Song of the Week

Demonios! Septiembre está a tres días. Todos saben que odio septiembre, mes de las fiestas patrias y mi cumpleaños. Hubiera preferido haber nacido en octubre realmente. Toda la parafernalia charra y patriotera que ronda por las calles me provoca nauseas y me hace desear con mayor intensidad que la usual haber sido sueco o irlandés. Lo peor es que el día 23 es alcanzado por la sombra radioactiva/tricolor de la semana anterior.

Suficiente por hoy.

19 Months Later

In the deepest corner lives a relentless need
That keeps growing, along with the days;
A long gone mirage-like trail still remains
In my mind, it feeds and burns out my whole heed.
I linger in the senseless jokes that fate plays,
Which randomly disguises them in tiresome strains.

How can I possibly reach you is now a matter
Of survival. My sanity began to dwindle
As you broke in my sight; just as you left,
I spindrifted: the first time my heart did shatter.
And crumbled on. Never again I've had any single
Moment of joy. A tiny yet painful cleft

In my being is what losing you has caused.
From the distance you stole the dearest piece
I've never handed to somebody. The sudden beam
From your eyes dispeled my darkness. Yet I lost
To you the cure for this everlasting disease.
You still keep it by yourself. Such a sad scheme,

This twitching pain, are what I cannot bear.
When will this end? How can I quell this evil off?
I wish you returned, I could heal myself once more.
You'd have my whole loyalty with a single stare
Of yours. Your touch and embrace would be enough
To afford my surrender, my soul, my deepest core.

There Was Once a Boy Named Pierre...

No será fácil. Todo lo opuesto. Nada ni nadie me garantiza que obtendré el éxito que busco, pero cualquier cosa es mejor que esto. Hay cosas por las cuales no merece la pena preocuparse ni mucho menos entristecerse, por lo que la indiferencia ante ellas es el mejor antídoto. Será mejor guardar energías para cuando de verdad se necesiten, para cuando de verdad valga la pena. Porque seguramente llegarán, aunque no se sabe con certeza. Uno nunca sabe cuándo vendrá el momento indicado, por lo tanto, uno debe estar preparado para él.

Pero no es fácil tratar con la indiferencia, pues es cínica, incómoda y políticamente incorrecta. Uno tendría que llegar a ser inmune ante casi cualquier cosa. Los sentimientos tendrían que eliminarse pues, de otra forma, todo sería causa de pena o dolor. Mas no pienso que uno deba ser indiferente a la pena ajena, o al menos a la de las personas cercanas. Esto implica cierta represión del yo, pues es en él donde nacen todas las necesidades. Con frecuencia el yo enfatiza trivialidades y accidentes. Sólo suceden; el que estén ya predestinados o no ya no está al alcance de uno. Y, si dicho mecanismo nos afecta variadamente pero se encuentra tan lejos, ¿por qué debemos en consecuencia preocuparnos por él? No se puede hacer nada, de todas formas.

Why? Or Why Bother, Rather?

How all this could happen is a quite silly question, since it just happened and that's it. Whether I learned something from it I'm not sure at all--if there ever was something to learn. It seems that fate furnished nothing but void events for me. I had met her once before. It all began three years ago, though I guess she was the one who started it all (I firmly believe she noticed me first.) Back then I wasn't looking forward to find a sort of romantic interest or whatsoever. I wasn't even sure she could possibly like me. Yet I realized she always liked me, indeed. Her faraway stare let me know it. But it was quite late and I never saw her again.

During that time I lost her trace. Once in a while I wished to find her again so that I would go closer to her and find out if something between us could happen. I waited for that moment to come but fate stood me up, and she never came back. Thanks to the help of some of my friends, I unfortunately realized of the plentiful cons that solitude always brings along. This just woke up in me but a kind of chronic depression that loneliness has caused me ever since. From then on I began to linger in the all-that-could-have-been crap. This newfound feeling brought nervous sighing, slight tremors, panic attacks, and the recurrent yet bothersome need of being hugged that never is fulfilled. Her absence lasted almost two years and, if she ever showed up, it only happened twice at most.

Yet I never knew if I really felt certain love for her. Just because I wanted to meet her again didn't mean I was actually in love. Probably I just felt attracted to her just because she was good-looking and she liked me. Maybe her reaching my vanity nerve (yes, I do have vanity of my own, though not a Gargantuan-like one) was what appealed to me. At the beginning of the next year, however, something really changed in me. One day, after I drifted through the streets and was finally bound home I fell in love at first sight--the first time ever, I'm sure. This girl had something that the other one never had--since it took me quite long to notice she was there--though I can't explain what it was: I had previously ran into pretty girls that never made me feel anything at all. But this one touched me indeed. She immediately and literally took my heart away. As she looked me into the eye a sudden vulnerability overwhelmed me and bad nerves screwed everything up. The innate Joycean paralysis in all of us woke up wide in me and I couldn't do anything. She only kept looking at me, trying to pull me towards her, waiting for me to talk to her. She slipped through and went away. Yet this time was far worse, since I had no guts enough to ask her her name. I know the street on which all this took place, though. I still go there to find her, but life doesn't allow me to meet her. Nobody has ever made me feel something like that. Since then I've never felt something similar for anybody else again. She ran deep in me. I only saw her once, never knew her name, I still remember how she looked--tall, slim, brown hair in a ponytail, long fringes falling on her forehead, big bright reddish-brown eyes, wine red blouse and skirt--and am still in love with her. The worst of all is that she liked me but I let her go (if someone wants to beat the crap out of me due to this, you can do it freely, I promise I won't hit back, since I do deserve it.)

Yet, six months later, just as I had given up any hope and accepted solitude as the main plot in my life destiny (back then I thought it really did) brought the girl whose trace I lost ca. two years before. In those days I found that quite foreboding --in the good sense--, for I was completely sure she'd never come back. And more surprisingly struck me the fact that she still liked me. How did I notice it? Someone said that the first kiss comes through the glance. I can really notice when someone likes me. But this time, her glance was much more intense than two years before. There was no way to mistake it. This time, without caring about the aftermath, I moved closer to her. I managed to know some aspects of her life: what she liked, what she did, the usual suspects we always go after when we look for some love. I really thought I would have something nice to remember from her. But life prepared anything for me but love, after all. She let me down in the end, though she never did it straightforwardly. I can perfectly take hints. I did not even felt hurt enough to show her my anger, though I asked her some questions to tie up some loose ends. She only changed the subject and never looked me into the eye. After that I only turned around and stepped out of her sight. I didn't want to talk to her either. I started to believe that, after all, I made her feel uneasy as I tried to approach her. Thence my abrupt withdrawal.

After everything that happened since the last year I suppose I deserve it. I've never seen the girl whom I let go off me again. The memory of her eyes and shape causes me pain every day, but I can't stop remembering her. It's the only way I have to feel I'm by her side. Maybe she was sad and lonely just as I find myself now and found in me a chance to fill her needs and emptiness, which had to remain so thanks to my stupidity. I guess I'm the biggest loser, since maybe she found someone else later (it is quite easy to fall in love with her.) Later I went closer to someone else who only liked me, yet never wanted me. Whether she only found in me the best way to make bigger both her ego and vanity or she somehow felt something for me is totally irrelevant now. After the disappointment she tried to catch my attention back and make things just like they were before, but I had no will to fall for it any longer. Maybe I was a bit drastic to her but, later, fate demonstrated that nothing between us would ever happen.

Why did fate bring her back to my life? To show me that I and she would never be together? To make me feel worse than before? To teach me something useful? I'm afraid there never was something new or positive to learn. I don't feel better, but I bear her no grudge. I do grudge destiny, who brought into my life pointless flashbacks. Whether she liked me or not that doesn't matter anymore. By the last things I saw she would have liked to share something with me but, perhaps she was not in the best of moments to do it. Before the deception above mentioned, I did feel we had common interests and likings. I perceived certain empathy that could've led to a better outcome--she even laughed out louder than anybody else at my silly jokes, and more than once. There was some of the so-called chemistry. Maybe she was the one for me. Maybe we could have been quite happy. Put simply, she came back in the wrong time. It's not good when the right woman comes to your life when she is not meant to. Or is it that I was the right one for her but I came in an awkward moment? It makes no sense at all. Though I guess that I shouldn't try to make sense of all this. Nothing is forced to have a reason to be. I have nothing left but moving on and just letting things happen.

Though I Speak with the Tongues of Men and Angels...

Things seem to get even worse as days go by. I don't even know how they will decay, since all I achieve doesn't last long enough. There's something relentless in me that has been going on since several months ago, wreaking havoc in everything that happens. Whatever I do doesn't make any sense to me. I can't enjoy it anymore. I see it as the most usual triviality that leaves but tastelessness. It only falls into the void and never comes back. Nothing makes me happy when I really should be so, that's what sucks.

Every achievement in these two months would make someone else feel quite fine: I graduated, got good grades, got the highest results in the Österreichisches Sprach Diplom test... But it doesn't mean anything to me. I feel it doesn't help solve something. I got a ranking that many others would've killed for, and I didn't even care. I can do it quite good in an unfriendly language. Everyone there was shooting photos, holding their diplomas quite proudly... And I used mine to fan myself. My friends, and even my teachers, were happier for my results than I was--I had to pretend certain joy not to let them down, though. I didn't even care. I have not been doing quite fine since long ago. Even though I lost certain will, the kind of illusion that kept me up long before, I never let this run deep in the outcome, which was, despite my mood, quite outstanding. I found no reason to think it worthwhile. It seems that success will be but a bitter pill as long as I don't find someone to share it with.

I am not done. It's just this persistent disappointment.

Help Me ! I'm in Hell!

Recientemente salieron, en diversos formatos, los capítulos finales de la saga de Hades de Saint Seiya, los cuales dejan en claro lo limitada que fue la trama de dicha serie de manga/anime (ver post de mayo 15). Dado que la serie no dio para más--o más bien no fue propiamente explotada--los resultados fueron negativos en gran parte: el autor quiso terminar pronto y acortó ridículamente los últimos eventos añadiendo toques de filosofía barata que cualquiera puede encontrar en cualquier no-tan-barato libro de autoayuda de Sanborns. Sin embargo, lo peor del asunto es la forma tan absurda en la que terminó todo: unos simples adolescentes aniquilando a los dioses en persona.

Si bien la trama de Saint Seiya ya es fantaseosa en demasía, el epílogo supera los límites establecidos. Como ya se ha mencionado, estos niños logran acabar con la voluntad de un dios para así prolongar un poco más la existencia de la humanidad. Ellos logran llegar a Elisión para frenar las intenciones de Hades, el dios "maléfico" que desea acabar con la humanidad pervertida. En primer lugar nadie podría vencer a un dios, ni mucho menos al destino, el cual ni las deidades pueden superar. Pero en el agringadísimo universo feliz de Kurumada esto es posible. Antes de destruir el cuerpo de Hades, estos jovencitos matan a los dioses del Sueño y la Muerte, logrando así acercarse al blanco principal. Al final de la batalla todo es luminoso y la humanidad recibe otra oportunidad de rectificar sus errores y enmendarse, salvo un pequeño (pero importantísimo) cabo suelto: el Sueño, la Muerte, y el Señor del Inframundo han sido eliminados. Dado que, al menos en el universo de Saint Seiya, los dioses sí existen, las consecuencias deben manifestarse de inmediato o al final del día. Imaginen un mundo en el que el descanso impuesto por el orden universal ha sido erradicado para siempre. En este caso, la humanidad no ha sido sino condenada a vivir en un mundo sin muerte y sin sueño: el agotamiento físico nunca acabará; los enfermos terminales pasarán a ser enfermos permanentes; la gente podrá tener los hijos que quieran sin preocuparse de que mueran de hambre; los viejos jamás se irán; la sobrepoblación se convertirá en una terrible pandemia; la humanidad jamás volverá a dormir. A pesar de que muchos ilusos creen que en el paraíso la muerte no existe, no piensan el lo insignificante que sería la vida sin saber que ésta llegará a su fin: perdería todo valor (si es que alguna vez lo tuvo). Jugar ruleta rusa o abusar de drogas pesadas ya no tendría sentido. Las guerras, civiles e internacionales, jamás terminarían. Caeríamos en un abismo que sólo nos llevaría a un infierno de excesos infinitos en el que ya nada valdría la pena. Extrañaríamos al sueño y a la muerte como nunca antes. La vida se covertiría en un mono iracundo que chillaría y nos mordería el rostro sin que pudiéramos quitárnoslo de encima. Una simple comezón que jamás dejaríamos de rascarnos. El final de Saint Seiya es, a todas luces, nocivo. Puesto que acabaron con el Juez Supremo del Inframundo, quien también era el pilar central del mismo, ya no hay quien haga valer la justicia divina. Hades y el Inframundo, el cual ha existido desde quien diablos sabe cuando, han desaparecido, junto con las almas buenas y malas que recibieron su merecido. Saint Seiya no sólo entregó un desenlace mediocre, sino que provocó un daño irreparable en el cosmos que tanto pretendía defender. Afortunadamente, todo esto no son más que sandeces estéticas.

Si bien el destino rara vez es alentador, al menos podemos confiar en que, tarde o temprano, nos traerá al sueño, el cual pondrá fin a un día pesado--lo siento por los insomnes, pero para eso hay valium--, y a la muerte, que marcará el ocaso de una existencia brillante y sin sentido--muy a pesar de los médicos alternativos y New Age, que dicen que el hombre debe vivir 125 años. Dado que el Sueño es el hermano gemelo de la Muerte, ¡alabado sea el Sueño! ¡Y alabada sea su adorable y bella prima, la Narcolepsia!

It Seemed a Place for Us to Dream

The sun rises once more
And new days begin.
This very same act is fated
To perpetuity.
Nobody notices it, though.
Nobody even cares. No.

It's been said that sleeping
Is not living. Yet sometimes there
Is no life in life itself, there is nothing
Worthwhile to be awake for. Dreams
Have a more appealing facade than reality.
Even if they become scant as days go by.

Sleep grants more, various chances.
Long sleep shortens burden-like days
and relieves both physical and spiritual
Weariness--but does not eradicate it.
In dreams hope can be found now and then.
As they fade out, the longing starts again.

Dreams may also play cruel jokes,
As they bring back memories that should
Remain in oblivion and never return.
How come they trace them back and
Pull them out from the void, nobody knows.
They crack old wounds and make them flow.

Waking up easily dispels cruel dreams.
Yet life is not that fast to get rid of.
It lasts forever, it seems.