quote, price of the ticket, james baldwin

'It has always been much easier (because it has always seemed much safer) to give a name to the evil without than to locate the terror within. And yet, the terror within is far truer and far more powerful than any of our labels: the labels change, the terror is constant. And this terror has something to do with that irreducible gap between the self one invents — the self one takes oneself as being, which is, however, and by definition, a provisional self — and the undiscoverable self which always has the power to blow the provisional self to bits.'

sometimes at night

sometimes at night,

flooded by the sea,

monsters and dolphins

surfacing and jumping,

sometimes i cannot

sleep, drowning in

my thoughts, 

in this underground me.

i take flight with reason,

it will not control 

anything at all.

all seas are beyond

control, and perception

is all, to witness,

to let the waves roll

and wash me

with all the rubble

floating on top

and swimming

unseen underneath,

near the shores

all can happen, 

consciousness caught

in seaweed and fishing nets.

it is not the time

to swim out far

into open water,

to give me to the ocean,

it is not yet time

to die.

until, i pray for peace

for dolphins and monsters,

for me.

Portugal, Angeiras, Vila d. Conde