stormsinpernambuco is Bento's Blogspot blog, found from Bento and Elize's blog[1]. He provides general information on his life and shares artwork and poetry, as well as presents an alternative perspective to Peteca[2]'s influence.
stormsinpernambuco is Bento's Blogspot blog, found from Bento and Elize's blog[1]. He provides general information on his life and shares artwork and poetry, as well as presents an alternative perspective to Peteca[2]'s influence.
The blog posts are recreated here from oldest to newest for conveniencey's sake, but you can also read them newest to oldest here. Please read from left to right. Anything between brackets [] is added on by the webmaster for context.
for long i had in my hands a journal and pen, wherever i went. but isn't that obsolete now in digital society? i better get with the times....
i'm ravenskullprince, or....... bento ramones da conceição. ramones is not a surname but part of my first name, "bento ramones".....just like someone ...
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... can be called "josé carlos" or "ana maria", with the twist that my mother had only a single disc in her shelf and it was "ramones" - self titled, by, of course, the band ramones. pernambucana in a small countryside town, she thought the name would make others think of me as a gringo, exotic, maybe united statian, just like the punk men in leather jackets she saw on that black and white cover.....but of course preceeding it with "bento" might have foiled her plans from the start. it only gets me a few laughs when i introduce myself.....
i'm tall, hunched over, a bit scrawny. white as a ghost, what northeasterns call "galego"..... the father's family traces back to some of the dutch invasion, and that might be why... i consider myself a bit of a punk, but i still wear glasses... my girlfriend is a beautiful gothic woman, and she is my everything...
at the moment my days are a third spent searching for a job after getting fired about a month ago, a third studying to apply to a public university and a third playing the guitar in my room or with elize, my girlfriend, if i'm lucky. she is quite the busy bee as well.... but we are planning on living together soon, and then i will see her everyday. nothing would be better..
i might write here a bit of my days, and a bit of poetry, or whatever else comes to mind...music, maybe. elize is getting me into goth rock. as a result, my week has been serenaded by bauhaus and their wonderful dissonance of chords...
crackles under the cracking sun, crooked and crisp
the flowers i brought to your door all those moons ago
on the steps under storms and stars, steam and winds
they refuse to leave the land of your love ...
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... abandoned as may be, withered, stale
but they stay, the stems, the shriveled leaves in spirals inwards
they wait still for the day
you come back home to yours
they wait still for the day
you come back home to yours
the tribulations of life have kept me away from writing about life itself, but good news have come. i am once again useful to capitalistic society - meaning, i have a job once more. there isn’t much choice, the last thing i want is to depend on elize and well, i was not born a heir in this life but a working class migrant.. ...
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... differently from my last occupation as a cashier, the job is farther away than i’d like, in the imigrantes road toll booth as a toll taker. it’s a night shift, which leaves me with room to study during the day and i’d say it’s a bit rock and roll… at night, the shapes and lights of the road merge into an outwordly scenario of black, red and yellow; the occasional fog turning the whole place ghost-like and confused, and i can only see the asphalt and the driver’s faces, barely lit by the white light of the booth as they hand me money and i let them continue to wherever they might be headed at 3 in the morning.....
it’s not bad, but i do have to take the subway and two buses there from my house in santana. it’s 2 and a half hours away - that is the soul crushing part. biggest city in south america, and they say it as if it is a good thing..i'm going to have more back problems than i already do....
we did it! me and elize are officially under the same roof. i finally and gladly left my shabby apartment to my lover’s arms in her lovely little house in campo belo, also conveniently halving the time taken to get to my job in the middle of nowhere..
my dreams of hearing her voice everyday, singing ...
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... quietly from the kitchen, of watching her just watching mtv cartoons at night and laughing away, of sharing a wardrobe with her stylish and abundant clothes; all of it has come true at once. i am one happy man....
i’m lucky her parents like me; to be honest, i was scared shitless of them... i would stutter and choke on all my words at their sight. but it was unwarranted fears, just like the many i have…..her parents are cool hippies..... her father, of course, an englishman with english money in brazil, which granted her a comfortable life financially - her parents were the ones who bought her our house. he was the one i was most scared of, but his funny british accent was disarming after a while..... we have talks about punk music sometimes, and maybe that’s why he likes me..the “ramones” situation with my name also seemed to amuse him greatly..
elize and i are closer than ever now, which erupts a few fights over the most inconsequential things such as whether to keep the ceiling fan on or not, or the smell of my socks by the door. but i think that is also a sign things are good, in the end. and they are…well, i love her. sometimes i don’t feel like i even deserve her at all……..
in the smoke and the fog with you
getting lost within the white and grey
i see the faint impression of you
lying on the cold asphalt
as the clouds took over you ...
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...
like a cruel blanket, suffocating
and i watch as the remains of you
dissipate towards the moon up above
and as i try and forget you
all i can remember is the fog
and there was no more you
no more you anymore……..
i fell out of practice but i actually liked this one.
today i was listening to bananafishbones - the cure, as i made it.
i'm happy to say things have been nice and calm. recently a new coworker has become a friend of me and elize. her name is kamila. she is also a fan of our band, usually the only one to be there every show....i think this is my first friendship in a long time. you see, besides elize, i don't really have bonds with anyone ...
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... else.. when we were kids, i was a loner at school.....it's probably easy to guess just by looking at me, but i was bullied..... elize has always been social but she didn't like her friends, they didn't match her interests....so she ditched them for me and the rest was history..
we grew up and things stayed mostly the same....she made new friends, and i tagged along not making any of my own. ...i always feel inadequate if i'm not by her side. i stutter horribly....my hands shake....like a recluse creature......but meeting kamila was a first step in a nice direction. i think introverts do good together, and she is also one of those, like me.....
adapting to the city was hard, it doesn't care about you.....getting with the crowd, making ends meet......the subway, the cars, the bus.......people making fun of my accent, my food....you know. maybe that's part of where all this social anxiety comes from.....it's hard to fit in..but after so many years, i'm on my way....i have a girlfriend who loves me, and i love her....and now a friend, and a job. i feel like an adult, even if from time to time i still feel small like a little boy....i live...
today marks 12 years of you being gone, dad.........i'm at the point in which i have spent more years without you than with you.......
12 years since, without you, we fled our town, our state.......in search of what? a better life in são paulo? that's what mom has always justified, but i think ...
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... she was trying to flee from the pain.........like it permeated the land, a poison she needed to get away from..........all your things left behind under the bed, still there a decade unmoved.........
so missing pernambuco is missing you too..........for long i have been missing you now, for most of my life now. you never met my partner....and you won't.........you will never see me grow. i try not to think about you when i can, but this day is always hard.....always. i hope you're up there somewhere when i look into the sky at night from the road, i always wonder......where you ended up.
i'm still in disbelief of what i just experienced.......
elize had always told me she used to see spirits as a child.....and that she still sees them sometimes, but she had been reading a lot about being a medium.......going to spiritist centres, to umbanda terreiros, getting involved.....and yesterday at night she told me....... ...
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... my father had a message for me.....and she wrote down things as if under a trance, with her eyes closed as her hand moved with the pen on its own......my father's handwriting. calling me "galeguinho", his nickname for me, something i never told elize........telling me he sees a bright future for me, full of light.....that i'm doing just fine.....that i became a fine man.......i broke down crying...............
elize was drained afterwards, but she was happy to get the message through, and i was amazed at her abilities.....she has always had a link to the other side, it's completely true, and it's getting stronger.... we visit graveyards frequently and she always told me she heard some voices....i think she will begin trying to talk back with them.. i am just amazed, i am.........my dear father....
my band with elize is getting bigger......people have begun to know us around the scene, and say hello.....i'm feeling like i've finally found my place in this world, amongst my lover and these other punks, goths......emos....all in between..........
at work, i have now officially a friend group..... ...
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... kamila and now socorro, who started working in the booths just a bit ago, but we hit it off....they are very smart....we all exchanged numbers and even though they're not exactly into music they still show up in our shows just so we can all drink together, me, elize, kamila and them....we have deep talks about the universe.......and then we also laugh together at the most stupid things.....
i fell loved....love is too good, romantic, platonic love, all kinds of love......when the world is so bleak, and cruel, so filled with pain, so gray, so violent, so bloody, so hopeless......love stands all.......
I'm a little curious of you in crowded scenes
And how serene your friends and fiends
We flew and strolled as two, illuminated gently
Why don't you close your eyes and reinvent me?
You knew you got that heart made of stone
You shoulda let me know ...
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... You coulda let me know
We'll go 'til morning comes
And traffic grows
And windows hum
Spending all week with your friends
Give me evenings and weekends
Evenings and weekends
I could be yours
We can unwind
All these half floors
All these half floors
You'd agree it's a typical high
You fly as you watch your name go by
And once a name goes by
Not thicker than water, nor thicker than mud
And the 8K thuds, it does
Sunset, so thickly
Let's make it quiet and quickly
Don't frown
Tastes better on the way back down
I could be yours
We can unwind
All these half floors
All these half floors
All these half floors
Will lead to mine
We are all curious
We can unwind
All these half floors
All these half floors
Will lead to mine
all these half floors
All these half floors
We'll see to all these half floors
Will lead to mine
We can unwind all our our floors
We can unwind all our our floors
We can unwind all our our floors
maybe it's misplaced, but i sometimes worry about my girlfriend......ever since she has dived head first into refining herself as a spirit medium, she has been tired all the time.....always psychographing letters, giving people messages from their passed loved ones, making passes, having conversations in the cemetery.......... ...
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... the problem being it exhausts her, drains her emotionally all the time.....she sleeps so much and yet is always tired........elize is strong and determined, but sometimes too much for her own good........as much as she is getting her abilities stronger, i worry about them getting her hurt, the spirits.....i have never seen anything myself, so i don't know how it feels, but i can see it's not easy to have this constant connection with them....whenever she drinks now, it gives way for them to possess her....she goes around the bar telling people of their future, crying with them.......i try and get her home with her stumbling all over, still coming back to her body......i admire her strength always but she doesn't realize she is human and has limits......i think i need to talk to her, about prioritizing herself more....though i'm one to talk about taking care of the self, huh........i don't think she'll take me seriously at all. i'm just trying to look out for her as i can.......
something funny happened the other day.........i have been having this recurring dream for sometime now in which i'm in my booth at the road and the moon starts getting bigger, and brighter.....and bigger......until it takes over the entire sky in white.......the entire road lit in moonlight, empty, no cars at all.....and then in ...
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... the middle of all the white, a single black cat sits there, like a shadow.....i can't leave the booth, so i just stare at it, and when it turns around......i wake up. i have been having the same exact dream a lot....elize doesn't really seem to know what it means, it beats me too.....but now for the weirdest part - socorro told me about another recurring dream of theirs, and the black cat appears as well.......isn't that peculiar?? there is a cat vising us in our sleep, from my head to theirs......who else might dream of black cats every night......??
i've been too distracted to give the blog attention..........weird things are happening.....i'm sure i wrote a few months back about my recurring dreams....well, they haven't stopped since, and then at some point.....the cat finally looked at me and i didn't wake up. i got to see its face.......red and blue ...
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... eyes.....it stared directly at me.....and then.......
i'm seeing it out of my dreams...twice now i think i caught it in the corner of my eye before it disappeared. i haven't told anyone really......i'm paranoid about them thinking i'm crazy.....am i just imagining this? i don't even know. i'm trying to hide the fact i'm a bit scared....i hope it stops soon.
people have started to catch on, you know.....of course, elize was the first one to notice how erratic i've been......it's hard to hide it when you're seeing and hearing things that don't seem to really be there.....i don't know if i'm seeing spirits like elize does. it's just......the cat;;;......all the time.........and the ...
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... meows...........they think should see a therpaist, maybe i'm hallucinating, but i just..........it can't be, right? i'm okay......right?? it's just a cat...........it's nothing scary.....just...........a little bit of paranoia........checking my sides......you know.......there might be a cat around the corner........i'm okay........i'm okay.........it's just a cat. i told elize i'm okay. she is worried..........but i'm okay. i'm not crazy.......
maybe i shouldhaveseen that therapist.......,myabe i relaly really really should.....oh i made a terrible mistake, terrible, horrible, i don't know if i'll ever be able to forgive myself............i.........i'm going crazy, i'm dangerous............i really hurt elize.....i badly hurt her eye........i think i blinded her.......with a kitchenknife ...
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... last night........
i was seeing cats, i was hearing it so loud.........the visions are getting scarier, so much red, eyes, i hear screams and car sounds and yyowls................and i saw a monster.......in place of elize.......and my mind went blank for a second and and then.................she had blood coming out of her eye, and the knife was in my hand, and the blood...................on the tip...........dripping down..........
i called for the ambulance............we rushed to the hospital...........it was late at night...........elize.....lied to the doctors about me hurting her.............i shouldve siad it....admitted it but......i didn't...ididnt say anything.........elize........she thinks i'm possessed. maybmaybe............i don't know what's wrorng with my head, if it's a spirit.....or if i'm just.......i'm a horrible mosnter........hurting my one true love, my flower.......while she covers for me all the way.........still holds my hand even after all my violence.....told me we will get though this......together............get the spirit out of me...............oh lord i don't deserve her......myabe i never did..............never.............
[An extremely long and nonsensical string of words related to spirituality. Read the full entry here.]
[A copy of the Wikipedia page for the Imigrantes Road, with a single link alteration. Read the full entry here.]
["Succumb" written in varying capitalization and alternating between blue/red and red/blue. Read the full entry here.]
it seems i went nuts on the blog last night......as usually, i barely remember anything. i blanked.....woke up and had scribbled on pages upon pages.....words i can't decipher.....typed so much, wrote so much my hands are sore.....i really wasn't myself.....more and more i believe on elize's spirit theory........i'm ...
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... keeping the posts up so i can show them to her.....oh god......i'm terrified......one second i feel okay, and my senses are here with me.......and....and then in others i'm screaming at elize's door......i'm writing on the walls, i'm.........hearing, seeing all of that......i'm missing work days, i'm sleeping poorly. elize is trying all she can, spiritual passes..........reading so much.........she's trying to fix me but...................what if i can't be fixed.......the thing i'm most terrified about is.....
.......what if i hurt her again...?
none of it is real.
the cats are not real.
the road is not real.
i finally see it now.
the spirit is the road and the road is the spirit.
the road is me and i am the road.
we are the road and the road is us.
from the road we came to the road we go.
the red moths roam.
the beast is fed.
the beast in me.
the beast in us.
the end is nigh.
and my end is now.
for i was not
the one.