Stefan Orts

I Am Orpheus Stefan Orts

I Am Orpheus dives into the worst of the human soul, when every motion and every pain echoes in the eternity of all of us. It's a collection of stories around of a broken marriage, of a dad that pulls through every day only trying to get by. Pages that stitch up into a canvas, from the early start of that loving feeling to the sound of shattered glass on the floor tiles. A few years through a divorce, and written words that shape the night as it falls. Poems, letters, stories that wind their way to the sinuous worlds of solitude and things left unsaid. The sufferings of scattered days, of missing your boys every other week and realising how there wasn't a point to all of this, the meaninglessness of every day. Wondering how to make it to the next morning, and contemplating the circle of seasons and the winds blowing by. Until it gets better, until the air fills your lungs again. On to the next train, the next town. The next day or two. In the end there is light. First it's a timid ray of sunshine you can barely see from a distance; and then it grows into subtle nuances of red and blue. And as colours spread across the canvas again, Orpheus is spotted taking the last few steps out of inferno. Crawling as he drags his harp from the darkness. The heart of darkness, where only the cries of the dead reign. But not yet, not just yet. How to let go, in the shady smokes of cigarettes and the vapors of alcohol. Eurydice is left behind, she is left behind, keep telling yourself that. The wind is rising again, it is time to live some more.