Monday, January 19, 2009


The house is quiet and simultaneously full of familiar sounds. She walks to the kitchen where the echoes of the outside world transport her to a familiar yet unrecognisable time of afternoon streets and distant voices. The kitchen buzzes with refrigerator waves. A gleam of light, passing through the window, highlights a speck of dust in the air. 

She leans onto the balcony, touching the cold surface to try to find herself in the present moment. Her mind is constantly jumping through dimensions in those lazy afternoons when the house seems like a receptacle of outside energies and a trigger to time travelling.

Her gaze lingers in a sheet of paper stuck to the refrigerator door. A poem she wrote and that a magazine published. She has stared proudly at her name in capital letters in the bottom of the poem many times before. He asked if it had been written about him and she denied.

'It's a love poem. It's about love.' she said. He looked at her as if she was losing her mind. 'Just because I wrote a love poem, it doesn't mean you were the source of inspiration.'

Her heart stings when she remembers how her love was a source of self-esteem for him, when ironically it seemed to mean very little most of the time.

'So who is it about?' he insisted and she laughed half-heartedly.
'You don't get it, do you?'

He shrugged, apparently amused with himself. Him who didn't write poems, him who copied other people's words for special written occasions, him who didn't trust his own words. Well, how could she trust them herself?

Outside a cloud covers the sun momentaneously and the curtain of light vanishes from the kitchen leaving her in the shadows.


photo from everystockphoto.com

18 comments:

Amandeep Singh said...

He understood...
But He cant help it...

Most of the men cant!

Shadow said...

i've had a conversation like this with hubby......... weird.

dharmabum said...

sometimes one understands, and yet wants to pretend not having understood i suppose.

floreta said...

this sounds like conversations my ex and i had. he was the poet and i tried to find meaning in them thru the eyes of ME. and he said i didn't get it.. now that i'm starting to write poems i think i do get it.. poems are general ideas, not necessarily specifics. but certainly can be inspired by the people in your life. beautiful words!

Devil Mood said...

Standbymind: Oh isn't this in the same area as your last post? :)

Shadow: I promise, I wasn't spying on you.

Dharmabum: Yes, that happens!

Floreta: Indeed. Inspiration comes in many shapes and sizes and there doesn't have to be a direct connection between the inspiration and the final result.

Anonymous said...

This is your most exceptional writing to date. What great strides you’ve made my dear : ) And the photo—so perfect for the piece, so arty for anywhere.

Mystique said...

wow.
and see? love poems don't have to BE about anyone....

Niall young said...

I like it when the sun peeps out of a grey sky..for only a moment..for that moment , it is another world.Then grey returns...things are often only for the moment...

Devil Mood said...

Missalister: Thanks. I feel the same, to be honest.

Mystique: True! Very true.

Niall: It is definitely another world. Light rules our perceptions.

Anonymous said...

that window is begging for someone to draw in its condensation...
or a heart drawn in it? :)

murat11 said...

Love the next to last paragraph, the litany of "him who's", bemused little lost foolish man...

Anonymous said...

sigh-I can strongly relate to this...
Well-written as if truly out of real life. We creative types are a different breed.

Devil Mood said...

Chrispito: oh yeah, I like smileys personally ;)

Murat: haha :)

Gel: Yeah, sometimes blogland makes me forget not everyone is so creative and open-minded.

Violet said...

The picture is beautiful.
Your writting is so intimate and detailed, like those macro photos, you know? I'm not sure that's it. I don't trust my words either, i hope some day i will.
to answer your question on my blog, yes, it is freakin cold here. about 1 or 2 degrees celsius when the sun is not fully out. I never imagined. I had left all my winter clothes in lisbon.

Devil Mood said...

Violet: hehe thanks.
Oh that's cold! Over here it's been raining non-stop, no fun :/

lissa said...

i love the moments of dialogue in this and how just from those conversations and thoughts i get so much about these two. i hate that "so who is it about" question; i personally think it's an invasion of a poem to ask that.

Anonymous said...

truly most men cant!!

Devil Mood said...

Lissa: An invasion of a poem, I like that :)

Americanising Desi: hmm.