for gina: who is learning about science in stockholm university

instructions for gina: fold this up and head towards stockholm

and now that you're there, faithfully, unfold my heart into this letter and read

i imagine you on a footbridge, looking above the heads of those norse gods, their heavens raining flecks of snow on their hair. how does it feel to conquer something?

i've read that the nights in stockholm are cold, frigid and that the mornings, that sometimes there are no mornings. so maybe now you are better friends with the stars, too, with the milky way, didn't we both theorize that the galaxy was a cold place? was - because we learned in school that everything in the night sky is past.

and now that you don't see the sun as much, are you catching up with the rest of the universe? because whenever i see the slide we used to sit on top of, i struggle thinking which of us is past, which of us is present - i am thinking now, still, blowing warm, cloudy smokes into space.

oo00OOO00oo

I started the morning by grabbing a cup of coffee, sitting in my study and picking up this literary portfolio. I came across this poem by Gian Lao (he's one batch higher than me in school) and his poem reminded me of a Pablo Neruda - the inspiration is so vivid, so palpable that it infects you personally like a virus that forces you to look back into your memory and find a similar experience you had, even though there's none. I guess that's how powerful some poetry can be:D

I had to read it three times to fully appreciate its beauty.