Where could I find myself when, even in my dreams, I felt lost?
It was no longer enough to run off to be alone; it was no longer enough to look myself in the eyes through the reflection, almost always dirty, of an abandoned mirror. I could hardly ever find myself in the chorus of an out-of-tune song, nor in the cold sip of the last drink from a cup of coffee.
It was no longer enough to step on the ground and drag the day along, to hang it at the end of a street fading into dusk in the middle of a city where nothing ever seemed to happen, because so little ever came back.
It was not enough to place words inside a box with lids open, almost closed, and set them alight, trying to wrap the silence in which I felt myself drowning; from which, almost always, my poetry rescued me, afloat again, thanks to the grace of words.
Then, one afternoon, I managed to see myself along a very thin line of thought: I found myself seated, inside a disguised silence. I managed to shake myself awake, to stay conscious while everyone else slept. My bones creaked, making all the noise that went unheard. I felt all the cold I could not shelter then.
I walked, and I am still, the writer I once dreamed of becoming.
Photography by Andrea Sánchez Sánchez.
Writer and psychologist working in education. Fond of letters, cloudy skies, music, my people, coffee, and mezcal.