The Irish goodbye (Marcella Boccia)

There’s a kind of quiet that lingers here—not the soft whisper of an evening breeze,but the kind that sits heavy,like a glass half-full,as if time itself has been pausedand nothing, not even the air,dares to break the stillness.It’s a silence that slips into cornersof dim-lit pubs and crowded rooms,where laughter once bounced like raindropsoff cobblestones,where the clink of glasses has softenedinto a hum,and the murmur of voices becomes a songthat no one knows the words to.The Irish goodbye isn’t loud.No farewells are spoken,no promises made to return.One moment,there is a face, a smile,and the next—a seat left empty,a coat draped over the back of a chairlike an afterthought.It is in the quiet departurethat we are most ourselves,no need for goodbyes,no rehearsed words,just the soft, deliberate stepof someone who knowsthat sometimes the leavingis the hardest part of love.And so we slip awaylike shadows,unnoticed,as though we had never been.But even in the silence,there is a memory that lingers—a warmth left behindin the curve of a smile,in the echo of a laughthat will never truly fade,even when the door shutsand the world moves onwithout us.In the Irish goodbye,there is more love than in a thousand farewells,more truth in the absencethan in any promise to return.It is a love unspoken,a goodbye without words,and in that,perhaps,we find the most sacred part of us.The Irish goodbyeisn't an end.It is simply the quiet knowingthat in the leaving,we are never truly gone.

Shadows in the national library (Marcella Boccia)

In the hush of dust and parchment,where silence hangs like a forgotten hymn,I walk through the labyrinth of books,a ghost, a wanderer,swallowed by words older than my years.The shelves curve like the spine of a prayer,and shadows dance in the dim corners—long fingers stretching,reaching for the pastas if it could be touched,pulled down from the heavens of ink and paper,where every story lingerslike a secret kept too long.Here, in the National Library,the air smells of must and memory,of lives lived in margins,of minds who once gazed at these pagesand found themselves reflectedin the flicker of a candle's light.Now, it is my turn—to trace their ghosts with fingertips that tremble,to read their thoughts between the linesthat the world forgot.I pass a row of books on Irish myth,and the shadows of the ancient gods stir—not in the books,but in the quiet corners where no one dares to look.In the flicker of a page turned too fast,I glimpse the faces of thosewho whispered the old songs,who breathed life into the legends that now sleepin these forgotten pages.The shadows watch me as I read,silent witnesses to a life half-lived,to a past half-forgotten,to the weight of knowledgethat presses down on my chestlike a book I cannot close.Here, the past speaks louderthan the present—a language older than time,older than the city that breathes outside these walls.I close a book,and the shadows shift once more,disappearing into the air,into the folds of my memory.And though the silence remains,it is no longer empty—it hums with the voices of the forgotten,with the weight of stories that never end,and with the knowledgethat some shadows are meant to stay,in the corners of the National Library,where time bends and breaks,and where the past waits patientlyfor someone to listen.

The Christmas tattoo (Marcella Boccia)

In Dublin's fog, where the air smells of rain and history,I sit in a chair, my hand outstretched,waiting for the needle to pierce the skinlike a promise made in the dark.A Brazilian artist, hands steady with the weight of ink and time,leans over my palm,his fingers tracing the outline of an echo—an arpa negra, black harp,its strings pulled taut with the music of my heart,played on the notes of a Christmas that has never been mine.He hums in the silence,the hum of distant shores,the sound of a life lived elsewhere.The ink begins to bloom like winter roses,curling, curling,until the harp rests there,quietly, on the back of my hand—a reminder,a symbol,something ancientin a place that feels too new.It is Christmas—but the cold winds of winter are not the ones that carve this into me.It is the warmth of summers spent in foreign cities,the warmth of a life that has always felt out of reach,and the distance of those who never stayed long enoughto teach me how to love myselfwithout apology.The tattoo is an arpa negra,an island in the sea of skin,a song I will never hear but can always feel.It is the echo of my longing,my refusal to belong,to be one thing,to be anythingbut this—a pulse of a place that never existed in me.I watch it as it settles into my skin,its lines sharp and bold,a rebellion against the fragile breath of the year.It is Christmas, yes—but I have something that no gift could ever give me:an arpa negra on my hand,the black strings of a songI was born to play,but never learned to sing.And as the ink settles into my veins,as I leave the tattoo shop behind,I am both complete and empty—marked in ways no one can seebut the hand that holds it all togetherin a world that would rather I forget.

The ink of my wrists (Marcella Boccia)

I write with the ink of my wrists,where the skin is thin,fragile as the moments I cannot hold—the words spill out,a river of liquid memorythat stains the pages,that drips in the quiet spacesbetween heartbeats.I trace the lines of a lifethat is not mine,but borrowedfrom a thousand selveswho speak through me,their voices woven into the scarsI wear like a second skin.A map of roads I never chosebut was led downwith my eyes closed.The ink on my wristsdoes not fade,even when I try to scrub it clean,even when I hidebehind layers of wordsthat disguise what’s underneath—the ache,the hunger for somethingI cannot name,the sorrow that sits heavyat the bottom of my throat.It is a mark of survival,these lines that run like rivers,spilling from the well of a soulthat is still learning how to livewith the ghoststhat will never leave.I write them out—the names of the ones I lost,the ones I never found—until the ink soaks throughand I am nothing but words,nothing but the storiesthat have saved me.The ink of my wristsis all I have to show for it,a language of woundsthat speaks louder than silence,a testimony of love and loss,of everything I wasand everything I couldn’t become.It is a languageI do not understand,but it speaks through me,written on the skinI will never be able to erase.

Seagulls over ha’penny bridge (Marcella Boccia)

The wind carries whispersfrom the belly of the bay,and the seagulls—gray shadows against a steely sky—soar,unfurling wings like the forgotten pagesof an old, unread book.Their cries pierce the morning,sharp and rawas the taste of salt on lips that never learnhow to forget.They circle above the Ha'penny Bridge,a thousand voiceswoven together,chasing the current of a riverthat knows no end,only a beginning lost in the pulse of time.The bridge sways beneath me,a century’s weight pressing into the cobblestones,the breath of history in the creasesof this old city.I stand stilland let the sound of wingsscrape against the edges of my heart,reminding me of the hungerthat can never be sated,the ache that never leaves.I watch the gulls,their wings a stained glassfractured by the wind,suspended between the worlds of sea and sky.They are the ghosts of stories untold,the echoes of lives livedin the spaces between.A song of freedom,a song of loss.The river moves beneath the bridge,untouched by the cold,its murmur steady,a voice that has never known rest.And still, the gulls scream—their cry a prayerto a sky that will never answer.I turn away from the wind,but the gulls follow—a thousand wings,a thousand unspoken names.And I wonder,in the stillness between their calls,if we are all just like them:lost in the sky,flying above the bridgeswe cannot cross,seeking the oceanwe are never meant to reach.

A coffee to stay alive (Marcella Boccia)

A cup, bitter and black,its warmth curling in the chill of morning,a silent promise whisperedfrom the edge of my fingersto the pulse in my wrist—that I will keep breathing.This is all I ask,just enough to hold the fragile threadof beingin this unraveling world.A sip,and the hollow ache insidesettles like dust in the corners of my mind,an empty silence that isn’t quite silence,but a murmur,faint, barely heard,like a far-off song from an unseen crowd.I drinkbecause I am afraid to let go.Afraid of what will be leftwhen the tremor of my hand subsides.Afraid of the stillnessthat follows the storm of thoughts,the dark, endless floodthat rises from the cornersof my consciousness.I drinkto feel the edges of me,the sharpness of the world,the bite of cold air on my skin.To remind myself I am still here,still fighting,still tangled in the webof this fragile, fleeting life.A coffee to stay alive—not a revival,but a survival.Not a love song,but a desperate plea.A prayer whispered into the steam,a ritual of resistanceagainst the collapse of all things.It’s the pause before the storm,the breath before the crash,the moment between thoughts,the quiet beat of a heart that knowsit can’t stay still forever,but for now—for now,it will.A coffee to stay alive,to swallow the silence and the pain,to swallow the hunger for a worldthat can never quite make sense of me.To drink deeply,and then—and then,just breathe.

The poetry of a borderline mind (Marcella Boccia)

I am the edge,where thoughts are sharp as glass,a thin line between light and shadow,walking the razor’s edge,where the world spins fasterthan I can breathe.My mind is a storm—whirling, spiraling,a thousand winds in a single thought.I don’t know where the sky endsand the earth begins—it’s all one tangled mess of sensation,a flickering light in a storm of darkness.I live in the gaps,in the space between words,where silence screams louderthan anything you’ll ever say.Where love is a hurricaneand hurt a soft whisperthat never stops echoingin the hollow of my bones.I can taste the fireand feel the cold in my marrow,I am the spark and the ash,the breath and the suffocation,the light and the darkness,all at once.You cannot hold mebecause I am the wind,slipping through your fingers,just when you think you’ve caught me.I am the song of the sea,never staying in one place,always a shadow in the distance,always yearning to be more,yet never quite reaching it.I paint the sky with my words,splattering the canvas of my mindwith shades you don’t understand,with hues that burn and freeze,with scars that never heal.I write poems on the back of my skin,carving stories into my flesh,because there are no walls,only open space,where my thoughts are both too loudand too quiet at once.I am the poetry of the storm,the chaos in the stillness,the beauty of the broken.A borderline mind,forever caught betweenwho I am and who I could be—always longing for the truth,but never finding itin a world that won’t let me breathe.I am the poemyou can never quite finish,the verse that lingerslong after the page turns,the one that haunts youeven when you think you’ve forgotten.For I am the poetry of a borderline mind—wild, untamed,and always, always,unfurling.

An Irishman’s smile (Marcella Boccia)

It’s the quiet before the storm,the stillness of the sea at dawn,when the clouds are heavy with secretsand the earth holds its breath,waiting for the light to break.It’s the curve of his lips,slow as rain on cobblestones,a story unfolding in the curveof a secret untold—whispered in the heart of every Irish wind.He’s the echo of the past,the ghost of all the landsthat stretch beyond the grey sky,where the hills sing songsolder than the silence between stars.His smile—like the first note of a fiddle’s song,raw and honest,like the crackling firethat keeps the dark at bay.It’s a blessing,a prayer woven into the rhythm of the world,a promise of something that’s never lost,no matter how far you roam—the warmth in the cold,the grace in the storm.It’s the knowing in his eyes,like the old trees standing tall in the field,rooted deep in the earth,bearing witness to every whispered prayerand every song of sorrowthat has been sung under the moon.He doesn’t need to speak,for his smile says everything—the world, the wars, the hunger,the love that never fades,the laughter that breaks the chainsof every pain that lingerslike the mist in the valley.An Irishman’s smile—it is a torch carried through the dark,a lantern to light the waywhen you’ve forgotten how to walk.It’s the hands of a thousand ancestorsholding you steady when the ground shifts.And when the clouds finally part,and the world catches its breath,his smile remains,like a song that never ends,like the land,like the sea,like the sky—forever smiling,forever home.

The girl with Viking fur (Marcella Boccia)

She walks in the rain,with the echo of distant drumsin the pulse of her feet,the beat of her heartcarved in the rhythm of the earthbeneath her boots.Her hair, dark as the storm’s edge,whips in the wind,a banner of fire,a raven’s call in the quiet,waving like a flagabove the blood of her ancestors.She wears the Viking fur,tangled with the scent of salt and smoke,its weight a promise from a thousand years ago—of women who held the sky in their handsand tore the sun from its placewith eyes that glinted like steel.Her gaze is fire,cracking open the ice of this cold city,a glance that could split the world in two,and leave it reborn in the wreckage.In her chest, the roar of the sea,the grinding of ships against rocks,the clash of swords under a red moon.She knows no fear,only the taste of bloodin her mouthand the echo of battles she has never fought,but already won.She is the girl with Viking fur—not a memory,not a ghost,but a tempest walking on two legs,treading the earth with fire in her veins,and the salt of the seain her breath.They do not see her as she is—they see the fur,they see the storm,they see the wildness in her eyesand call it madness.But she is not mad.She is the storm,the howl of the wind in the dark,the slashing of the sea against the rocks,the cry of a wolfin the hills of the north.And in her heart,there is a history older than time,a legend written in the starsand sealed in her skin,the girl with Viking fur,walking through this citylike a shadowthat will never fade.

The silence of the book of Kells (Marcella Boccia)

In the darkened halls of stone,where the air trembles with the weight of centuries,the pages of the Book of Kells lie still,silent,but not empty.Each letter is a cry caught in time,a whisper woven into gold and ink,a memory held in a hand that has long since crumbled,its bones lost to the earthbut its words alive,etched in the silence that surrounds them.I trace the curve of a letter,the swirl of a line that once dancedin the breath of a monk’s prayer,the hum of devotion rising from the parchmentlike smoke from the altar,but now there is only stillness,a heavy quiet,a waiting.The silence of the Book of Kellsis not the silence of absence—it is the silence of everything that has been and is to come,of every story waiting to be toldand every prayer whispered in the dark,of every soul that has walked this earth,their names lost to time,but their presence echoing still,in the quiet pulse of the pages.It is a silence that speaks louder than words,that fills the spaces between letters,between breaths,between lives,where the past and the futureare not separate,but woven togetherin the soft glow of the ink.I close my eyes and listen.The silence is not empty—it is full of ghosts,full of the laughter of the monks,full of the sound of their voicesechoing through the halls,full of the rhythm of the world as it was,and as it will be again.In the silence of the Book of Kells,I hear everything—the weight of a thousand years,the sound of a thousand prayers,the hum of the earth beneath my feet,the beat of my heart,as it aligns with the pulse of the past,and the future,and all the forgotten names.It is not silence at all.It is a song,a song that has been waiting for usto listen.