Als het dromen zijn,
dan klamp ik me vast
aan dat stukje wolk,
aan je kussen.
En het mijne.

Als het echt een droom is,
dan zweef ik zonder
lichaam tussen lichtpuntjes
en dwarrel neer naast
je warme buik.

Als dit een droom is,
dan blijf ik hier.
Als ik dit droom,
dan word ik niet, nooit
meer wakker.

It depends on how you look at it, she said.
With her eyes wide open and her mind in the wind.
It looks good from where I'm standing, she said.
Then she blindly turned around and died.

Don't you give up on love, she repeated in a whisper.
To herself, to me, to everyone who already had.
Don't you ever give up on people, don't you ever...
But she was a ghost with no voice.

She was never worth listening to, I said.
With my eyes closed, trying to hold back a tear.
Trying to shut her mouth, trying not to hear.
Unable to let her die, I briskly turned around.

I won't give up on love, I screamed repeatedly.
But I have to give up on you, wish I already had.
People will not go before their time, they will never.
But you've had yours, you've only done me bad.

You know I will rise from the dead, the phoenix said.
Because that's what I am, that is what you made me.
And I know that I'll let her, because that's who I am.
Against my will, I can't let her die, I need her to be.

The purpose of you for me

If this was the purpose of you for me
then it worked, you were used well.
But I refuse.

to believe that so short a time can be this strong
a heartbreak. When I think of the sense of it all.
No sense at all.

A twofold purpose for you, breaking me off
from a long gone past, from a wrong future.
How wrong are you, then?

If this was the purpose of you for me
then I used you without knowing it, for I
wished your purpose was my future.

about things going wrong and things going right

If in your head the picture fits,
it wants to break away again.
Your eyes color the scene differently
with every other look.

And you feel that life is all
about things going wrong
and about things going right
where you didn't want them.

One look to forget, one gaze
to blow up and make of more
significance than that one who is not
the one intended it to be.

And that is how things go
wrong and how things go
right
off the cliff.

But wait and see
they might be hanging.
It just depends on who's
looking and with whose eyes.

Slip out of your sweater and into my bed,
cry out in the gutter to be inside instead.
You'll be what you dreamt of and wish you had not
forgotten that this spot is everything you got.

Slide over to my side, I'll throw away the key
to the clown you have always wanted me to be.
I'll be your ghost in a closet, the one that you keep
pushing and pulling, make laugh and make weep.

But there will be a rainbow and there will be a smile
and we'll have fun together, at least for a while.
Till we crash but who cares! We never will, for
we live until we die; we do not stop before.

The smell of fall is ready for you

So when the sun rises higher
you start flying high tide,
only to be licking your wounds
every fall.

The chances this year
would save you the trouble
and let you stand tall
were small
to begin with.

Make your hard way
through winter.
You know you will
have forgotten by spring
that you just started
a new cycle.

Sleep tight, wake up anew...and disappear

The seconds passed and changed the view.
what was blurry is now clear,
what felt right, turned as wrong as anything
could ever be for me here.

The shadows of the sad unborn
are pierced by the light in their eyes,
but I turn away, for their existence
and their parents were both lies.

Today I loved an image that has broken down;
tomorrow I will love a ghost.

there is only so much

There are only so many tears to cry,
there is only so much hurt I can cause.
There is only so much left between us,
and it is more than I can lose.

It's about moving on,
it's about giving up. But mostly
it is about letting you
let me go and be happy.

There are only so many words,
only so many expressions.
There were hundreds of kind looks,
but even more rejections.

And now,

I'm moving on,
I'm giving up, but mostly
I'm letting you
let me go and be happy.

Get me out of the twilight

Please tell me again
how we ended up like this.
Show me where we met,
the second you noticed me.

Describe me again what you
tell everyone, and help me
remember every detail
of our first kiss.

This is more than I expected.
Much more than I was last week.
The way we picture ourselves
in each other's minds
is more than we'll ever be.

But it's beautiful,
it's special.
And it will always be.

Talk to me about their eyes
over and over again
and let me hear what I will sing too
to them, but first to you.

Let me taste them too,
all those new songs
you wrote when we
were born.

There are ways, I'm sure,
to get me out, to let me
into your own mind.
But you don't know what I feel is true,
I can't see what you see.

But it's beautiful,
it's special.
And it will always be.

Weirdness

How you transform into someone else
in a day, in a minute
- but only to me -
and how this haze turns mellow
and bright and cloudy.

How it should all be weird
but isn't
- at times at least -
and why I just know
what you disagree with.

How passions come and go,
how you lose interest in your goal
- the obvious one -
and today the mood is as shaky
as the weather.

I see my questioning face
in your mirrors
and turn away.
I look back again
and you keep on staring
forward, to something present.

Something is missing,
something irrational.
I am missing
you.
My rationality
is missing too.

Bad timing

And endlessly fighting our memories.
Searching for bad times.
I remember the bad times, they were there.
But have I lost them?
Did you take them all, leaving me
with nothing but the good memories.
The sweet ones. The ones that keep me going.
The ones that keep me crying.
The sound of the crashing on my pillow deafens me.
Those good memories, of candles, of hidden chocolate.

And then the morning light lit up the room,
softly, as if in contrast to the harsh words,
the cold, the crashing.
I was alone. I have been the whole night.
I am still.
But I am not asleep. Sleep doesn't make sense
without you.
Neither does waking up.
Especially not to a bad dream,
one filled with good memories.

Good is overrated. And bad timing makes it bad.

Nel Parco Sempione

Dreaming of you
while the sun dries my face.
Pretty red dresses
just to please you
attract the wrong bees.

The home of the shiny
has her spotlights on me
(or so it seems)
and has you looking the other way.

My love is wasted on you,
but you know, it's not.
It's my life,
it's the whole of me and all
I long to be.

Basta così!

If this is the last time
I'm kissing you goodbye,
let it be a perfect kiss,
one that flashes by when you die.

If this is our final moment,
leave out your looks of pity.
Just hold me, with your arms and
your awful eyes and find me pretty.

I wish me saying 'ti amo'
could make you want to say
'let's say goodbye for the rest
of our lives' and stay.

But you'd said goodbye
a long time ago.
Each new 'ciao' brings back the memories of the day
you first kissed me
and makes me wonder when exactly I scared you away.

If I'm never to see you again,
does loving you fiercely for a year and a day
count as burning up fast,
or did we fade away?

I wish me saying 'ti amo'
could make you want to say
'let's say goodbye for the rest
of our lives' and stay.

But you'd said goodbye
a long time ago.
Each new 'ciao' brings back the memories of the day
you first kissed me
and makes me wonder when exactly I scared you away.

What it's like.

So this is what it feels like
to love too much.
This is what it's like
to have your heart out on a platter
for him to discard.

To not be able to breathe
because whenever you think of him
the air around you turns into a thick fog.
And you think about him all the time.

This is what loving too much is like, then.
Wanting him close because that's the only time
that you're truly happy, the only time
that you don't have that constant feeling of waiting.

But at the same time wanting him far off,
because the longing to touch him, kiss him,
is far stronger when he's near.
And you know that you can't, that you're not allowed.

You want to know all about him, know
where he is, what he's doing, what's on his mind.
But you also want to cut him out of your life, for if
he can't be yours, you don't wanna know about his new girl.

So this is the agony of loving you, this is the joy of loving you.
So this is what it feels like,
for me, to love you too much.
Yet never enough, you deserve
all the love I have in me.
And you have it, take it, it's yours.

The color of sadness, the color of hope

I woke up without a clue of what day it was
and searched for you to kiss sense into me
and take my heart in exchange.
What will I do when even my daydreams start
showing me the truth, when I can't run
into oblivion and pretend you still care?

I feel cluttering summer water,
like memories of hope finding
their way up up down
about when I met you for real and you said
that our dreams were as bright as your lions,
when you were not wise and kissed me instead.

But I see autumn leaves and autumn will leave soon.
colors spread all around, like the rainbow
reflecting in my tears
and I find myself
wondering: what's the color of sadness?
and I find myself
waiting still,
waiting and wondering: what's the color of hope?

I plunge my fingers in your hair and drown
myself in your awful eyes.
You look away as if you were afraid to see
my longing once again,
making sense of the clearness my heart is.
You are alone, there.
You made the world smaller, made my world bigger,
you made the universe notice me when
my heart felt the big bang.
I want you for the rest of our lives, even though
eternity might become a touchable period too soon.

Als de wereld rond is
en niet alles een droom,
waar ben ik dan
in jouw gedachten?

Wit is zwart vandaag
maar morgen is een nieuwe dag.
De mist rondom mij doet
alsof mijn hoofd klaar water is.

Het bonkt en slaat en verdooft
mijn hart, en niets is nog waar.
De grond onder mijn voeten
Glijdt weg en ik blijf staan.

Terwijl jij nooit duidelijker had kunnen zijn.
Enkel ik hoor nee als ja of misschien.

Hoop is een wrede emotie.
Ze doet leven en neemt het dan weer weg.

Ooit was alles anders
toen de prinses op haar ezel
nog alles mocht, behalve weglopen
toen de vlinders in mijn buik
als tranen wegfladderden
en op de jouwe terechtkwamen.

Toen in het land van ‘er was eens’
ik de minnares was van de liefde
en jij mijn minnaar.
Met bloemblaadjes bouwden we kastelen
met slagroom en een kers erop
en lieten we alle geuren onze haren strelen
tot ze knetterden als die van een kat.

Maar niet meer…

Laat me weer jouw walvis zijn.

Nooit. Eerste keer. Zacht. Zonder
gedachten. Los. Anekdotes. Foto’s.
Voor altijd. Nee. Weg, verdwaald.
De weg terug. Koud. Tijdloos. Vrij.
Wat wil je? Wat wil ik? Wat doe ik hier?
Is er een tijd voor dit soort gevoelens?
Zijn het gevoelens? Wat maak ik mezelf wijs?
Is dat nodig? Waarom begrijp je me niet?
Begrijp ik je niet? Wat denk je nu?
Weg! Ga! Voor altijd! Kom! Hou van me!

You make me want you
even more
with every waking breath
every blink, every eye lash,
with every cold snowy gaze in
the distance,
every step away from me.
You make me want you
even more.

I’m on fire,
you cool me down.
Don’t.
Flare with me.

My wit fades to
bottomless sweetness
but that was not
what you bargained for.
My jokes, raping your
attitude, turn into
love song lyrics,
leaving you nothing
but indifference.
The sparks in my eyes
that once aroused both
you and me are now
beacons of the love
you couldn't care less for.
Darn, I let it happen again.

If I could forever be
that playful gal haunting
your waking hours,
if I could stay careless
and cocky and always
offending your ego
because we both know
it's grown too big from
endless games anyway,
if I only could stay
desire and desiring
and not become longing
for words that are not sung.
But I cannot stop myself
from caring, and I don't
want to.
If only I could stop myself
from losing myself
in serious thoughts,
you'd still like me.
You'd still care.