- (...) Mas estou tonta e um bocadinho triste. As coisas da terra são esquisitas. São diferentes das coisas do mar. No mar há monstros e perigos, mas as coisas bonitas são alegres. Na terra há tristeza dentro das coisas bonitas.
- Isso é por causa da saudade - disse o rapaz.
- Mas o que é a saudade? - perguntou a Menina do Mar.
- A saudade é a tristeza que fica em nós quando as coisas de que gostamos se vão embora.

- Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen, in A Menina do Mar.

Amy Elliott Dunne - The Day Of

    Nick loved me. A six-o kind of love: He looooooved me. But he didn’t love me, me. Nick loved a girl who doesn’t exist. I was pretending, the way I often did, pretending to have a personality. I can’t help it, it’s what I’ve always done: The way some women change fashion regularly, I change personalities. What persona feels good, what’s coveted, what’s au courant? I think most people do this, they just don’t admit it, or else they settle on one persona because they’re too lazy or stupid to pull off a switch.

    That night at the Brooklyn party, I was playing the girl who was in style, the girl a man like Nick wants: the Cool Girl. Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a

cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.

    Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version – maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: ‘I like strong women.’ If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because ‘I like strong women’ is code for ‘I hate strong women.’)

    I waited patiently – years – for the pendulum to swing the other way, for men to start reading Jane Austen, learn how to knit, pretend to love cosmos, organize scrapbook parties, and make out with each other while we leer. And then we’d say, Yeah, he’s a Cool Guy.

    But it never happened. Instead, women across the nation colluded in our degradation! Pretty soon Cool Girl became the standard girl. Men believed she existed – she wasn’t just a dreamgirl one in a million. Every girl was supposed to this girl, and if you weren’t, then there was something wrong with you.

    But it’s tempting to be Cool Girl. For someone like me, who likes to win, it’s tempting to want to be the girl every guy wants. When I met Nick, I knew immediately that was what he wanted, and for him, I guess I was willing to try. I will accept my portion of blame. The thing is, I was crazy about him at first. I found him perversely exotic, a good ole Missouri boy. He was so damn nice to be around. He teased things out in me that I didn’t know existed: a lightness, a humor, an ease. It was as if he hollowed me out and filled me with feathers. He helped me be Cool Girl – I couldn’t have been Cool Girl with anyone else. I wouldn’t have wanted to. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy some of it: I ate a MoonPie, I walked barefoot, I stopped worrying. I watched dumb movies and ate chemically laced foods. I didn’t think past the first step of anything, that was the key. I drank a Coke and didn’t worry about how to recycle the can or about the acid puddling in my belly, acid so powerful it could strip clean a penny. We went to a dumb movie and I didn’t worry about the offensive sexism or the lack of minorities in meaningful roles. I didn’t even worry whether the movie made sense. I didn’t worry about anything that came next. Nothing had consequence, I was living in the moment, and I could feel myself getting shallower and dumber. But also happy. 

- Gillian Flynn in Gone Girl.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. 2008.
Directed by David Fincher.

11.

A Sarah abriu o The Los Angeles Herald Examiner, e eu comecei a ler o primeiro poema:

«O POETA

eles matam o poeta

eles queimam o poeta

eles ignoram o poeta

eles odeiam o poeta

mas a luz sabe

e o poeta

e as prostitutas

conhecem

a angústia do

poeta

e dão-lha

de graça

lambem-lhe os pêlos

dos tomates em

santa prece

o poeta jamais

morrerá

mesmo na morte

ele senta-se dentro

da lua

e mostra o dedo médio

ao universo!»

- Charles Bukowski, in Hollywood.

Baby Teeth

When you call your husband to tell him you’ve had a miscarriage he’s not going to care. He ripped your body up like a lawn mower chewing grass and your ribs expanded to match the slow outward bulge of your stomach, and he couldn’t care less. Maybe you lost it (and you don’t want to call it “it” but you never named it, paged through all the books and never settled on one, but for lack of a better word you’ve got to call it that) in the bath, or riding the bus or walking to work. Who knows. But wherever it happened, however it happened, that doesn’t change the fact that you lost it.

When you go in for a routine checkup weeks later and the doctors say there’s scar tissue down there, too much to give it another try, you’ve got the pills in the cupboard but you’re too afraid to use them. You start thinking of your body as a sinking ship, going down further every second into the dark waters. There’s the deck and it’s splintered and ragged, every wooden beam pulsating with grief. And somewhere out there in the distance is an iceberg and you’re going to hit it. It’s only a matter of when.

Your husband’s not going to give a fuck about the blood between your legs. You’re drunk on your own pain; he’s drunk on the real stuff. The heart wants to give in. So do the lungs and the kidneys. Even the throat wants to close. You can’t stop thinking about those tiny feet, those fingers that would have wrapped around yours. The whole upstairs attic is still decorated with the crib and the streamers and the lights and stuffed animals. The crib is still empty but your mind fills it in.

Let’s pretend the local museum calls up and wants to know if they can display the bones. Let’s pretend you tell them no.

Let’s pretend they’re already displayed in your heart.

- Meggie C. Royer, in Writings for Winter (blog).

A Outra Coisa

30 de Novembro

    Chega o momento em que me perco, em que tenho medo de mim mesmo, em que me atemoriza o som da minha própria voz. Quem sou eu? Os outros? São os outros? São eles que falam, que ordenam, que me impelem? Eu sou os mortos! Eu sou os mortos! Eu sou uma série de fantasmas, que se açulam entre mim e mim. Reconheço-os. O gesto esboçado há milhares de anos, e perdido, consumido, consegue hoje realizar-se, o gesto que a morte calou numa boca ignorada, faz eco no mundo. Todos os sonhos são realidades, os mais altos, os mais humildes, os mais belos e os mais grotescos. Só os sonhos são realidade nesta noite quieta e caiada, com uma mancha vermelha de pólo a pólo.
   (...)
    A morte faz estremecer o mundo até à raiz. A morte já não tem a mesma significação. A morte é agora inútil e anda à solta no infinito, desgrenhada, dorida e dourada. Desespera-se. Tenho medo de lhe tocar. O drama que se passa em cima é maior que o que se passa em baixo. É pior este tumulto de inferno, este clamor de que não chegam as vozes, esta força incoerente de pé - todas as forças de pé - posta a caminho para o desconhecido. É pior. E a cada grito em baixo corresponde um grito em cima.
    Reconheço o grito que sai da noite. São os vivos e os mortos... Mas então que significação tem isto no Universo, a dizer palavras inúteis no meio desta balbúrdia, desta escuridão cerrada, deste dourado feroz, deste redemoinho sem nome? Para que é que eu existo e tu existes? Para que é que eu grito e tu gritas? Isto não és tu! Isto não sou eu! Isto é a vida temerosa, de que não representas senão uma insignificante partícula. Tu não és nada, a vida é tudo. O combate é incessante entre os vivos e os mortos, entre os mortos e os vivos. Todos gritam aos mesmo tempo, todos caminham ao mesmo tempo para o mesmo fim esplêndido. - Oh, eu quero crer! - Por que é que gritas? - Fecha os olhos! Fecha os olhos! - Agora sou eu quem falo! Agora são eles que falam!...
    Oh, minha alma, pois eras tu! Agora te reconheço! Capaz de tudo, capaz de baixezas e capaz de sacrifícios. Tão pequena! Tão transida! Não vales nada e pudeste tanto! Oh, minha alma, pois eras tu, eras tu! Pudeste arcar com o Universo, olhar Deus, construir Deus. Devo-te tudo: a ilusão, a tinta do céu, o sonho errático das vastas florestas. Eras tu! Eras tu!... Tem-me custado a dar contigo, tão mesquinha e capaz de povoares o céu de estrelas e o mundo de sonho. Atreves-te a tudo. Afirmaste. Negaste. Eras tu, sempre dorida, sempre ansiosa, nunca satisfeita, e coubeste dentro de quatro paredes. Tornaste-me a vida amarga. Encheste-me de ridículo. Atiraste-me aos encontrões contra a massa cega e compacta, levaste-me como restos de folhas nesta procela de sonho. Foste a melhor e a pior parte do meu ser.

- Raul Brandão, in Húmus.

VI

    Ah, principezinho! Assim fui conhecendo, aos poucos, a tua melancólica vidinha! Durante muito tempo, a tua única distracção foi a beleza dos crepúsculos. Fiquei a sabê-lo na manhã do quarto dia, quando me disseste:

- Gosto muito dos pores-do-sol. Vamos ver um pôr-do-sol...

- Mas primeiro temos de esperar...

- Esperar por quê?

- Esperar que o Sol se ponha.

    Começaste por ficar espantado, mas, depois, riste de ti próprio. E disseste-me:

- Ainda julgo que estou no meu sítio...

    Pois é. Quando os relógios marcam meio-dia nos Estados-Unidos, toda a gente sabe que o Sol se está a pôr em França. Bastava poder chegar a França num minuto para se assistir ao pôr-do-sol. Mas, infelizmente, a França fica longe de mais. No teu planeta pequenino só precisavas de empurrar a cadeira. E vias quantos crepúsculos quisesses...

- Um dia vi o Sol pôr-se quarenta e quatro vezes!

    E pouco depois, acrescentaste:

- Sabes... quando se está muito, muito triste, é bom ver o pôr-do-sol...

- E no dia das quarenta e três vezes estavas assim tão triste?

    Mas o principezinho não respondeu.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, in O Principezinho.