And the Angel said…
The Angel said ”Write!” and the Angel replied:
But I have written before, too much. I have hurt with my writing and I have healed. I have apologized and confessed. I have written when the words could not be held back. I have written out of pain, of bitterness, of anger, of sadness, as calls for attention, as yelps of helplessness. What would I write for now? Why?
The Angel said ”Write!” and the Angel replied:
But I have other things to write about. Blockchains and innovations and projects and virtual worlds and democracy and education. I should focus on those. It is night. I should sleep more. I should spend more time reading. There are other things to do, places to be, experiences to be had. Why is this story more important than those?
The Angel said ”Write!” and the Angel replied:
But that would be taking action and I am supposed to learn how to be patient and wait for things to unfold. I never learned how to do that. There is a story my parents are fond of retelling: I was about 3 years old, maybe four. There was a Christmas party at my father’s workplace and Santa was calling the surnames of the kids for them to come up to the stage, climb the step on the side of it and the say a pretty little poem. So Santa calls a surname. Part of my surname. I dash from my parents’ side, get to the stage, climb it up front, like emerging from a pool, curls in the air. Santa is confused, he had prepared a gift for a boy (the one that was on the list at that time, and that I shared part of my surname with). So while I say a pretty little poem about winter, Santa and the elves feverishly find my gift. I take it, look inside the bag, see a xylophone and proclaim loud and clear in the microphone I was still holding: „I have one of these at home already”. I take the gift, climb defeated the stage and go back to my parents, not believing in Santa anymore. Because the real Santa would know what I had at home and would not double gift. There is a lesson there: impatience takes away the magic. Expectations take away the magic. But I was always the kid trying to know everything and hold on to the magic nonetheless. I still believe in Santa and magic and miracles and the impossible. Just not the story they tell us about it. My own version of them. My very own private magic.
The Angel said ”Write!” and the Angel replied:
But someone else wrote it better than me. See? Warsan Shire…
„but you are always too intense
frightening in the way you want him
unashamed and sacrificial
he tells you that no man can live up to the one who
lives in your head
and you tried to change didn’t you?
closed your mouth more
tried to be softer
prettier
less volatile, less awake
but even when sleeping you could feel
him travelling away from you in his dreams
so what did you want to do, love
split his head open?
you can’t make homes out of human beings
someone should have already told you that
and if he wants to leave
then let him leave
you are terrifying
and strange and beautiful
something not everyone knows how to love.”
See? She even wrote it better. But only the last part applies. Because he never tried to tame that horse running alone. Or did he… I don’t know. Maybe. Or maybe the horse and the rider were never in the same field to play. They just looked at each other from a distance and imagined a ride that would be fabulous and terrifying.
The Angel said ”Write!” and the Angel replied:
But he poured tar on my light with his words when he told me about him and her and them. And I am struggling to clean that tar, but do you know how difficult tar is to clean? I ain’t no Cinderella. Bitch was crazy singing while cleaning. I only sing when I dust and vacuum clean because Queen conditioned me to want to break free. He kept on and on about how she did those things to try to understand him and make him smile. Tar, I tell you. I know tar. I have been pouring it for years. And yet, we feel good because we want to. We smile because we want to. „It was peace then, because you made it peaceful, not because of the other person.” Things are as we see and as we do them, not as the other is doing them, and we cannot be objective when we look through a lens of longing.
Did you know there are 69,700,000 results for “how to clean tar” on Google? Olive oil. But this tar is easily erasable with humour. Sarcasm. Whatever… :D
The Angel said ”Write!” and the Angel replied:
But I am angry and I may not choose my words well. I want to yell that looking for me in other people will not yield the best of results. I am terrifying, and strange, and unique: a Janus, a capricious kid with whims of connection and an adult that is content by herself. Did you know Janus is the god of beginnings?
The Angel said ”Write!” and the Angel replied:
But I am afraid, petrified (I am weak and couldn’t help myself. Don’t judge me too harshly for the earworm). I am scared of that urge to stay on a couch with you and watch movies, of raw chats on terraces, of that unspoken „stay” that seemed to cling in the air when I left. I am scared of taking off the scab of the wound. I am scared of being again at the mercy of a ruthless wounded warrior. I am scared that by writing I am hurting myself more than I hurt others. I am scared of the triggers that are still present and the ones that are still unknown. I am scared that I am not perfect and I shall wound us both again by allowing for a slim probability to continue to exist. I am scared.
The Angel said ”Write!” and the Angel replied:
But words are powerful and they manifest dreams and illusions into distorted realities. What about free will? What if this world is nothing but a virtual hallucination, an algorithm that we cannot comprehend, where things are preordained and it is what it is and there is nothing we can do to change reality? What if my words have effects? What if my words don’t have effects? What is the use? Why?
Overthinking. I am terribly good at that. Keeps me stuck in stories my brain tells itself at night.
What if I write? What if?
Inaction is a weapon of mass destruction….
The Angel said ”Write!” and the Angel replied: I will.
And the Angel wrote: LOVE