Planning the future & forgetting the current

I am strong enough to tell you

I love you very much.

We plan future, we discuss what we should do today and tomorrow and next month and perhaps even what we have drawn for next five years. You talk about having children & so do I, but it really is irrelevant, because they are the ones who do scribbles on the walls of cities.

You are the reason why I undressed in the harbor

naked in front of the whole world

in front of

you.

Helsinki is in a total chaos; buses come whenever they are able to reach the destination; trains miss their stations, because they are too exhausted to carry frustrated passengers who are filling their guts; airplanes say we have had enough, we need to make love so we will be unable to forget how it feels to be in love; boats and ships break the ice in the sea, two lovers separated with force. And we plan the future.

You said

dress up, you will get cold.

I told

I won't, you keep me warm.

This story is a short one; when things go according to other person's plans, there are new opportunities for everyone else. Unfortunately we see only the shattered imaginary future in our plants instead of the seeds of something new. I wonder constantly where I will be next year -- maybe I continue living in Croatia. Perhaps I have shifted to the Netherlands. I never think of the United States again, but the truth is that I would like to go back.

The following morning I woke up next to you

still naked, clothes laying two feet away from us.

You opened your eyes and said

even the sunrise is not as beautiful as you are.

Things you do for love, they say.

When it was warm in Helsinki

I wish to learn to be everywhere all the time; to be here in Helsinki while my fingers make love to my fiancé's soft skin; study in the Netherlands while I kiss the dust of Sahara under the exploding sky; my heart desires to be here and there and even though they say nothing is impossible, people meet their limits in one way or another. I came to Helsinki last week for the first time in six months & at first I was afraid, no idea where I had arrived, left behind my love in Croatia, entered unknown and now after four days I'm bitterly disappointed that I am unable to stay in the city longer than just a week. No matter what I ever say, Helsinki & her people will always be my home, this is the city where I was raised; where I witnessed my first snowflakes, sunshine, birds and hawks; where everything for me began. Helsinki is a city that never expects anything back, she keeps giving and giving and after awhile you are bored of everything new you receive -- only when you leave and new ceases, you begin to appreciate the moments once again.

My current visit to Helsinki was the shortest in the history; I came here last Thursday and I most probably will leave day after tomorrow which makes me very sad. This is my city; I never imagined that I would actually leave the Nordic (sometimes mistakenly also Scandinavian) Queen for good. Funnily enough I never miss the city when I am away; however, whenever I come and visit Helsinki it gets harder and harder to leave it. Especially as it seems that my visits are getting just shorter and shorter; at this pace, it will soon become a stranger to me.

HELSINKI 2008; AUTUMN.

I like to disco I like to party I like to groove, but more importantly I like to

all the things mentioned above with Helsinki.

The bay of Toolo said that Helsinki is a poor dancer;

he told a lie so only he would have a glimpse to disco-moves in Heaven.

Autumn told me that the bay and she had been lovers once, but when

Helsinki danced with the leaves, it all was over after that

-- they both fell for the city.

I take trams in the city.

I take buses in the city.

I take metros in the city.

I take walks in the city.

And when I do things mentioned above

I am more and more in love with Helsinki.

The Bay of Toolo, autumn and I watch Helsinki constantly, non-stop.

And she watches us, always with love.

And we all are happy.

Montreal says: If you want me to love you, I will love you

Cars, lights & a beautiful man they all fell and the continue falling.

And the city falls for them.

Yellow, pink and green watch with a curiosity the love story of impossible objects.

See for yourself what makes a love a love.

They all ask from themselves did we get lost in China?

Old, dodgy buildings know more than just one love story that failed on its way to the ending.

She needed someone to love her; he needed someone to love him; when these two objects find each other, it leads to a momentarily satisfaction.

Only the city is infinite; only her feelings stay constant; humans and other objects change their emotions & feelings. And suddenly

falling ceases.

Swaziland & Two years ago

To all those boys and girls and female-to-males and males-to-females and Lady Gagas who never thought they could never fall in love; to all those people who wonder the world and its stars and space and universe and seek for an answer to a question that can rarely asked in a company of two or more people; to all those birds flying across the sea determined to reach their destination in the stormy blizzard of winter; to the lions in the sea; to myself who is finally alive.

It has been three years since I moved to Swaziland, a country where in last four years I have spent most of the time. I came there with full of ideas and as a boy who was intolerant towards drugs and alcohol and aimed at changing the world in seconds, preferably quicker than in just seconds. I wore glasses every day in order to see the hilly landscapes of the traditional African country and I studied in a language that was foreign to me. I met people from countries that I had only read of on the Atlas when I was six-years-old. I was face to face with HIV/Aids and yet even with my glasses I was unable to see what was in front of me. And fairly soon the world was mocking me for dreaming of teaching Russian and Finnish in an American high school, to a few selected students who had a passion for awkward languages. The world stayed still; the changes happened in me.

By the time I left Swaziland, I had began to drink alcohol in amounts that I could had never believed was possible to drink. I kissed men and girls (not boys and women) and I enjoyed it. I lost my glasses and it was not the only thing I lost when it came to my appearance. Cigarettes were soon introduced and smoking only tobacco was barely enough, needed something else & better. For very long I was ashamed of every change that took place in me; disgusted and afraid. However, I realized now after reading my old entries from history that I constantly keep thinking only the bad modifications. Something good happened, too. Something better than good.

For the first time in my life I understood that it is fine. It really is fine.

-- Memories from Swaziland,

when everything was fine, too.

I just did not know it then.

New York in Europe

Socialism screaming in the streets; Cyrillic alphabets making love with the letters from the Latin world and no one knows their place anymore. A café called Supermarket that used to a supermarket in its earlier versions is booming with beautiful people. Bohemian crowd mingles and eats proportions of ice cream and chocolate brownies (both served with strawberries, pistachio, marzipan, chocolate pieces, rum, white chocolate and raspberries) that could compete with its American counterparts. The city is dreamy and it is most definitely nothing like Paris, it is more like a New York but socialist, more demanding and outstanding, tolerating to the point that it becomes intolerant. Gay (and straight and bisexual and things that I am unable to put in a box) people lining for parties hours and hours, a beer for less than a euro and girls making out as if there is no tomorrow. An apartment transformed into a hostel; one room is modified into a double, another into a dormitory with four beds; and there is no one else than you & the person who you love, the whole apartment (including kitchen, bathroom, dormitory) is yours because reception (that is in the kitchen) works only for twelve hours, starting at eight am. Famous Belgrade winds freezing your ankles, elbows and toes, they wish you Merry February and you decide at that very moment, that when spring comes you will come again to the socialist New York where Cyrillic alphabets make love with the Latin letters.

In Belgrade I met Marija & Zeljko; people that I had seen last February in Strasbourg and that was the first and only time I saw them. We had known each other only for one week, but it felt like we had never been apart from each other; gossiping and exchanging stories and remembering times that happened so long time ago. I met Jelena, Hristina and Maya and these people I met two weeks ago in Osijek when they took part in a training and we connected so well that I had to come and see them in Belgrade and it was wonderful to realize that in a week you can establish friendships that will last longer than the ones that you have been building for years. I met more and more people and suddenly I came to realize I knew more people in Belgrade than I do in my current home town; Belgrade offers you friends on a silver platter; she has people from all backgrounds and worlds, it merges a mixture of things together as Cape Town and Amsterdam does and suddenly you have a cosmopolitan where gay-bashing happens in one corner and in the another you see a young black man kissing a white girl. You are safe; and you are unsafe; and things are certainly more exciting.

Belgrade along with Amsterdam, Cape Town, New Delhi and Montreal is one of those cities that I have already visited, but will visit many times more in the future again.

Graz, January 2010

It is one thing to be found when you are alone

-- it is another thing to be found when you are with people, strangers

-- and it is completely different thing to be found when you are with people that you call friends.

The trees look after Graz even when they have snow on their shoulders; they love the city as passionately as Romeo loved Juliet. This love story is called Graz & the Trees.

In one of those buildings that you see is some elderly woman who is talking to her plant that proudly stands next to the television. She feels lonely from time to time, but she is the lucky one. Her son visits her once a week.

And in that one big building, grown ups work there till the clock hits five in the evening.

What happens then?

They disappear.

And in that building?

In that square I laid my eyes on you and for the first time understood the feelings that the Trees feel for Graz.

Love.

Yes.

All those trees love the city of Graz?

Yes, very much indeed. Every single branch of the trees longs to hear the beat of the city heart.

And you?

My bones branch out to your heart, my skin craves for your touch, my --

You know that Graz feels the same way for the Trees?

I do.

You found me in the middle of everywhere and you made me your Graz.

You found me in the middle of nowhere and you made me your Trees.

Maybe what you need is (everything)

The story is still the same even if it has a different name and appearance -- nothing if anything at all has changed. I have been writing a blog for several years and in past year I have changed the address the title the layout at least seven times, because of things that happened last spring. I always play with an idea of starting a completely fictive blog, but it would have barely any chances to survive as my life seems already seems to be out of this reality. I avoid fiction, because this way I can look at my writings in four, six years and ponder to myself how many things, including myself, have changed in such a short period of time.

I used to tell everyone that I am a writer and I write poems, short stories and letters that are never sent. It has been a year since I wrote something that could be defined as a "creative work". Last year was everything else than productive; I fell in love with a man who was seven years older than I was and lived in the other side of Europe. My parents accidentally found out that I was in love and it still keeps eating the bond between us. I moved to the United States to study, but not only did I fall in love for the first time in my life last year I also fell into depression that had never happened before. I was a step closer to alcoholism and my behavior was out of control as I would be drunk almost every single day of the eleventh month. I ceased existing, but then I decided to do something that I could have never imagined to do. I dropped out from college and moved to a foreign country to live with the man with whom I fell in love in France approximately a year ago. My parents are from continent called Asia, I was born in continent named Europe, I finish my high school in the continent of Africa and last quarter of two-thousand-and-nine I spent in the new continent of North America. I have not stayed in one place for very long ever since I turned seventeen, but I guess I never had any kind of roots either.

This story, however, is not about the past. Last year is blurry; I have not much written down about the things that happened as there was absolutely too much happening. I moved too many times (shifted from Africa to Europe, then to the Americas and found myself again in Europe), nothing was concrete and literally butterflies were losing their wings to the predators. One day I will recall the things that happened last year with the aid of words, but now photographs will be thrown into the stage and actors and actresses shall be mute.

I am collecting the pieces of myself here.

Nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.