ilona

So, you know what is coming. Yes, you know I am writing about you. I told you. I wanted to spend some moments writing something to your heart. I believe in its beauty. In you. I can sense great warmth deep inside you. I am photoless, maybe you are challenging my terrible memory. God, you looked perfect tonight. More beautiful than ever before.

I look back over the evening. It was like car crash TV. I couldn't take my eyes off her. I couldn't waste my own time playing or fidgeting (as she was) when such a fascinating being sat in front of me. She was a good friend. So beautiful and confused. Perhaps. I loved her. I wanted to see her again soon. Not wait months like before today. She had a good heart. A good crazy heart.

The flame flickered behind the left side of her face, the right from where I sat, it licked the edge of her face. Mostly her face was in darkness, but her eyes were piercing the night, stunning it in its tracks as it was just appearing. They were sharp and gentle, utterly compelling. She was smoking, playing with the lighter, or the cigarette, or a nail that she had found and used to scratch a sticker off the table. Anything. I was holding her, in my head at least. She had no idea how lovely she was. Unfathomably insecure. Golden. 

Some people are so far from boring that life with them seems multicoloured. I hadn't seen these colours of this woman, of her tapestry, her life painting, for so long. All I wanted to do was stay with her. She had to go. I had to go. Not knowing when. We will see each other again. Yeah, she was a good woman, I wanted to shake her like a kids rattle, send some joy her way, make her see it really is all ok. Thinking too much is overrated. Not for everyone. Some are at the other end. Some are vacant vessels. This was about her though. Her faults were potentially gorgeous, sweet, delightful.

She sings in a choir. I'd love to wrap my ears around that. She hates photos. I can't even get a crafty one. I want one of this magic person so much, but I want her to let me, not to force the door down. It doesn't feel right. It is a shame that such a perfect looking woman declines something so natural. She is odd. Spectacular. Odd. It's to love her for, not the reverse.

Felix

We go so far. We never stop looking. An idea, to step yet further, to challenge the boundaries. Not without fear. For stop us it shall not. We must push those walls, test how durable they are. Stronger than the human will? Often not.

Mother is watching, tears dry on her face. The world watches and waits. Death or glory. One way or the other. Either way, your mind, your thoughts, a ticking bomb. On the edge, after you opened the door, (and what must you have considered on seeing that view) you finally throw yourself off and plummet. Over 700 miles an hour at one stage. You break the speed of sound. You defy belief. You are a hero to us. You show what some of us know. Anything is possible. Even more now.

The smiles, the applause, the echo of your madness. Crazy or visionary? Both. Such feats need both in a man, in a woman. You laughed at death, for he will find you as he will us all. Your time. Not your time. beautiful joy on all of the faces. To own the earth for a moment in time.

For making people's dreams real, for showing us how beautiful our earth is from up there.

Thank you, Felix.

Zoltan's Nest

I am here with a family, in Budapest. It feels like home. Away from home, away from home. Wherever that may be. To each of us something. Perhaps different.

I call it 'Zoltan's nest.' I hope one day for... I just hope. It's a thing of beauty. To feel the warmth. Of the home. Of some people's love. Unnecessary and gorgeous. Surprising and special. All consuming.

Hold me in your heart and never let me go. Each of us could be everything, if only we looked outside. I owe you it all. How can I ever deliver? How indeed. To want to show the hand we hold. I look into eyes and see kindness and swallow, I look into the flames and I feel your embrace.

One day you will understand how much it all means to me. Maybe. I am better with written words than spoken ones. Those ones (the latter) never quite seem to hit the mark. We show, not say. I search for deeper chasms of demonstration. I seek you out and I find you there, at the centre of the nest, keeping it safe and warm, happiness glowing, overflowing, spilling from where once there was nothing. What a landscape, what a scenery you painted, what a castle you built. What a love. What a stunning love. There. Here. All around. Now.

Blanket

Cover the valley, make it look like the mountains are being flooded with a white carpet, something surreal. The landscape, never the same, almost challenging to my eyes. A sea of cotton wool. Would it catch my every fall? It looks like a perfect pillow, just holding itself there. No shift, no adjustment to its glory. The days, so painfully beautiful, dancing around us, embracing us, defining our walls. The clouds, like her, my blanket. She is out there, walking, breathing, despairing, rejoicing, feeling the heart strings pull at her, needing a blanket too. She is a baby, I am a cradle. I am the wind and she is the trees. All for you, all for me.

Milano / Audrey (August 2012)

So, Milan didn't blow me away like Venice had. In fact, Milan seemed like a really poor version of Madrid. I could see similarities, but Milan didn't pull it off. Any of it. People were clearly loaded and geared to representing the fashion the city is known for at the price of a more down to earth existence. There was something alien about the place and its people. I didn't feel any connection with it like I had with Venice only the day before.

The only connection I found was with an Australian woman called Audrey who was staying at the same hostel. She was really good to talk to, which was something I'd been missing all day.She had these exciting eyes sparkling in the dark outside area where we were sat on the floor, initially with others and a little later just the two of us alone together. I wanted to take her to my room, just lie there, talk all night or until I inevitably fell asleep. I wanted to imagine the ceiling, the roof away and discuss the universe with her while the stars were all ours. All of them for us. Dancing across that sky.

Yeah, she had tattoos, and no, I'm not a big fan at all, but the meaning of each helped me on my way to forgiveness, haha. She wasn't serious. I like that. I am often the same. Life is so short, why waste it being unnecessarily serious? She was funny and cute. Okay, so I wanted to taste her and lick her legs as we had discussed earlier, jokingly in conversation (don't ask how that happened), but to be serious for a second her pins did look ripe for a licking. Absolutely so.

I had a room to myself. I had two massive double beds in there. A room big enough to hold them and have extra space. I could have got lost in there, in the ocean of that bed (well, I had to pick one, didn't I?). It felt almost tragic that I was in there alone. I slept well, even if it was too late really. A woman somewhere would have wanted to be there with me. I wish I could have felt that then. I just felt like the king of all loneliness again. I didn't like that. I failed these last days in turning everything into a positive as I had lately so well. I wanted some genuine affection. Ellie was a year ago now. People had wanted me since, I'd wanted some people too, normally different ones, yeah, you know, not the ones who wanted me. All kinds of situations had arisen, in fact. I'd hurt some people unintentionally. I'd almost been hurt myself if not for having a philosophy where I didn't feel I could lose, because all life, no matter what, was a valuable and life-enhancing experience. But now I can feel a hole. I don't like it. Maybe these four days travelling has highlighted the void. I didn't expect it. Maybe it's been growing inside since the Russian actress. She swept through the night like a deceptive wind rustling the leaves. Pieces of some giant puzzle, a tapestry, life.

I imagined us lying on one of the giant beds each and just talking. Then it would become quiet and I'd go and climb the walls onto the bed she was on. I'd tell her not to worry and just stroke her hair and face, look into her eyes a little. I might even kiss her. Kiss the world away. Kiss that face until it melted from the heat, from the surprise, from the tenderness, and the madness of the days. A stranger doesn't need to be strange.

Forest of Legs (June)

If you had long been an admirer of women and the female form, an observer, such as myself, there comes a time in which you find yourself closer to heaven than at any previous moment of your days.

For the forest of legs I had never seen a start to a summer like this. The only good thing about leaving was the knowledge I would return a little over a month later. I could only hope nothing changed on the farm. I was on the wagon. I wasn't hoping to fall off.

Animals (May 30)

I wasn't quite sure from the eyes, if the alcohol and drugs had done that to them, or if they were a type of breed that inevitably fell into that whole game. It was to really risk your hand. I couldn't see a pretty ending, anywhere in sight.

Hollow eyes, dark, like some vicious dog waiting. Waiting on a pounce. On anything. We are animals. We can control ourselves. It is said.