POETRY - RAISA BRESLAVA

tightly
wrap your long-limbed hairy branches around me
instinctively
spread your legs and birth me anew
tenderly
remind me of the place where we all came from.

We’re a generation obsessed with words and good things said
Quotes
But how about silences?
How about celebrating the silences people take?
“Did you hear that pause he took when talking? Did you listen to how he took that pause, how he took that silence?!?”
I said something to someone that came from quite a disconnected place
Luckily, the person i was talking to paused and left a long long silence before talking
That silence transformed everything in me
I suddenly fell into the vast space of myself
And suddenly knew that nothing was actually needed to be said on the matter
That silence swept everything clean and brought us so much closer.
The silences are so so dear to me.

This feeling permeates my day to day recently -
something calling me somewhere out there, someplace undiscovered
and this place or person or experience is patiently sitting there waiting for me, beckoning me whilst i take my time towards it;
other opportunities come along that are either more known or in other directions and tempt me
but the force of this undiscovered place is so so strong
I can feel that i need what is there so so much
and it excites me to find it
really really excites me

FEBUARY 2017
As a child and growing up I didn't see my mother in relationship to man, certainly not my father. The relationships, when they appeared, were kept behind closed doors, away from the children. I didn't see the challenging, confrontational conversations as those were only for the grown-ups. I didn't see what a woman respecting herself , in relation to a man , looks like. A woman knowing her self-worth, in relation to man. A woman saying no or yes and at which point to say NO. Saying: No, this is enough, I am leaving. I didn't see it so now the only way to learn these things is by trial and error on my own skin. And unlike the english language that I acquired within a year fluintly at the age of eight when I came to England, I notice with age it can take longer to learn certain things, certain lessons. I thought by now that I would recognise what respectful treatment looks like and what it certainly isn't and would be prepared to act accordingly to look after myself, but still at times I notice that that 8 year old child in me freezes and instead of saying: NO, I am leaving, out of self -protection I retreat to being loving and nice. But being nice and loving can be the most dangerous habit when life is demanding that you get up and save your life and honor, defend yourself. Being nice can be deathly. Hello Mother, I am unlearning the lesson you taught me about being nice.

MARCH 2017
Sister, stroke my hair and lay me down
hold me as I weep
and I will hold you as you weep with me too;
sister, let's remind one another that it's ok to feel
like an animal discharging their trauma as soon as the incident occurs,
remind me sister, that its ok to feel it all;
that our upcoming sorrow or pain is just a wave moving through;
Sister, help me learn to let go of it
because you know how these female bodies work
and how they sometimes hold onto things for far too long, or how they carry the burden of responsibility for the whole of Earth's happiness
to the past incidences, loved ones that have entered our bodies and are still there,
Sister, help me by letting go of your pain and that which makes you small and celebrate joyously
with your joy you will touch in me the places that are yearning for that too and are almost ready to join you there,
and please be patient whilst I make my way to you,
Sister, we all have such different expressions and ways to our joys, our let goes,
This healing is all of ours and each time you take a deeper breath I'm reminded of my own inner vastness;
Sister, we are so so vast,
infinitely vast,
let's travel in and out of one another's vastnesses
the ones we can only limit ourselves
and even we cannot limit it with all the trying in the world
the same way we cannot run away from it,
let's enter it, Sister, let's embrace this breath taking vastness that we are.

DECEMBER 2012
Once you become quite sensitive you realize that holding back love, hiding it from the world, not expressing it, begins to hurt you.
MARCH 2012
If I didn't notice it does not mean that it was not there. Everything is there. If I haven't seen it it probably implies that I am not ready to deal with the consequences of seeing it.

WHO I HAVE BEEN
OCTOBER 2011
I've seen myself hurt and blamed others for causing it.
I have felt pain and not known how to be with it.
I have wanted without understanding what it really means to have it.
I have received what I have wanted and realized that it was the idea that I desired not the actuality.
I have had beautiful fantasies that upon manifestation turned into my blindness of not seeing the life for what it is, with all it's darkness.
I have expected and idealized others to the point that I have made myself so little that I could barely look into the idealized ones eyes.
I have tried so hard to be the right version or the good person but in the end ended up exhausting myself and demonizing those I'm trying to be good to.
I have lied to life and people within it to find again and again that it is my non-acceptance with life as it is that a lie consists of.
I have tried to hide the brutal truth, behave nicely and give generously but soon enough realized that what I saw as generousity was in fact my fear of rejection.
I have thought that the way to gain love and approval is by playing other peoples games - going along with their behaviours within their set boundaries, and by doing so I have found that I have lived a life of a beggar.
I have edited myself and appropriated myself to fit what is wanted of me and ended up hating myself.
I have seen what it is like to feel disgusted by my own dishonesty and felt it to the bone, to the point of throwing up and throwing out all the toxins out of my body.
I have controlled and manipulated my surroundings in order to stand firmly and securely on the ground - to know what I am doing tomorrow and know that I will get what I want, but found out pretty soon that it is not life I'm living but my false idea of safety and satisfaction.
I have hidden from the world, not taken risks and compromised my freedom by convincing myself that I am already at peace.
I have made others clean my most dirty clothes for me and search for my happiness, because I couldn't be bothered to.
I have prostituted myself and sold myself for who I wasn't in order to not face being left or hearing 'I don't like you', 'I don't want you.'
I have suppressed my disinterest and demonized my inner rejector so strongly that I have protected people from being left by me.
I have acted like a saint when I really felt like being a bitch.
I have said nice things to people in order to control them.
I felt like running away at times when I was feeling huge discomfort and believed that running away is possible.
I felt how my breath shortens and quickens each time I resist being with what is.
I noticed how painful it is to deny my own suffering but also how easy it is to get stuck in it being it's victim.
I have reacted for hours, for days, for years denying how much I've been affected, until I have come crushing down with all the suppressed pain and rage.
I have been so angry that I ran with all the burning fire dumping my flames on those around me.
I have made others, those close to me, guilty for not giving me what I want.
I have experienced my mother expecting my support and me not deciding to give it to her.
I have loved my mother, been separated from my mother, hated my mother, hurt my mother, been strangers with my mother and learned to find my way back to her, a woman that in the past I have treated as a role, as a mother.
I have wanted to change and not taken any steps to do so not knowing in what direction to step.
I have wanted to manipulate the one I have felt disempowered by.
I have played a victim and belittled myself to those who I wanted acceptance from when really I was feeling powerful and well, but afraid that they wouldn't enjoy my power.
I have pretended to be an old version of who I was in order to not let go of people and comfort zones.
I have denied change in the eyes of those who despised my change.
I have lived compromises and felt huge rage for doing so.
I have rushed ahead to destinations and ended up hurting myself.
I have sat feeling all the power in me and been overwhelmed by the force not understanding how to handle it.
I have despised those who lie to me and realized that it is my own pain that I am despising.
I have felt love and been ashamed of it.
I have felt good and thought I don't deserve to feel it.
I have fallen into relationships and fallen out of them, thinking that love is something you fall into and out of.
I have misplaced love for an idea and found out that I have a very limited understanding of everything in my life.
I have expanded possibilities and redefined life and found that expansion never stops and that definition of all lies in my own hands.
I have felt people dumping their shit on me in order for me to carry their shit too, and I have understood that it is not up to me to change those people, but it is up to me to change how affected by them I am.
I have experienced communicating with people who are not interested in really knowing who they are communicating to.
I have seen people being faced with myself and honest dialogue, but when being confronted with more truth and directness they run away not wanting to face themselves.
I have been needy of attention, intimacy and love but dressed it up as an expectation of others to give me this without me addressing and owning this need.
I have acted strong, firm and steady when the reality was that I was scared, insecure and very vulnerable.
I have hid huge parts of myself and then blamed others of not seeing those parts and not being sensitive enough at the time.
I have felt strongly about what I need but haven't had the guts to stand firmly and take responsibility for claiming some boundaries.
I have experienced a lot of beautiful sensitivity and had others, those who can't handle it, see it as weakness.
I have seen my fragility and learned to take care of it.
I have seen outside beauty and idealized it.
I have been finding myself and finding also what is not me.
I have been acknowledging what I have done and what I have been through in order to let go of it fully and allow change happen softly.
I have understood that the life I have lived is a perfect mirror of who I have been.
JUNE 2011
At a point of finishing something
after it's over,
Where do we go?
Do we just continue doing what we've done before
But maybe with more deliberate pace
Or do we say that that's it,
It's over,
Like a light switch being switched off,
it suddenly goes pitch black
We enter a big space of pitch black nothingness.
Maybe it has no sound, no smell, no flavour.
There is nothing you had before here
It is all the opposite of what you have ever had
In fact, in this place you don't anymore exist like you existed before,
Take a moment.
Shut your eyes and imagine this place.
What do you see?
i have finished a book this week.
said goodbye to a friend.
and finished going to college.
i'm thinking now that this place
which we go to
is similar to the feeling of being finished with something.

NOVEMBER 2010
THOSE BIRDS WILL WRITE LETTERS FROM OUR SKINS
Don't you know, my love
Don't you know?
You have to let go
Before you fall.
And not know
Before you reach to smell that flower.
You have to burn, my love,
You have to burn.
So that your skin can peel
Away into the sky.
And all those flying birds
Can make nests and envelopes out of it,
Saying: 'He threw himself into the fire.'

Don't you know, my love,
Don't you know?
We see so blindly
When we hold on to that pride.
Sit, sit in the fire, my love,
Let go of that skin.
It's not yours to hold on to.
JULY 2010
We plan little journeys.
We dig little holes.
We talk little dialogues.
We create little fantasies.
We carry little suitcases.
We stand in little crowds.
We breathe in a little air.
We make little promises.
We dress in little outfits.
We make little business deals.
We play a little hide and seek.
We hurt a little.
Laugh a little.
Cry a little
Die a little.

We try and be a little
bigger.
A little beggar.
A little
egg.

NOVEMBER 2010
HALF-INCH
I look at the sky
And I see all these half-inch vehicles flying above.
Ones that fit into my thumb.
Even ones that fit into my one Phalange.
And although this one part of the thumb is Accepted to hold the power of logic,
I do wonder how all those people fit into that half -inch.
Are they comfortable?
With all those dreams, worries and destinations All within that half-inch.
Those strangers sitting in chairs so high,
Maybe even sleeping, in mid-air.
Probably not even imagining
That for someone like me
Their existence fits into a half-inch.

Maybe next time
When you fly,
Think about all those eyes
Watching you whilst you sit in your half-inch plane.

And beware,
for the power of logic
might have changed
within the half-inch of mid-air.

JANUARY 2010
AWAKENING
That day, my love,
when we were conceived.
And birthed with such harsh beauty
That day,
When like a bullet of gold we came to being
Not knowing how.

In those deep deep chores
In those of our wounds
Blue tigers flew possessed
Where insects lived
But only for a day
and stones reformed their vertebrae

my love, that day for them
has never ended
they fly amongst us now

they fly deep deep
amongst our wounds
and those same tears they cry

for no other sacred being, my love,
has more patience with us, blind creatures,
than God.
For not if blind, asleep so often.

My love,
I ask myself so often
How deeply can one fall?
Let’s wake up
Let’s wake up, my love
Because it is the time of urgency
It is the time for being virgins once again.

JANUARY 2011
LANDING
it's amazing to watch you fly
you do it with skill
for sure,
an amazing pilot,
and all those people see it below.
They're entertained and kept wanting more.
but in the meantime
I can't stop feeling a subtle residue of pain
it lives in my chest and my belly
and I'm not sure if it's only my pain
or also yours.
So I decide to watch your flying
with more detail than before
like a mechanic I explore
the speed of it all
and what I have come to see
is that the landings of your plane are most interesting to me.
The moment when your wheels come back down to the ground
and that jolt that strikes you so suddenly every time it arrives.
I see your eyes sometimes shutting to not face
the fear that you've stopped.
Oh, and that jolt swells up
and touches deep deep inside.
I see it
for sure.
I've investigated.
Both inside and out
and I notice you master your plane artistry well,
but I have one concern for you, my dear pilot:
What do you do when there's no more flying to do?

JULY 2010
WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO SELL?
Hey you,
Salesmen, insurance agents, institutions, politicians,
Teachers, fathers, mothers, lovers,
What are you trying to sell?
What is it
And what is it that you want in return?

Hey you,
I’ve told you
I’m not buying
Unless you’re honest about what it is,

Don’t buy the questions
Don’t buy the justifications
Don’t buy the protection
Don’t buy the manipulation

It’s all your control.

Why is it that you
Circle in circles for years
Circling round what you want
Selling what you are not.

Don’t buy the automatism
Don’t buy the rules
Don’t buy the playing it safe
Don’t buy the vampire hooks

It’s all your control.

Hey you,
Stop that right now.
Stop exhausting yourself.
I
Don’t buy the sufferer
Don’t buy the complaint
Don’t buy the weakness
Don’t buy the shame.

Stop that right now
can't you see
it's not selling.

MAY 2010
HARRIET
HARRIET laughs
harriet gets bored
harriet tells us a story
harriet gets frustrated
harriet talks quietly and delicately
which makes us come closer

carefully
carefully...
she might be mad,
guilty of unknown wrongs.
but we assume the opposite
she is charming
and her giggles make me feel better.
one day she is sporty spice
another day - alice in wonderland
then suddenly those lips become the colour of cherries
and it's hard
hard not to look
she becomes the seductress
she becomes one of us, generic Eves.
she is a matrix
if you are lucky to witness
her face lights up blue
luminance
she bathes in front of this bright blue sun
and she let's us watch her
some witness this ritual and wonder: why?
but such spectators are usually too shy to ask
what a ridiculous question would it be:
why is the sun underneath which you are bathing so blue?!?
when we go home
she goes to the sports shop
maybe she even runs to the sports shop
her white pale skin matches the sky
and her hair tries to wriggle out of the hair band
to join the clouds.
but she stays deeply grounded
she even maybe has a conversation with the local cleaner
asking him about his day
he is left touched by her curiosity
wondering.
wondering her name.

2010, JULY
YOU ASK, I ANSWER
You asked: 'what?'
I didn't answer.
You asked again: 'What is it?'
I replied: 'Ummmm... well... maybe...'
'Maybe what?!' you said.
'Maybe we shouldn't', I said.
'Maybe we shouldn't what?' you said.
'Maybe... we shouldn't talk about it,' i said.
[15 SECOND PAUSE. NOTHING IS SAID]
'What should we do then?' you asked.
[10 SECOND PAUSE. AGAIN NOTHING IS SAID]
'I'm not sure.'

JULY 2010
One probably needs another.
Another, by whom he's seen.

July 2010
My love, the sun sometimes turns pink from a distance, but closer by it's a light shade of blue.
Just like the colour of the shirt that you wear so often.
Eagles fly, possessed by the wind, they always seem to be carried back home.
Gently, Gently... Very gently, my love, those wings cut air with such ruthless delicacy that one might wonder if they have ever known pain.

JULY 2010
GOA
Berries carved out of wood
We walk along the dried muddy footpaths.
Berries carved out of wood
We fill up our glasses with water.
Beside the berries,
Breeze through our windows.
In silence noises make harmonies,
We wake up to palm trees and buffalos.
Vibrations touch deeply and pass into those who are passionate.

We surrender and we forget,
And weave intricate patterns.
We tell each other our never ending journeys.
How did we get here and how did you become one of us?

It's the afternoon breeze through our windows,
We fill up our glasses with water.

July 2010
One might fall
One might break and tear
And leave stains on their bright clean tablecloths.
2009, October
RETURNING HOME
AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN I DO NOT NEED IT. THERE IS NOT MUCH NEEDED. I LET THE SUN ON ME. I LET YOU IN ME. I GET CLOSER. THE CLOSER AND FURTHER. THE CLOSER THE FURTHER. AND THEN THE EXCITEMENT. AND THE TERROR. PARALYZING. AS I REMIND MYSELF TO BREATHE, JUST TO STAY WITH IT AND BREATHE. BITS OF WORDS. BITS OF SKINS AND BITS OF MISCOMMUNICATIONS. AND ALL THE SHOUTING. THE SHOUTING. IT’S LIKE PARENTS NEVER HELD THEM IN THEIR HANDS. YOU NEED TO HOLD A SCREAMING CHILD TO KNOW WHAT ONE IS SCREAMING. DON’T DARE TO ASSUME. BUT AGAIN I REPEAT, IT’S NOTHING TO DO WITH THE WORDS, NOTHING. PEOPLE RUSHING PAST YOU, LEAVING BITS OF WORDS, BITS OF BREATH, BITS OF THEMSELVES BEHIND. IT ALL STAYS WITH ME. IT ALL PASSES THROUGH ME AND INTO THE NEXT. NEVER STOPS, ALWAYS FLOWS. NEVER FORGETS. NEVER FORGETS. WHY SHOULD ANYTHING EVER STOP? THE OCEAN FLOWS UNTIL IT HITS AN EDGE. IT STROKES AND DANCES AND THEN IT EXPLODES. AND BEGINS ALL OVER AGAIN. AGAIN AND AGAIN. WHY WOULD IT EVER STOP? WHILE IT IS THERE. WHILE I AM HERE AND YOU ARE HERE, IT NEEDS TO BE SHARED. OTHERWISE YOU MIGHT BE GOING BACKWARDS. IT’S NOT TO BE FOUND OUT. IT’S HERE. UNDER ALL THESE GREYS AND GREENS AND YELLOWS, UNDER ALL THESE FLOWERS AND TEARS, THERE COULD BE SOMETHING VERY UGLY, YES. AND MAYBE SOMETHING VERY RAW AND BEAUTIFUL. WE HAVE TO LOOK. AND LISTEN. AND STAY WHEN IT’S BREAKING. WITH ALL ITS BRUTAL BEAUTY. AND GET OVER THE PRIDE. THE PRIDE. THE PRIDE. THE PRIDE. AND THANK THIS ABUNDANCE FOR BEING SO HUMBLE. FOR ALL THE PATIENCE AND ALL THE LOVE.