twenty-six, and counting

Poems

a bottle stopper for a heart, round at the one end,the other one sharp,perfectly balanced, if you hold it just rightfitting my neck to a T – I’d always found it difficult to admit tothe obvious sin of not being perfect, a painstaking shame in the face of failuremeasuring myself against the Trees of my […]

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in between

Ramblings

A week ago, a train carried me from the pine-covered hills of Southern Italy to the sleepy station of my hometown. When we crossed the border at Chiasso, the sky slowly turned purple behind the mountain ranges. The transitions seemed seamless; the gradient of dusk, the train moving from one country to another, my being […]

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deliverance

Ramblings

I am rediscovering time as if it were made just for me, tailor-made, so to speak, a unit of existence that I can stretch and distribute however I like, rediscovering the beauty of just being, without pressure to achieve             everything,             anything, all the time, all at once,             I am spacing out space […]

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Der einsamste Baum Frauenfelds // eine Kindergeschichte für das Mitsommerfest Frauenfeld

Short Stories

Manchmal, wenn das Licht goldig ist vom Sommer, und die länger werdenden Schatten der Dämmerung die letzten Sonnenstrahlen aus den Strassenrinnen waschen, während der Wind etwas stärker weht und es nach frisch geschnittenem Gras riecht, und du schon bald ins Bett musst, obwohl du gerne noch über tausend Träume nachdenken würdest, dann hörst du das […]

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Grenzübertretung (oder: eben nicht)


Short Stories

Heute gibt’s zwei Blog-Beiträge, denn dieser zählt nicht wirklich, da er bereits anderweitig publiziert wurde. Trotzdem, hier ist mein Beitrag für den Schreibwettbewerb “Text des Monats” des Literaturhauses Zürich zum Thema “Schneefallgrenze steigend”: Es ist mitten in der Nacht und ich rüttle meine Kinder wach, schnell, schnell, wir müssen los, es ist Zeit, wohin denn, […]

March 27, 2020

desolation row


Short Stories

Ohne grosses Aufhebens war sie manchmal da und manchmal nicht. Ich machte mir nicht viel daraus, viele Menschen sind manchmal da und manchmal nicht, ein paar Menschen sind wohl gar nie richtig da, wenn ich mir das recht überlege. Aber sie war manchmal da. Dann ging sie auf ihren Stelzenbeinen vorbei an uns allen und […]

February 27, 2020

holier-than-thou


Ramblings

The story of the original sin is told in the third chapter of the Genesis. It is said that the snake told Adam’s wife, who does not have a name in the version that I read, to taste the apple from the forbidden tree because then her eyes would open, truly, and she would know […]

January 27, 2020

2019


Ramblings

Another year is over and things are standing still by moving quicker than I know to walk. It’s been the year of             home-coming, re-settling job-starting, overtime-making protest-going, speech-writing, signatures-collecting             pizzas in piazze in Verona thesis-working, myself-presenting, on a copper platter of thistles piercing-forsaking, beatles-forgetting-and-remembering like I do almost every year missed chances and […]

December 27, 2019

the envelope


Short Stories

The house was empty, as it had been for years. A thin shingle of light came unbidden through a crack in the blinds into the otherwise dark room. It was a sombre darkness, full of half-shadows and dense with words never spoken, bottled up in this kitchen for years. The light ate its way across […]

November 27, 2019

ventôse


Ramblings

Did you know that the French revolutionaries introduced a new calendar after the French Revolution? The day they abrogated the monarchy was pronounced as the first day of “An I de la République”. Every month lasted for 30 days, divided into three decades of ten days. The twelve months were named after the seasonal occurrences […]

October 27, 2019

five books I read this summer


Book Reviews

Something that struck me about myself the other day was this: With music, I mostly listen to men’s voices. With books, I mostly listen to the voices of women. This summer I have spent a considerable amount of time reading some excellent female writers: How to Be Both by Ali Smith (4.5/5) This is a […]

September 27, 2019

park closes at dusk


Short Stories

The sheer magnitude of a summer in New York City threatened to swallow me whole in late August of ’98. Instead of going out for eggs on toast on Saturday mornings and hanging around Central Park late Friday evenings and generally having a damn good time of it – instead of all those things I’d […]

August 27, 2019

runaway girls


Ramblings

runaway girls instead of runway girls they fled from a world of constraint and shame with nothing to look forward to but everything after they’d secretly unchecked the boxes on their father’s app enabling their own freedom so that they could be allowed (technically) to break free, to run away, to any country which was […]

July 27, 2019

lesen


Ramblings

Was ist es an Worten, das uns bindet? Ein Mensch könnte tausend verschiedene Dinge tun an einem Tag; abgesehen von den überlebensnotwendigen Beschäftigungen wie essen und atmen kann er auch Dinge rein aus Spass tun, er kann fernsehen, oder sich mit seinem Sternzeichen beschäftigen, oder stricken, oder eben auch: Lesen. Wieso tun wir das? Was […]

June 27, 2019

the fox


Short Stories

There is a fox, he’s sly and snouty, he wanders the woods every night around two. With all that he knows and all that he is, he goes along the muddy paths, moonlit silence looming over him, listening out for a neigh or a meow or a silent woof or any other animal’s sound. He […]

May 27, 2019

empöret euch


Ramblings

Naiv zu sein ist das Privileg der Jugend, sagt ihr, und belächelt uns, werdet zuweilen wütend, weil Greta euch ein schlechtes Gewissen einreden möchte. Wenn naiv zu sein das Privileg der Jugend ist, dann ist eure „Nach-mir-die-Sintflut“-Haltung das Privileg der Alten. Stell dir vor, wütend zu sein, weil junge Leute sich plötzlich doch einmal für […]

April 27, 2019

the parcel


Short Stories

Her body was a golden string, hanging upon the last thread. Eyes sunken and sallow, nothing of the old glory left. Black shadows hid in the ruins of her face where there used to be rosy cheeks and dust and debris settled on her head as if she was a statue of herself, a copy […]

March 27, 2019

ocean arms


Ramblings

sea eyes and ocean arms and a thousand waves crashing against your body with nothing than a quiet cry and a loud sigh for help to look after it and love it and cherish it and all the things it does for you; to sustain you and carry you from a to b from here […]

February 27, 2019