Alexander Putinei

I had nearly forgotten how one breathes without her. She clung to me one ordinary Tuesday afternoon, while the sun still struggled to gild a single corner of the street, and from that hour she has granted me no peace. She did not knock; she asked no leave. She simply took her seat in the armchair of my mind and began to dictate the shape of all my tomorrows. She is beautiful—I cannot deny it. Hers is that cold perfection which makes a man feel small, a beauty that needs no one’s affirmation. At first she seduced me with the promise of meaning. She whispered that everything I had lived until then was but a cheap rehearsal for the great spectacle we would stage together. And I believed her. Who would not believe a voice that seems to know every secret of the universe? Yet, like every exacting mistress, she began to demand her tribute. First she claimed my nights. Then she claimed my friends, telling me they could never understand me as she does. At last she started to feed upon my silence itself. Now I carry her everywhere, like a wound that will not close, yet which forever reminds me that I am still alive. I have seen her in others, though they try to hide her. I know her by that fixed, slightly lost gaze, and by the way they wring their hands when the quiet grows too long. We are all her slaves, though we love to pretend that we are the ones who master her. We sell her by the piece, set her out upon the market stalls each day for a scrap of attention or a few crumbs of recognition; yet when evening comes and we are left alone, she returns to us whole and hungry. Sometimes I long to forget her—to bury her beneath a mountain of the commonplace and live even one day without thinking of her. But I fear that with her the light itself would die in the room where I dwell. She is my Creation, my curse and my salvation, and I no longer know whether I invented her, or whether she invented me so that she might have someone through whom to breathe. And this — this possession, this hunger, this light that wounds — is how I have come to understand freedom.

Scorched Earth I feel a strange, unyielding impulse rise, To sweep a blazing torch across the skies, To wrap the spinning world in sacred fire, And watch its ancient malice fall and tire. Unheeding of the ashes left behind, Save for the children to my heart entwined, To cleanse the earth with one consuming glow, And burn away its endless weight of woe. That from the dust a virgin world might spring, Where no cold blade or cry of war shall ring, Where in a quiet realm, serene and bright, They rest untouched beneath the eternal light. I see no earthly remedy to cure This grinding strain the weary souls endure; If my own life must buy the grand design, I’d yield it up to grant them peace divine. Though men may deem my brooding spirit mad, I’d bid farewell to all the joy I had; I’d step into the dark without a sound, If I but knew their feet tread holy ground. For let the old world crumble in the flame, Its futile glory and its hollow fame, If from the pyre a gentler sunrise dawns, To warm the meadowlands and peaceful lawns.

Whispers in the Dark: The Birth of a Forbidden Deity Voices within my hollow spirit speak, Whispering clear, though I salvation seek: "No God is thine." Yet know, I am no atheist— A wayward soul, by holy wrath unblessed, Within whose chest a brand-new deity is born, To rule the shadows of an endless morn. The ancient times have slain the Christ of old; The modern age doth wicked deeds uphold, Teeming with envy, foul and unsecure, With hatred piercing to the marrow pure; Where even they who called themselves my friend Would see me fall, and joy to watch my end. Sad tales of woe at every turn abound; How can I stand in silence on this ground? How can I keep my boiling soul suppressed, When moonbeams guide my footsteps through the west, And through the dark my destiny shines clear— The sacred calling that I hold so dear? To speak aloud what soul and mind decree, Nor waste an hour in idle vanity; To pour upon the leaf the life I led, To save from dust each tear I ever shed, And leave behind, unvanquished and unpriced, All that my heart hath loved and sacrificed.

If you have a number in your contacts that you never delete, even though you know it will never ring, 👇 this poem is for you.