Night Time Prayer

I stand in my night pyjamas on the  balcony of my house. A day of november . Earbuds should be blasting talk radio or music in my head but fir a second , i turn them off.

Tha air is cold, makes my fingers and toes tingle. I should go back to the tepid, cuddling safety of the room. Buit Not now.

Light up a cigarettte, vicious remain fo a past of toxines injected and expelled from my body. I might even looked grotesque to anyone who passes in front of my building. Pitch Black, cold, only cars drive by with that sound you just hear in late november. That icy wet rumble of the cars. Prrojecting themselves rapidly towards their destination, to meet routine, stress or maybe temporary joy.

And me, slightly chubby and a bit balding, with a severly overgorwn beard, looking at the horizon, the cigarttes diying off between my fingers.

I have been in that exact place beforer, i have stood like a sentinel, drugged out of my mind or drunk, or filled with sleeping pills, anything that would gave me a buzz powerful enough toi calm my anxiety down and fix my holes temporarily.

I stood there for years. At hours much more later than this. Sometimes even seeing the dawn rise with bleary eyes.

Always alone. I wasnt desperately alone, i caused my solitude as a precise choice. I wanted those moments of calm contemplation, of freedom of addiction, where i just waited the alcohol to lower and the nausea and vomit to float away from my body. Those were dark times.

Or i just listened toi epic or sad music, grasping those moments with that incombent fear of death looming over my shoulders. And it manifested as soime sort of vertigo, more close to an attraction for the void than anything elose. Will i fall from the balcony or just throw myself down. Not cause i desired death, but just to see if could do it or stop myself from doing it. An action in a life of passiveness.

But i always poickjed the slowe coward death to the actual suicidal one. I was gonna die one day at a time not in one theatrical act that was supposed to make no one cry.

And my brain filled with thoughts, each one darker than the one it followed. and my heart beating steadily with a sense of weight and pressure, and words that were connected together with web of toxines exhaled at times with the smoke of entire packs of cancer sticks.

But now something has changed.

I am smiling. I stood there, being myself, and yet my mind made me smile with what all my memories are made of: her voice, her face, her scent,m her warmth.

Somethign sweet, clever and funny that she said, that gave me the energy ti goi through days of empotuibness, aching back and scary insecurity. A person that gives meaning to me, cause she loves me and is always there anmd at the same time makes me more motivated than i ever was at anything towards the simple act of living with a smile of my face and the fierce feeeling of tenderness in my heart.

She makes me smile. And i love her. We are one. And i love her.

Its all in one smile and the memories it brings and those meoiries are woirth half a lifetime of trouble and pain.

And worth the eternity.

We All Fall

I dont get through a full days, in these late times of misconception and trouble where i dont encounter at least a very opinionate being that thinks they got their mind right on the subject of addiction and drugs.

I know one fact and of that i am pretty safe: addiction are a high number and all of them are a sign of a weak mind and soul. And i am not saying this from a moral high pedestal. I am an addict, i wwill always be. I have no sympathy for my oewn condition. I despise it, but its almost impossible to live through life without an addiction or some sort of hole that you make less gaping with the help of a crutch.

And if you ever have met one of those individuals with an  attitude that words like "i have no addictions, i am high on life", they usually are the oens that cause others to be addicts. People so self absorbed in their being maLignant soul tumors ., who thrive on sucking the life out of others with such millimetric precision , that their complete extermination would probablòy be ana amzing solution to a lot of problems regarding abuse.

Besides that though, let's not fool ourselves.

You migth enjoy the type of alcohol you drink and moistly take momentary pleasure out of it and be somehow in control of what it does to you. You are still a person that somehow needs booze. There are exceptiuons, sure. There's people who really do it for enjoyment. But they have had at least one moment wwhere the intoxication was the key, and life got so completely uneventful and suffocating , the people surrounding them, the ones they used to love, got so barely tolerable , that they needed "somethign to take the edge off"

And that is where the real core of substance addiction and the hook is. You do not get born an alcoholic, or an addict. Ecven the harshest cases always had a reason.

My mother is a raging alcoholic, now turned into a prescription med abuser. She used to be sober. She tried to clean up, also recently. But with the push of an enabling person that is also her main reason for a need for peace and self destruction at the same time , she slowly made her mind and her body into a dysfucntional puddle that needs anything to not completely fall together and at the same time is consciously marching against self destruction.

And without getting so personal and up and close. Think about it. Theres people everywhere who consciously ruin their body, gradually mutilate themselves, make their lives extra difficult, for the side effects of their own "safe haven". Wahtever that is.

Mine is sleeping pills, most of the time. I got my liver, stomach and brain messed up with, first to obtain sleep, then just to have the incredibly short moment of quiet that they gave me. And when that became shiorter and shorter, i increased the dosage. And now im too weak to try and kick and face the withdrawal.

Pot smoikers, you dont get off that easy. I know how your culture has spread like plague on society with your delusional thoughts on how pot is a completely harmless ., almsot religous, magic herb that allows you to live better and would turn the world into a paradise if everyone used it. It is a lie.

You used to be a functional person at some point, then you discovered that excisting and having a normal brain causaes anxiety and you went on that route, cause with ti you found a whole army of enablers who cuddled you into thinking that it was a solution and not a problem. A culture, a family and a philospophy , not just  another momentary fix. The system made people  think pot is wrong, so they lie when they say that potsmokers end up being demotivated sacks of nothign that have no drive towards anything or liveliness. And all of thsoe were lies.

And if you use medicines, and they fixed you at some point but you kept using them cause they made you feel good or sleep better or anything: you're a drug addict too. Do not use your illness as an excuse. You are exactly the same as the disheveled guy who shoots heroin on tyhe streest. Only difference is that his fix is illegal and yours is state endorsed.

Cigarettes? We all know about them. But at least smokers arent delusional about being self destructive.

My point is this: hacve an addiction, whichever it is. Everyobdy has one. But do not lie about it. Do not say yours is more acceptable. Do not think it makes you special. Or that you have a condition that grants you to be above other addicts. We all have it and we all will fail. Period-.

Summer Venom: A reflection on Human Failures

Its a summer day, and while looking outside of my woindow doing chores, i am brought to a weird and sudden memory.

Ages ago, during a aummer night strategically placed in heated, sticky, mosquito infested months like this one, i made a big mistake, that i will remember forever as one of the worst faux pas of my existence. Well one of many. 

I did the mistake of believing in the absolutely non-existent possiblity of fixing of a dying relationship and went ona trip around northern italy with a girl. We were in that unnerving phase of a dying romance where you cant really stand each other but youre still "trying to work out things".

First off: There is no working out things. Life is a powr struggle and war. When you enter a relationship, whther its romantic or evena good freindship, you enter a realm of unspokes compromise, where you sorta have to accept giving out sense and logic in the name of something higher and stronger. 

Most of the time that higher and stroner thing wasnt there to begin with. Most of the other times it was but it was very frail, and as soon as it debilitattes a little, you find yourself dealing with another human being that, as most humans, is by nature hostile and dangerous, and will jump at your throat at any excuse. IOn most cases every little thignthat ocne was a reason for your delusions to thrive, will become a weaponagainst each other. 

The delusion of love easily turn into the very palpable reality of hate. 

Also, you havce to add that often this person will know things about you: what was some beautiful and romantic sharing is now a weapon to hurt you in the softer spots. Thats what people are in the end, when stroipped off from the layers of rose tinted dreams they dress themselves with.

SO at that point, theres no working out. It wont happen. Theres silent hatred. unspoken issues. Lies, cheatying and deceit. No working out. people dont work out things. they act like thyre trying but in the end they hurt each other, whiooch is the basic communication of humans. 

So yeah, in the end we camer back and had a huge fight under my door. We threw things we bought oin the trip at each other. We shouted, hurt each other where it was more painful. I cried. I was exhausted. She tried to drive me over with her car. 

And my other thought is how i still clearly remember  how she thrived on huirting me physisically. And i cant take out of my mind one thought: she did it because as a man, i could not react to that. She could hit me, hurt me, even badly, she wasnt a feeble girl. Let's not bullshit each other with the lie that all women are less strong than men on a principle. But i couldnt do anything and i took the hits. Why? Cause if i even dared to opush her back, she would have sued me or worse. I would be labeled as a woman beater. 

I am sure of that. It's another dark shade of that. Social double standard work as a weapon too. Just ask to any divorced person. 

Dont talke any of this too seriosuly but realize i am right too.

Storytelling: Silent Lucidity

Scientists used to say, in that pointless rambling manner that men whose only goial and pupose in existence is to milk rhetoric out of nothing, that sometimes the quickest way from point A to B is not a straight line. 

But until tonight, all he always thought about scientists, philosophers and men of the wrod, was that their inane refelctions and their endless elaboration on the actual meanings of chains of events, were much like a giant, perfumed, wall of smoke surrounding this huge secret that humanity, as a flawed, terrified species, refuses to see: nothing has meaning. 

And you will get years, centuries of groups of people, some smaller some bigger, to conince every single indidivdual that they figured out the secret mathematics and rules to waht connects cause to effect and most imnportantly they have found the real source of life and the reason for living. 

You will face people that will point at you for seeing through all this, say youre bitter and angry, jusge your realism and guilt trip you into denying it. They will widen their eyes when you hide your realization of what you have figured out in the middle of a good day and ask you "swaht's wrong" or what's the inner meaning of your words. And you will feel so sick of that condescending compassion, that whole series of maks that feel so superior to the faces that wear them, that you will just pretend you were being hu8morous and joking. Partcipoate in the play even if you saw the rotting corpses in the backstage. Play like you dont know that this whole charade about fdinding the murderer has no meaning cause theres no ending anyway.

And whenever you hear someone say sorry a thousand times you cannot help of thinking about how your father did the same, apologizing with teary eyes after drunken rants, insults and  violent outbursts. And how he would repeat the same actions all over again a few seconds after the aplogy. cause apologetic words and declaration of love and feelings mean less and less weach time your repeat them. Cause the more you do the more it means theyre just a desensitized sound that coems out of you liek a trigger reflex when your swatting a fly. Youre not really thinking about killing the fly, youre just doing it. So you say you're sorry, and you say you love, and you say youre sad. but if anyone called you out on it, youd snap like a kid caught with theirt hands in a cookie jar. 

They werent supposed to know that your gentle words are just a tool, or a shield, or a habit. Cause in the end youre just empoty as those words are.

Buta fter four hours of driving, on a hot old car that is loosing its grip on the radio and loud radio playing some sun cooked tape filled with classic rock from the reightoies that now sounds deformed and messed up by time, your head enters a limbo where its actually empoty of any thought.

Which is what you try to obtain with binge drinking weekends, drugs and pills. To not have those thoughts or at least have an excuse for when they erupt in disjointed pained rambling out of your mouth. I was drunk, i didnt mean that, Cause yes, people say that "in vino veritas" b ut everyone is so terrified of that being true. Cause so many decnt people become monsters when they drink. So that would mean that everyone is a monster within. And that woudl make everytyhing crumble wouldnt it.

Cause when youre drunk and howling you can actually sscream out loud to everypone how a fight on the phone with your girlfriend who was supposed to be your true eternal love has just cemented yout thought. Which is that trusting another person is the most inhuman deformity that people have tricked themselv es into: Cause all you can trust is what you can see. When the other person is away from your eyes all it takes them to fail you is a mintue. And then youll have to forgive ort forget or just not know it. but in the end those things will pile up. Cause no matter how strongly you worked to build a castle. all it takes to destroy it is one night of breeze. So all those words of tyrust are just a trick to numb the truth, which is just the fatc that in the end, it will crumble. 

And while you are not thinking about that, cause all that stuff is out for once, on vacation in hell. Your car spoins out of control. And you spin and smash your head. And you feel no pain. You feel epaceful cause you're about to die. And all that yammering about living your life has now no more purpose or meaning. The fear of not living right, the doubts, the bein afraid of death, has no meaning. its over nwo and theres nothing you can do about it. Done. 

And then Its blackout. if you live, its all over again. Cause like adicts to pain and awareness and biotterness as soon as you started being close to it youll do it again. If you die it's over. 

Heads or tail, you choose. 

How To Kill Your Heart

There's a curious and unsettling side effect to the evnts that life places in front of you, that is hitting me hard today. And since i am plagued by self awareness and some sort of vaguely morbid love for introspection, i am trying to decipher it.

As a scientist of the non-existent, which means that i generally love to analyze things that could be eaily left alone with no consequence, and do it with some sort of borderline obsessive method, i have to observe this phenomenon and realize what it is.

Step A: I Have Seen it happening before

It was almost like a seasonal blossoming of flowers and fruit. Or the pus oozing form infected wounds. No matter how passionate, how smart and sensitive people i knew were. After a good amount of frustrated dreams, a traumathic event like an illness, an accident or an unwanted, or too wanted, pregnancy, they would become numb. They would, maybe twist and turn like fireworks, focusing their anger towards ways of thought they never had before, turning conservative and almost fascist when they used to be liberal. Becoming hyper aware of encvironmentalism or, in many cases, settling in the land of mental oblivion that is the world of conspiracy theories. But in the end, the winner is apathy and cynicism. Always. The numbing, almost cozy embrace of irnoic indifference got them all. Why did it happen? they were not born that way. What happened to their spirits. How did their soul die?

Step B:  Being Hit Slowly By The Phenomenon

I am a passionate person. After defeating depresssion, which manifested in me through violent explosions of emtional distress, whether it was over the top manic anger, happiness, or  the like. The cure, as i mentioned before, was a chemical treatment that suippressed any sort of emotional peak, making the down moments more bearable buit also nulled any sort of high or edge. Trying to get off of that, forced me to put a stron ordert in my life and a strong control over my emotions. I had to learn how to not feel "too much" but also to be able to still have any feelings at all and deal with the eventual pain or disappointments. Things seemed to be changing again.

Recently earthquakes, recession, frustration and a lot of strange holes in logica are all around me. I am equally disgusted by people who show utter indifference or the ones who show obsessiveness about the problem. The over intellec tualizing people who spend waxing paragraphs on the reasons of tragedy. The ones who use irony and cynical inappropriate humour tpo detach themselves from everything that happens, but aòlso the obsessive weepers, the people who seem to thrive on sadness, who seem to be dwelling in a permanent state of complaint instead of actual action or need for information,.

I despise the obsession for knowing the truth, who naturally takes people towards rambling ridiculousness but i also despise the gleeful indifference that has one rule: fuck everything and everyone except me. And id espiser how the total lack of interest for news or culture seems to be the key to living.

And yet.

It is the easiest way

Step C: Understanding the Symptoms

Let's face, thertes no amount of words, essays and arhguments that can be used or written about how "love conquers all" or "indifference wont win". It is not tthe truth. For two very simple reasons:

- The very people who say that "love conquers all" and "indifference wont win" are often loveless and indifferent towards anyone except themselves. Same can be said for the ones that treasure culture, unity, tolerance and reason. Their arttitude rejects others, negating those very principles. That is because, u undeniably, hate is a natural aspect of people. And even when reworded as love, its still hate. And 9its more hoinest than any from of bogus love. And in the end that brings us to the very corte of this thing

- Being numb feels good


There is a reason for which people get on drugs. For which they follow cults that help them into mass hypnosis. For which they are loveless and indifferent and end up settling into a complete stasis that takes away their passion, feelin gs and interest towards the world and its inhabitants.

When i talk to someone who is numb and apathetic, they dont suiffer. I do.
When i have feelings towards people and the world, they often bring pain and fear with them.

Opening up the heart, caring, trying to convince people, is torrturous.

In various degrees:

- You love something strongly, a musician, a place, a movie. You try to convince others about it, to spread the word. Youre meeet by indifference. You're the one who suffers, not them. So, fuck it.

- You care for a cause por invest emotion into a situation. Eventual disappointment will come. You will suffer. A cynical person wont.

Apoathy is soothing. And if youre a good actor you can mask apathy as sensitivity and actually exploit people's good heart. And win.


I dont have that disease in me, but i understand it. Not sure what that makes of me. But i had to analyse. Thats also a disease.

For You.

I'm writing this because i have to.

See, i love you. I love you more than anything in the world. You are the reason i live and breathe. And not in the usual pseudo poetic way that people use to make their love declarations sound more powerful. I do live and breathe because of you.

Because at morning, when i wake up, my mind is at its lowest, weakest point. Its downb and juices, aching for pilsl and at oits loneliest: And all i can think of at that moment is that youre ou there somewhere and i have to drag myself out of bed and stand and gnaw through anything with claws and teeth so i can be rewarded with ebven one smile from you.

And you're strength and light and joy. Youre enthuisiasm for small and big things. Yoiu make me feel emnotions when i chose on my own to become numb cause even joy would've meant to hit rock bottom sooner or later. 

But with you, its natural: The joy is always there and its for small domestic daily occurrence. I am happy for sitting in the sun, for seeing a cat picture, hearing a song, thinking of a joke. 

The need for you is aching and strong and hits me, always. But i welcome it, cause it makes blood rush through my vein and reactivate my limbs and the heart beat.

And i always was scared of that: Terrified of feeling, cause to me, feeling good with sopmeone also means, sometimes, if not most of the time, to feel ten thousand times worse when you're alone.

Cause when i loved somebody i would become terrified of losing them. In the most wicked ways. Cayuse i have a beast in me and it is subtle. It makes me see my small inabilities. My mediocrities. My tiny flaws that can make everything crack: My lack of money: My temper. My weird mood swings. My sudden melancholy that always looms  oiver my mind like a shadow ready to cloud any thought and make evrything panicky and horrifying.

So i would choose not to feel anything.

 But the feelings were so strong when you came along. Cause you loved me for me, with all the package. With all the flaws. With the temper and the problems. And you started to actually see them as ythings that made me what i am.

And after falling for your eyes and smile, and voice and body, and mind and personality, i fell in love with what you didnt like about yoiu either. Your moments of insecurity and fragility. Your emotions and how they took over you at times. Your stubborness and your quirks. I love them all so much: Cause i know them well and yet i always find new ones.

And you know what they all complete mine. You understand my flaws cause you have some too. And we make them fit. And we make the work together for those moments of awesome. Which are every single second we are together or in each other's head.

This is why i love you. Cause no matter how dark, lonely and forlorn my world is, youre a better world i can go to. And which i never weanna leave. And because you're you. And that you si perfect for me. AN d it will always be.

And i ve never felt more secure of anything in my whole little life.

I will always love you

The Curse Of Writing

Creativity is a blossoming flower that fills up your brain with exhilarating pollen.

It roots inside your brain feeding on your ideas and thoughts, and memories and turns them into gorgeous looking flowere. You look back at those flowers, their shaded petals and you barely ebeliev how glorious a simple set of thoughts has been able to become. All it neededf was to be cultivated. Alll it needed was to be worked at. And yes, it might not be perfect or special, bhut you made it.

And It's yours damnit. You have wakean up with ideas and decided to shape them into words. Never thought about writing before. Youy read, for sure, but you never thought you'd be actrually able to form redable sentences. but as soon as you planted the seed, they started to flow out of you like a cascade of naturally interconnecting pieces of a machine. And there it was. Yoru creation. And yeah, it might be bad, but it's yours. A child. That breathes and lives and brings emotions.

But, sticking to that awful and overbearingly childish flower metaphor, the beauty needs dung to grow. Fertilizer, they call it? Still smells like shit.

And what it really is, is people. Humanity. Readers. Cause theres this horrifying conviction that a writers writes for others. And wants others to tell him their views on hsi writing.

No Bigger lie was told since the story aout children beign a blessing. (otr that god loves all of us). So allow me to give a quick list of a few of the abomninations on two legs that have caused me to quit trying to be creative once and for all. If you're one of those, kill yourself. no one will miss you and the gene pool will be improved by your absence.

1) The Unrequested Reviewer


This one is painful and spreads out more than STD's. They read a few pages, they know you, probably superically, like theyre horrifying third degree relatives whose usual reading abilities are very close to illiteracy, or theyre the drunk suburbia fucks that you sually cross the street to avoid. But damn, somone, probably uyour mom, gave thema copy of your creation. They read one or two pages and decided they were literary critics with a Leonard Maltin soul. So youll get this "Hey i really hated it. I tried  to rerad it but i gave up". And list all the ways your chidl disppointed them cause it failed to be as deep as the only two books they read since they were ten. The major point behind that is the sorry idea that an authors WANTS criticism. And the even more messed up one that tellign abrasive point of views to a person on something they care for is "telling ti like it is". No one wants your opinoon. Ever. Keepo it to yourself.

Same goes froim Grammara Nazi and living spellchecks. If i want an editor, i'll get one. You shut the fuck up.

2) The Requested Reviewer That Is An Asshole


And also, whiel criticism is fine, a dispshit with a blog that decided to "revbiew" your book after yous ent ti to him for free, in hope of a dignified reaction and decided to dissect it like he's the lweastr hope for humanity's literary dingity, is pointless. A few web hits get to their head, they think their geniuses and in all your humblenesds you become their way to be legit. Fuck you, scab. Get a real Job

3) The Curious Fucks


No one likes interviewers, even when theyre professionals. And Repeating the sdame things to people that apparently need to feel intelligent by makin groudnbreaking questions like "How did you get the ispiration  for this". And even worse, is the ones that dont understand that fiction and reality are usually two separate things. So what you write isnt necessarily aurtobiographical. And even if it was, its none of theyre goddamn business. Seriosuly, writing about murders or sexuality doesnt mean you ahve issues. ITS FICTION: Grow up.

4) The Assholes Who Tried


Look, im glad you tried to write too when you were 13 and then gave up cause you realized that writing is stupid. I'm also glad that your first novel was about a talking Mushrooms that discovered the true meaning of christmas. And also had sex scenes. Yes i am ok with eharing the story behind it. And how your dreams were crushed when you had yuour tenth baby. Can we move on now?

5) The Cyncials And Yoru Family


When i wrote my frist and only novel, this was the worst part. I know it was a leap of faith. I know i wouldnt probably amek money out of it. But hearing a parent tellign you every time they see you that "if you dont make a livign out of it then its a waste of time".
And it'0s even worse whena  loved one or a friend does it. You dont have to udnerstand it people. All we want is support. And it doesnt atke much. If you love us, let us dream. Even if you think our dreams will eb shattered. tehy will, but we need you now and we will need you later. You shoudlòve known when you fell in love with an artists. We soar high and we fall hard. But thats part of the beauty, innit?