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STILL LONGING FOR HER, 2009-2013

Can I create a new world in a city where a life awaits me, a life I did not manage to live in the previous one? A city of gods where I will become one of them. A city of the past where I will create my future. Where marble and concrete collide so much and yet work so closely together. A ruined sad city that still stands so powerful and resists immortality. Where the energy circulates through your body every time you approach one of the hills, as if it is inviting you: breathe, breathe deeply, and feel, because you finally deserve it. 

You will find the purpose of existence in the city you belong to.

***

POSITIVE CHAOS / Athens 2019

Chaos is staying awake at 3 am because you are too obsessed doing something

Chaos is in these city lights and the traffic and the beautiful crowd of people that make a place alive

Chaos is in the concrete buildings and monochrome scenery, when you do not know if the lights are still on because people put window shutters down.

Chaos is in the creation of an idea, that no matter how good or bad it is, is your creation. Even if you stole it from something else.

Chaos is in contemporary art, in conceptual art. The more simple it is, the more disturbing it will be for people, so they will either talk about it pretending they are smart intellectuals or simply will say: I don’t get it. This is not art.

Chaos is your place in heart you can call home.

Chaos is obsession with one color, or with one sound, or with one person.

Chaos does not mean you are not being a minimalist, it just means you are hiding it pretty well.

Chaos is the void that gave birth to Kronos Earth and Eros

My Chaos is my Athens. She was my love at first touch. She embraced me and I forgot to let her go ever since. For five years I was longing for her thinking I was crazy for loving something I didn’t know, something strange, something foreign. But she got under my skin so strong that I would fantasize about the day I would return and never leave. I knew that was the place I could be more of myself than ever. She was the strongest connection to something transcendental, metaphysical even.

I did not choose her. She chose me. Six years ago I decided to marry her and to accept everything she has got to give, but also to give away everything I had to reject and sacrifice for her. Even when she was not so fond of me, I would still love her. Even the times I was left hurt or broke, I was never broken. She reminds me every day that dreams do come true. She is always tempting me at the same time making me stronger. She would never give me more than I could take. She brings people to my life that help me on the way and it makes us all connected and touched by this invisible thread.

The chaos in this city is the most beautiful chaos I have ever encountered. It is my chaos of happiness. Movement, change, instability, in the motion. In the mixture of noises and voices, I found my piece of mind. In concrete, I found my creativity. In this continuous hurry and busy life style, I found my relaxation. She makes me aware of every moment, even when I feel down, I am happy she has my back.

Now I leave her occasionally. I work elsewhere, became traveler, six months on the road. She lets me do what I love and lets me leave and pursue my other passion. But every time I am away is just a reason to come back. The more time I spend with her, the more I miss her. She is my one night stand affair I want to have forever. And she is the only one who does not make my heart feel … φυγή.*

*figi, the feeling of not wanting to be in the place you are, or wanting to leave somewhere else, escapism

***

NEGATIVE CHAOS akka How I escaped the war.

I remember the refugee camp in Germany we were sent to when my mother’s cousin kicked us out of their house. The three little girls that supposed to be my cousins were staring at us from the windowsill in the same way I was staring at them that day they ate all the chocolate I have never seen in my life and didn’t share and I was eating with my eyes imagining how sweet Duplo must be while my mother was crying.

I remember sleeping in a room with bunk beds with many people and sharing the bed sheets with small checked pattern. It was red and white and reminded me of our coat of arms. I remember seeing a gypsy woman washing unpeeled banana and thinking we must be doing it the wrong way.

Back then I missed my grandma’s pantry that we turned into a shelter because we did not have anywhere else to hide. I missed that small bed that could barely fit the walls where I would make friendship bracelets all day long dreaming I would one day become a designer.

I remember the day the grenade fell in our yard and all the sounds of sirens many times per day, every day, all the time, the sound that made me become terrified of thunder and made me not being able to stand the school bell. This is one of the reasons I left teaching job. It was just too much to remember every day.

My grandfather would stay still in his chair near the windowsill, smoking and drinking. He said, I am not hiding, if it is meant to leave from grenade, let it be. He died three years later from cancer, just like my other grandfather many years before.

I remember the day my father left the army and came to Germany to bring us back to Croatia because the war was apparently over. I have just made friends in the camp and was playing with one Hungarian girl on a truck tire swing, and we talked a lot, too, just don’t know in which language.

I remember I was writing letters to my dad which my mum is still hiding somewhere, letters saying TATA  AJ LAV JU, asking my mum if I was the reason he has left us, saying I will try to be good so to make him proud of me and come back. I could not understand that a person can love his country more than his family. No one knows what kind of demons these people are hiding within. The only story I know from war is how Curica died on my father’s arms and my father is blaming himself because he put him on number 13 in the list. You don’t talk about that, you don’t even think about that. That is why you have the power of repression, to forget the bad things and to lock them in the deepest drawer of your subconscious mind.

But still you are hunted by your past. In the form of people, scoliosis and spinal fusion surgery, in a form of thunder, in children’s toy gun, German language, truck tire, Croatian coat of arms, police, MAT, refugees and immigrants. Trying to avoid every question related to war or tense nation relation, but they bring you back somehow. And then you decide to think positive. You force yourself to ignore everything around you so to protect your soul and to keep your sanity, or what is left of it. You decide it is time to be stupid so that you can be happy.

I allowed myself to smile with my eyes, to be happy for other people’s success and share and spread love and happiness the best way I can. If it means to ignore all the past, sadness, history, sickness, envy, jealousy, failures, misery, news, media, problems, politics, animosity, poverty, all the NEGATIVITY around me, than let it be. DO NOT underestimate yourself ever again. And the most important, be grateful, enjoy little things and have the reason to get out of your bed every morning, even though you know some people are deprived of this luxury.

Maybe you will understand one day why I decided to leave. Why I had to leave. Because I did not want to die again.

Athens is now my shelter, my antidepressant and my savior. But she is also filled with sad stories and with faces whose eyes do not shine anymore. And she, too has got lots of taverns with red and white checked pattern tablecloth, that bring back suppressed memories even at the happiest moments of this life we call (the) present.

 ***

DEPARTURE – JOURNEY - ARRIVAL

DEPARTURE, Valencia, Spain, 2010

I am afraid. Of the end. Of A new beginning. (...)

Fear is treated with fear. Mine is getting bigger.

But I am happy in my fear. I am happy in anticipation of the new. Unknown.

This is my time. This is my life. Each cigarette burns slowly and disappears quickly.

It is a moment in the eternity of one cigarette. Her life is wasted for someone else. She's dying for you.  She is given to you completely, leaving a bitter taste behind. And stays in within you forever.

Killing slowly.

 

JOURNEY, Osijek, Croatia, 2012

The only word that doesn’t exist in my dictionary is ‘forever’.

The very thought that something is eternal and constant drives me to torment,

encourages a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness, almost madness.

If something is eternal, it means there is no end, so why bother to maintain what you can't lose anyway.

And that mathematical sign for infinity is so twisted and so perfect, But to write it too, you have to have a start and an end point.

You have to have an end. Because without the end there is no paradise.

Without the end of one life period you cannot start another.

And so cyclically in a circle.

 

ARRIVAL, (in the absence of Athens), Osijek, 2013

Sitting alone next to the trains, the timetable doesn’t interest me.

Rain occurs at intervals, but life goes on with or without it.

A woman gets on the train with an umbrella; a man is getting off without an umbrella.

Strangely, as some prepare for the rain, some try to avoid it, and others embrace it.

Some carry large suitcases on wheels while others board the train without personal belongings, without preparation.

And maybe only such people know where they are going. (...)

The rain has stopped together with the murmur of the people. As they came, so they went.

 Maybe it's time to move on. To return home, where they are waiting for me.

Thank you for spending this coffee with me.

Even though you don't know it, you were present.

I asked the silence when she would answer me, and she said: Be persistent.

(published in Greek poetry magazine Tsakmaki, 2017)

***

TO YOU…
Take me to the ecstasy of unimagined pleasures, be my Daimon,
Give me the Dionysian intoxication, be my Reality.
You are my Apollo, I am your Daphne,
Put a laurel wreath in your hair and keep me possessively to yourself.
My mature soldier, Athena speaks to you, my beautiful brother, Artemis speaks to you,
what we do is really bold, let Arachni continue weaving her web,
but nobody will survive without metamorphosis if they touch me,
for no one is allowed to reveal my faults and bring me naked into the light of a day.
I will deceive you just like I did to Actaeon.
I remain chaste in your sight, I offer friendship, I hide my body,
The bed is just mine, you can't find it and penetrate it.
My body does not know the mirror, it only knows my strength and skills,
My hands are more dexterous than yours, I will catch you together with all the wild animals.
Eyes are to look with, hands are to touch with,

but your eyes and your hands are not worthy of me,
My soul does not know lust and passion,  but I am too humble to reject you.
Awake what is hidden inside of me like Lethe that lies in the past,
free me from my shell,
give me wings to fly into the mental Chaos that disturbs every peace and serenity that is rooted in me.
Teach me to desire, teach me to love, teach me to live.
When I master that, then I will reciprocate.
I will erupt from the passion you give. Or is it a feeling that came from myself?
Guide me to the self-discovery path, don't let me ever stop exploring,
Have your eyes full of wonders just like I have them for myself.
Bring me to the ecstasy of unimagined pleasures, be my Reality ...

\\one night at university we were drinking with our Greek philosophy professor, who decided to give us god characters, but could not decide whether I was Artemis or Athens. This was the moment I started longing for Athens without ever being in this city. Later on this poem was born and it is dedicated to all the lovers I have never had. \\

***

THE moment I have lived described in one sentence

The sound of your beating heart made me aware I still have mine and can hear it talking back to the void that contains the emptiness of past memories and cries for the lost souls that do not wander anymore and are finally finding tranquility after spending so much time quietly screaming for more of what would carry movement to their atoms that shattered in pieces and now are brought back together by someone’s breath and I know you want to feel me but you are already inside of me as I became yours the moment I heard your soothing voice without even seeing your capable hands and realizing how well they would fit my isolated body and touch my essence awakening inspiration with the emotion I had in me but have forgotten how to use because it took me long time to get there and now I understand how people can spend their lives looking for each other in every person they meet and maybe one day if they are lucky enough they stop searching because they find so I hope we will find once what we never saw in each other no matter how hard we tried because the point is not to try but to feel and then you know.

***

MY DREAMS

I dream to stare at the sky At midnight and at noon

with the sun turns to moon in winter and in summer.

To see the clouds dancing along with the birds, sharing hugs and kisses.

With no music, with no sound, On the lightblue platform with colorful walls.

to listen to the noise of the street to ease the trouble in my mind

to create the chaos born before thinking,

I dream to figure out and understand without a word

I dream to find the solution, To meet something that will answer me

where I came from and where to go,

and when will this life come to an end.

what am I? who am I? if to become a bird.

if I am the Pigeon of the square,

small and cheerful, meeting with my pair next to the statue hidden.

 

If I am Halcyon / Alcyone

to cut my life for another soul, in water to sink my heart from a rock , astonishing,

delving something dangerous to kill me at the end.

 

if I am the Seagull to fly high

and once to find freedom, not to feel imprisoned in the cage, like a corpse, muddled.

 

(not) to fear nothing

(not) to miss anyone

(not) to remember anything

when transformed into a bird.

***

SHARED LONELINESS

My anxiety attacks are back. The outburst of tears for no reason at all and for all reasons as well. With no notice with no preview with no control to suppress the tears like I do with emotions. Loneliness is growing up like a child too fast and my heart is shrinking and I want to make it so small so that no more pain can fit and to squeeze all the feelings left untamed and chained and unlived. There is no one to call that will say: I’ll be there in five minutes. No one to come no one to answer. People don’t even answer these days. Even the ones that are far away. So many messages left on seen. And then you give up. But then you realize you are the master of not replying. You are doing the same with no regrets. Except for some times you are left with guilt. Like that time my friend told me he wished he had the guts to start new life in another country like I did, as he believed I had a perfect life. And I didn’t reply to him and he committed suicide and then it was too late to answer.

Strange that 5 minutes have different meaning to different people. And even if they answer, they will say they don’t have time now but: we should definitely meet or talk because I’ve missed you dinaki;. but then it rarely happens that people can find the time and energy to share their time and energy with you. And then I wonder, maybe it is me who can not make the other feel better, happier and give them some positivity in 5 minutes spent together in their dull day, so how can I expect the same in return. To give your time to someone so that their time is not wasted but spent well, that is the essence. So that later when they are heading home they are thinking I am happy that I have met her because she made my day less shitty. Instead I hear from a friend, I can not see you because I am dealing with lot right now and I can not listen to you too. Is it that I am complaining a lot? Then I wouldn’t want to be my friend either. If I can not make people feel special and give them my all attention when I am with them, when we share our times together, our precious time, the most valuable thing you can give to someone. Then I understand if they think I make them heavy and worried a lot. And they can not deal with me because they have no space left for more worries.

And I said to a friend that I am more empty than usually, and he said, I guess we all are. And then I think, even with all the emptiness in the world, if all people share the same emotions, fears, doubt, loneliness, how come we are still empty separately and cannot fill each other gaps and feel fulfilled in return?

***

I AM THE MAGIC

Maybe I do not know to love the right people or how to love the people right, But I have learned to love myself and to love my dog, and that is a good start.

I am tired of packing, of living out of a bag or two. If you would have to put your one life in a suitcase, what would you feel? What is worth letting go not to make you too slow for the road, and what will stick to you like a second skin you did not know you had because it became so fond of you that it became a part of you.

I am difficult to love. And I have difficulties loving.

People are afraid to lose the other because they don’t have themselves and their being does not exist otherwise. Everybody trying to work on themselves and accept themselves, and I am trying to get rid of myself. I am enchanted by sleep and sleepy in life. I do not know how to choose the wise words or how to choose the words wisely.

Three times in one year my soul wanted to give up. When I lost my dog, when I lost my investment, and when I lost what I thought was love. There are moments when you need to get back on your feet but you feel like your legs are chopped off, you cannot stand up, you cannot walk, and people expect you to run. Because they are used on your strength. People say, you ll be fine, you always have been. But how do you know when enough is enough.

I am so late in life that I might not make it to my own funeral. I never had it all, but never before in my life have I reached the point where I had nothing. At that point I convinced myself there was nothing nice left in this world. When everything you need and want is taken away from you or has never been given to you at first place.

Money that wasn’t there

I have right to be healthy. I have right to be wealthy. I need the money to live a good life. Losing everything was the biggest slap in the face and I thought my worth doesn’t have worth anymore. The feeling of guilt of losing not only all my investment and savings but losing my fathers pension fund to brokers and my stupidity, was so strong that made me sick and I forgot how to enjoy in life because I thought I was not allowed to enjoy and live anymore for what I have done. I lived with guilt for too long until I slowly started letting go and forgiving. First forgiving others but then forgiving myself. I had to forgive to move on. I will never forget, and I think about it every single day. But I will be fine. Because I know have the right to be happy, healthy and wealthy again.

A person who says money can’t buy happiness has obviously never been without money. Cause I tell you, the hell I live happy when I can meet my parents and when I can travel to my hometown, when I can afford vets for my dog and good quality dog food, when I can afford my rent without having to live off the couch, and when I can afford my health treatments, the physiotherapy and massage, and saunas, and my medicine and sweet pleasures like hair highlights and workout and avocadoes and almond milk and three-ply toilet paper and Douwe Egbert coffee and my skincare and my vitamins and probiotics and my creative art space and my tools and art supplies. The hell I am happy then. Yes, money can’t solve all my problems, but sure it would solve 90 per cent of my problems. So yes, it is just the money, but no, it is not just the money. It is the quality of your life.

Love that wasn’t love

You know the feeling when you meet someone and you think this is your soulmate? Well, me neither. The truth is we don’t happen to be with our soulmates and we keep searching for them because we could not be together in a previous life. Whatever the soulmate is, I don’t want it anymore. Love should not be an obsession and manipulation and doing everything for one and forgetting everyone else for just one person and losing yourself to be (with) someone else. Love should not be painful and the person who makes you cry is not the right person even if you think if he is a perfect match and one and only soulmate, he is doing you harm and you need to run as far as you can as fast as you can.

The moment came when I met someone and the clock was ticking but the time has stopped. And he was the one who touched my soul, woke it up, shook it, took it, affected it, dominated it, manipulated it, injured it and broke it. And that was the last point I thought there is nothing nice left in this world. Because the magic was taken away from me.

Then I slept for weeks and months. And I woke up one day. To realize my magic is within me, in my art, in my creation. The magic is not to be taken from other person’s breath, the magic is not dependent on anyone. Nobody can take away my magic, because I AM the magic.

***

19 years since my operation

My body is getting more and more tired but my spirit is still young and I am happy.

But I do not know how long could I keep up with the busy rhythm of earning money with the pace that is expected from me because otherwise I would die of starvation for living the life I wanted to have.  I am running the race I have already lost. But my spirit is young so when you see me smiling be aware that I mean it.

And I want you to be happy for what you have instead of being jealous of what I have. Some don’t have health, some don’t have one parent or both, some don’t have siblings, some don’t have children, some don’t have partners, some don’t have soul mates, some don’t have a job, some don’t have place to live, some don’t have a purpose to live. Some lack freedom some lack control come lack choices.

I miss many things. But first of all, I miss my health. But I am no jealous of you for having a better and healthier life. Because I cannot know your personal struggles and your pain.

When the pain is physically visible, people are more understanding. Like that time I had a ruptured Baker’s cyst and my leg was swollen and I couldn’t walk and get on the bus to go to the hospital so people gave me a seat and gave me a hand even during covid.

But I feel like I have to apologize for my pain that is invisible because people see me as a whole and the screws are well hidden in my body construction so I am operating and still in use even with some spare parts.

But my pain and my tiredness make my soul heavy and I know when people say I look good and have got so much energy, they really mean it, but there are days when none is left and I need to be plugged in to restart. And these days I am no good although I still might look good but I try to not let people notice I am not fully functional because I don’t want them to say you are a pretentious spoiled lazy person who doesn’t want to work and knows nothing in life.

I only know I am not in pain when I create and when I make things and then it is when I am functionally working although I do not actually work.

And all I will be happy about is to once make a living out of what I make because I know that what I make is good enough and worth to make me want to continue living happily even when life is full of pain.

***

For the love of my life.

 

I do not want to be forced

to leave where I love to live

because the two of us do not fit in this city

in this universe.

The world is small but you must let me go

To walk my long path

since you do not walk yours alone.

you carry the suitcase which is already heavy

so other things do not belong there.

and I am not a small paper clip to fit in your pocket

to carry me you need two such suitcases

and not only.

even if you wanted to,

you do not have enough strength in your hands

 to lift them up without getting hurt.

Let me walk alone

rather than holding half of me.

***

HOW I ESCAPED CONTROL

I cry (too) often but I am not an unhappy person.

I believe in God but I do not follow a religion.

I love with my heart but I listen to my head and to my dog’s instinct.

Although there is no logic and life is short and the world is crazy.

Maybe only Diotima has the answers

But what if the question Is not how to love but how to live.

And you will say this is the same thing

But I will say I can not give you what you want

And I can not take from you what I need.

And maybe you are right it is not important

to know what I don’t want but to start knowing What I do want.

To avoid negation and make positive decisions.

First one is I am leaving you.

And Solon the lawmaker says: In all things that you do, consider the end.

***

WHY I CUT MY HAIR ALONE 2021.

My hair came to life just like my spirit

Lifted from the bottom

Now is taking one step up

only one but that is the first in a long time of many steps.

I cut my hair only when I am better

To open to new path and to clean the dust

And move the rocks that are too bulky and blocking my road

But I leave the pebbles cause pebbles are good to step on

Therapeutic massage for your mind

Reflexing your thoughts and revising them on your behalf.

My friend said I am a reversed Goliath and he is right.

My hair needs to go down when I need to go forward

Leaving the past where it should belong.

This hair knows too much and has seen a lot and was locked for too long

And also was touched by wrong set of hands

And now wants to be free to feel the lightness of the seemingly unbearable reality.

Now it is soft to touch although there is so much hair left

But she now moves when I move and she is lifted by the winds

And she is mobile after a long time of stagnation.

My hair will find the way to trust again

Will find new hands where she will feel safe

But will still blow in the winds

Because we should not be afraid of the wind.

The tiniest branches move without breaking

But we are no trees

We grow up to be something more

To break paths but not to break our own path

To break rules but not to break plans

To break things but not to break people.

But hair breaks from everything we feed her

Then it grows longer but not stronger

And that is  Why I cut my hair.

***

LIVADEIA // MEADOW OF EXPECTATIONS 2022

(Strah i išcekivanje i strast i konačno sam zaslužila zaključak koji čekam toliko dugo godina.)

Beautiful purple tiny flowers in the meadow of expectations of what comes next after I step out; how are we going to meet, how are we going to greet?

The universe knows its way of things and only it knows what future brings. The other day I entered the church in my neighbourhood for the first time after living there for years. I sat there and I cried for too long. Nobody paid attention to me and everyone was in their own thoughts, they know why they enter, what they are looking for what they are hiding from and what they are praying for.

As I sat there I made a wish. Make me feel again and make me love again. Give me my person. Let me find someone who is going to have lust for my body and hunger for my soul and interest for my mind and be kind to my heart and will make me smile every day. And me feeling and giving the same back, from the same human, for the same human. And the next day your message appeared for the first time. And now I am on the train to put the closure to this torture and to see whatever happens, and to live for either a day, a week, a month, a year, a decade or a lifetime.

***

I want to see myself Through your eyes

To realize the beauty and strength You feed yourself on

And to be proud of who I am Because of you.

***

WE EXIST

You are the one I was looking for in my dreams before I knew you existed for real.

I wanted to find someone who would look at me the way you were looking at me when our eyes would meet and our roads would cross but we were not allowed to talk and to feel. But that someone has never showed up. Because that someone is only you.

I feel you close by even when we are apart; your presence was haunting me all the years I didn’t know anything about you. When I was wondering what coffee you drink and which movies you like and what books you read and what hobbies you have. And I wasn’t allowed to ask and to know. What your passions are, that small pleasures that make life easier and this earth nicer place to stand. What makes your heart skip a beat like it does to mine whenever I see you or think of you.

Now when you are real and I can meet you finally, I love you more and more.

***

I want it all with you. I want even more wrinkles with you. I want my hair to turn gray next to you. I want a routine and normal with you. I want a boring life everyone is trying to escape from, I want it with you. To sleep in the same bed next to the same hands to be in the same room every night, to walk the same Athenian streets with our dog, to do grocery shopping together and to carry stuff from local market, and to make a list of errands and to pay the bills and to complain about how we don’t have enough money or time, because there is always one of those missing. To daydream of achieving great things together and to push one another over the limits, to make each other crazy but only to a degree we can control and stand, and most importantly to have patience and tolerance for each other and for ourselves and to feed one another with what we are missing but desperately need. And to love.

***

You are the one I was looking for in every person I have met. You are the balance in my madness, you are the order in my chaos, you are my lifeline and my support and as much as you remind me that I have achieved it on my own, I do not want it alone anymore. It's time for me to love and be loved and live it all with you. With someone who doesn’t get tired of listening to my words and someone who doesn’t get bored of listening to my silence.  I'm glad to be yours, that I was finally given the opportunity to share myself with you. For you to have me whole without me ever losing myself.

For the first time I understand the feeling of eternity. It is waiting for you to hold me in your arms again and again and again.