Competent

Author's note:
This poem was conceived and originally written in English. For this reason, I consider its most faithful reading to be in that language. The Spanish translation is intended only as a guide, if needed, and not as an equivalent version.

We only call it “real” once it’s gone,
once it’s safe enough to caption.
Memory is that museum gift shop
where you get to buy your own life again
in a cheaper material.

The past isn’t history, it’s 
a few true details in a trench coat 
pretending to be “it”.
Literature helps—of course it does—
it puts a spotlight on the bruise 
and asks for applause 
for not flinching. 

I keep thinking: maybe I’m addicted
to the raw version
the way people are addicted 
to behind-the-scenes footage,
the way a timeline loves a disaster 
as long as it’s formatted.

I tried to look at myself in the mirror
and see only my eyes, not my backstory,
just the looking. 
And it was almost funny 
how quickly my face started narrating. 
Even my pupils have opinions. 

Writing could be serenity,
or the first step toward it.
But I’m not pigeon enough,
I don’t know how to carry messages 
without chewing them up. 

For years I lived like a dead woman
my eyes were so empty
people filled them with roles. 

I accepted all kinds of solitude.
I taped over myself so many times 
all that’s left is snow 
void with a clean font, 
madness that arrives politely,
undoing pretending to be clarity. 

Our era is too mediocre 
to survive intensity
everything comes half-done
even grief. 

Lately common sense
is the only philosophy 
that doesn’t make me feel
like I’m performing depth.

Somewhere between Circe and Ulysses 
I’m listening to a Ralphie Choo track
while Enriquez leaves the door unlatched,
von Trier films sorrow like weather, 
and Aphex Twin makes the future
sound like a nervous system learning to blink. 

There’s coalescence, yes
not meaning, not a thesis
more like: a collective weather 
moving through individual bodies,
everyone pretending it’s personal
because that’s how we cope. 

I want to submerge in something else.
An element. I want another element.
Not dog-smell in a shut room, stored things with
soft violence, kept so long they start to keep you.
We don’t lose reality; we stash it
until it learns to stay still 
and lets us look competent. 

Photography by Sofia Ron.