Quotes From "Another Vagabond Lost To Love: Berlin Stories On Leaving & Arriving" By Charlotte Eriksson

I am not a finished poem, and I am not the song you’ve turned me into. I am a detached human being, making my way in a world that is constantly trying to push me aside, and you who send me letters and emails and beautiful gifts wouldn’t even recognise me if you saw me walking down the street where I live tomorrowfor I am not a poem. I am tired and worn out and the eyes you would see would not be painted or inspiredbut empty and weary from drinking too much at all timesand I am not the life of your party who sings and has glorious words to speakfor I don’t speak muchat alland my voice is raspy and unsteady from unhealthy living and not much sleep and I only use it when I sing and I always sing too muchor not at alland never when people are around because they expect poems and symphonies and I am nota poembut an elegyat my bestbut unedited and uncut and not a lot of people want to work with me because there’s only so much you can do with an audio take, with the plug-ins and EQs and I was born distorted, disordered, and I’m pretty fine with that, but others are not. Charlotte Eriksson

I was free with every road as my home. No limitations and no commitments. But then summer passed and winter came and I fell short for safety. I fell for its spell, slowly humming me to sleep, because I was tired and small, too weak to take or handle those opinions and views, attacking me from every angle. Against my art, against my self, against my very way of living. I collected my thoughts, my few possessions and built isolated walls around my values and character. I protected my own definition of beauty and success like a treasure at the bottom of the sea, for no one saw what I saw, or felt the same as I did, and so I wanted to keep to myself. You hide to protect yourself. Charlotte Eriksson

I’m learning persistence and the closing of doors, the way the seasons come and go as I keep walking on these roads, back and forth, to find myself in new time zones, new arms with new phrases and new goals. And it hurts to become, hurts to find out about the poverty and gaps, the widow and the leavers. It hurts to accept that it hurts and it hurts to learn how easy it is for people to not need other people. Or how easy it is to need other people but that you can never build a home in someone’s arms because they will let go one day and you must build your own. . Charlotte Eriksson

It’s the beating of my heart. The way I lie awake, playing with shadows slowly climbing up my wall. The gentle moonlight slipping through my window and the sound of a lonely car somewhere far away, where I long to be too, I think. It’s the way I thought my restless wandering was over, that I’d found whatever I thought I had found, or wanted, or needed, and I started to collect my belongings. Build a home. Safe behind the comfort of these four walls and a closed door. Because as much as I tried or pretended or imagined myself as a part of all the people out there, I was still the one locking the door every night. Turning off the phone and blowing out the candles so no one knew I was home. ’cause I was never really well around the expectations of my personalityand I wanted to keep to myself. and because I haven’t been very impressed lately. By people, or places. Or the way someone said he loved me and then slowly changed his mind. Charlotte Eriksson

.. and I realise the only way to tell the others is through the way my voice can take these broken wordsand turn it into music. Turn it into poetry. And I sing to make myself come alive, but also for you, because I’d like this to mean something. To not disappear with the dark I will enter one day and so now I will tell. If not for you, then for my own heart, because it tells me to, and I'm learning to listen. Charlotte Eriksson

Am I making something worth while? I’m not sure. I write and I sing and I hear words from time to time about my life and choices making ways, into other lives, other hearts, but am I making something worth while? I’m not sure. There was a boy last night who I never spoke to because I was too drunk and still shy, but mostly lonely, and I couldn’t find anything lightly to say, so I simply walked awaybut still wondered what he did with his lifebecause he didn’t even speak to meor look at mebut still made me wonder who he wasand I walked away asking Am I making something worth while? I am not sure. I am a complicated person with a simple lifeand I am the reason for everything that ever happened to me. . Charlotte Eriksson

It all takes time and lessons and places, but I’m learning to listen to my restless heart, telling me to “go, go, go! Charlotte Eriksson

I was running and deliberately lost my way. The world far off and nothing but my breath and the very next step and it’s like hypnosis. The feeling of conquering my own aliveness with no task but to keep going, making every way the right away and that’s a metaphor for everything. Charlotte Eriksson

This world can be quite wonderful once you let yourself be a part of it. It’s on your side, you know? Charlotte Eriksson

I don’t want to be a critic of the world. I want to encourage it. Charlotte Eriksson

No story is worth telling without the twists and turns. Make them count instead. Charlotte Eriksson

Well, at least this is what I told myself every day as I fell asleep with the fire still burning and the moon shining high up in the sky and my head spinning comforting from two bottles of wine, and I smiled with tears in my eyes because it was beautiful and so god damn sad and I did not know how to be one of those without the other. Charlotte Eriksson

There were days when I still put on make up in case you’d come back, but I wear the same clothes and shower in the rainand eat when I can and sleep when I can, which is rare and not often, so if you’d see me nowon these streetswhere I once imagined walking with youyou’d have a hard time recognising me. I takes a lot to run away. Charlotte Eriksson

You must make love to him like his touch is your salvation. Charlotte Eriksson

I am running and singing and when it’s raining I’m the only one left on the open street, smiling with my eyes fixed on the sky because it’s cleaning me. I’m the one on the other side of the party, hearing laughter and the emptying of bottles while I peacefully make my way to the river, a lonely road, following the smell of the ocean. I’m the one waking up at 4am to witness the sunrise, where the sky touches the sea, and I hold my elbows, grasping tight to whatever I’ve made of myself. Charlotte Eriksson