Éternelle éternité?! Existe-t-elle, je m’interroge?

Technically, we are all dying. Every minute we spend alive is a minute closer to death. We don’t think about what’s across the street while we are still in our homes. We are too busy reading the newspaper, doing laundry, making love, drinking wine. Nous sommes trop distraits. But the graveyard is there, vast and expressionless, like a fat businessman on the escalator you can’t brush past.

On that particular day, you watch her on the bed. You feel helpless. You tear at yourself from the inside from frustration. She smiles at you as if she is fine, but you know she is lying and it hurts to know that. You grab her hand and tell her that everything is going to be okay. When the words come out it feels like you have committed a crime, for you know and she knows that what you have said isn’t true.

You see her smile. You try and smile back, but all you can do is hold back the tears. Vous êtes désolé de l’avoir déçu à chaque instant de votre vie, you are sorry for lying to her face, you are sorry for keeping secrets from her, you feel like bursting into tears. You can’t let her see you cry as she needs you to be stronger than her.

You have seen tears fall silently from her face. You’ve heard her weep. You feel like there’s nothing you can do to make right the years you’ve tread on so carefree. All you can do is tell her how much you love her. You know it’s not enough.

You were five and she was still young. She picked you up from school and you told her stories about the pictures you drew and how much you missed your grandfather. You showed her the picture of you in between her and your grandfather. You are now 25. Your grandfather is on the hospital bed. He has suffered a minor, but second stroke. You both have no one to turn to. There is no one to ask for help.

You feel her hand on yours and you know that she feels comforted by your presence beside her. “This isn’t fair mom,” you say. “It shouldn’t be him in this bed. He deserves so much more than this. It isn’t fair,” you say. You can feel the tears coming. You hold back your sobs. You can’t let your mother see you like this, you reason. “I don’t understand,” you say. “Je ne comprends pas.”

“Dad,” she says. You can see her eyes. She is looking at him. “I’ve been a terrible daughter.” She holds on to his hand and she can tell that he can only see one thing — her child. No, he seems to say. I’ve loved you, and always will love you, no matter what. Miraculously, you see him rise from the bed and he embraces her so tight she feels the air leave her lungs. She feels wetness on the side of her neck. She feels tears flowing down her face, tears trickled down her cheeks. No one had ever seen her cry. Capable of tears – yes, but always reserving them for some adequate occasion, and now it had come. They both convulse as they both sob, et tu sais au fond de toi qu’il est temps pour lui de vous dire au revoir!

Now I am so afraid of dying. I am so afraid of slipping away into a space I couldn’t imagine, or worse, dans le néant, without leaving behind something in this world. It’s not that I felt I was being brave sitting so close to a dying person. It made me realise the permanence of death. And then you came and said “I would not want to be her.” I replied that “it’s not that bad.” I cringe. I realize I don’t want to be her either. All I can think about now is the shape my tear made on the floor the night, the hour, the moment that he died.

You fall in and out of love with people until you land somewhere that makes sense. Encore faut-il que cela se produise!

One day, the presence of your past is like needles pricking you over every inch of your skin; the next one you have become so acquainted with the sting that you hardly notice the needles at all. 

Every relationship I began started with thoughts of how to put an end to it. And that’s all because of you, remember that night when we were sitting in the balcony, the moon was showing enough mercy to allow our faces to glow in the dark. We did not talk much, for the moon was getting higher and the chilly weather. The air felt like a cold bath into which colder water is trickling constantly, the temperature decreased and decreased. The trees were saying "We are alive!" and the small flowers answering "We are almost alive!"

In respect of my feelings you just sat motionless with ennui next to me and listened to what I had to say about us, without a word coming out from your mouth. When I asked you "What’s your next step? Are we going to stay friends?" You replied by a simple "Yes", stood up from your seat, hugged me for one last time and left forever from my life and I went back, once again in my false hopes, with lots of "what ifs?", and "how ifs?". 

The night pursued by stabs of cold air. And I really fucked it up this time, didn’t I my dear? Didn’t I? - Mumford and Sons.

You didn’t reply to my messages and I didn’t reply to yours. And now it’s been 5 years that we haven’t talked of this or even mentioned it, if we met accidentally we pretended to be happy to see each other, we pretended to be friends, and we tried not to be too sarcastic or too mean. 

You try by any mean to show how your life is better than mine and I do the same with yours. I ask our common friends if they have hints about your life without giving them the feeling that I want to know what’s going on in your life, and you do the same. 

One day I just forgot your face. The next, I forgot your smell. Then your touch. Then your laugh, your smile, your jokes, your eyes, your hair, your hands, your feet, your fingers, your toes, your pulses and how you used to say that they belong to me. I forgot your words, and I finally forgot the voice that spoke them.

Now I am on that path where I don’t want to store you away in an attic, but I was told to leave you behind so that I can move on. You are just a memory that will stay in a drawer. I don’t want to meet you for a coffee and remember those days we spent together. Maybe bottling up memories and throwing them in the ocean is the right option, maybe waves of life will bring back the bottle or they won’t. 

To repent or wake up next to un ange pour le reste de sa vie...

I wake up at the scent of yours.

I wake up at the smoothness of your kisses.

I wake up at the softness of your blond hair.

I wake up at the glimpse of your fingers on my lips.

I wake up at your evil touch full of naughty intentions.

I wake up at the glance of yours.

And now I only wake up at the memories of yours, left alone with memories that don’t want to be lost or fade away. Des tourments à chérir, à endurer, à faire souffrir, à languir jusqu’à ce que je rencontre cette femme, angélique, exhalant une fragrance innocente, une beauté bouleversante comme celle de Sibyl Vane qui corrompit l’âme de Dorian Gray; à une exception près, elle ne pouvait pas être témoin de sa propre beauté. Quant à moi, mon âme était déjà maudite, jinxed, condamnée à faire du mal aux autres pour mon bien-être personnel.

It was like she was singing or trying to say, or I was told that I got to believe that she got what it takes to stand out above the crowd, even if she got to shout out loud! And no one can take that statement from her or change it because no one dares to tell her how beautiful she was though she was blind. Un ange pour un repenti sincère!? Elle me demandait seulement le chemin pour rejoindre la cathédrale de Notre-Dame. 

Listening to old music:

Listening to old music, bring you back to your past. A past that you loved, or want to re-experience or recreate. The latter option was the one he chose. He used to wake up and see his parents loving each other with so much passion that there was no space left for him in that huge feeling. A love flowing down like a waterfall. But he never complained about it, he was happy to see them happy, a joy filled by another joy.

And now, every single day he wakes up he sees his father in the arms of a new women and he has to deal with that, the fear of that song playing again and again, a song which might never stop. Une torture?! Une revanche à prendre? Ou un passé à oublier? Rien de cela, seulement une erreur à ne pas répéter.