Paulo Seabra

I know, or rather I still vaguely remember, what I said before, namely when I first reached one hundred posts on here, and I still have quite a few ideas to write about, but I think for now I'll take a bit of a break... It's not so much that I don't have the time or the motivation, I think it's really more so that I wanna see if what I've written so far resurfaces a little bit, I wanna see if I find some readers instead of carrying on and on until some of the old stuff on here gets buried so deep it will never see the light of day. And as far as my existing blog posts go I do remember each one, but only in an almost nostalgic sense, because I'm now at a stage where if I do get some attention on most of them I'll have to reread what I wrote so as to refresh my memory in any detail. So I think for now I'll take the time to do other things and to try to improve upon the ones I already have. The same more or less applies to Nostos, my third and latest book...

Am I the only one who thinks that the sight of old shoes so often gives way to an indistinguishable sense of pity? There's nothing else quite like it in this world, at least for me, and it don't matter much what kind of shoes they just so happen to be, whether they be simple or strange, whether they were worn by an old person or young, someone rich or someone poor, or even by no one that I ever saw, they can just as well be abandoned on the side of the road or along the dusty train tracks. It's just that when I see a sad, lonely person I can't help to look at their shoes and feel so damn sorry, and I don't even know why... They're just these weird cloth and plastic things whereon a person stands and with which they then walk through this world. I have heard it said that it's the shoes that make the entire outfit, meaning that no matter how well-dressed a person is, if the shoes are old and ugly it instantly ruins their whole style, and I suppose it's tru...

Hail, master, and behold thy servant! Or would I presume to call myself thy friend? No, no I wouldn't. The best for one such as me would be to never have been born. Didn't you say that once? Yes, I know you did. And yet here I stand, of mine own accord too, but none of mine is mine. For all things belong to the Father but where is he? The world is silence, and your spirit moving upon the face of the waters is a breeze over a rain puddle. Maybe all things belong to the Son then but I make no sense of any of his four strange biographies. Still, why do I keep on trying? Is it even smart to do so? I don't know... That leaves only the Holy Spirit, which I never once understood nor has it ever moved me, and as for those who profess to have been moved by it I both greatly despise and envy. So what am I even saying here? Why am I even talking to you, again and in this darkness? I suppose I fear the hour, yea, the hour cometh when the world shall scatter, and shall leave me all alon...

Lord, take this cup from me, I can't drink it anymore... I drank so much of it already, and my cup runneth over still. There's just too much I have yet to drink and to commit inside me, inside this sickly vessel that is my body. It burns as it gushes through my throat, like burning oil, it twists and churns inside my belly, it swells and deforms me. What I drank so far remains inside me and won't vanish, it simply won't pass from me, Lord. There was a time when the spirit was willing, but now I falter and I fear. The spirit is indeed weak, but the flesh is weaker still, riddled with demons and serpents. And they whisper to me... They tell me I just can't take it no more, they strike me with heavy blows, they whip my back, they chain my wrists, they leave me out to wander through these desert sands. When my very soul hurts, when even you have forsaken me, only then do they come to soothe me. They perch over my shoulders and tell me not to drink anymore. And their wor...

There's this funny story I heard once. It was about this girl who was mistreated by her father, by her mother, and by her sisters. Nobody really cared about her, and she was all alone, or almost... One day she got real sick and still, nobody cared, nobody except for her grandmother, who took her in and took care of her and gave her one paracetamol. And as the girl laid in bed and saw her grandma pop the little pill out of its plastic tablet, all singular and pearly white and so casual-like, she simply had to bite her lip to stop herself from crying. Love is a paracetamol-shaped thing, she thought, and that paracetamol is love... Because love is simple and love is real and love is true. Love is as real as a wool blanket, love is a cup of tea, love is a candy bar from a candy bar tree, love is a big slice of carrot cake, or better still, an even bigger slice of caramel cheesecake, love is a box of store-bought cookies, love is that coin you give a beggar, love is the smile that begga...

Perhaps it is the color of this gray rainy sky at the end of spring, this cold but soothing day I hoped would be warm, bright and the end of something I gotta carry on. Or maybe it's that I'm thinking of old days to while away the time until new days come along. Perhaps it's all that or it's nothing at all, but Martha, you've been on my mind. I wouldn't dare to try and find you or even write to you, so instead I write about you, about who I think you are, because in truth I don't really know you. To me you're just a memory, a good memory though, and more importantly, you're the very first crossroads in my life. I had no free will before I saw you and chose what I chose... Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, you would have led me down one, and yet I chose the other. But I never stopped looking down your chosen path for as long as I could, and for a fleeting moment I could have sworn I saw you standing there, and then you just faded, almost as if you ...