a dollar for every time
you brought up this dollar thing
I‘d be a billionaire.
We just easily fell into place
with our quirks and
our scars
and
I lifted you up
when you grounded me
I kicked your ass to do things
when you made me chill the fuck out
for once in my goddamn life
and
now I am afloat.
Hundreds of feet above the ground
a balloon in the night sky
being nudged further away by the wind
Slowly drifting away
Its calm up here
Quiet
Not a sound between the stars
And cold
Freezing
And I wonder how I ever breathed
and did I ever need to, really?
I lost my ground
casting off
anchor gone
And I am scared
and yet a weight was lifted
but still scared of what‘s ahead
and scared ‚cause I‘m not burning
(why am I not burning)
Why do I feel so calm
and so cold
And nothing feels real anymore
I‘m just floating higher
and higher
(They say sky is the limit but
they didn‘t account for the infinity of space)
and forget that I have ever breathed
or moved
or felt
crystals on my face
that used to be tears
as I drift away
so much faster than I thought
Into emptiness
Take your broken heart
make it into art
but right now
art feels shallow
How can I make it art
when my heart has
yet to be shattered by the ice
Making art is just a habit
but how can I express what I feel
when I can‘t feel anything?
I am just floating off
it's so easy to fly when you weigh nothing
‚cause you‘re empty
Staring into space
and space stares back
as we become one
calm
and
cold
and
infinite nothing
and it will feel like peace
until I finally
implode