August 30, 2018
1.
Trains have the perfect pace for stories.
They bounce noisy and uncertain, milling kilometers, cutting fields and cities. They have a strong personality and a way of doing all their work.
We always trust the trains: even when they are late or stop in the middle of nowhere for an indefinite time.
They hold us suspended.
They are metal shells that bite the ground to take us far, to, elsewhere.
And in doing so, the trains take care of us: they have the spirit of the fighter and roar to protect their precious and unkempt cargo.
If a journey begins by train, then it will be a journey to cure the soul. That thin gauze that flutters on the spirit, with the wide meshes filtering the light.
If the gauze is torn, it is lost and only the patience of spiders, fishermen or Hecate can repair it. But time, only him, can trigger the repair process.
And the train is the bearer.
A shell of time that runs away from those who usually take it away.
The journey of the care of the soul begins, the descent towards Hecate, to mend the tear.
2.
Blind fly games.
Blindfolded eyes and turn and turn around.
The other children scream all around, they laugh (about you?) like crazy!
Blind, blind, without landmarks. Count up to ten and start looking.
The bandage, you see nothing, you stretch your arms, your hands, your fingers, everything tightens on the void.
They seem to have evaporated.
Only silence of muffled laughter (laugh at you?).
You slip the sad bandage and you walk away.
So the last time they did not even come looking for you.
Get on the roof of the old house, you’ve lost the desire to play. You’ll never do it again (promise).
Blink the eyelids, again.
An old pine flaps on the shining clouds, black and orange like lava of a volcano.
On the contrary, everything is flat and you breathe in fact, finally you breathe.
Tingolo frees everyone!
In an instant you found yourself: but where the hell were you?
3.
“I wanted to tell you that you are beautiful and that you are my place in the world.
With love. A.”
The letter ended like this and she had reread it dozens of times in recent months, but still did not know what to feel.
The early afternoon air was thick, a warm wind was blowing from the sea, and the leaves of the small fig tree in front of her were lazily rubbing.
The pierced shade of the pine barely protected her, but the scent of dried nature always managed to calm her.
In the motionless heat, the birds kept shouting from above and the cicadas did not tire of courting.
He had always loved the sensation of suspension generated by the sky too blue, the rays too strong, the too imposing sun, the earth too dry.
It was as if someone were expressing himself so intensely, that he left no choice but to protect themselves: impossible to hold such a power. The nature.
Resume the letter and start all over again:
“Dear A,
I write this letter to yourself, so you can always remember … “
4.
The sautéed is the true heart of the dish, the base on which all the flavours rise, the patience that animates the gestures.
Start peeling the garlic cloves and crush them under the palm of the hand, the scent remains in the furrows for a long time.
The onion must be thin and tinged with all the tears that it will let you tear.
The oil, always a drop more than necessary, must be boiling, so that the seeds of cumin launched first, can bounce on the surface by smashing the air with their scent.
Add sweet paprika and turmeric, without being afraid of their intensity: they are women with a strong character who always know how to make love.
Drop the garlic into the golden and powerful paste that has formed in the pan. When you see it crunchy, add the onions: rich in water they can create the velvet taste.
Allow the vegetables to rain, the slow evaporation begins.
5.
I slept on lips that were not yours.
I did it also before and, despite everything, I still do it now.
With greater purity I tie my heart, with growing desire I make my body dirty.
I roll in the arms of which I would like to erase the smell, I join in tongues that run through the skin and I would not like to taste it.
Behind the closed eyes I look for the feeling of your love, but in front of you, wide-eyed,
I release the hunger for mortification.
Brazen seduction with frost in the heart and heat on the flesh
of a body made of cream and butter.
I allow the casual hands of the night to sink into the abyss, to deserve the abandonment of love. It is the enjoyment of despair, the cry rising from the overturned sky and spreading the pleasure of the inability to love one another.
6.
I go deeper, I go farther, drunk with power.
The iron gatekeepers led me to the needle.
Now a white and harvested flavour will accompany the seam of the tear:
strands of light
the art of abandonment
an enchanting voice.
Hecate do guard the entrance,
do prevent access.
7.
Of death I know she smiles with the flowers around her eyes.
She smiles at night with the lights off, with the heavy air that does not come to touch the thirsty skin.
She smiles patiently in her corner as lovers challenge the burning and look for each other with their lips.
Smile death, your sting will be the initial note of our hysterical dance.
8.
– So we say goodbye
-So, yes, we say goodbye.
-You know that I can not understand why you do it, right?
-Do not think about it, sometimes the awareness of making the wrong choice makes you invincible
and only the sea can understand it. This is why he continually sends his waves to the shore: they are messengers to whom he can entrust the infinite beauty of fragility, the joy of abandonment, the shiver of unconsciousness.
As for me, the rest I gave it to the flowers, but to the sea I deliver all of myself.
The reflection on the rocking surface of the waves dazzles them for a moment, the heat that only the eyes can feel.
When he opens them he is alone on the beach, with the water kissing his ankles.
The ship is taking off.
Do look at the waves and do entrust their first message to them.
9.
The nests of beauty
In the splendor of life, energy pulsates and seduces. Luminous corollas, fleshy colors and hungry perfumes explode in warmth and water. The harmony of the flower is complete in itself and the thought is silent.
But once life passes through the violent dryness of an arid sun, the nest that holds the flower remains.
Dry and yellow it waves songs of death, the royal stalk, the queen without a crown.
The true trace of passion, the waste that lives bringing a fragile memory, broken and incomplete.
Perverse and subtle beauty, dance.
Annika Pettini (Italy, 1990) – translation by Slow Words
Of the same author: Gifts and Cheap Wine and Cigarette Ash