Before the River Rises

Ghost with wide eyes, wandering in the background of photographs and in the reflection of windows: you often stroll through my mind with your light gait that makes me smile, as if your memory were an inside joke I speak about with myself when I’m alone.

Several times a day small puffs of air escape me against my will, and I recognize the risks implied by such symptoms even if I cannot avoid them. I always knew I came to be a glimmer in your consciousness that you won’t know how to trace when you feel it. And I’m already running out of excuses to keep wandering these чужен paths; here I am never certain where I stand.

Even if I know how to interpret the shape and the angle of the shadows.

I almost have to go now, soon, very soon. 
I am a constant hostage of the light that places distance between night and day.
The blue hour cannot find me here so far away.
I must leave before the river rises.
The immutable boundary between there and here.

Even though I already have plenty of experience in the art of blurring lines.

At night all cats are black because colors exist only from time to time, and there are things that are not ours to see. I need the sun to peek out just a little so I can see where I step and find a door I cannot decipher in the dark. Sometimes I forget my place and find myself lost, searching for that which I never find. 

Even though every five minutes I acquire new levels of consciousness that I then proceed to ignore, for my own good, over my own harm.

It’s getting late for me to gather my presence into a bundle to hang over my shoulder, to disappear into the horizon and gradually lose the buzz of the dry silence that echoes inside me. Remember me from time to time, not always, not too often probably. Perhaps it is quite my own whim to expect you to remember my name, so don’t.

You have much life ahead of you and so do I, and the consequence of living so fast is that you leave much behind, and very soon.

Grant me the grace of looking the other way when I depart.

Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear, and so am I, but none of that matters as long as you look forward—just never look back.

Photography by José Alberto Díaz Ruiz // Rev/Scan: Pantera Film Lab