A country of doubts

Welcome to Poland. A country where anything is possible. Where the cars for sale were originally bought from ''friends in Germany" and the Bruno Gabbani perfume are an absolute hit, and of course, it's original. No-one spots the difference anyway.
Welcome to a country where the ladies break their high-heels on the level pavements, that still remember the second world war. Where patriotism is seen as to who beats more faces on the football match; who throws the rocket on the pitch first.
The smoke in metres tall chimneys welcomes me in the city of what was once a power of European sea-trade. Now just a pass-by port, hardly even remembered by the eldest. It's important to remember.
The plaster on the walls of the opposite apartment blocks have seen more things than half of the people living there together could remember. And probably these walls will outlive them aswell.
A guy at the train station hands me a free newspaper that I throw in the bin as soon as I pass him. The joys. Recycling here, anyway, is I think, at it's worst. But well, what can we do. Anyway all that matters is the airplane crash we're all sick of by now.

Welcome to a country ruled for money. It's ok, as long as the ministers are ok. And as I look at their faces on the billboards, I wonder what the fuck was wrong with me to think that coming back here was a good idea. And then I look out the tram window and see the river, and the old buildings, the chimneys, the barges. The rising sun. The monuments. The quintessence of beauty I've been missing for the whole six years. And then I remember why I'm here.
Even if the people have facial expressions equal to the one of a woman that has been fucked by a bull and she didnt quite like it. They look at you. Up. Down. Up and down. Several times. Just to check if your shoes are original, if your scarf was expensive enough and if you hair needs cutting. Typical and very easy to get used to. You just have to have the same facial expression. And you'll be fine. The best of all are the grandmas in the bus stop. Their Adidas jackets, berets, tesco bags, sandals and socks. The key to the polish-senior haute couture.
Sometimes I wake up, and get ready for college, and wonder if it was a good decision. Was it worth it. And as soon as I get to college, I dont regret anything. I forget about every doubt. Because I have them, and I have him. I have all it takes to be happy.
It's not perfect, and probably never will be. A plain person can never have it easy in this country of corruption and evil twins. But, I will always be happy. Because I got, what I wanted. And I have no right to doubt the happiness that is yet to come.
Welcome to Poland. A country of stolen German cars, old buildings that will never be renovated and doctors that dont care if youre dying or not. They need their coffee more than anything.
Welcome to Poland. A country which is fun to live in.




My name's Joanna Łaska, and this is Jackass. 

From Dust

Here it is again. This time of the year when I'm coming in touch with something more. I don't know why it's in september when it happens. When I can feel everything in a completely new way. And I forgot about this. I thought it has left me for good, this state. A state of absolute awareness of time, of the changes that take place around me. Awareness of self.
I knew I would have to go through it in September. The one month of absolute isolation. When the school starts and the only people I know (all three of them) are too busy to care less. But I wasn't ready. September hit me with its full force, making me feel as if I had to respawn in a while. But it's not working out.
I feel as if all the server's were busy and I have to wait. So I wait. Wait for all of my thoughts to come out of their hiding places. I wait for them to be everywhere, to be loud, vivid, so I could give them new direction and force. Maybe then, I'll be able to function properly.
And it's not how I expected it to be, to look. The whole idea of moving places would be the worst decision of my life if it wasnt for him. But he's here, somewhere and it keeps me alive. Makes me want to change. Makes me want to fix everything that I successfully managed to turn into dust.
From dust everything will rise. How many times before everything was in ruins and I had noone but me to fix it? How many times before was I alone? There's plenty of experience, plenty of scenes and memories that remind me of how to deal with it. And I'll rebuilt it. From dust I will built everything, brick by brick, word by word, breath by breath. From dust another 'new' will rise.
Let us create. Let us create.
All of this is making me stronger, believe it or not. I have left the country of my heart, my Eire, my lovely Eire; I have said my goodbyes with all of the people I cared about out there, I have to learn, still learn how to live in this country of new, I had and quickly lost a job, I will probably never have the Pardalis I'd wanted to have since last December and I probably will not have any money this year. And of course, I keep on ruining the most important thing to me. Love.
But all of this gives me strength, in some way. More or less. But it does. And it's beautiful. All of this. The place where I live, I really cant think of a place more beautiful than my neighbourhood. One day I'll show you. I promise. Even life here has its bright sides, Poland herself too. But only when I know he's mine.
As long as we're together and he's with me, I know I can achieve anything I wish. My motivation, my smile. My life.
But it's autumn now, a time of lemon tea with honey and orange leaves falling to my feet. And this is when I'm becoming aware of what I knew would happen. The time of utterly lonely days and nights. Time when I can set my thoughts free, let them have some fresh air and then call them home, so that I can put them back on the shelves. It's not easy. It never was. But it's good. Times like this make me feel... that I can do something, and do it good. Even if you think none of this is worth reading, I'm still proud of myself. Really. Doing the housekeeping on my thoughts, my mind and giving them shape and form satisfies me. And if you told me to leave it, to leave writing forever, I'd probably slap you in the face. With a brick. With blades on it. Really.
So let me create.

Fighting Poland

There's still signs of Poland fighting. Through the curtains and chimneys of communism Poland rises in this town. The Stalin Star becomes a symbol of war for many of us. Poland naturally becomes clearer. The more footsteps of communism I see, the more I love her. Poland, for what she was and always will be for us. The Polish nation will never notice the change. They pass the old communist party houses, they work in offices built by the communist. They even live in communist blocks in the ''West Estate" at the end of the town. But they dont seem to remember. What she had to go through, what she had to see to   look the way she looks now. With her curtains made of pain and pride remembers the old when she  faces the new offices and apartments being built next to her windows.
To me, the new doesnt look good in this place. I think it's the old, the gray, the walls with clay falling off that make Poland what she really is. This is exactly, what makes her my home.
It's not easy. Being here. Living here and trying to be happy. But I never expected things to be easy in a place where the cashiers at Tesco have the look on their faces as if they were going through a constipation of their lives, and where you have to mind your things before they get stolen. By a twelve year old gypsy girl. In a wheelchair. On ice.
(Ok, maybe not on ice. But you get the idea.)
And to be completely honest with you I never even wanted it to be easy here. I wanted to be so busy, to have so many things to do, that I would hardly find the time to sleep. I wanted to go from a person that used to leave everything for the next day, to a person that had everything done the day before the schedule. That's what I wanted, and what I have gotten. But I never really realised what all of these things that I had to do, to think about, to help with would do to me. To me as a character, a mind, a soul. A person as a whole. I have never really thought that making my dreams come true would make me feel so bad with myself. But then again, it's hard to see anything good about yourself when you barely have the time to read a text message. Not to mention hobbies and interests.
I'm not talented in any way, Ive lost all of my interests since I left Poland, there is nothing I am good at. And yet I think, I am happy living in a country that has so many things to offer me, so many things to teach me. I have lived my things in Eire. I have seen my things in Eire. She has thought me how to be myself. But all of this will not pass me in here. It's different. It's difficult. And this is, what I love about Poland.
I now see her through the eyes of a young adult that has to organise her own life, her own time and money, and not through the eyes of a ten year old girl who cannot go to the city centre without her momma. Things have changed. I have changed. The things Eire has taught me, I will remember and take to my grave with me, even though the knowledge I gained there will very rarely come to a use in Poland. But is it bad? I don't think so.
Will I make it here? Will I keep on changing for better? Will I chase after my dreams and will I eventually become and interesting person? Maybe. Or maybe not.
You'll never know. And that's what beautiful.
It really is. 

lack of trust, scars and other synonyms

They say men don't cry. I think it takes a real man to show his tears in moments of an absolute emotional intensity.
They say money can't buy us happiness. But it can buy train tickets to a beloved one far away; and being with that person equals happiness.
They say jealousy is born from lack of trust. I say it's born at the bottom of our subconsciousness which is filled with complex fears collected all along.
 Opinion of the public, the general, the 'all' is not important. It does not matter. It never did and never really will matter, nor come to any use. It will not affect our lives in any way. It may of course affect our actions, thoughts and point of view, but it's all but permanent. If we were to listen to the voice of others we would generally assume that a man that cries is not a man at all, a train ticket to see your love
is nothing but a piece of paper that you find on a pathway, and that jealousy should be taken as a sign of lack of trust in the other person we would all loose the last pieces of faith long ago.
Then why even care about the opinion of others? Cant we just simply let them talk, let them have their own point of view and still be unaffected by it. Too often, opinion of the public shapes our beliefs, our thoughts and words. Too often we base our answers on what others have already said. Why cant we simply get in the habit of independent thinking and shaping our own point of view?

So I say- tears make a real man. Money can indeed buy us happiness and jealousy is not synonymous to 'lack of trust'.
Jealousy is rather a form of fear, which sometimes reaches its extremities, slowly making its way from the bottom of the previously hurt subconsciousness to the heart and spreading rapidly to the blood-system making you feel as if nothing could get as terrifying as this.  One, theoretically small impulse can make your hands shake, your heart race, your legs numb, your face is covered in tears in seconds, your lungs forget how to work. Your surroundings become a blur and all you want is to run and hide forever. Not because you feel betrayed, but because you feel worse, disappointed, worthless. You can't do anything about it. And I can't do anything about it.
It feels as if everything you thought you meant to that person was built on an unstable ground, as if he decided to show you there still is someone more important, or at least, as important as you are. That you will never be THE most important person in his life. And it hurts double as much if you have experienced something like this before from the same person and the wounds aren't fully healed yet. He made you believe you are not important to him once, he can do it much easier the second time. That's the way it works.
Even if you know he loves you, even if you know you're the only one, it will not be possible to fully assure you that you're the most important person to him in a long, long time. Old wounds make foundation for our fears and beliefs. And it's not that you don't trust him, it's the old wounds that don't let you be completely sure. It's like a door that you try to close, but there's something stuck in the door frame and you can't close it completely. That's how it works.
So I say- jealousy is not about the lack of trust, but from fear of being hurt again. And nothing will ever change it. Nothing will ever fix it. The wounds may eventually heal but the scars will always be there. Always visible and always in the way. 

9 weeks

There is no continuous happiness in this place anymore. And there was, at some stage what I call happiness. Because how could I possibly call it? A state of mind where nothing nor noone is against you. Where everything remains stationary, unchangeable, unexciting and... undisturbed. My own little state of mind where nothing is new nor old, nothing is dangerous nor safe. Nothing. A complete nothingness which I thought could be named 'happiness' as long as it doesn't cause me trouble. And it didn't. Not even once in a very long, long time.
And now I'm starting to realise, that being happy isn't exactly being undisturbed in a way I live- or exist should I say- and being caught up in a monotony of a rather peaceful life. I now see, there are only occasional moments of the so called 'happiness', which for other people may be just another minor excitement in their lives.
And I cannot honestly say that I'm utterly unhappy. While I am. In a way that I can't either express or describe. There's noone I could share that happiness with, or there's no need of rubbing it into people's faces. Let's face it, Ireland has literally and unfortunately become a place of complete emptiness to me. It was indeed, a home to me for the past 6 years. But then I learned how it feels to be in his arms, in the warmth of our own, private heaven. 
I do not feel at home here anymore. With all my love to Eire, I cannot force myself to call it my home anymore. I cannot possibly call it a 'home' when he's not here.
And the longer I wait the longer the days seem to be. The harder I try not think about the fact that I must live in this state of never-ending solitary for another 9 weeks, the harder it gets for me to get through the day. The more I think of how happy I am to be his, to finally have him, the more I miss him. And it's natural, I know, but it's all I can do right now.
There's nothing else left for me to do other than to miss him, and count the days to go.
To go and finally be home. I just want to be there. In a completely new place, so unknown and so goddamn exciting as it is. In its simplicity and glory almost, I feel safe. I feel at home. And when he's there as well, then I cannot imagine a person to be happier than myself.
Being with him is something completely different, something completely new. And I can tell you one thing, there is no other man in the world that did or would make me as happy as he himself does.
I love being his, I love the hard heartbeat of his heart.
I love loving him.
And if you would ask me to define 'happiness' to you, I'd tell you his name.