Ever wondered what goes on inside Unil’s stationary store? Well we went to find Enrico in his colorful little shop, and he graciously accepted to answer a few questions for us. Read on to learn about Enrico’s everyday life and you’ll never pass by his store without saying hello again! [version française en-dessous]
Can you introduce yourself and say a few words about your job?
My name is Enrico. I’ve always worked in mechanics, and now I’m here because I found this job for my wife, it’s her professional field.
For how many years have you been working in the University of Lausanne, and how did you end up here?
It has been 15-16 years. I took this job with my wife and now that we’re retired, we keep working here because we enjoy it, we want to be in contact with people, rather than being confined at home.
What does the usual workday look like?
In general, my wife comes in the morning and, as a sleeper, I come between 10:00 and 12:00. Then we wait for people to come and go. But there’s very few people coming now.
Since when did you notice that?
Since we closed for a year due to Covid-19. Even with the reopening there’s less students around, because lots of them still study at home. Besides, students are now used to working without paper, without supplies.
What do you sell the most?
Everything and anything, we sell everything that is useful in a university. Some things go faster than others, but it’s hard to say which ones, and it changes over time. For example, we used to bind books a lot, because the Reprographie only made copies and we bound them. But now they’re making copies that are already bound…
That could be interesting to some students! Do you still do bindings?
We still do, but very few. But we have plastic or metal spiral bindings of all sizes, and we also make glued bindings. And it’s cheaper than in other shops in the city (because, you know, sometimes we check the market prices).
What are the advantages of working here?
It’s a good way to spend time and to have some human interaction, I’ve always liked that. Some students come just to have a coffee and chat, because they can tell I also enjoy having a talk. It’s something that has always been part of my life: I’ve coached football teams, trained apprentices when I was working as a mechanic, … This desire to socialize is something that comes back.
So you like students? They are polite and respectful to you?
Students are generally decent with us, sometimes someone will be [pause; probably meaning “a bit unpleasant”], but it’s rare. In principle, when you’re decent to someone they repay you.
What are some disadvantages of your job?
There aren’t. I mean, the margins we make are really thin, so as long as we’re working here and don’t need the money to live, it’s going to continue. But if someone comes here after us, they’ll be younger and they’ll need a decent salary, because my wife and I never took a proper salary. So if it doesn’t make enough money, sooner or later the shop will have to shut down, that’s how it goes… But as for us, we’re happy here.
So you’re thinking about leaving?
Yes, my wife and I are thinking about working for a few more months and then we might put up an offer… Then instead of spending our time here, we’ll be able to travel around for 3 or 4 days at a time, see a city and then another. In the end, you can meet people just as well when travelling.
How did COVID impact you personally?
It impacted me like everyone else. Having to stay home, you learn to stay inside. And now it’s nice to be back and to see people again!
I agree! Finally, is there something you’d like to say to students?
You have to study if you want to get somewhere, today even a university degree is not always enough. You have to constantly challenge yourself. For example, when I was working [as a mechanic], every time there was something new, I’d go and take an evening class, because you can’t do things you know nothing about. That’s why I think the most important thing is to have solid bases in life, and then question yourself whenever it’s necessary.
T’es-tu déjà demandé.e ce qui se passe dans la papeterie de l’Unil? Et bien, nous sommes allées trouver Enrico dans son petit magasin plein de couleurs, et il a accepté de répondre à quelques questions pour nous. Continue de lire pour en savoir plus sur son quotidien, et tu ne passeras plus jamais devant sa boutique sans le saluer!
Pouvez-vous vous présenter et dire quelques mots à votre sujet ?
Mon nom c’est Enrico. J’ai toujours travaillé dans la mécanique, et maintenant je suis là parce que j’ai trouvé ce travail pour ma femme, c’est son domaine à elle.
Depuis combien de temps travaillez-vous à l’Université de Lausanne, et comment êtes-vous arrivé ici ?
Ça fait 15-16 ans. On avait pris ce travail ensemble, ma femme et moi, et maintenant qu’on est à la retraite on l’a gardé parce qu’on aime ça, on aime pas rester enfermés à la maison, on a envie de rester en contact avec les gens.
A quoi ressemble votre journée de travail habituellement ?
En général ma femme vient le matin et moi qui suis dormeur je viens vers 10-12h. Après on attend que les gens viennent et puis qu’ils s’en aillent. Mais actuellement il y a très peu de monde.
Depuis quand avez-vous remarqué qu’il y a moins de monde ?
Depuis que ça a fermé pendant une année à cause du covid. Même avec la réouverture il y a beaucoup moins d’étudiants, il y en a encore beaucoup qui travaillent à la maison. Et puis maintenant ils sont habitués à travailler sans papier, sans matériel.
Quel est le produit que vous vendez le plus?
Tout et n’importe quoi, tout ce qui est utile à l’université. Il y a des choses qui partent plus vite mais c’est difficile à dire lesquelles, et ça change avec le temps. Par exemple on faisait beaucoup de reliures ici avant, parce que la reprographie faisait que des copies et nous on faisait les reliures. Mais maintenant ils font des copies déjà reliées…
Ça pourrait intéresser certain.e.s étudiant.e.s de savoir ça ! Vous faites toujours des reliures ?
On en fait encore quelques-unes, très très peu. Mais on a des reliures en spirales plastique ou métal de toutes les tailles, et on fait aussi des reliures collées, et c’est moins cher qu’en ville (parce que de temps en temps on se renseigne sur les prix du marché).
Quels sont les avantages de votre travail ici ?
C’est un bon passe-temps pour avoir un contact humain, moi j’ai toujours aimé ça. Il y a des étudiants qui viennent juste pour parler en prenant un café parce qu’ils voient que j’aime bien le contact. C’est quelque chose qui a toujours été présent dans ma vie : j’ai entraîné des équipes de football, j’ai eu des apprentis quand je travaillais, cette envie de sociabiliser c’est quelque chose qui revient.
Donc vous appréciez les étudiants et les étudiantes ? Ils et elles sont polies et respectueuses avec vous ?
Les étudiants, ils sont assez corrects avec nous, de temps en temps il y a quelqu’un de [pause; signifiant probablement “un peu désagréable”], mais c’est rare. En principe, quand on est correct avec les gens ils nous le rendent.
Quels sont les désavantages de votre travail ici ?
Il y en a pas. Après les marges sont très petites, donc tant que c’est nous qui sommes là et qu’on vit pas de ça, ça va continuer. Mais si quelqu’un reprend ce sera des personnes un peu plus jeunes et il leur faudra une paye, parce que ma femme et moi on a jamais pris une vraie paye. Si le volume de caisse est trop bas, tôt ou tard ils seront destinés à fermer, parce que c’est comme ça… Mais nous on est contents ici.
Vous pensez donc à arrêter?
Oui, avec ma femme on pense travailler encore quelques mois et après peut-être qu’on mettra une annonce [pour trouver quelqu’un d’autre] … Après au lieu de passer le temps à la papeterie on pourra faire des petits voyages de 3-4 jours, voir une ville quelques jours puis une autre. Au final en voyageant on voit du monde la même chose.
Comment le COVID vous a-t-il affecté personnellement ?
Il m’a affecté comme tout le monde. Devoir rester à la maison, on apprend à rester enfermé. Et maintenant ça fait plaisir de retourner au travail et de voir du monde !
Je suis d’accord ! Finalement, avez-vous un message pour les étudiants et les étudiantes ?
Il faut étudier, si vous voulez arriver à quelque chose de nos jours même un diplôme universitaire c’est pas toujours suffisant. Il faut se remettre en question continuellement dans la vie. Moi par exemple quand je travaillais [comme mécanicien], chaque fois qu’il y avait des nouveautés j’allais faire des cours du soir, parce qu’on peut pas faire des choses quand on les connaît pas. C’est pour ça que je dis que l’important c’est d’avoir des bases très solides dans la vie et après se remettre une question à chaque fois que c’est nécessaire.
Merci beaucoup, c’était un plaisir de parler avec vous !
I know of a place, just beyond a poppy field, where I sometimes go to sing my songs. It’s quite close from your house, yet so very far away from you. When I go there, I usually sit near the streams, between the sad lilies (they keep their heads down, toward the ground) and I think about which words I should use. I have to carefully choose which words I will write or sing, because not all of them seem to reach your house, beyond the red tangled barrier of poppies. I’ll tell you something I don’t think you know: in my little book, now resting on the slightly wet grass, there are hundreds of words, and in the breeze flowing along the stream, there are even more, and there are still even more unspoken words inside my mind. I don’t think you know this, because in your mailbox, in front of your house, beyond the poppies, there are at best a few dozens of my words, and in your mind, which I feel is very far away from me, I think there are even less of my words. And perhaps, if I know that your house is close to me, yet I can’t see or feel you anymore, it’s because it’s not your house anymore, and you never told me you moved out. And sometimes I tell myself that you did not move out: it’s just that I can’t see you through all the knotted poppies. And if there are so few of my words in your mind, maybe it’s not because you never read what’s in your mailbox, but because so many times I didn’t dare go through the poppy field to put my words in your mailbox. Many times I tried to walk to it, but the wind blew from your house and through the poppy field, and I found myself in a quiet, hypnotic haze, and in this fog I thought I could see you next to your home. You should know that when I see you in these dreams, I can never bring myself to unwind the tangled poppies and make myself a way to you. Now you know why your mailbox needed to be empty for months before welcoming some of my words, and why lately no words came at all. I was simply sitting by the stream, between the sad lilies. Sometimes I wish you had left your house and helped me cut, burn, or untangle the poppy field, but was it even your task to do so? I’m not even sure you knew how potent these poppies were, and how a single step into them would throw me inside this stupor that kept me away from you for so long, and that will probably keep doing so. I could take care of the poppy field myself, but why should I do it? As I already said, I’m pretty sure you moved out of your house long ago, and that behind the field I would only find a rusted, empty mailbox. Besides, I don’t think you realize how afraid I am of discovering what lies beneath the poppy field. I already have an idea: under the poppy field is a graveyard, a graveyard containing all the words I could never bring all the way to your mailbox, all the words that ran along the stream until they got caught into this web of poppies, never to reach your ears. I’ll never know if you understand how much that hurts me to know that I had so much to say, but that I could only tell you so few words, as the rest of it was buried under the poppies. Now every time I go to this place again, I wish I had broken the golden vow while you still lived in your house, so that I could have told you everything I wanted to. But it seems like it’s just wishful thinking, and now the best thing I can do is hope that my decomposing words, resting under the poppy field, serve as a fertilizer for new, beautiful flowers. Who knows, maybe one day you’ll see them if you ever pass by your old house.
For this year’s issue, we asked our dearest staff members for their Christmas wishlist and they kindly agreed to take the time during this stressful period to write their wishes down. So, (drumroll please!) here are their deepest desires revealed here and only here just for you! And thanks to their generosity, you can appreciate the best baby pictures they have of themselves. Without further ado, let’s read about our favourite teachers from another angle!
Kevin Curran:
1. The chance to relive my youth! (But this time with friends and without living in my parents’ basement until the age of 35.)
2. An opportunity to explain myself, properly, about that “incident” in Las Vegas, which I think has been misinterpreted and blown way out of proportion.
3. Further to above: My dignity back
4. A statue of me, erected in a public place, that says something to the effect of “He Was Right After All.” Nothing too fancy. Just a little larger than life-size. Not embossed in gold or anything like that. Marble will do. Perhaps in a Grecian pose?
5. A written apology from all those who have wronged me. You know who you are! I HAVEN’T FORGOTTEN YOUR BETRAYALS AND YOUR . . . [is hastily bundled out of the room by men in white coats]
Kirsten Stirling:
1. Some research time
2. A direct wormhole to New York
3. The complete collection of Moomin mugs
4. Another date with James McAvoy
Anita Auer:
1. Heaps of snow
2. A little red riding hood cape to go with the dress
3. A time machine to listen to all the different dialects in the history of English
4. A date with Poldark
Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet:
1. Necromantic superpowers
2. A one-way ticket to Ibiza
3. Dinner with Edgar Allan Poe
4. A magic mushroom home-growing kit
Benjamin Pickford:
1. An invisible, immaterial bookcase, which would hold all my library without taking up any actual space in my apartment, but still hold actual books and not electronic files
2. A complete set of the OED, all 20 volumes, to go on that bookcase
3. Fluency in French, German, and Italian, instantly
4. A year’s supply of Branston Pickle (this can be an ongoing Christmas request, I could never have too much Branston on hand)
5. A pub crawl with Karl Marx, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Friedrich Nietzsche, though I’m not sure that any of them were notorious boozers (maybe it would be more fun with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jack Kerouac, and Mark Twain…)
I spent several hours looking at that door In silence My mind racing in every direction, but my body still. Waiting, hoping It cried out to the silence, begging it to respond Instead it lingered, there, by the door An old memory of a long-forgotten friend The door responded in its stead Alive—it shook and cracked and gaped its wide and loud mouth Whispering, slow at first, then whistling ever louder until its scream, cut by the sudden grasp of the handle, rang my eardrums. The intruder, not yet half a man, wore that kind of awkward expression meant to display a weak show of embarrassment all while betraying the narcissistic pride lying underneath The decisive ones were the ones who played with the silence Those that opened and closed the door Those who let it rattle unabated, begging for attention Without knowing, me, sitting alone in that silence was the biggest offering I could have made The silence meant everything all of a sudden. And I, as a part of it, took greater meaning as well There was no greater way of loving her, than sitting alone in that silence And so it would take off, whispering tentatively to the floorboards, swaying gently in the rafters, leaning by the entrance, and I with it, transfixed, and yet in constant motion There are those who go to the batting cage and crack their bats until the silence overtakes them all, and there are those who cower in fear in the company of endless and mindless chatter But the silence persists nonetheless, molded by your heart in its barely motionless chambers It’s so loud you can hear it, pounding in your ears and extending to they very end of all your extremities It’s so soft that to hear it you have to listen very carefully To truly hear it In that silence I cried. Silent teardrops filled with noise That rolled off my face into the awaited abyss. And as my still body began to move It called out my name
Tío
Oh Dani did I cry for you Such eyes I had not seen
Memory does strange things to time Of that blurred still when
you attempted to cross the world in an instant on your broom (you must miss hurting your knees now) Sportive drive pick-ups A crack in exchange for a smile The virgin hairs on your cheekbones But your final words Impressed Seem a lifetime away I look at my garden Grown over with weeds And I’m aching with that loss To put dirt on my hands Of toiling to cultivate, bleeding and sore With a seed of trust Some good to invest And you’re still running on that beach
If only I could fill pages As quickly as I spilt tears
C’è
Anna you were beautiful Like everything on that day And you made that greeting, to me And that smile And your profile picture That day I realized that you don’t go to a wedding alone as a bride, for the groom But as a friend, daughter, sister, sister-in-law, aunt, niece, child, woman And all this was true For that secure hand For those enchanted voices And for the gaze of the one who stood beside you It would be trite to call it love Almost reductive But for a glance That outside in that stable someone cultivated for the first time Yesterday you witnessed And today I expect nothing else
Lucie
Remember when I said I was alone? That happened again today And when I was sitting there, Just looking at my screen I thought
When I consider that A million miles away Someone visiting a foreign country Reminiscing about long lost friends I find myself on a train Looking out the window
A memory of some time Passed with people Whose names and faces I recollect But who was I? And why should I recall?
When not thinking But only feeling That one beat Calls my name
I wait
And close my eyes Or perhaps I close my eyes and wait
My pain loves me more than you ever will, She understands me like nobody else, And when my blood drips for her she pales, She knows that, for her, my hands could just kill.
She cuts my chest open to rip my heart, Out of the hole which now stands here empty. I can’t feel anything so I am free, Hope ends where with undying love I start.
I wouldn’t want her to be my enemy, I want her to be less scared of me, I want her to understand and witness.
Witness my shame and my sorrow for her, She will finally see me in her fur, And decay shall be voice of weakness.
Raindrops are hitting the roof, creating a nostalgic music, an atypical and changing rhythm. As if the clouds are changing moods, aggressive fury, restful quietude, dancing joy.
You loved the rain.
You loved desserts, word plays, sunbathes at the beach, cocktails and cats.
I loved everything you loved, and I thought it was enough.
Yes, you loved a lot of things, but I wasn’t a part of it.
For a long time, I wondered what I was doing wrong to be unworthy of your love. It seemed to me that I was the most attentive, the most motivated, the gentlest. Yet, the first day’s passion was fatally replaced by the fear of hurting someone you considered as sympathetic. But love is blind, and what was clearly a unilateral relationship was emerging in my head as an idyllic romance.
So, I didn’t see that I was stifling you, I didn’t understand why you were so cold when I was trying to offer my heart, I didn’t interpret the signals indicating that we were going downhill.
Maybe you think that I was being naïve, but your presence used to be enough to ease every one of my sorrows. I was under your hold, you controlled me; your words seemed holy, your actions seemed heroic, your requests became my obsession. Ultimately, nothing was impossible when it came to you, I would have blown down a mountain if you asked me to.
But it was this upward force that, paradoxically, pushed our relationship towards the abyss of failed loves. You wanted the “me” of the beginning, the one who was not under your spell, the one who used to act like he didn’t want you. At the end of the day, giving you attention meant losing you. And the first time I looked at you with passion, you looked at me with disgust.
You had your problems that you would have shared for nothing in the world, because with me, you’ve never been vulnerable. Never, despite the weight of you sorrows, you saw me as trustworthy. And I realized just now that our intimacy didn’t expand outside the sheets of the bed.
I asked myself what I was doing wrong, and it came to me. It wasn’t something that I had done, nor something I hadn’t done. You just wanted someone I wasn’t.
What I had to give wasn’t in line with what you were asking for, it wasn’t too much, it wasn’t too little, it just wasn’t it.
The hatred that I used to carry against you when you ended my fantasy, was in reality badly directed. It was against the resentment of this relationship that I kept this visceral hatred: despite all my efforts, I didn’t succeed in impacting your life like I wanted to. And it was this feeling, the impression of being a man among the crowd, to be a transition towards happier days, this very feeling that kept me up at night. Maybe I wasn’t the man of your dreams, but I sadly realized that I wasn’t the exceptional man I thought I was. And this reflection has the power to shatter one’s self-confidence to its foundation.
I’m mad at myself. Mad to have used so much energy in vain, mad to have put myself through emotional danger for someone who was explicitly pushing me out of their life.
As time goes by, it becomes more and more difficult to remember the good memories. You never confided, you never lowered the wall you built between us, you never showed who you are.
I don’t hate you.
I simply don’t know you.
You were just a stranger who used to love listening to the rain in my arms.
In celebration of returning to our academic and social lives in person (hopefully for good this time), MUSE sent out a form inviting UNIL students to share the most surprising, funny and strange thoughts and reactions they have experienced ever since Coronavirus barged into our lives uninvited. Every response was entertaining to read and much appreciated by your favorite student magazine. Don’t forget to grab your popcorn and enjoy!
Me coming to university on the first day like:
OH mY gOd there are PEOPLE here
When my workplace changed their sanitizer brand, my first thought was “Cool! I’m looking forward to trying the new one!”. And then I realised how excited I was for something that’s genuinely very unexciting.
I get offended when people don’t want to hug me because of Covid, lol.
It’s always a weird experience meeting new people and then seeing them for the first time without the mask. I always try to guess what their full face looks like, but I get surprised every time.
The two things I fear the most are : wasps, and Zoom meetings with camera on and mic unmuted.
Even though I’ve been studying at UNIL for 6 years, the first time I took the lift again to go to the ground floor, I pressed the button “0”… and ended up in the basement.
Whenever I watch a movie or TV show and there are bars and club scenes I feel so weirded out, like where are their masks and why are they standing so close to each other? And then I remember that these shows and movies were released before Covid, hahaha.
Well, I guess waking up and getting out of bed is a thing now!
Coming back to uni in September and recognizing other students from Zoom – i.e., knowing in some cases their first AND last names – and still being way too shy to go say hi in real life.
I was in the metro one day when ticket controllers came in, and for a solid ten seconds, I had no idea if I had to show my travel card or my Covid certificate…
I’ve got to say, there’s at least one positive thing about wearing a mask during lectures: if I answer a question wrong, no one can see my embarrassment.
Then again, if a lecturer smiles or something, I feel like I have to exaggerate all of my facial movements and expressions to be understood. Is it possible to make your eyes… smiley?
Recently, I was standing in a crowd and looking for my friends and I could not remember how I used to handle crowds before and find people in them.
During the first days of this semester, I sat in the cafeteria and everything felt so different and I tried to remember what my lunch breaks used to be like (who I used to eat with, what I’d eat, when I’d have my breaks) and I could not remember Lunch Breaks BC™️ (Before Covid) for the life of me!
On the first day back to uni, the metro was so crowded I nearly had anxiety, haha, and I decided to change my route to come to uni. So, now I don’t take the metro anymore to come to uni.
When I used to leave my place, I always made sure I took with me my phone, wallet and keys. Now mask and ID are on the list. I sometimes still manage to forget them both and run back and get them. You can’t go anywhere without them anymore, it’s crazy. It’s like leaving the house without pants!
Everytime I see a shop in movies or a TV show, I’ll be mad at them all for not wearing masks, until I realise that it’s well over 2 years old…
I forgot what it was like to be in class in person again… Like you can actually sit next to people, talk to them and all which is really exciting when you first think about it. And then you run into people you wish you could avoid and try to master the skills of doing so. But all in all, it still feels great to be back.
I don’t think Covid is finished yet because there are still many restrictions and over 1000 cases most days.
Responses have been edited for clarity and length.
These literary characters have reached out to MUSE’s agony aunt, Felicity, asking for her help. Can you guess who they are?
Dear Felicity,
I have been unsuccessfully looking for love. I want a girlfriend but I think there’s nobody like me in the world. I would love her for all her flaws and imperfections. My father left me after my birth. I have recently found him again but he finds me ugly and he says no one will ever love me the way I am. I even have asked him to help me get a girlfriend but it’s out of the question for him. I have so much love to give but I don’t know what to do anymore. What else can I do?
Yearning for love
Dear Yearning,
Your father sounds like a very unhealthy person. He may be your father, but you are by no means obligated to stay in his life if he isn’t doing you any good. You are worth it and beautiful just the way you are, and somewhere out there, there is someone looking for you. Don’t give up!
Dear Felicity,
I just got married! I am really excited: he is loving, handsome, rich – a dream! My problem is, since the day we got married and I moved in with him, he seems cold and does not show any affection. I have been trying to distract myself but his housekeeper keeps reminding me of his late wife. I have started to think he is still in love with her! What should I do about it?
A discouraged bride
Dear Discouraged,
First of all, no one should compare you to another woman. If your husband’s housekeeper has a problem working for you, raise the problem to your husband – she should respect you. Second of all, from what you’re describing it seems like your husband loves you and really wanted to marry you. Maybe something else is on his mind and he is not ready to open up about it yet. Show him that you’re there for him and share your limits and boundaries. Good luck!
Dear Felicity,
I’ve just been expelled from school. I know I should care, but I feel like everybody is so fake, so I don’t. I’m struggling to make good decisions and I always seem to fail saying the right thing to people who do care about me. I don’t like many things. I make big decisions lightly, knowing I wouldn’t go through with them anyway. I’m scared my parents will never be proud of me. Can you help me?
An overwhelmed boy
Dear Overwhelmed,
It isn’t easy growing up and knowing what you want. Remember that nobody has got it figured out. Do more of what makes you happy, keep exploring. Take your time to process information; nobody is rushing you. Your parents are there for you and I’m sure that if you share your worries with them, they will happily help you make sense of what you’re going through. Take your time to breathe!
Dear Felicity,
I have been spending a lot of time with a man recently. He is coaching me so I can get a better job. I’ve been making great efforts and helping him with so many things, but he has never even praised or thanked me! But I keep telling myself that somewhere between all his bitterness must lie kindness, and I keep pursuing recognition from him. Also, he tells me if I leave, I will go back to my old job and never succeed. I’m afraid I won’t make it on my own. What am I supposed to do?
A torn girl
Dear Torn,
I hear you: it is hard to let someone go if you believe there is good in everyone. But, someone who disrespects you is not worth your time: spend time with people who treat you right. If you are not ready to give up on his coaching just yet, try to set yourself a limit of how far you are willing to go, or how long you are willing to stay without recognition. Plus, from what I’m hearing, you have made a great deal of progress and I am sure you can make it without him. Take care of yourself, you’ve got this!
I am the end of everyone the last man
It doesn’t matter if it now comes to an
end It’s good for everyone to be dead
sometimes good to be alive again
I will dance on the wire and people will
be amazed I’ll crosswalk the air and the
light dance on the wire until I die and
dance on the wire one more time
I shall smoke the last cigarette
butt inhale the last breath of poison
look around the hexagram of the heaven
close my eyes and let the sun shine red
behind
one last time
II.
Nonday morning
Smoke on the verge of eternity
Alone in
the dead-end street world
Every day and every year the same stuff on TV
The Internet is choke-full of brags and misery
And I just don’t care
I don’t wanna spend the night on air
Ruminating that avant-garde cinema dream
I keep thinking there is
no music on a dead plane
“I used to blackmail the night just to get some
sleep” was what you used to say
But you ended up talking to yourself
III.
Words to be thought words to be said words
to be sung and words to whisper God’s
language is still to be found fashioned and
heard down there on Earth down there on the
ground there is no church and no temple down
there on Earth down there on the ground
bone machines and articulated minds
mortal spirits without any idea of time
Down there on Earth down there on the ground
for the first time shall I tread
Crossing my arms I’m facing the man
This is the only prayer I mean to utter
This’ll be the only time
I look into your eyes
IV.
I used to walk around so much I used to go
nowhere at all I grew aimless and shameless
Soared over the ocean and through the rain
My senses sharpened the distance between
the world and my eye narrowed seeing and
being became one single gesture and losing
my gaze into the above skyway whenever I
saw a star I’d wonder if it were dead or alive
I’d wandered and wandered got so stinky and
so filthy and so soiled that when I looked into
the mirror I saw a man I’d never seen in me
Lost absorbed life-washed
That was just another me
I didn’t know then but I’d started anew
V.
As open skies we moved………………………...
From a wing to another…………………………..
Skull and limbs all exposed…………………….
We needed nothing………………………………...
Bareheaded and free……………………………...
…We needed nothing……………………………...
…Toward eternity…………………………………....
………………………………………………...……………....
………………………………………………...……………....
………………………………………………...……………....
………………………………………………...……………....
………………………………………………...……………....
………………………………………………...……………....
………………………………………………...……………....
VI.
Behold the fireflies of the mind in pieces all the
colors of thoughts in motion across the scenery
of the allegorical meaning of yourself the crazy
geography of heaven’s truthful sin
These are roads painted on the canals of your
vanishing body the idle image of a world gone
mad roads that’ll take you into your own country
where seasons and hours are landscaped into the
mirror of your self
Now the silence will shatter
from the sounds inside your brain this is the birth
of the eighth day
Thusness widespread on the
planispheric memory of a day forever forgotten
VII.
When will I be taken away? How will I be taken
away from it all? What for a manner is to draw
someone away like that from their friends family
cats books clothes and whatsoever that holds
together the pieces of one’s very own private self
without any warning just like that gone as a dart
through the classroom of time?
Suddenly I feel so afraid when I think of death
22 only yet I feel so old when surreptitiously
I grow conscious of my own mortality
22 still alive When will I trespass? When will I
meet my other self? 22 still alive thinking of my
friends wondering who’ll be the first one to die
the first we’ll have to cry our hearts out for
Editor’s Note: Associated Artwork
Below you may find a list of artwork which this piece’s author associated with each sonnet. As some were protected under copyright, they were not included directly on this page. However, you may refer to the following links as you read the sonnets:
Today I went to the park. I followed the same path I used to seven years before. I asked my cousin if I could use the swing, she said that some girls like me often do it, so I thought it was right.
I started swinging and the air that blew my hair and caressed my skin made me happy. When I was a child, my father used to take me to that park every single afternoon. Seven years ago, the park was made of sand and dry plants. Today, I was going on swings made of steel. Back in my time, I played with wooden ones. I looked down to my legs and drew some little ones, the legs of a six-year-old girl, me. Me in that tender pink t-shirt-short combo my mom knitted for me. My little feet running around the place without thinking of tomorrow. When I was not conscious about my parents getting divorced. When I was not aware of why mom used to cry every afternoon. Today I felt scared. I feared pushing myself so high that I couldn’t go down and scared of going so low that I couldn’t get up and get stocked in that toxic and plastic sand. I felt overwhelmed. My cousin asked if I was ok, so I hid the tears.
I wondered if I could go so high that I could touch the stars. I think on those 90’s coming of age movies where a group of youthful teenagers goes to a park just to hang out. I saw that shot where a beautiful young girl is swinging. A black and white pic full of feeling. And I felt hopeful that all my dreams would see the light someday. I just closed my eyes and realized that I was alone. I was the only teenager in a place full of kids. In the end, I was the only one swinging. There was just a boy a few steps to my right with a baby. Then a policeman came to me and asked for my age. I told him I wasn’t an adult. He told me, “It’s just ’til twelve years old” Oops, I’m too old to swing.
