MAGI

Jag har gjort det förr, sänt honom ord, för att be om förlåtelse. Jag trodde att han siktade på att få ögonglittret återgäldat. Och jag slarvade bort hans namn. Den självåsamkade skammen. Men jag hade fel, jag har ofta fel, det var inte ögonglittret han var ute efter.

Kallas vänskap: När han höll min hand på djävulsön, fastän han såg mig, kanske för första gången. När han var tyst. När han talade. Och när han förstod. Min monolog blev dialog.

Minns du bron? Gatlyktorna stal allt vårt glitter och du sa att det inte var så hemskt när man var två. Och det var inte hemskt.

Och på alla dessa bilder höll du min hand. Alla dessa bilder som aldrig blev tagna. Och på dem som blev det, men sedan försvann. Vissa saker minns man. Min hand i din.

Och nu talar du om något magiskt i mig. Och jag vågar hoppas när hoppet kommer ifrån dig.

VASAPLTSEN

“I... want you to come home...”

Sparkling sugar crystals and pink meringues – flooding. I’m scooping, I’m scooping! Big words and “if-I-lie-I-die-promises” all of the time and all over.

And I told you the truth: Teenage alcoholic who’s without visions, pretentions, ambitions, but with home cut boy cut, beer belly and conspiracy suspicions. And you told me the exact time of the commercial breaks and repeated the entire TV-program listings, “If we hurry up we might be able to catch the double episode of The Simpsons.” And I cried for drama and you said “If you’re going out tonight… Be careful, ‘cause I’m taking this Tuesday off from the glorious nightlife of Gothenburg and I won’t be there to carry you home…” And you held me - tight, felt me, your hands on my back – seeking… And I saw that you were way too young and I screamed “FUCKING HELL! I will destroy you!” But time took an earlier bus and we had to run to make time to say those damned words. In the drizzle on the bus station. I won, I lost. Game over, honey! You just sold your soul to a boy who could have developed into a common person.

Forgive me darling.

SUNLIGHT

MEMORIES OF STOCKHOLM

It’s a transit hall. Thousands of heels are stomping the asphalt, waiting for something, or perhaps someone. In sunlight they’re not breathing in sync, a constant humming from empty chests, but during the nights… During the nights they all fall into the same rhythm and they whisper “You are everything I’ve ever hoped for…” and everything that happens seems to happen for a reason. In the beginning it wasn’t about him, in the beginning she was just looking for the rush of being held in strangers arms. He was glowing with some sort of simple confidence and he seemed to pulsate between the roles of an individual and a part of the collective; impossible to tell from the others. Pulsating, more rapidly, “stroboscope…” she thought and then he blinded her with a, from that time and for ever, constant full beam. Later she would say that she fell into his arms, literally, that coincidence had brought two bodies together in the half dark of the night chaos… But she had seen the light, seen it shine through his chest, the sharp beam pointed straight into her own and in that light they were alone. When she walked up to him her hands had stopped shaking and when he asked who she were she knew, knew for the first and last time “I am yours…”

A THOUSAND VOICES

Breathe on my hands. The stallions are running alongside with the trains, if the fence wouldn’t stop them they would just keep going, for ever. How can I know that the sun is shining during the nights? I wish that he would say it, I just want to hear him say it. Breathing hurts so badly. Why am I afraid of nothing? He tried to convince her, that’s when she stopped listening. It’s just words… She cut it all wrong and when she tried to improve it… It just got worse. Everything is linked together, everything is chaos. He wanted her to bite the pain away; he wanted her to eat it, to eat him. You can get goose bumps for different reasons. When you die you loose weight. She couldn’t stop thinking about the teacher who kissed a child. The words are not falling out in order; they refuse to correct themselves chronologically. What’s important is always so obvious, and what’s left is forgotten. I love someone who I’ve fabricated. We place the clichés on top of each other, slowly building a wall. She remembers the man on the unicycle, in his eyes she will always be a little girl. Chafes and growing pains. Sometimes things surprise you. It’s so quiet, the pen’s whispering on my paper. The dove hade a hole in its side, I could see its lungs. Take me, take me hard.