Helichrysum
Helichrysum breaks granite— gold persisting long after stone has given way. I was the silence that emptied their laughter, the winter that swept their voices. I was the voice that made their paper dolls go quiet, small hands learning to cut— edges exact as quiet. Years collapsed— I found their drawings pressed in dictionaries. Stick figures holding hands beneath crayon suns I never let them finish. Their names taste of copper on my tongue— salt blurs the ink until their letters bleed like bruises. Now they speak in voices that I stilled, moving through gardens closed to me. Two gold faces— unfading— held between my breaking and their sharp edges.
Luciano Conte, born in Formia, Italy, roots himself in tactile arts like film photography, painting, bread baking, and house building. He writes in order to probe those persistent, buried forces that shape us from beneath the surface. For him, silence is not absence but presence: a pause that resonates the loudest, like the pause in a conversation that carries more weight than words. He speaks his lines aloud while writing, tying rhythm to breath, making language a living, physical act where sound and sense fuse, just as photography captures light and shadow. He urges readers to read his work aloud to unlock layers that silent reading misses, letting the cadence shape the experience in the same way as kneading dough or laying foundation stones, where each gesture is deliberate and consequential.
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