Mad World

© A. Bottarel - All Rights Reserved

All around me are familiar faces

Worn out places, worn out faces

Bright and early for the daily races

Going nowhere, going nowhere

Gary Jules

A million faces out of which, in the end, you're going to remember none. What do you need them for?

They're like a summer storm, leaving the dampness of a day that could have been different. 

Sunnier. Less chaotic. More productive? Less personal. More romantic.

Different.

You've been saving something that, after all, you can't wait to get rid of. A real shower, to take away residues of the fake one. Fake like the images and the smiles, which survive just because the rule shows us how, as will and patience fade, drunkenness grows, administering easy "savoir faire".

What did you bring home with you? Knowledge, for sure. Comprehension of the people  with whom, despite your will, you'll have to deal with, You could arrange them like clothes in a closet. A giant drawer filled with stuff you would never wear. 

Your favorite ones, a little bit worn, are there, separated from the rest, If they didn't get dirty, eventually, you would wear them all the fucking time. 

Most of that stuff, though, doesn't really fit you. 

The storm. All that dampness really sticks to your skin, doesn't it? You got it already, there's no escape. You killed your professional romanticism some time ago, choked it on the bed with a pillow. But it's still there, barely alive, waiting for a miracle to wake it up. 

You can feel it, deep inside of you. Kicking, fighting not to die, because there's no return once you're on the other side. Just grey and gold without hope.

Or maybe poetry just belongs to the ones who create it. An autistic of feelings? You will explode. Grim forecast.

That's the mistake: stop forecasting. Let yourself go and stop judging. 

Defeatist. 

Hidden among that million faces there's everything. The love of your life, a good friend of yours, your boss, your worthy opponent. People you will love and respect in many different ways. The world is there. It might not be "The world I love", like the catch phrase, but it's there nonetheless, with all the passion and the disappointment that wine itself can give you. 

There's a light that never goes out

© A. Bottarel - All Rights Reserved

Take me out tonight

Where there's music and there's people

Who are young and alive

Driving in your car

I never, never want to go home

Because I haven't got one

Anymore

The Smiths

Dedicated to N. 

Piling up bricks. Working with my bare hands. Unexpected result of what should have been a geeky weekend. N sounds almost relieved when I tell her what I'm doing. Part of me is relieved too, some other part is kinda pissed, but maybe this will help me having less stuff to throw in my own face later on. 

It's amazing how we manage to find incredible ways to get along with other people and we never really learn how to deal with ourselves. This song, this post is for her and for me. Because that's what we really have in common: a deep inability to deal with ourselves, with the place we live in (I'm not gonna call them "home" for a precise reason), with our own emotions. 

But that's not uncommon, on the contrary. We are social animals, always reaching for something different. Those of us who don't feel the need to are blessed with peace of mind and ignorance.

You can choose whether to envy or pity them. 

So we can live on our own, can't we? But there's a light that never goes out. And it burns, and it keeps us thinking, casting the shadow of our thoughts on the walls inside our skull. There's no real peace for the open minded, guzzling down inputs from the outside world like candies. And we want more. And it's never enough. It's a good thing, but sometimes we just fail to handle our addiction. 

Home is not a safe place. Home is not a dark place, 'cause there's a light that never goes out.

And once again

© A. Bottarel - All Rights Reserved

And once again you stand there

Alone with your thoughts in a crowd

You can barely touch them, can you?

They're neither impressed nor displeased

Safe behind the barricade

Your roots are deep 

But your canopy still trembles in the wind

Almost hoping that someone will come

To take you down as a Christmas tree

Certain that they won't, 'cause in the end

They all go for the good looking one

Every

Single

One 

Of

Them

...and so is mine.

Have you ever realized, right in the middle of a thought, that you were truly complaining about nothing?

Have you ever noticed the ways in which life makes it up to you? Sometimes you're just feeling better because you spent a beautiful, unexpected night with wonderful human beings. Sometimes it's because you realize that those human beings may not be your partner, but they are proof that such things exist, out there. 

So be grateful, stop complaining and call the spiritual plummer, 'cause your karma is leaking, and so is mine.