Romantic

Romantic

 

Springtime by Pierre-Auguste Cot, 1873

People react very weird when they understand my opinions about love. I know they didn't expect to find this at the end of the mystery walls: 'What? But you are romantic? But what can one artist be? Living a movie in which the main character I am. Sometimes I just finish like a pathetic loser in the eyes of small brains without knowledge of the word LOVE. These letters, LOVE, which artists before me discovered like magicians. Every one of them tried to describe it through art—and it was never enough, never captured the feeling that these small letters can carry: 'I love you.' You can cry reading any good romantic novel, but for a heart like mine to cry, it needs to be something from my life's movie. And I cried. And you've done it too, or will. Love is a very attractive poison; it acts like any drug. It makes you believe that in the end, it will not be bad, but it always is. Is it because of our fragile lives? We don't live infinitly, at least not in this flesh. We are just one blink here, and another blink... you become everything and nothing. Let me be honest: from a person like me, you will not expect to be jealous, but I am. This is something I fight with because it is integrated into my genes. My father and his father—how much I can remember—all the men in our family have a tendency to be jealous, and this can escalate too. I fight with it. I overcome it most times. Sometimes words go faster than my mind. Then... act like a man, put your shoulders up. I remember every nice moment I spent with someone I found myself in love with. My first rejection was in elementary school, looking at a girl who 'didn't give a fuck about me.' Or in high school, falling in love with a girl about whom I still sometimes think... how weird it can be. But when I love, my heart really loves. At that time, I was fully into rap music. Seeing her walking in the schoolyard, I remember what she was wearing—blue hip-hop girl jeans and a white t-shirt with one shoulder out. I fell in love instantly and asked her if she could draw me a graffiti with my name on paper. I did it just so she would think about me doing it. I will call her 'Dama,' which in Serbian means 'lady.' In Serbian, when we want to tell someone they're from the streets, or usually when old people saw us in our rap jeans and hoodies, they would call us 'kolosar,' which translates to 'hobo' in English. In Serbian, it sounds very different. We will mostly meet each other in the elementary school yard, where we will walk, talk, kiss. One day I bought spray and went to the school yard and wrote with big letters "VOLI TE TVOJ KLOSAR" ("LOVE YOUR HOBO"). And when we met each other in the same yard, I showed her what a crazy little romantic I was. When I now think about this yard, it will take so many emotions back if I go back to it.On my birthday he called me to come there, put something on my eyes so I couldn't see, and then walked with me, gave me a present. Haha, all happened under a black star-filled sky.She at that time respected school and professors and had very big opinions about them. For me, with my anarchistic outlook on everything and dislike for anyone ruling over me, they all seemed like a bunch of losers who didn’t like their jobs and were only coming to school to get money so they could feed their families.She would put most of her time into school and the choir she was part of. I, on the other hand, would feel alone and miss her. Drinking became something I used to fill the time when I wasn’t with her or writing. At one point, we changed the place where we would meet each other, and the new spot we chose was a rock café where I ended up spending a lot of time—a lot. This bar was named 'REVOLT,' cool name. I just now realized how cool it is as I wrote it here.On my 18th birthday, I told my parents I want my brother and sister to get baptized, and we did a big celebration with all the family coming, and all of them gave some money to me, my sister, and my brother. With the money, I got to buy new clothes, and I got a watch as a gift from my uncle. Fully good clothed like that, I went with her to the same bar I was talking about before, and my mother called me to get out. When we were going out, we passed by her, and he didn’t recognize us. He was so proud. I bet we looked so good together. All my future girls were looking like her. Sometimes I think I got to fall in love or like some girl because she is like her. This is weird and maybe not true.I still remember 21 was the day on which we got together, but I don’t know on which month. One day I called her to go to a bar after school, and she told me no. I asked her again, and got the same answer. I asked her another day, same every day. She was having something black on her hands, like paint. I asked what it was, and she gave me some stupid answer. I became jealous and started to get drunk in Uncle's bar. Then he called me to show me something, and there, close to the elementary school, on the wall of some old building, he wrote the text of my rap song:

'Pokušaj svatiti plač, 

pokušaj spustiti gard, 

čuješ li urlike, 

to je jad, koliko teško je, vidiš li sad?'

ENG:

Try to understand the cry,
try to lower your guard,
do you hear the screams?
It’s misery, how hard it is, do you see it now?

Which I recorded after, with money my grandmother gave me to go to driving school. I spent the money on some gift for her and recording the song in some house studio made by kids, like I was. And you can still find this song online: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_oSS1Teg9c.
all credits for making this song can go to her becosue he ispired me too make it

It is not only the song he inspired me to make because after, like a gift for her, I will record one more song. We got to know a friend of my best friend at that time, who was working in some internet company and living alone, going to the gym, etc. He was living in the same building I was, just in another entrance, with some old woman who would rent him a room. We would sneak in, get some red wine, watch a movie, drink, talk, and pretend we were recording music. We would put the stand and microphone in the closet and try to record a song. One day, we got to cook wine with cinnamon; outside was snow, if I remember correctly. So this was a good idea. On that day, I recorded a song called 'Dama.' I don’t remember any words of this song; I just transferred it to her with Bluetooth. Yes, fellows, there was no Wi-Fi still, and we were not obsessed with phones. I hardly ever had my phone with me, and if we were writing, it was on Facebook, but from a PC.I hope maybe he still has this song. In the closet in my grandmother's apartment, there is still a box with all the stuff he gave to me, And tomorrow, I will ask my brother to take pictures of it and send them to me so I can put them in this journal.

New Year 2013, we got to celebrate together in my apartment all alone. My phone was always ringing; family was controlling me. We kissed, and it was a very hot moment. He was down, I was up, but he was a virgin. But so am I, and we didn’t have sex. It’s disappointing because I don’t see a better person with whom I’d lose my virginity, and if we ask her, maybe it will be the same answer.

I wonder what he is doing now, as I’m thinking and writing this about her. I got an appointment for my surgery intervention for me, for me kid who has 18 years; at this time, it was something like facing death, and this, and for some other reasons, we didn’t spend so much time together. We separated in these days. I got to meet other girls in this bar; they were younger than me and her too. I don’t know if he was jealous, but I called her to come in the bar to get coffee before I go to Italy for my surgery. I called one of these girls too. So stupid, when I think it through right now. I called my best friend too. I got in a fight with her, got out of the bar. He got out with me, walked from there, he called me. I turned, came to her, hugged her, turned again, and that was the end, like all romantic stories. And like this… at the end, it’s bad. I tell you, at the start of this text.He will contact me after, but I was hurt because he was not with me in the problems I was having. I didn’t understand at that time that he can’t understand what I was facing.

Shit… it happened. Thank you for being part of my life. I hope you remember me as nicely as I remember you, and I’m proud when I tell 

I still love you.                                                                                                                                       

After finishing this, it was not possible for me to sleep, and I stayed awake till 6 in the morning.

I found her on Instagram, clicked follow, and she accepted me and followed me back. I sent a message with the full text in PDF format of what I had written here. The message was sent on 11/22/2024.

What you will ask is, 'WHAT happened after?'
I don’t plan to write it here.

STAY ROMANTIC—it’s not bad to be one, like our society makes us believe.