When You're Alone

There are some special moments.
When you're walking down a street in the middle of the night, and you feel like you are the only person in the world.
When you put your headphones in sitting by the river and you just breathe slowly and gather your thoughts just to let them go wild in the next moment.
When you look at the mirror for so long you don't recognize yourself and you don't feel as alone anymore.
When you find yourself feeling free enough to put a tiny hop in every one of your steps. When you sing to yourself and nobody else, because that's the only time when your voice sounds so beautiful.
It's the moments when you feel alone in the best way possible. When you're not paranoid that someone can see you or hear you or read your mind. When you know you won't be judged by anyone but yourself. At those moments, what do you think about?
Do you think about the time in eight grade when you kissed your best friends girlfriend, but you both decided to never tell? Do you think about the silly plays you use to put on for your parents friends when you were five? Do you think about the diary you had when you were eleven, that you promised to write every single day, but forgot about it the next day, because when you're eleven there are so many more important things to think about. Like what you're gonna get at the candy store. Do you think about the bills that you have to pay but you know you can't afford. Or do you remember all the times when your guardian had to pay the bills, but all you cared about was the new toy and now you're devoured by guilt? Or do you think about the cute person who you shared eye contact with in the bus this morning, and in those few short looks you imagined a whole future with them, a whole lifetime worth of memories that are yet to happen. And then they get out on the next stop, without giving you anything more than a smile. Bummer. Do you think about the chocolate chip cookie you had in the morning, and diet you promised to go on the night before? Do you think about how awesome it would be if you were on a huge stage singing the tune that's been stuck in your head the whole day? It's ok, we all wanted to be superstars at one point. Do you think about life and death and the greater questions? Or do you think about the light you left on when you left home this morning? Do you think about the time when that nerdy somebody you secretly adored was so obviously hitting on you but you were too young and dumb to realize? Do you think about the time when you went and cut all your hair off, just because you could? Do you think that your life is a movie and that moment is an epic scene with awesome background music?
Because it is. It's a scene that you should remember. Whatever you are thinking about, when you're so alone that you can be your true self, it's the core of the beautiful structure of thousand materials called you.
So love those moments and be thankful for each and every thought, because you're the director and the star of that movie, and you won't get a sequel. So make sure you do it the way you want the first time around.

Cicmila

Sunrise

They say the sunrise is the most beautiful thing one can see.
I often disagree.
I want to see the tears in a parent's eyes while he watches his firstborn get his diploma, holding the camera in shaky hands - the same hand that use to cradle his tiny baby's head while he was burdening his mind thinking will they eat tomorrow.

I want to see pain a lover hides from his other when he hears she's going away. Because real love hurts.

I want to see the freedom of a girl finally finding the courage to dress her wrong-gender body in a dress.

I want to see the joy on a child's face when they pick up the first fruit from the tree they had planted with their parents, realizing they have a purpose and are able to create something so beautiful.

I want to see the face of my other half that follows the words "I love you".

I think compared to all of that, a sunrise is nothing special. But I would like to see it.

Sometimes, I really wish I wasn't blind.

Cicmila

Fool

Sometimes, we're just fools. Sometimes, we would sacrifice everything we have for one thing that seem important in a single moment. Sometimes we would risk everything for a single glance. Because when you put it down, that is what it's all about.

We worry so much about the future, that we don't focus on the present. And then spend the future wishing we could change the past. It's not fair that life doesn't have a tutorial. It just throws you in the fire and lets you get about on your own. Good luck, fools.

And not every story has a happy ending. But life isn't a story. Life is a compilation, almost a series of many stories. Some of those stories last a few moments, some last for decades. Some are so important they blur out everything else, and some overlap.

Dear fool, we write our own stories.
What are you gonna do about it?

Cicmila

100.000

Your heart beats over 100.000 times a day, you so often think about stopping it. As if that would make the world better. As if in this world 100.000 heartbeats don't mean a thing. They do, so appreciate every one of them.

Almost a quarter of us skip lunch daily, trying to trim the size of out waist, but do we forget that we have a whole generation looking up to us, and 80% of children age 10 are afraid of being fat, well how wouldn't they be?

50% of women age between eighteen and twenty five would rather be run over by a truck than be fat, but for lord's sake, ladies imagine how ugly the tire marks would be on your skin if, despite all your hopes and wishes you somehow manage to survive?

Little girls are more afraid of being fat than they are of nuclear war, cancer, or losing their parents. But I guess it is normal, since they themselves are the only thing they have to look at in the mirror, they were taught since they left the womb: that they are little princesses waiting for prince charming, so they have to be beautiful to attract one. Why would they ever have anything else but their looks to offer?

Some maybe tried to teach them that that is not all that matters, but what does it even matter, since whenever they bring to school a book instead of a pocket mirror, they get laughed at for believing that they could ever be anything more than a thin waist and a pretty face.

So they spend half of their 100.000 heartbeats wanting it to stop.
The other half they spend trying to pick up little pieces of their confidence and dignity, gluing them together with love they have for themselves, but if they don't have enough then it all just falls back apart.

But I guess if a nuclear war starts, at least I will still have my pretty face.

Train Station

"I'm scared", I whispered, wishing I could hold those fragile, old hands tighter.
"Don't be." The old lips spread out in a grin. "If a bird never got out of its nest, it would never have learned how to fly. It is the same with you."

How could I tell her? She was so hopeful, a five-year-old look bursting through me form eighty-year-old eyes. How could I tell her that my knees are shaking and that I am hardly holding the tears back. How could I? She wanted this for us so bad. For me, she would say, but... I always knew it was her dream, too. She just didn't have the strength to see it through.

"What if I lose my way?"
"I hope you do, dear girl. Because that... That is the only way to find yourself. We all have a path. Some are more clear than others, but in the end, we are all walking down a dirt road. There are struggles along the way, but you know all too well that the most beautiful roses have the sharpest of thorns."
"I don't understand! This is all just so confusing, and it is happening all so fast!"
"Don't fight it. Embrace it. You have just discovered a new chapter of your life!" She slowly cupped my cheek in her tight palm. "You are so young, and you have so much in front of you. I only wish I had your courage a bit sooner."
"Courage?! How can you speak of courage when I can barely hold my ground from fear!"

"All aboard!", said the man in front of the train.
"No...", I whispered, "No, not yet! I am not ready!"
"You are, little bird! Trust me, there is nothing I want more for you than to get up on that train and see where it takes you!"

I was slowly moving towards the door of train I had only a one-way ticket for. I let her hand and it stood there in the air for a few more seconds, like I didn't even let it go.

"There are beautiful things to see in this life... I've seen so many, imagine how much you will!"

I took another step back, and felt the cold steel of the train behind me. I took one step inside. She was still there, looking in the direction where she assumed I was standing. She waved, like she was supposing that I waved first, and she was just waving back.
In the end, I waved too. I don't know why.
I found my seat and tried to look through the window to the one person I had known, and that I am now leaving.
"I'll be back soon...", I whispered.
I know she hoped I wouldn't be.

Cicmila

Spotlight

Everyone wants a spotlight moment. Every time I watch a TV show and someone comes out of nowhere and blows away everyone, making their wildest dreams come true in a matter of well planned minutes.
I really want to have that.

But how can a writer ever have a moment? How can anyone who sits behind a keyboard ever be in the spotlight? I beg to know the answer. I need that. I need to know what I do is not just wasting minutes of my life. I need to have someone tell me what I'm doing is the right thing. That wanting to be a writer is ok.

Because that's the only thing I ever knew how to do.
I was never a good singer, never the best in school, never a good ballerina, never a good daughter, sister, never good enough to do anything. But I could always write. It is more natural to me than breathing. It is the only time when I feel like me.
But what's the point, if I will never get recognition?
I'm not trying to be bigger than Tolkien and Hemingway, I just want to be me.

The first time my mother told me I am running away from real life by escaping into my stories, I did not write a single letter for five months. And those were the hardest days of my life. After that, I knew there was nothing else for me to do... But write.

Still, years later, I feel the knot in my stomach where my confidence once was. And the sinking feeling I get every time I remember all the words I write will never be read by more than a handful of people. I ask myself:
Is it worth it?
Is it worth the tears I get every time one of my characters cry? Is ti worth the pain I feel when they lose someone who was their anchor? Is it worth the unnamed feeling I get when I realize their happy moments are not actually mine?

I just want my spotlight. I don't want to get anyone else's. I don't want to be someone else, I only want to be able to do the thing I've been doing the past lifetime.

I know If I were ever to stop, I would be lost. End of my writing would be the end of me because we are just two halves of one whole: Just as my stories do not exist if I don't write them I don't exist if they are not there within me, guiding me.

And again I wonder: Is the spotlight really worth it?

Cicmila

The Sailor and his Rose

When I was a little girl, I remember asking my grandmother to tell me the story about the Sailor and his rose. She would make me think she wouldn't tell it, but I knew she would when I'd see her putting the kettle on.

When I was just a boy, my father and I planted an oak tree. It was somewhere far away, or at least then it seemed far away. We would go every year and visit it. It grew taller each year.

I remember she use to wrap us both tight in a blanket and start the story with "Once upon a time". Well... Once upon a time, there was a Sailor and his rose. The Sailor loved his rose very dearly, but when he would have to go to the sea, he would leave the rose behind, promising he will return.

Every year, when we would go to the oak, I would talk to it. My father would just leave us there, he knew I had a lot to tell. And when I was suppose to leave, I would promise I will return, because I knew he would be waiting. 

One day, the sea started raging. It came down on the Sailor's ship like a monster, devouring it. The Sailor fought, with all his strength, crying the name of his dear Rose. But the sea was stronger.

The first year I didn't see my oak, I was age twelve. My father just said, "next year, champ". Back then I didn't know young trees brake when the wind is strong.

What he didn't know that while he was screaming her name instead of taking breaths of air, Rose was with another man.

The wind was too strong. When I took my first shot, it broke me. I tried to resist, to fight, to stay strong, but the drug was too much. I had to give in. I was just a young tree... And the winds were to strong.

Rose didn't care! Rose was drinking off another man's lips! Rose was sinking deeper and deeper into sin. Rose could feel that the Sailor was dying, but Rose didn't care!
...And my grandma never told me that. She didn't think it was important, maybe. She didn't think I could take it. But I did. And day after day, I sit and wait for him to come back.

The winds blow both ways, and the one that thought that could destroy me, never could have guessed there is a stronger wind. One so much more powerful. One that would push me back to shore. Because people aren't oaks. And one day, I came back.

When I learned that the story was actually what it is, I couldn't blame my grandmother for not telling me. I would be hurt by it. But it was a strange place, where I heard how the story goes... In a pub on the docks. I was sitting when I saw the framed piece of paper. Old, burnt, drowned. But the text was so clear... "The Sailor and his Rose".

I walked into a pub on the docks, and sat by a most beautiful woman. "Hello", I said, "My name is Sailor."

"Hi.

...I'm Rose."