writing – Gabriel Berm

I Don’t want what I never had

Who would’ve said that after being my one and only inspiration for everything ranging from life itself to writing and painting I would end up absolutely out of inspiration? You were the muse of my midnight tales and my watercolor paintings and now, you’re nothing but a memory. A memory not even strong enough to write a short verse or a poem that doesn’t rhyme. Even your lack of love meant dozens of hours of melancholic entertainment. Your lips aren’t the lips I once wondered how they would feel with mine. They just seem like anyone’s lips. Your eyes are not the mysterious constellation that trapped me and lift me to the heavens anymore. Your voice isn’t that sweet song that I used to listen carefully. The truth is that I don’t love you anymore, I don’t feel a thing for you anymore, but I somehow cherish that feeling you gave me. You gave me hope even if I already knew there wasn’t a chance. The idea of “you” made me wonder how it would be like to be by your side. Now I don’t care who’s by your side, I couldn’t care less if it were me or that guy you always talked about. I cherish how I felt, my heart is now full yet my life feels empty.

© Gabriel Berm

Smoking and Writing

I wake up every morning, and before frying a couple of eggs, I reach for my favorite pack of cigarettes, grab one and light it. The first days I did this my body tried to tell me how awful that was, but my writings improved significantly. I like to call it the writer’s curse, but it affects any other artist too. There is something about smoking that makes whatever you’re doing better. Sure it kills, or well, it accelerates the process of dying. The real question would be if living long but with miserable or below average writings is worth it. Nothing tackles sadness like a cigarette, a piece of paper and a pen. Maybe the final product feels more intimate and real because the writer is indeed dying a little bit while producing such piece of art. Tabacco is to writers what morphine is to an agonizing man, both cease pain, different types of pain but pain at the end and both slowly kill. A double purpose creation. To every woman that I have loved, I dedicate a night with my old friend the smoke and my great inspiration, her love.