Twelfth page V

 

Thursday, don’t throw me back again, please!  Saturday morning: nothing in my bank accounts… the hell with it, it's Sunday morning now. I couldn’t postpone the wills to sit on the water. Duty called. Cartoons are on, so I expect to finish what I started. I’m hearing some complaints. I guess I have to cut. I have to cut in some many ways; either literally and figuratively. Let’s start with this literal one first.  Hold the line, selected by me. It was rainy all day long.  Boundaries testing and its nonstop actions.  I’m alone now. I saw a couple of pictures, a couple of a set of pictures; both of them of vacation time; two different families, both living here, both Venezuelans. I’m not sure if this is just pure envy, or if I ever have a point, but it seemed kind of a show off, and up to this point, a show off is just vulgar. Only that vulgar provokes. Vulgar always provokes. So I’m not immune to other’s good times, and I have worked a lot not to be so. I am talking from my podium of poverty,  as usual of course. Poor envy although vulgar, specially when it’s vulgar. I want to be vulgar too, I just can’t afford it, and I haven’t been able to since so many years. I want to taste, we all do. Only that we can’t,  so we have to drown this feeling with wine and words, and a new chapter of House Of The Dragon. It’s Sunday night after all, but it’s hasn’t been easy, there’s so much going on, but this is always,  every time, anything is something to worry about, to think of, and to probable turn into something we will postpone to live one more day. It’s exhausting, and nobody cares.

 

Another week. I need to get the Alprazolam.  I’m worried.  It’s in moments of sudden that we feel we don’t belong, that we are forcing something is not meant to be, that we will never fit in. I guess it happens to all of us. I have to be better, to get equal treatment.  Did we know it before we came? May be we did, but verbs feels different in first person. The fiction is over, I have to get back to the reality and go to bed. Financial blessing,  I’m still waiting for you.  Only child syndrome for writing and only child syndrome for thinking. Well, not really. Perhaps for writing. I come here when I feel alone. The TV is on. I’m waiting for the CBD to replace the Alprazolam.  Nothing has happened yet. Yesterday was different,  I boosted it with wine. I even forgot about my debts for a while. The CPR course was fine. It was better than expected.  I really thought I was going to blow it. I should trust myself a little more. I would like to, it’s just that repercussions have been coming up and showing off, so now I realized they were all mistakes; missteps, wrong moves I made thinking they were going to bring me back to stability, and I can’t be more disappointed from these results. At least I can lecture myself through words.

 

Home made meat loaf, I love it. Wine is waiting for me, I need a partner in crime, my partner in crime. I don’t feel like taking a shower. Desire is suffering,  I just read.  What if you don’t like what you see? What about it? Coexist is paramount when lacking resources, specially when you just want to be left alone. It’s a space not everyone can afford. So Time then it’s not the greatest asset but Space as well.  Wednesday.  Wednesday I’m in love. Let’s see for how long.  It’s Thursday now,  both countdowns have started; the first one will reach zero next Sunday.  The election day. A good part of the diaspora remains skeptical, specially those who have made a family abroad already, those no longer work  in factories or production lines. Those ones who are not waiting for an asylum interview or a court hearing anymore. Those ones have moved on, or so we can presume. The hearts have their own reason, so nothing is settled yet, but what I do presume is that the skeptical ones are not the majority.  The majority is waiting, expecting,  and basing their next moves upon election’s results. My heart is beating harder every time I think about it. We have one month left. That’s the drama of us; the uncertainty of the next encounters. When? Where? How? And ‘if’, especially if…  If and Why with a bunch of becauses; becauses with no solid reasons. I only followed my heart, and my heart likes to play. I don’t.  Not when it comes to feelings. So I guess that either you play or be played.  I need more wine. Not really, I’m just tired, and I will never get when people drown themselves inside the phone. I’m tired of being this way alone. Something is broken. I don’t know what. I’m just tired and tiredness makes you make up things to keep yourself uncomfortable.  I am uncomfortable, and tomorrow I have to work.  The future is a foreign land. What a title, Ghost! You really got me. Sadness needs space and time; two assets in this life. Two assets not everyone can afford, so being sad can be kind of a luxury sometimes, this time at least, and even more than being happy. Happiness can be found sometimes,  sadness needs a momentum to acknowledge it. I’m not in the mood to acknowledge.  I want to have Sex and forget, but even sex needs time, space, and an interested partner: interesting,  indeed. 

 

I would like your opinion, but you wouldn’t dare. Maybe I wouldn’t dare. I just want to get the hell out and move on with all my complexes. The air conditioning is off. The bill was extremely high. Poor happenings, as usual. When will this stop? I don’t know. Bearing: a verb for the poor. I hate this sort of poverty.  Maybe I hate the company,  who knows! I don’t even know myself anymore.  I just want to keep on drinking. I’m getting  close… despite of the routine, despite of all these disappointments. Disappointment is not for poor either. We have to keep going. Our survival depends on that. So why do we want to survive? That’s a good question, as a matter of fact. How do we say in English when a fruit is not ripe? I don’t know  in Spanish we say verde, yes, green, and maduro, or madura, when it's ripe. In Spanish fruits have gender, the mongo is male, for example, the banana (in Venezuela; cambur, and only in Venezuela) is male too.  The strawberry is female, and we use it when it comes to pretty girls. Again, only in Venezuela,  as far as I know. 

Twelfth page IV

 

A glass was broken. That’s always an impact. Like a gun shot. Everyone stops, freezes.  Are you ok? I’m not but I’m not talking about that. See you later. I wonder if you’re going to be into rocket ships when you get to this lines. I love when you say blast off. I love the spaceships you build with your tiles. It’s a beautiful hobby. Outer space. Inner being. The floor is lava. Countdown. Countdown to cheer me up. Boobs on TV. I’m sitting on the floor.  Temperature is fine now. It was terrible yesterday. Procrustean Syndrome, or our intolerance against all these statements. My idea is the one that must prevail. I have seen it a lot, including on myself. I think I’ve said it; we want an audience,  we want to be flattered,  we don’t want consensus or debate… not really though. We’re developing somewhat intolerance to the curiosity born out by getting to the bottom of something. Some of us call it overthinking,  or include it to the habit to overthink. So, it is conceived as a flaw: not trendy one, therefore it can’t be used on Instagram. Financial aid: here I am. Don’t be afraid to come. I’ll be grateful.  I am always grateful.  Let me welcome you to my world, to my outer, to my inner and to my most. Join me in my quest to uniqueness. It has been a lonely road. We must find the path to stability; we are in the right time and at the right age. Give me a chance, I don’t want anymore breaks.

 

Until the end of the world in my ears, yes, in both, why not? I’m in the bathroom alone and nobody needs me right now. A Friday Wednesday, a third third indeed. La parole lontane or the words from the distance. Most of our Spanish is distant now, mostly enclosed by technology, and all the subjective burden it carries with it. Temper tantrum, carried within only. If I could just be back a few steps… who knows!

 

Monday morning. I need coffee. Not a good holyday to celebrate, au contraire, it would have been better to come to work. No music, faster breathing, feeling desperate, let’s just wish for a happy day! Be more in my ear now, and we were more indeed. Now, parenting time.  Tuesday morning.  One of those video answers from a potential second job. I keep applying hoping to get something I don’t have time for. Need pushes in so many different ways. It’s kind of like a damaged feature of the car for which you’re forced to change the way you drive entirely.  There’s no money for a new car, for a new life. We’ll see. Hope has power indeed. Here I’m still standing.  Saturday morning.  Several days have gone by. Geometry,  the Geometry of things. Understanding the shapes to get a sense of limitations of one thing from another.  The spiral and the feeling of living everything again from some distance. How is the shape of the map? Our map, our distance. Layers and planes: platforms; what shape should it be? It’s fascinating seeing such developments, I read it helps understand our place where we get to be. Perhaps I wasn’t that good with geometry, I’m not sure I understand my place here, and I’m kind of sure you aren’t either. Yet, here we are, figuring out. Sunday morning. Air conditioning at its maximum due to this summer heat. We can’t rest like we think we should under such circumstances.  Motor town: Motown, I’m getting it. I started getting it: thirty minutes drive to take us to the pool and thirty minutes to get back home to pick what we missed, then thirty more minutes to go back to the pool but not before stopping by and get some chips to finally chill two ours and a half later, and only for a couple of hours to go back home again. Just a day of during summer. I’m not complaining.  It could be worse. We can always add a sudden event and spoil the whole plan. At least we could chill for a couple of hours. So it was a good Saturday after all. Not for everyone,  of course. The poor, when trying to please, they have to let someone down. I guess this is because of money and time equation in life. Poverty is about struggling more for having a little of both. I failed.  My plans failed. My heart failed. It was so full of hope, so full of faith but it turned out an impossible. It was just a delay. I borrow money to buy some time. The poor don’t get to buy time. The poor can barely buy brands, TV brands,  social media brands, and live under the illusion that self realization will emerge from money spent on things that don’t worth time.  Eighteen years on Alprazolam and I can’t just get a prescription in this town. It seems that I have to get along with my anxiety like it were some sort of hot chick horny for myself with all my overweight included. My belly grows as big as my disappointment. I guess I have to keep on failing…. Until I stop. If I ever stop. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I’m just thinking about In the end: I tried so hard…

 

Wednesday night. A flat tire during the day and some money I don’t  have just spent. What the hell! By the way, what are you doing in Hong Kong? It is Hong Kong, right? How about Israel? Best regards for you both. I appreciate you. I try to hold you both with my words. Not everything has to be grief.  I try not to, and I know it looks like I don’t, but I do. I do. I do wish, I do desire. I do hope and expect, and I’m still waiting. I got this scar on one of my finger toes but it’s healing now. I’m looking at some places of Belgrade; some images before a Rammstein concert I’m about to watch. I think it’s not a good quality sound but the images were worth it. I can see they are coming down from some sort of elevator on stage. Belgrade gave me hope. Good night now. Tomorrow will be another battle. One battle per day. I have lost today’s but I can listen to rock music now, and I’m drinking my wine as usual. Hopelessness here tastes better. That’s perhaps one of the differences between both countries. 

Twelfth page III

 

Some people: not lawyers ones, tend to make these jokes about lawyers,  about how greedy they are and things like that. It sounds funny among lawyers with jobs and money, for those who remain poor and working on something else, it doesn’t make any sense.  I would like that greed for myself but I stand on the side of the ones with no money. So, jokes about lawyers, not on me. Sunday afternoon.  Soccer game: fútbol,  the way we call it. A beer in my hand, not now, of course. I a writing.  I have some headache and the pain in my ear is coming back again. I’m worried. I can’t help feeling worried. Let’s make a pause.

 

To please. How hard is to please! Perhaps it’s not hard, it’s more like subjective, changing. Pleasing has a lot to do with mood, and mood has some to do with money. We will end up complaining about lack of money in every single idea of this text. I’m trying to avoid it, but this comes from the heart, what can I do? I’m trying to keep it as organic as it can be, but organic is mostly monotonous, and truth is often boring rather than uncomfortable. We want it to be exciting,  outrageous,  but life is more a constant phase. Constancy is what we seek, even when thinking about adventures. We wish a place to find shelter in storming times. Safe scenarios to make opinions. We want our life to be a theme park, with unlimited time and turns for every attraction.

 

Life. How I remember it, Gabo, how am I telling everyone about it? My wife’s uncle said: every poor has a story to tell, only no one cares. So, here I am, serving this nonsense as an interesting story. I can’t hold my impulse back. I just put words as some sort of necessity.  Monday morning.  A little behind, from what I see. Enrollment blast. Blast off indeed. Problems are making me lose focus on my job. I need to drink. I need to drink to avoid this overthinking.  I’m nervous and the day hasn’t come yet. What if it does? It will come, what I don’t know is how soon. I need enlightenment,  enlightenment for the extra money that doesn’t come. Too much adrenaline for a quiet life. Oh son! I hope we can laugh together by the time you get to read these words. I hope to much. I’m a hamster in a cage; showing my desperation for others’ amusement.  Like a circus freak show. Sorrows to entertain. Sick time. Tim off. I have to cry this out. I need a moment alone. See you later!

 

Confessions from a toilet.  That should be the name of this text. Afternoon is going by. It’s still sunny and it’s quiet too. The noise lies within my head like wearing headphones. Nobody else can tell what I’m up to. I am just contemplating, thinking about women perfume and women skin. How my tongue wants to take a walk over your body. Caracas again. Tense news. What an English to describe things, right! I wonder how you guys will get this. We meet halfway, as at work. I say something and they take one part and discard the rest. Which rest, sometimes I wonder. I laugh. Let’s just take a bath.

 

Cancel culture,  not on Maduro. I mean,  who has accepted him as a legitimate president? According to the public opinion and particularly  on social media, he has no popularity at all. We have to remember that the only thing that made him a candidate was when Chávez said on that December, that if something happened to him (he died a few days later and was declared dead three month after that) followers should support  Maduro, and just like that, the man has been ruling the country for ten years so far.

 

Why the internet service is this expensive? Are those messages for me? I’m not sure if we’re changing platforms,  if we meet in another reality. I’m only conscious of this one; where La Vinotinto made it to quaters of final of this Copa América. It’s good to share this joy. It’s our symbol nowadays.  Who knows! Maybe we’ll see Venezuela on the next world cup. I mean, why not, right?  Thursday night. A night before getting paid. Let’s project something good. Faith is powerful,  Faith is beautiful, I just watch; contemplate. There’s nothing else but focus. Debate night. I don’t know. I’m still hungry. Let’s just get some rest. 

 

Sunday afternoon. Pasticho de berenjena for lunch. Home made meals gets me. That’s how I know I’m old. I was trying to come back and start correcting this and I couldn’t.  At first I felt bored since I realized that it’s too much work, and I have no choice but doing it. You might get lost or tired just trying to understand me. It’s not fair. Then I got scared. Scared of going back again to those words, to that world. The world of the back and forth, of the push and pull, of the in and out.

 

By the way.  I believe I got my answer.  I’m not sure if that’s fine with you. My generation became adults following the propaganda of the uniqueness and originality. I’m not sure how good was that to the market, but it seems it worked out for the governments and political movements. Social media has been used to turn such conception back down, and they succeeded.  Nobody wants to be unique anymore. Nobody wants to set a path to go somewhere anymore. Everyone is eager for results. All my Venezuelans are hopeful thanks to La Vinotinto,  especially those who usually don’t watch the games. The sense of victory is more important than watching and believing a process of development.  If the team had lost, the comments would have been like: the same shit, the same disappointment,  but in none of the cases the support came from the beginning.  I’m fine with it. I’m not despising it. Popularity has a lot to do with it. What I want to say is that the concept of uniqueness is now shaped by social media insights (Some could claim TV used to be just like it). We talk about sports only if it’s trendy. We talk about jobs only if it’s happening on social media. The people don’t want to read but have read it already. That means, the process has lost its charm. Siddhartha might have no point in this era. Not even Coelho’s Alchemist. It seems there is no time for any attempt of a journey. Even advertisements aren’t as they were. Branding. We all want brand ourselves and become assets for how we look, or what we say, even for what we ignore, and we believe we might get paid for it since this wave of influencers all over. I don’t know any of them yet. I won’t change my mind until then. I guess if it's happens, I will have to rewrite this. So be it! But for now this is what it is. The kids aren’t alright in my ear. Simulation theory, go for it! Let’s get physical is Dua Lipa singing now. I agree, by the way.