Wake me up when September ends

Says a song

In what was left of the month, I spent it living on my feet, at the end of myself, waiting for the tremor or the accident to happen.

Waiting barefoot for the broken glass (autumn-colored beer bottles) camouflaged among the leaves.

Waiting for something: the scream, the news, the shot, the slam, the sword.

In these days, I have been attacked by a virus. The virus of waiting.

We all suffer from it.

It is the virus of those who look through windows on Sundays, of those who walk through solitary hallways, the virus of those who always miss the bus, of those who search for things (and answers) in the ceiling of empty rooms, of those who carry nothing in their supermarket baskets, the virus of empty airports, the virus of the fatigue of hope, the virus of phone booths and unanswered numbers, the silent virus of those who smoke, of firefighters who fall asleep watching the sun’s fire, the virus of early mornings and closed bars, the virus that attacks the organs that count hours, days, years, and wear out, the virus of those who stand in line, of those who buy planners but never write in them, the maybe later virus, the virus that doesn’t sleep and leaves scars on the calendar.

This virus also attacks things, the empty wine bottles lying on the floor. Broken and bleeding, waiting for the accident or the thousand pieces, it attacks the things on a bedside table that we don’t know what they are, and they stay there for years, the medications that save us at the point of expiration, the blades’ edges, the dust on our carpets, the flickering light bulbs on our darkest days.

This virus doesn’t kill us.

But it never dies either. It’s always there, the virus of waiting, waiting to get inside us.

A few days ago, I was waiting for my taxi, sitting outside the building. I watched the sky turn from light blue to gray, and then it darkened. I put on my headphones to listen to music, and the right one had no battery. I spent a while listening to music with only one ear, with both headphones on; it wasn’t bad but not the best either. But when a song I really liked came on, I wanted it to flood my ears, hit my head, and flow down my body until the melody wrapped me completely. But it wasn’t possible, not even with the volume at maximum. I thought that some relationships are like an iPhone and headphones where only one works. There’s music, everything is very hi-fi, and it’s about turning the volume up to the max in everyday things, but nothing ever really invades, envelops, or moves us, but now I take out the case of the headphones and recharge both, this time I listen to everything clearly and attentively, it’s how my life feels now, being with you is how it should have always been, having that magma inside me, from the very center of the earth, motivating me every morning to wait for you.

The calendar tells me September has ended.

The calendar is my past reduced to fragments, broken down into years, months, weeks, days, and then the clocks and their hours, minutes, and seconds, all this to make it easier to digest the passage of time and everything we’ve left behind, everything we didn’t achieve, so we don’t feel like life is slipping away all at once, but in little pieces.

What we did achieve tends to be set aside, time doesn’t touch it, it’s there, whole, a complete memory object: a photo, a song, a place, a color… and everything comes together, years gathered in a song, thousands of faces appear in one place, a color takes you to a place, and so the whole circle.

What we didn’t, what we didn’t have, give, see, do, love, is what the calendar reminds us of every day.

The calendar has more pages ahead, and that’s the future. But I don’t really believe the future exists because right now I am the future of myself a few minutes ago when I started writing this text. Each word is a way into the future that passes in front of us like the white lines on our road. Each word is a step left behind, and there’s no future like a station. If I look ahead as if looking at the future, I’ll probably meet your gaze looking at your future in the opposite direction, and perhaps from that moment our gazes will align on the same horizon.

Sometimes I think about the future, because I want to know where this waiting will take me.

This waiting room without hope

(says another song)

 

I have some reasons

my love

for not wanting to believe

in hope

because hope

disguises everything

it makes us believe

that the birds

in the mornings

pecking at our windows

are our dead

whom we love so much

and miss

hope

makes us believe

in the barking of dogs

as messages

sent to us

by someone

from far away

hope

invented

the story

of the two sides of the moon

and the lovers

watching it

at the same time

hope

says

that sadness doesn’t exist

only

transitional states

that everything passes

that’s what hope tells us

the one of soulmates

to keep moving forward

the one of the wind

that carries my words

to your ears

hope

invented

the notion of love

and language

in silences

and gazes

because hope

knows many stories

hope

that

repeats phrases

to us all

the same

after the storm

no evil lasts 100 years

time heals all wounds

it lies to us

promises us spring

in winters that kill us

but no one has taken away

our sadnesses

our winters

our storms

nor the 100 years of evils

and the wounds that bled

my love

it hurts to know

that sometimes hope

doesn’t exist

it’s just an illusion

just birds in the cold

nothing more than two souls

equally lonely

(and not twin)

stray dogs

that bark

people looking at each other

silences

there’s no message anymore

nor between the lines

while

lovers

who no longer love

just look at the moon

waiting

for anything

hope

can gift you

an open Pandora’s box

take you to a waiting room

and tell you

that it’s the last thing to lose

only to

abandon you

and you realize

that in the box

there

is

nothing

And I

from now on

won’t

believe in

hope

because I’ll only

believe

in you.

 

I love you. I’m always going to love you.

 

 

Por estos días he optado por el silencio.

Se podría pensar que el silencio sucede cuando no tenemos nada que decir o cuando no hay nada, pero mi silencio esta lleno de muchas cosas reales que bullen y se mueven en alguna parte dentro de mí y de las cuales no puedo hablar por carecer de referentes o de inicios.

Lo violento de las cosas me dejan en silencio, me dejan sin tiempo (ni espacio) de buscar o encontrar en estas mismas cosas (presentes o pasadas) las imágenes o palabras para sacarlas hacia el exterior y dejar de callar, para definirlas, todo me sobrepasa y desborda, nada va con mis ritmos.

Intentar hablar/escribir sobre estas cosas que me desbordan y que bullen mientras yo atravieso este periodo de silencio sería solo un intento de dibujarlas tomando ejemplos pasados o vividos, convertiéndolas en otra cosa, así, tratar de expresar mi silencio sería un intento de construir una imagen que se le parezca, mas no el mismo silencio o eso que vivo que bulle dentro, sería cualquier cosa inventada o ficticia, pero nada real.

Algo así como el dolor.

Si permanezco en silencio no es un intento de huir de lo real, ni un aislamiento, sino más bien un intento de acercarme más a ello a lo real y a lo único que tengo, como un viaje en silencio al interior de mi médula para ver ante mis ojos como sucede el dolor (mientras afuera en la piel, me corta un cuchillo) el silencio para ver el dolor y no tener que definirlo.

Me pregunto sí -y nada más- dónde es que nace todo esto, si encontráse un punto de partida, me sería entonces más fácil empezar un camino, un inicio, luego ir moviéndome de un lado a otro, definiendo líneas y límites y como resultado de este viaje tendría un objeto delante de mí, un objeto que reconocería y guardaría en alguna parte como una referencia útil para lo desconocido que vendrá.

Hasta hace no mucho, pensaba, que dentro de mí dormía la huída esperando despertar para empezar una carrera de portazo tras portazo y después de todo lo inexplicable y el silencio.

Ahora me di cuenta de que eso que yo pensaba era una huída, no ha sido otra cosa que el encuentro.

Saber bien qué es lo que se deja tras el portazo y saber bien que es lo que a uno le espera en el destino, no es una huída.

Huir, creo, es salir corriendo sin saber de dónde o nada hacia un lugar del cual no se sabe dónde está ni tampoco se sabe nada de él.

(he huído pocas veces entonces)

El estar en silencio me permite absorber -quizá en un intento de captar referencias para romper el silencio- todo aquello que se mueve alrededor de mis sentidos.

Palabras que llegan en un caos y se amontonan frente a mí en montañitas oscuras. ¿Cómo tomarlas para ponerlas dentro de mí, para que se encuentren con eso real silencioso y para que se abracen en un reencuentro y coincidan emparejadas y así me permitan decir todo eso que llevo dentro?

Palabras que podría respirar y dentro de mí puedan definir algo: la expresión dura de mi mirada, mis puños cerrados, mi poco sueño y hasta mi mismo silencio.

Colores que se chorrean de las cosas, van fluyendo como ríos buscando el océano, ¿cómo tomarlos -me pregunto- sin que se mezclen en una mancha o se pierdan en otros colores?

Podría beberlos en vasitos pequeños o inyectármelos en diferentes venas, para así llenar a esas palabras que suenan vacías, llenar a todos esos espacios hasta ahora vacíos que he ido definiendo con palabras, trazos y hasta gestos.

Voy pasando los días a solas aquí, acompañado de ti y conmigo mismo, pensando cosas como esta, viendo cómo se mueve la primavera entre grises y colores y por ahí las palabras, siempre las palabras amontonándose en pilas como mi ropa sucia que iré a lavar, palabras que siempre me esperan (y yo a ellas) en silencio.

Yo recuerdo que estando en silencio en algún septiembre, hace mucho tiempo, escribí un relato sobre el corazón de una manzana verde, que en inglés es core en este idioma las manzanas tienen núcleos y no corazones, y mi relato en inglés era de corazones de manzana nucleares que estallaban como una bomba, corazones verdes de núcleo verde. algo así era, ahora pienso en español y escribo esto, entonces uno siempre va como un roedor de dientecitos afilados, dando mordiscos a todo hasta encontrarse un corazón y ahí la cosa se termina, se arroja en corazón, sale un árbol, los frutos, y otra vez las manzanas con corazones.

Y las manzanas también se pudren, con corazón y todo, podrido todo, llegan los gusanos y ya no hay corazón mordisqueado, ni tierra ni árbol.

Lo otro que escribí era algo sobre las sombras que veía en esa casa tan blanca, yo me acostaba en el piso y veía como se iban moviendo las sombras en las paredes blancas de esa casa vacía, a veces las escribía, había sombras gruesas, delgadas, marcadas o tenues y se me ocurrió que algunas de esas sombras eran lánguidas, entonces escribi que debería juntar a todas esas sombras lánguidas, incubarlas entre las paredes blancas y liberarlas luego en una sinfonía de dolor y vacío.

Felizmente ya se acaba septiembre, porque en septiembre parece que hay algo que siempre se rompe. Septiembre me suena a enjambre y a estambre, septiembre me recuerda a la fecha del nacimiento de mi abuelo, el padre de mi madre, también a esas cosas florales y silvestres que se reverdecen, a esos árboles con muchas frutas en los que puedes subir y recogerlas, así son los septiembres, mi abuela decía que si uno se comía las pepas de las frutas, entonces te crecía un árbol en el estómago y las ramas y las hojas salen por la nariz, boca y orejas.

Mi corazón es como una fruta.

Y si ya te lo comiste, (hasta las pepitas) ya te jodiste, porque te va a salir un árbol, que no te va a dejar ni respirar ni ver ni oír.

Voy a crecer dentro de ti.

Creo que estoy un poquito enojado, arrebatado, así me dijeron, porque ya quiero que se acabe este mes, ahora hay un octubre desconocido que por ratos desearía que fuese conocido para saber que bajando las escaleras, estaría en otra ciudad de lluvia y yo sin paraguas, de palabras que no se entienden, de los sueños de colores, del encuentro y de los viajes dentro de viajes.

 

 

Scene #1

I’m in my mother’s room
she’s channel surfing
suddenly she lands on channel 88
and they’re speaking Arabic

She tries to mimic what they’re saying
then she talks to me in Arabic
in her version of Arabic
I respond
in my version of Arabic
and we laugh

“From Arabic, we only have the dark circles under our eyes”

That’s what she tells me

I look at the number 88 on the TV
I look at her
and this scene stays in my memory
like a photograph

Then
another scene
comes to my mind

Scene #2

A scene
from the year 88
the only year I asked
for the first and only time about my grandfather
my father’s father
and never got an answer

The answer
(now I know)
was that image
the two of us
next to my father on the phone
in 88
sitting on the stairs
silent
not understanding anything
and now
the two of us
in the room
watching channel 88
not understanding anything
but laughing

 

 

Today I went to my appointment with the hair doctor (that’s what I call the dermatologist trichologist).

He handed me a piece of paper and a pen and said: write a list of all those things you’re talking about, make two columns, one with a (-) sign and another with a (+) sign.

He left me alone.

So I started thinking about things that are recurring in my life: in the early mornings, the city, the streets, wine, the sound of your footsteps, the smell of the sea, snow, a melting clock, drawings, Millás’ book, a soccer ball, white sheets, a hallway, big vintage speakers that I keep with care, plastic containers, cold, voices, rain, gray sky…

I could make a long list. No more, no less.

In the end, I remembered that I once worked in a ministry and made lists. When I worked at a digital agency, I also made them. I always make shopping lists for my mother (and I made them well: I’d wash my hands before making them, use block letters, detail the quantities…) and they would ask me, “Is the list ready?” and I would laugh.

I don’t like making lists because when I reread them, I realize who I was. I don’t like that game, I don’t like recalling the past in items or inventories.

So I write along the two columns of pluses and minuses.

I wish I had a magic wand from a Gryffindor wizard.

Then I could organize my things (+) (-) by waving it in circles over everything around me, start to tidy up everything, and even clean all the dishes in the kitchen with a wave of the wand (Abracadabra).

I could do my work and submit my proposals in a second.

With the wand, I could stop hearing those words that echo in my head, make certain people in the café invisible, finish a task with fewer hours, not have to think about paperwork.

With the wand, I would travel all the time, start writing a novel, organize my stories, and cut my hair without fear of the scissors.

With the wand, coffee would come to my table every morning while I read the newspaper, and when I take a taxi, the driver who doesn’t usually greet me would say hello.

With the wand, I would erase those words that have turned me to dust, some past secrets I discovered. With the wand, I would give shine to the lies I never know how to tell properly.

And with the wand in my right hand, with a wavy, circular motion of my wrist, I would make your gaze turn to me in that street among the crowd.

You and I, we would recognize each other then, and I would walk toward you with the wand in hand, with a smile, with the appearance of a very old wizard to your eyes.

Then perhaps the wand would be so powerful that it could make you fall in love with me, right there in the middle of all those people coming and going.

And as that happens, I would think of all the magic, all the past, see your enamored eyes, your arms almost extending in a hug toward me.

Then I would thrust the cold, sharp wand with a swift and precise blow right into the middle of your left side, into the center of your heart.

I would walk back calmly, knowing that when I got home, I would have to wash the dishes again and make myself some coffee.

Even though I thought all this, I couldn’t write any of it because all I needed to write down were my allergies, family diseases, the ones I suffer from, routine, etc.

I leave what I wrote there and say goodbye until the next appointment. In the end, he says he’ll send me the results by email.

I kept the promotional pen that advertises the name of a blue medicine because he told me I could. I like the ink of the pen, I like the color (it’s cobalt blue), and I like how that silver clip on the cap glimmers.

I look at the pen and walk down the streets imagining it’s my wand.

Hoping, deep down, that maybe this afternoon you’ll appear in the middle of that crowd waiting for magic out there.

Even though I know that’s not possible.

 

 

1. The important thing is to never stop asking questions.

One day, I’m going to meet Einstein and tell him:

Yes, what you say is true, Albert, but sometimes questions weigh heavily because one wants an immediate answer, wants to know everything.

You, you know a lot. You even know, because I know you know, that God exists, so I suppose it’s easier for you to find the answers.

I imagine that Einstein would first try to give me an answer to my question, “So now what?” with a mathematical formula or a logical equation.

In the end, since I probably wouldn’t understand anything (maybe a little), he would say: well, go and do what you always do.

And the answer, that is: write.

So as I keep asking myself “now what?” I write this.

(Einstein must be sitting next to God in a theater)

2. Revelation

When I was a child, my grandmother would tell me to open the Bible with my eyes closed, and that I would find the answer to my question.

I don’t have a Bible here, but since the Bible is pure fiction, I open poetry books instead, or I play a random song and close my eyes.

Today, instead of books, I played a song.

Then a song by Oasis came on—Oasis, who I like but never so much as to believe they have the answers (just thinking about them).

But today I had a revelation:

The song is called “Keep the Dream Alive” and a piece of the lyrics stuck with me: “the answers disappear when I open my eyes.”

So I told myself, after the dominoes fall, after my pains, after the gray and miserable afternoons, after my friends who are no longer my friends, after feeling alone and a bit over there and not here, after having my heart in my pocket, after knowing the world is ending, after leaving home in a taxi almost sleeping like a lifeless being, after you told me you didn’t want to talk to me, after so much, what I have to do is keep dreaming and not open my eyes.

3. Game

I made up a game (to forget about all responsibilities).

I made it up after reading somewhere (I read everything, even the walls of public restrooms) something related to the power of the mind, and because I remember Roberto Benigni in a movie saying “muoviti muoviti muoviti” trying to wake someone up (or move someone).

The thing is that while I walk down the street or sit in a restaurant, I stare intently at the back of people’s heads in front of me.

If the person turns around to look at me, I score a point. Every 10 points is a level, and so on until level 10, when I’ll have the title of spoon-bender.

(For now, I’m just a wannabe children’s party magician)

Today I managed to turn three heads out of twenty.

The only bad thing is that I don’t know how to react when they turn around to see who’s staring at the back of their head.

I’ll find some serious gesture because I know you’re not supposed to play with people like that without asking.

I was taught that at home when I was very young.

(excuse me)

 

 

If a genie from a bottle came and told me that he could grant me a wish, I would tell him to split me in two.

One would be: the one who feels pain, who accepts, who is correct, who cries, who walks, who endures, who is patient, who does things, who doesn’t sleep, who tells the truth, who doesn’t shout, who apologizes without being guilty, the one who loves and cares for you, who carries an ant to a pot so it doesn’t die, who genuinely misses.

The other: the one who laughs, who breaks walls, who destroys, who is shameless, who doesn’t suffer, who doesn’t obey, who is tough, who lies subtly, who escapes, who dances, sleeps, and gets drunk, who is resentful, who doesn’t fall in love again, who hates humanity.

Then I would bring them both together in a bar to chat and share how they’re doing.

And in the end, they would always toast, saying, “to the life we’ve been given“…

 

 

 

A phosphorescent ticking sound announced in the room that it was midnight. Once again, you would close your eyes, saying goodnight to me. You would let yourself fall into the infinity of your dreams, and I would immediately begin the night, wondering if we would ever have the chance to meet. My eyes never closed since I started talking to you. Insomnia dragged me down even more when the noises began. Only I could hear them. As the darkness grew, they became more intense, and madness clawed at my scarce reason. At first, I spent entire nights rubbing my ears against the walls, trying to discover the origin of those noises similar to the sound water makes when it hits an unknown surface. A liquid noise that also echoed. It was eternal hours, going millimeter by millimeter across the walls; but I gave up when one morning, I woke up in the middle of a pool of blood that was flowing from my left ear. I hadn’t realized when I started bleeding; the exhaustion was such that it left me no awareness to perceive reality. Everything turned into a dark scab that prevented me from moving for a moment, until it suddenly absorbed and left no trace.

The next day, you wrote to me and encouraged me to sleep early, as if knowing what was happening. That night, you slept deeply again in that super comfortable bed of yours, while I faded, tortured by those spiral noises that burrowed deep into my eardrums. I tried to close my eyes and sleep, but the liquid noise cut through me. It became more intense when I stayed still, when the darkness swallowed me.

One night, the darkest of all, I turned on the lights, drew the curtains, and let the moonlight enter through the window. It occurred to me that perhaps this noise didn’t live with light. The moonlight and the light from the bulbs merged into an almost metallic luminous mass that suddenly flooded the room. The noise, which by then could be heard up to ten kilometers away, began to drown, to die little by little. Half a sigh of relief was enough for the noise to return with more force, as if it had been deceived. I concluded that the natural light of day was the only thing capable of achieving silence. The days were short, and the nights were an endless ordeal. My eyes cracked and dried out even more, becoming pale.

I condemned myself to stay awake for the rest of my nights. Resigned to enduring perpetual insomnia, I began to observe everything closely. It was the first time I did so since I started talking to you. I could see in your photos that your body was made of ethereal and warm light, which bothered my eyes so much, yet I still couldn’t close them. The contours of your silhouette were sharp, and that pale clothing of yours cut through my darkness. You had in your hair and mouth some shiny, iridescent butterflies. Your hands were thin and very white, they probably sweated silver mercury.

While you slept, you surely filled yourself with peace every second, and your transparent eyelids revealed a soft and sweet gaze, different from your daytime hardness.

I realized that through your eyelids, surely, your past lovers could see your dreams, as if they were watching television. And I also discovered that I wasn’t in your dreams. For a moment, while I thought of you, I forgot about the noise. Then I wanted to hug you tightly, and I didn’t want to write to you for fear of waking you up. After thinking about hugging you, I began to feel a little better. Something strange happened inside me, like an internal effervescence. The scar on my ear opened and began to bleed violently when I pressed my ear against my left arm: I discovered the sound of my steady heartbeat, and without much will, I heard the whispers of my blood running through my arteries, heard my blood circulating, hitting the walls of kilometers and kilometers of veins and arteries.

That noise no longer hurt me. I already knew what it was. Even though I started to feel sleepy and tired, I didn’t want to fall asleep because I had to go to work in a few hours. Even so, I cleaned my ear and started packing my things. I ran out of my room. The dawn put gray fog everywhere; the streets were empty. I took a taxi and felt so warm inside, like in an incubator; it was like being newly born. The driver had the radio on at a very low volume. My eyes returned to their color and moistened slightly with a certain sadness. I closed them. The other songs, whispered by the radio, and the sound of an engine moving away, lulled me to sleep.

Finally, I fell asleep.

At 5:28 p.m., Joaquín Sabina sings, “because a house without you is an office”… it was playing while I was working…

Something happens inside my body: I smile, I feel like crying, I stretch, I look at the clock, I throw myself on the bed, I move between the sheets, I turn around, I unravel, I become something that stops being here and is there.

And you were writing to me while this was happening, because I saw your messages and I responded attentively.

I read your message with my heart racing.

And the song played:

“And when you come back, there’s a party in the kitchen, and dances without an orchestra and bouquets of roses with thorns, but two is not the same as one plus one, and on Monday at breakfast coffee, the cold war returns, and to the sky of your mouth the purgatory and to the bedroom the daily bread, and the kisses I give poison me…”

“And yet, when I sleep without you, I dream of you…”

And I cling to my phone in the darkness of the room as if it were a very thin thread, crossing the ocean from my ear to yours, getting tangled around the feet of P., Sabina, and all the others at that concert…

I stretch out on the bed and read the message again, and I only know that you have remained recorded and tangible on my phone.

This day stays recorded in my mind, all of this will stay recorded, like pieces that fit perfectly into the gaps that exist to build truths that break down distances, recorded like your name will always remain in my heart.

 

 

I want to be an open wound on your back,
like an imperfect slash on your perfect canvas.

A wound that burns you,
that fills with the hair you lose,
with the lint from your sheets,
with the touch of your other people’s hugs.

A wound on the reverse of your body,
of your life right-side up.

A wound in the spines of your books.

A wound behind your mirrors.

A wound full of my nude photos.

I want to be for you: your deep, secret wound.

So I can give you wings any day.

Or to become your sleepless scar.

 

 

Sadness

is sometimes

something as simple

as knowing

any afternoon

that there is

a dirty drizzle

in this gray city

and that it touches us

at the same time

 

sadness

is understanding

that we are naked

and silent

that we have few hours left

and many years

to live

forever

you there

me here

or here together

silent

naked

 

it’s the same sadness

that appears one day

in my kitchen

while I beat egg whites

and two of my tears

cross a meringue

that later

I will eat

and my happy family

 

there are drums

full of sadness

 

I have two sticks

a rhythm

I hit

I hit

the drums

as if they were

my tense skin

that makes

a hollow sound

from the emptiness

I carry inside

 

the echo

of my heartbeat

the heart outside

 

there are things

that no one can explain to me

except sadness

because sadness

brings no questions

it knows everything

knows

that it is

only sadness

 

because when you are sad

you don’t question anything

so she and I

sitting on a bench

feeding pigeons

watching children play

beside her

I understand

in silence

that from my sadness

I can know

all the happiness

that I am (*)

sometimes

or that I have always been

forever

 

*(well, I’m a bit sad although it doesn’t show)