I AM LIKE A MUSEUM

I am like a museum in which everything is kept. I am a living museum under the open sky. It is quite unique. I still pulse with hot passions that remind me of past losses and future victories. In me, life has already gone half way, but I am still far from the end. Far from the end of immortality.

I am like a museum in whose basement the spirit of Adam and Eve is filling the space. The spirit of sin and disobedience. The spirit of forgiveness, which is neither wanted, nor given. The department of Adam and Eve is full of temptation and drama. I am an example of God's anger and love. I am Eve, an ancient measure of weakness and strength. I am a rebellion against prohibitions and rules.

I am like a museum where there is an archeological hall of physical growth and small victories over the body. In this part of the museum is my body in several sizes. Innocent size when I still believed that words meant what they were saying. Then I still believed that freedom is our primary right and duty, and that nothing can make us feel fear because we are born fearless winners, not slaves. This is not a fault of the child's body, but of the world outside the museum, which is a projection of our fears.
Then there comes a body that has grown up enough to get to know love. A body that progresses ahead of the development of the heart. When the body makes love, the heart remains cold. Because the heart is developing at different speeds and in other dimensions. It does not need to touch the body to know that loves it. My body keeps memories of wounds that are living warnings of betrayal and forgiveness. Every part of my body remembers and knows things.

I am like a museum in which there are special departments for any past excitement and experience. Above the archaeological department is the historical department of feelings. You are there, part of the museum exhibits in singular and plural. Because you do not expect to be the only one. There is the first kiss from which we expect the world to change. But it continues to be equally unfaithful after the second, and after all the next kisses. I touch your body with my lips, but it does not move you. You touch my body with your lips, but I'm somewhere far away. We are looking for each other and we cannot find ourselves. We are chasing for each other and we cannot reach ourselves. But we strongly believe it will be different next time. Because we seek ourselves in the other, not in our hearts. That's why the historic department of feelings has broken windows. We have so much expectations from the other that by the power of disappointment the glasses are scattered in pieces. And we keep walking barefoot in life, and the small glass pieces are stuck in our feet. They bleed and we carry the pain of past disappointments everywhere. We go back to a vicious circle of desire for change, but instead of pulling out the small glass, they get stuck inward and reach our heart.
Here is my every missed spring, hot summers and golden autumn. And the cold of long winters stirs my heart.

The historic department is filled with a huge amount of unused tenderness that I keep for you in a huge old pot. Sometimes I have to open the door to the historic department because the tenderness that I missed to give you creates such a tension that I can not stand the feeling of guilt and self-pity. Tenderness leaves the department and goes to the top floor where my dreams are.

I am like a museum in which the department for future plans is located on the top floor. Something like a futuristic art for life in the future. There are kept dreams there. We pursue the same dreams - for freedom and love, for courage to take the first step, for pride when we have to go back. Here are all my longings and dreams of meaning. Here are future pains, betrayals and darkness. To multiply everything by itself once again.

So, my body museum, in every subsequent life, goes round a whole series of lonely mistakes and dreams. And you, you are always in singular and plural.

A staircase of sun rays descends above my body museum as an invitation for salvation.

 Tomorrow is utopia, today is revenge.

(Elena S. Lyubenova)