capparelli

[capparelli]

24

I'm one year late for my old biggest life goal,

and one year early for the next.

Old goals, like I said.

And thank God for that.

I'm still in a hurry, of course.

But no longer weary—just breathless now and then.

Now I sit. I rest. I catch my breath.

How good it feels to be alone

after twenty-three years with company.

What keeps me company now: Solitude. Wind. Rest. Disregard.

Five minutes to twenty-four... 4... 3... 2... 1... 24.

A year to breathe,

a few months without medication ruling my mind,

a few days talking with friends

a few hours kissing mouths

What walks with me now: Silence, Rhythm, Short Steps, Time.

This is the year with no goal

not late, not ahead.

l am early,

sometimes on time,

never late.

[capparelli]

Aérea

É, eu tenho é medo.

Medo de que nunca compreendam como tudo me atravessa. Medo de que me achem vazia por enxergarem esse vão onde tudo passa — e, por isso, leve. Por isso, aérea. Ou de que me vejam dada demais à sensibilidade das imagens, como se eu me atirasse não a um vento, mas a uma ventania — daquelas que derrubam qualquer coisa bem construída no chão, que arrancam flores, frutos, folhas e galhos da árvore anciã.

Eu me rendo. Às vezes nem vejo. Me rendo sonâmbula.

Mas é isso. Eu deixo que o sopro forte das coisas me leve. Sem voar. Sem aterrissar. Só que me leve. Até quando ele decidir se render ao clima quente e seco. E quando volto à terra, me deixo árida. Esqueço a última viagem. Só espero a próxima — sem paciência, mas espero.

Tenho medo daquele que é firme no chão. Não vai entender como um corpo como o dele teima com a gravidade. Mas tenho medo do outro também, daquele que sempre voa alto e atento, meio gavião.

Ele vai me cobrar palavras, cantos, assobios das viagens. Eu vou entregar silêncio. Não tenho palavras pra traduzir minha língua de dentro. Não entrego testemunhas. As desconheço.

Só saiba que não é falta. É excesso.

Ai… lucidez. Não me cobre explicações sobre um idioma que eu só falo sonhando,

sentindo,

sonambulando.

[capparelli]

Armas de prata

O que significa, por mim, escrever sobre isso agora? O sentido pouco se aproxima da figura, mas mora em mim — não pelo que ele representou, longe disso. Se sinto alguma coisa, é repulsa. Mas o que me marcou.

Mesmo intensa, eu nunca me senti ardente de amor — isso todos percebiam. Eu carregava um medo, pavor em mim de uma sombra antiga, uma sombra de memória torturada. Acho que me assombrava mais ainda por ter sabido o quão bonita um dia fora.

Ouvia sobre sua feição sutil, de caráter carinhoso e caridoso, uma história de amor que foi chicoteada incontáveis vezes, das maneiras mais cruéis. Mas mesmo assim, eu levava comigo algo sobre o equilíbrio — a sombra me assombrava, mas ao mesmo tempo me deixava esperançosa, já que um dia tenha sido tão linda, irresistível. Talvez esse era o preço da beleza, no fim das contas. Meus pais, assim, me ensinaram a colecionar armas de prata, para quando eu sentisse um medo incessante dessa sombra.

Com o tempo, percebi que a esperança era uma armadilha tão perigosa quanto a sombra. Talvez eu quisesse ver beleza de novo — mesmo que fosse uma miragem. Eu achava que, por ter aprendido a temer a sombra, já estava a salvo dela. Que as armas bastavam.

Ou talvez, para mim, essa sombra já fosse antiga — e já não me assustava. Acho que me seduzia. Eu queria tocá-la com as mãos nuas, entender sua origem, talvez até resgatá-la.

Foi nesse desejo de redenção que me entreguei…

Me entreguei para um verme que prometia ter as mesmas aspirações que eu tinha. Fui torturada e enganada — logo eu, tão zelosa com meu ego morno. Revivi como era viver na sombra, no terror, medo, PAVOR. Eu me tremia, mas não soltava. Estava entregue. Tinha perdido totalmente meu controle. Ganharam, depois de uma luta que envolveu muita violência e crueldade. Para essa luta, eu tinha sido roubada de todas as armas que guardava com tanto zelo — justo as armas raras de prata que eu tinha o cuidado de limpar com panos macios. Esse era o meu segredo. Todos sabiam que eu as tinha, e invejavam.

Mas a culpa foi minha. Eu entreguei as chaves e ensinei ao verme como limpar. Revelei, inclusive, o maior segredo — que era onde eu conseguia os panos especiais. Eu confiei demais. Rápido demais. Mas eu não tinha tempo, nem escolha. Eu via minhas armas enferrujarem… tempo, inimigo. Precisei compartilhar o segredo. Esse verme não as limpava, mas mentia que sim.

Dia por dia, ele exibia uma das minhas armas e a apontava para mim. Achava que era para eu averiguar se estavam sendo bem limpas — nunca pensei que era um tipo de ameaça.

Mas foi. Um dia que não sei qual, todas as minhas pratas estavam trancadas em outro lugar, que só ele sabia. Confundi por capricho. Achei que ele poderia estar guardando ainda mais, escondendo do povo. Mas era de mim. E ele usou, uma a uma, contra mim.

Fui embora completamente sem minhas pratas — colecionadas há anos.

Hoje, não sei se as quero de volta. Não sei se um arsenal é necessário. Uma ou duas, o suficiente. Mas eu ainda não sei.

[capparelli]

A revised letter for my hometown

I left you, I traded you for the promising one

I’ve said his hold isn’t warm,

but he holds me.

Rv, you were so cruel to me,

but who hasn’t?

If I apologize for never giving you a chance,

will you promise to hold me?

Hold or give me space, either one works.

Rv, I always complained about you

because your hold was always too strong,

and I, too thin to bear it.

But now I understand.

I understand the reason why the roots of your trees

always intertwined with me, tied me up.

I think this is a phrase my father said to me,

but for some reason, it makes me think of my grandmother,

my grandma and the path we’d take

down the street to the bakery, which is now a one-way.

See?! You’ve changed, and so have I.

But anyway, the phrase was something about having roots.

I never felt like I had them, and that was the point of the conversation.

The truth is, I always did, but I always denied it, I am sorry.

It’s just that I never knew how to deal with this tight intertwining root.

I know I have it and denied it because,

Even far away, the shadows of your night still haunt me.

And I had to admit, but about the night,

I miss seeing the lights of the stars I can’t see here.

Today, I think I’m more your root than the reverse of that.

It’s my blood that created you and feeds you:

Let me be your mother.

I’ve always known and had a maternal instinct,

but not with you. How unfair.

I’m sorry, you were also a rebellious teenager,

Just like me.

I can’t help but see your root growing inside me.

I’ll come back for us to make peace, to decide

To grow together, or apart.

But promise to hug me a little less tightly this time,

and I promise to take the initiative for a hug,

something I never did with you.

My creative instinct started there,

and it’s unfair to assume I’ll distance myself from it if I return.

It’s contradictory.

While I’m here, far away from you, I always read your letters,

but in reading, I’m the one who chooses the tone.

So, when I arrive, promise not to shout,

my ears are sensitive and I don’t like words thrown around carelessly.

I’ve never stopped feeling you because you grow inside me.

It’s your nature, literally.

I may have left you for money, or love,

but for that, I signed a check I had no idea the value of.

I think I still don’t have it, but I know I’m bankrupt.

So, remember, when I return,

don’t squeeze me, don’t shout.

I’ll go in peace, this time, for the first time.

[capparelli]

Humans used to be so brave, with a sense of curiosity that convinced them to conquer the seas. That bravery is missing in me, for better or worse.

The sea changes its mood with the wind, this clear, colorless, ungraspable element.

Isn’t it the same for me?

The moon, the tides, the weather—they make me feel more human. I can understand my blues just by looking at nature, am I less or more human because of this? Am I experiencing the symptoms of being human while the rest… I don’t know.

There are so many lives living in the water—could I, too, claim the role of home?

If I keep watching the ocean,

will I learn to move like it does?

Softly, yet strongly.

[capparelli]

To: Chelsea Hotel

To endure the pinch of the only shoes fit for the streets of creation, found along the no-light-switches path.

This is why the Chelsea Hotel feels like home, the only place outside the mind and soul of a creator that has truly witnessed the symptoms of being human, of being an artist-sensitive to the world within and without us.

While here, in this sanctuary (as they call it), I felt a pull to pray to the walls. To a faith where the ink of the words I write becomes the kindest offering my fractured English can summon.

21:47. The streets are mute. The hotel whispers in its own silence. But chaos hums beneath it all.

Some say the walls have memories, so even in silent mode, I can feel the rhythm of hurried steps, the clinking of bottles, drunken murmurs, and loud music being born.

If I could ask one thing of you, it would be to make me worthy of a night resting on your sofa, writing with your pen to carve my smallness into paper.

If creativity is the religion, then surely, you are its god or muse. The spirit of untamed creation.

And tonight, I kneel in prayer as I never have before.

DEVOTION

[capparelli]

I wake to a silence that won’t read my feelings.

Chaos nesting within chaos.

I can never be a friend—

how could I, when deep down,

I don’t even like the ones I keep close?

I can never be a lover,

just the shadow of the other woman,

because I live where no one dares to go—

in the heart of the last forest.

No one has the strength to find me there,

wrapped in the roots of my solitude.

I can never be a mother,

because I think about leaving this life

every other day.

Here, where the dark has no home

and I lay beneath the oldest tree,

cold against the earth,

the hard sun breaking my skin.

No home to protect.

People come and go—

three days is all they can bear.

The cold here cuts too deep,

and when the sun finally rises,

it burns everything to ash.

[capparelli]

The whisper of time drifts from the past, the loud noise from the future, while the present sits in silence. What a beautiful whisper, this memory—like a bird singing as you wake, the fading scent of a favorite perfume, the final blossom of the year, the last vivid leaf on a dying plant.

[capparelli]

There are two phrases that pilots use: “confirm intentions”; “situational awareness.”

This essay about how our physical selves diverge from our inner essence resonates profoundly within me. Last night I was talking with this serendipitous guy about the theme. He shared that he translates his essence to others with such sincerity that he scarcely perceives a distance between his dual selves (if any distance exists at all). He navigates the currents of identity without feeling the rift between who he is within and how we are perceived without. Does he ever sense that fluidity of persona, that nebulous expanse between the personal and the perceived? This brings to mind the phrase that pilots use: situational awareness—the ability to perceive, understand, and interpret the environment we inhabit.

But how can I agree and say I’m the same if I feel my blood turning cold but my body burning with fever? You know what they say about fever: it crafts a heat within, rendering the body inhospitable to the life of foreign invaders. Yet, I have made peace with these entities within me, feeling that though I did not extend an invitation, I allowed them entry through their persistence. Once they took root, our relationship shifted from herbivorous to cannibalistic/predatory because we became one, but my body does not understand.

My diagnosis after this was a personality disorder, just because the way I now exist inextricably intertwined with these once-foreign beings, now woven into the fabric of my being. At times, I find myself lost, unsure of where I end and they begin… but ultimately, I have embraced that we are all one.

Is it sincerity I lack? Not the sincerity that bridges my self and the physical forms I encounter, but between my two bodies. Doesn’t it leave you feeling frightened that you will never achieve direct contact with anyone’s darkest fantasies, that this is the greatest secret, never to be unveiled—only expressed through a cheap, poorly rendered, and misinterpreted translation?

Confirm intentions.

These themes of identity, perception, and the subjective nature of reality I will always carry with me. But tell me, what is it like to truly be yourself? If there’s a way to be even more sincere… sorry, it is a bit invasive to try that impossible contact with the being inside, right?????

October 2024.

[capparelli]

If your cowboy doesn’t tell you I will:

The galloping horse is pointing to the lonely road, the road is country and the ghost is the town.

LONELY ROAD, TAKE ME HOME

The filters and the black-and-white film don’t change reality, but rather make it more vivid—more aligned with the images projected inside my mind. It’s not just about the images, but about how they make me feel.

Nature has vivid colors, yet they don’t appear as vivid here, which is why black and white, low contrast, or high exposure feel more appropriate. The sun seems so bright it robs us of clear sight, obscuring true understanding.

The nuances of color aren’t real, nor are they perceived as such, but are instead shaped by emotion. Visual reality and emotional reality are intertwined, though not always in harmony.

[capparelli]

Letter to Goiás - sorry for not loving you, sorry for leaving you

I read somewhere that if nature were comfortable, humanity would not have invented architecture. We are, without vanity, grounded in uses and pleasures, egoism, self-centredness. And everything outside the inner life becomes impersonal. The external world is individuality in a non-stressed state, a good refuge from thoughts, which are so intrinsic to the inner world. Thinking is an ailment, and like all others, it can be terminal, the cause of life-threatening injuries.

Is that where nature stands as a safe heaven? Is it comfortable, or does it only seem so when it is less uncomfortable than the inner world? In this place called home, nature floods me; it’s beautiful, yet I feel like a sailor who finds no joy in the sea…more like a pirate, illegally transporting goods to avoid taxes or import restrictions, engaging in battles with other ships… navigating and sailing… living by a code.

Perhaps this is my number one symptom of being human: the meaning of 'home' not translating to 'house'. While here all I care is about the human being symptoms I may have.

That’s why I’m leaving - Malas prontas