I hate empty walls
not a poem
I hate empty walls and the way they stare at me
I hate how white they are and I hate how they draw attention to their whiteness
I hate their lack of memories
Their lack of art and their lack of presence
The same lack that seems to consume the room
I hate the fact that I love white
And yet I hate walls
I hate white walls
I think I’ve said this before
But the walls keep staring at me and the pressure to write is too present
Too alive
Not to repeat my words
Not to repeat my words
My words
My words?
I don’t know
The worst part is that I am completely aware of how badly I write poetry
This is not poetry
But still I write because the words come to me and my fingers start typing
And here it is
My words in this not blank page
I write on my walls all the time you know?
And I love it
More than the paintings
More than the plants
Not more than the books
But I love them
My words in my illegible handwriting
Lyrics for songs that I love
(Too much from The Smiths for one person)
Quotes from books that sing in my veins
And palpitate on my mind
Dorian Gray, Marx?, Dostoyevsky and Sappho
But also Addie LaRue
Oh dear Night, this
All of this
Sounded so unpoetic
There are also films of course
Fight Club and, well, a bit more of Fight Club
I love too many films to have quotes from only one
And still, it is the truth
It is ugly, I’m not trying to hide
Everything is ugly these days, is it not?
I really don’t know, my opinion changes more than I would like
It changes every day
Today I hate my white walls
I guess that’s the only thing I always hate
If my walls are white I cannot think
Maybe that’s why this is so bloody awful
It’s the wall’s emptiness
It’s the wall’s silence and incapacity to be quiet
But I swear I didn’t have an option
My wall was filled with postcards from
France and
Italy and
Germany and
I don’t remember more
But I took them off today
Did you know the act of taking postcards off a wall could hurt so much?
I did
I’ve done this before
But I’m moving away
Again
I was obliged to do this
And now I am
Leaving this room
That was rented
And I stole the key which isn’t very nice
But I always steal the keys
And again I’ll leave all the walls blank
And I hate it
I hate it
I hate
I hate my empty walls.
-Antônia D.G. Lau