As I Used To

How many times
Have I looked up to the sky
From the top of the cliff
Knowing that I should just jump
That I could just fly and be free

And yet, I stood there
Tied to the ground
Afraid
Of what?
I am not sure
Neither of why

How long has it been
Since the last time I fell?
Since the first time I failed?
Since the fear got so big
So as to make me forget

I know I can fly
I always could
I used to do so
I used to smile
I used to run
I just can't remember

How many times
Have I listened to these songs
With my saxophone in hand
Knowing I could just feel them through me
That I could just play and melt away

And yet, I bit my lips
Frozen without breath
Afraid

The same circle
The same doubts

The same answers

I had forgotten the wind
Ignored the force that could lift me up to the clouds
I had lost my courage
Minded small and foolish details and chances

And without knowing right from wrong
I stagnated
I stopped

Lucas Rangel Lima

Come in

Come in, please

Make yourself at home my dear

The bathroom is over there

And feel free to borrow my clothes

Though, 

I hope you do not mind

If I light a cigar while you are here

I hope you do not mind, but

If you do,

I will refrain, my dear

You are the queen this night

I am but your servant,

As any other lover

Use this place as your castle tonight

That is how I want you to feel

To thank you for all the smiles, all the laughs

From the bottom of my heart my queen,

I love you

So, as I promised,

Here is your warm tea

And I shall cook whatever you like

Tonight is ours to live my dear, my queen

Tonight is ours to love and embrace each other

To be free and to be secret

So,

Come in please

Make yours this home my dear

The bedroom is over there

And feel free to rip my clothes...

Lucas Rangel Lima

Winter Clouds

With a lit cigar on his lips

He watched the setting sun rest

The wind turn the leaves into birds flying

The sky red and orange turning into deep dark blue

The mysterious nightfall

Crashing into the city silently

Like a deep sadness, slowly finding its place

Into the smallest corners of a stagnated and tired heart

Like the sky he watched

He felt his soul growing restless

All the fragments he brushed away joining

Molding a stabbing thorn into his cracked emotions 

For how much longer

Would he be strong enough?

How much further would he have to walk

Until he could finally fall without regrets, or maybe...

Discover another answer?

The night was already dark and black when he noticed

His cigar was long burnt into the ashtray

Even the tears, if he shed them

Would be dried too

Nevertheless, he did not feel like sleeping that night

The warmth of a morning was too much

If he could delay it for a little

Buy more time to...

Maybe he was just afraid of waking up abandoned

More so then when sleeping alone again

Losing another piece of his smile

Getting even more scared

He wanted to feel secure again, somewhere inside

To think of trusting and sharing love

See the sun as his friend for once

And graduate from the night

But the winter clouds would not let him so.

Lucas Rangel Lima

The rest is Sea?

Resting the other night

Listening to those old songs

Words of love repeated like poison

Uncertain ideals dressed up as the truth

When did he start to believe them?

Instead of thinking for himself?

Feeling and actually trying?

Did he even think?

Why would someone else

Know what was good for him?

What was really true in this world?

If love was real or fundamental or just

One way of being happy?

It was too late

The wave in the sea

Had already involved him

Like the night, quietly and fiercely

But now he knew

Even though he was not free anymore

He was not going to be surprised

And I will tell you

The eyes CAN see

What the confused heart

Can`t understand

And being happy? 

Its not about being alone or not

After all

If the rest is just the sea

Its deepness cannot be know by us

And of course it`s beauty

Cannot be told

And I will tell you

That wave that rose in the sea?

Those stars we forgot to count?

They could have led us to sadness

And happiness, either way

Still,

He kept thinking in his rest

That those words said by other man

Repeated so softly by every lover

Had some weird meaning

He kept listening to those old musics

Those words of love repeated like poison

Several uncertain ideals dressed up as the truth

And his rest?

Turned out to be another weight on his sore back

Lucas Rangel Lima

Drifting

The sea was all around him

Way crueler than he could have imagined

Way colder, vast and deeper

Much more than his little boat could take

He knew he was going to die drifting

It had been such a long time

He finally understood that no land

Would welcome a fool

And he was no sailor

For how many days

Did he drifted alone?

How many times did his boat,

Dragged around the ocean,

Met others who would just abandon him?

Just be taken away by the waves

Be sunk by the storms

Or even sail by themselves

Looking for their rightful land?

He knew he was alone in that sea

And that he was loved by the stars 

That reflected on it at night

He knew that he was not even trying anymore

That he accepted his fate on that boat

And that he was not even moving

He knew there was no way

That the cruel waves would bring him fortune

There was no way that without raising and sailing

He would ever be able to find not even an island

But he thought to himself

"I need to stay in the sea with them"

For he knew 

That he wasn`t the only one drifting

That his despair was already over long ago

That no other storm could hit his boat so hard

So as to make him lose his way again

He believed in the sea

He hold his faith

He stood there, waiting for other lost ones

To see his smile and his warmth

To sail by him, and then maybe

Find their own way back to their lands

Maybe even one day,

Take his boat together with them

To visit...

Lucas Rangel Lima

Fragile

He felt there was a hole between his arms
A space filled with air and loneliness
An unwelcome vacancy
Solitude

Even between his fingers, he felt
The coldness of the dry wind
The slight trembling
Hesitation

He knew he that already wanted to hold her
Otherwise, the hole would not be there
He knew it was her hand he wanted to feel
Otherwise, the cold would not be there

He was inside that lake again
Tied down in the darkness
Waiting for the end
Thinking

In the end,
Loving was as scary to him as it was to be loved
Not feeling complete by himself was evil
He could not ask again for someone to complete him
He knew that

But still, it could not be that wrong
To want to hold her in his arms
To desire her warmth
To drown

It did not feel wrong at all

Yes. He was probably...
Just that weak...

Lucas Rangel Lima

No Looking Back

He sat down in his living room,

Waiting for her to get out of shower

Without thinking,

He prepared her some warm tea

And prepared himself a drink

He knew it was not going to be an easy night

How many months since the last time?

How much did he thought about her?

And more important than anything,

When was it that he managed to forget?

Until that same day, 

But a few hours later

Until he saw that woman crying in a corner

So familiar, so changed, so sad

When he realized, she was already in his car

Her story was the same as always

She had not changed at all, still in that same place

It was like it was HIM who left

But he was no kid anymore

He knew that she choose to stay there

Why she disappeared without telling him

And now, it was already too late

She got out of the shower

Ignoring the clothes he had prepared for her

With her wet hair glued to her face

Her red, teary eyes fixed at him

And but a towel covering her body

"Thank you for this...." She said

"It`s not how you think." He answered

He had already decided never again to meet her

No sense in coming back after being left

In his heart, that night was not allowed to happen

And that is what he thought to himself the next day

But still, when she suddenly hugged him

When she cried loudly in his arms,

With her body still warm from the shower

With her hair still wet, smelling like his shampoo

He lost track of his feelings

Embracing her, as he wanted to in the past

They dreamed a night, forbidden

They closed their hearts while opening their bodies

And consoled each other, after hurting and being hurt

The next day, she was given back to her life

To the place she choose to stay, mistaken or not

And he...

He did not look back.

Lucas Rangel Lima

Old Sweetness

For some reason, in that morning
He was not feeling bad in his usual way
He did not want his usual bitter medicine
He just wanted to know

If that old sweetness was really poisonous

He sited down on his ragged armchair
Felt every sore spot in his back aching
And extended his hand for his warm coffee,
Thinking that an extra spoon of sugar
Would be called for today

In his heart, he recalled the previous night
And felt a shard of the sadness he forgot in his youth
A shard of those naive feelings, those silly cravings
Those emotions he had long given up

He smiled a bit, laughing at himself

Somewhere in his heart, he felt glad to discover
That a bit of that hateful boy was still on his heart
That his apathy and cynicism, so painfully obtained
Still had not completely dried him inside

That he could still long for someone else`s warmth

So, thinking deeply about events that caused him this
He took a deep breath, felt his crushing heartbeat
And held them dearly in his being, hidden in a corner
So as to not let it become a weakness

So as not to let the sweetness become a poison

Lucas Rangel Lima

Lost Garden

There were no more roses in his garden

Just the thorns left behind by fallen petals

Dried earth and withered leaves

Left alone against a long winter

After all, so much time had passed

Since he last felt like visiting it

He couldn't even remember the last time

That he watered any of the flowers there

Nor could he remember which color they had

Or how any of them smelled in the past

He had long ago lost his interest in those

But still, in a certain morning

His tired feet dragged him outside

For no reason at all, as if it was fated to happen

He returned to his dead garden

And smiled to himself

It was funny, really

His abandoned garden, more then ever

Reflected his abandoned self so much

He couldn't stop smiling

Nothing held any meaning anymore

Not the bitterness

Not the colors

Not the cold

Not the fragrances

Nothing moved his heart anymore

But the irony itself

Of only having left

What he had become

So with no happiness

No sadness

He smiled, 

For the were no reasons not to do so.

Lucas Rangel Lima

Novo dia

Como se fosse destino
Óbvio, natural, inevitável,
Uma porta se fecha
Deixando para trás memórias e janelas
Lembranças e amores

Um passo longo foi dado
Um ciclo triste fechado
Muitas lições foram aprendidas
Muitas dores foram compreendidas

Mas enfim, aquilo que havia parado se moveu
O que estava frio se aqueceu
Possibilidades e desejos nasceram
Como flores num jardim
Numa colina, longe de tudo

Onde apenas o vento sabia chegar
Apenas a sinceridade de um sorriso
Sabia conquistar

Lucas Rangel Lima

Meu Veneno

E naturalmente

Desabrocha o sorriso

Desatam-se os nós

Desaparecem os grilhões

O olhar se torna claro

A voz se torna um riso

A solidão se torna um aconchego

E o carinho se torna real

Era como se o amargor em meus lábios

Adocicasse à toda minha vida

Um remédio para toda a tristeza

Um veneno para toda a dor

Matando lentamente o meu coração

Fazendo-o querer bater um pouco mais a cada dose

Queimando meu lábio, meu peito,

Lavando meu corpo, minha alma,

Meu veneno, que "naturalmente",

Me fazia viver, mesmo custando minha vida

Me fazia amar e esquecer

Viver e continuar

Lucas Rangel Lima

Apenas uma Loucura

Quando ele percebeu
Havia deixado de existir
Não era mais visto
Não era mais ouvido
Não estava mais lá

Para ninguém

Era óbvio, pois ele não sabia amar
Ele só sabia tatear a si mesmo
Procurando olhar para fora de sua alma
Através do que havia dentro de seu coração

Diversas vezes ele se enganou
Em meio a promessas vazias e pedidos sinceros
Diversas vezes ele se perdeu
Em meio a verdades cruéis e mentiras gentis

Diversas vezes

Até ficar sem palavras para descrever
Sem verdades para se sustentar
Sem emoções para se dedicar
Apenas uma loucura

Continuar vivendo transtornado
Pelo bem de sumir em paz

Algum dia...

Quando ele percebeu
Havia deixado de sentir
Não via mais ninguém
Não ouvia mais ninguém
Não havia mais ninguém

Não dentro dele

Apenas uma loucura...

Lucas Rangel Lima