Darling, listen.
no matter what we do
our fingers will end up
blistered,
our palms
bloody
if we
look into the mirror
long enough to know anything,
if we pull the rope harder
or let it give,
and the only thing
that means anything
is what we’re bruising for.
but there are only so many times
you can speak a word
like “hero”
or “trying”
before you begin to resent it,
before imposture syndrome starts to creep in
through your strong hands that try
to keep your whole world from caving,
starts to crack the surface
of your invincible skin
and cushioned heart,
some days
I wake up
I do not want to be anything
I do not want to be anyone
I am tired of trying.
and still
I carry a superlative
I want so badly to live up to
I walk out the door
I put the cape on,
and at least when the wind blows
I will feel a little something
like flying.
the world offends you
but it speaks without caring
but we don’t care
I don’t wanna talk about how the sky
has always felt like an apology to the ground,
“listen I’m sorry everyone steps on you,
tries to dig deeper only to be disappointed,
but here I am infinite,
take a break from the feet and the heavy hearts
and let them float a while”
Nothing hurts more than dancing in a full but empty apartment
that doesn’t belong to you
and never will
I hate when I smell the smoke on you
like a burned down dream
Pain comes in too many kinds of colors
to call one insignificant, there are some days
when your hard is my easy and others when
I could not even fathom how to jump the fences
and climb the walls that you do–
I know that miles away you’re feeling worn down too,
and you tell me in a text message that things have been hard lately
and for a minute I want to tell you that you don’t know the half of it,
but I remember that lectures are useless and
we all have problems,
and for some of them we need a microscope,
others a telescope, or even a stethoscope, because
they can only be heard in the slightly quicker-than-usual heartbeat,
I know today your black and blue lungs
match the color of my purple heart, gasping for air,
holding in secrets, and huffing out tryagain tryagain tryagain.
Side note —-
How’s your heart lately?
Stela Xega is a currently a freelancer full of passions. She is a poet and has attended some art courses and worked in many theatres. She translates from Albanian to English or from English to Albania, or even Italian/French to English and vice versa. She has a passion for art and organizes some poem nights where people discuss books in general. She is a blogger; she sings and plays drums and guitar. She was interested in art since little and now has her own expo of her paintings one a month in several art galleries in Albania.
