This is my heart. This is my soul.

In the moment before I opened my eyes,

not yet knowing where I was,

I felt your presence.

Your heart opened, and in those few seconds we were closer than we had ever been.

I want to lay my ear against your heart,

to listen to its quiet singing,

and drift away beside you.

When the cat came to me and lay beside me, I put my arm around him, and we both rested.

He slept, and I could feel his breathing, the warmth coming from his fur.

He came to me like I would like to be with you: this quiet mutual understanding, a rest, only the moment.

He left after an hour, and I can see the possibility of falling asleep one day beside you. It is an idea that lingers.

Maybe I just want to cry in your womb, and you would soothe me so that I can heal, so that I can feel again.

Are you ready?

Can I be your patient if I ask nicely and find the right words at the right time?

"I don't take patients, I offer my service," you reply.

Are you ready?

I am the architect who builds his house only to live alone inside: always keeping a circle, a distance I do not cross, a line I respect.

Today I sat in a shopping mall, watching a drug store, and I thought: there she is.

Ten months passed, and I see her again— the one who is missing.

And other women with the same colour of hair come and go.

I sit on the bench, chained within.

My hope fell asleep again. Stillness.

And I lost the thread— of the Priestess, Sunshine, everything else.

Outside your house I sit and watch the grass grow, you sit a few meters away, lost in a piece of music, listening in silence.

I do not dare to interfere, to send words to your ears, as time for yourself is rare these days.

I am happy in the only way I can be:

no words to hear, just being near— and it is you and me.

Everything.

I see the promises in your eyes, but cannot read them; my eyes open behind a curtain.

I watch your hips sway as you dance, sending my imagination on a roller coaster, emotions drifting— and my mind says: Stop. Only a dream.

The keys are in my hands to be more than a keyboard coward, to leave the room, ask you out for a walk. Beer and talk.

I am, with or without you.

Another song with your name as its title, and I haven't told you about Joanna's— a match of words and melody; you could be her song.

These are just thoughts in me, not finding their way to your ear.

Would you listen anyway, outside the room we share? I'm too tired.

You could hold me, and I would rest for the first time in years— of this I am sure— and sleep again. You could do this.

The second song is like a distorted version of you, standing in a temple of darkness. A world within us all.

My assumptions ride a pony into the night, slowly cooling off what couldn't be or shouldn't be anymore, anyway. No Masses to attend, still in fear of losing my tears with you. Every fluid you would understand, knowing where it comes from. I cried with you beside me, and you knew that the solution is in me, not you. Next time, I'll attend.

Are you allowed to talk to me when I look into your eyes? I'll talk to you till you say, don't come here anymore— and still I come back, drawn to your golden heart, feeling love as I did every time before, the smile of strangers in one room, glowing and blooming, acting as though one step forward wouldn't mean one step back. In this play, you and me, I need to rest.

I lost my moral integrity with you

on that Friday night,

and the following one.

My construction of who I am

fell apart

when I felt you kissing my neck

and I turned to you

and found your lips

and didn't stop.

All the words afterwards —

I was an actor,

attracted,

the first who.

The staples of sadness

in your grief

when I said

it won't work,

and you finally said:

Don't contact me again.

No phone. No message. Nothing.

On a Saturday,

surprisingly,

you are in the same room

and I leave —

I couldn't see you,

my heart in shock.

We talked

and nothing was solved.

I'm sorry.

Please forgive me.

I love you.

Thank you.

I see the priestess from afar,

walking in the distance,

and she doesn't come near to where I am.

I could have walked over.

I could have gone there,

but when is the best time to speak again?

I have her advice with me.

I cannot follow every word she said, not now.

And I don't know what I can say to her, when we meet again.

Just rest, I want to rest.

Why do these memories of kissed and unkissed women return like they still want something?

I will not travel back to rearrange the past.

The wounds, the hopes — they close slowly.

It is 2026, not the years I learned how to hurt myself.

I am not there anymore.

What happened had to happen so I could arrive here.

Now I open my eyes and there is someone who holds me steady when I am not,

who stays,

who loves me as I am.

And I — I love you.

There is no answer from you. I still had a chance, if I had wanted it. If I could have wanted it more. Life is not what it was when we were young. The picture in my hands is only memory now. No one knows if we will meet again. We had our time — we danced, we glanced in solitude. What would we have been if we had been brave? When do you know a person and not the image you build inside yourself? I know nothing but fading light. My longing has left the building.

We passed the nine-month mark and nothing has changed, nothing changes. The state of things is the same: You are not here. Nobody mentions you. I don't ask. The earth does turn.

You live your life. I live mine.

And I can't find an intersection where our paths cross.

You are not here when I am there.

Your smile in my heart doesn't bring you back — just a glimmer in the dark, and a lighter pack to carry.

Twenty-five years ago, his voice first reached my ears, and I still listen today, to every album he released. Then a fragment returned to me, and with it, you. I remembered our conversations, how you said I needed grounding, and that your arms could give it to me — something I need more than anything these days. And your hands were soft, and we shared happy hours breathing, through the evenings, listening to him. Could you save me now? The time we had will never come back, and I erased your number long ago. Maybe you are happy. Who knows? I've got troubles of my own.

Then there is your name, written backwards, as an artist's name, and suddenly I am sitting in that pub again, drinking cola, talking with acquaintances, when you walk in and I think: This is the most beautiful woman in the world. And across the room you come, to our table, greeting everyone with kisses on the cheek, even me, who looked into your eyes for the very first time. That evening lies in shards in a corner of my memory. The place is still there, yet the memory of you is a sandcastle that stood too long in the wind. What was my memory trying to tell me?

Why did nobody step in to replace you when my heart lay open?

I see smiles, I see memories, yet nothing compares to you.

My thoughts are memories of you and me — and when I let them wander, they play inside me,

unrelated to what I see when I open my eyes:

you are nowhere in sight.

Day after day.

Our lives go on.