Proza en poëzie van Leen Raats
Influencers without influence are looking for
the hippest hashtags for their Tiktok videos
dancing alongside the beat of the algorithm.
Incompetent experts by experience
whose unfinished projects grow too fast like children
give TED Talks about the power of failure
with a voice like the melody
of a lonely pinball machine.
Continue reading
My name is Treesje. I was born on the right bank of the river Scheldt. I am 29, afraid of turning 30 and even more afraid of not turning 30. I hate soccer, cava and boring people. When I'm home alone, I dance around the living room. I am married to a Sven and mother to a Jade. My husband wants a second child. I always have a window open, even when it's freezing. I want to feel a breeze.
Continue reading
It’s the music that saved me
on long days underneath the roof window
of a drafty row house on a street
where no one wanted to know me.
Continue reading
I never speak ill of the dead
it’s those who live
I worry about.
The sun, giving too much warmth
for the time of the year
and how we never seem
to fully enjoy it.
On windless days
I find myself gazing
into troubled water.
If the branch on which
a bird sits,
breaks. Will it fall?
Continue reading
The wind had been blowing around the house all night, howling furiously. With a pounding heart I had listened to clattering gates, flying branches and dogs barking restlessly. As I delayed the moment when the dreams of the past night had faded to the point where I had no choice but to enter the real world with all its limitations, the memories came.
Continue reading
She knows time heals no wounds
and even time is relative. Without calendars
she wouldn’t even know how old she is.
She's heard of deserts where the dunes sing
with a guttural sound that puzzles scientists.
On the other side of the world, ships crash
in the Bermuda Triangle of her memory.
Continue reading
Sometimes she dreams about waking up.
In a vacant house of hungry cats
her stubbornness holds her up
like a hollowed oak.
Continue reading
She knows Elvis is dead
still sometimes
she just has to believe
in the harsh light of day
after a night of lies
she carries water in leaky tubs
to a turbulent sea.
Continue reading
Whether it's something or someone
I'm waiting for you ask
with a lip that trembles
for reasons I don’t know.
We're sitting on a hill
overlooking a city
where no one dares to believe anymore.
Continue reading