Today was the first time I got really nervous since I met you. I wanted to tell you that in this hemisphere, if someone tells you they want to talk about something important with you in a very serious tone, it’s a sign of alarm and the nerves in the other person freeze, and one usually turns pale. At that moment, I imagined my nerves were like thousands of whips tensing under my skin.
Coming into the world is a whip
Leaving the warm womb into the cold to hear how the sound of our own cry spreads through the air, running down our spine in a shiver like the aluminum where they place us while a nurse notes our weight and fills our foot with ink to leave a mark that we exist and have come into the world knowing nothing except that a cycle begins that ends in death…
Falling in love is a whip
Kissing another’s skin, touching, looking into each other’s eyes, speaking and hearing the echo of our words inside the other’s mouth, thinking about the other living inside us, climbing within the steep caves of our nerves, moving from the heart to the head…
Falling out of love is also a whip
The sounds of slammed doors echo within us, the “I don’t love you anymore” like shards of glass, the cold sensation of the half-empty bed, sleepless early mornings, heartbreak songs in the highest tone sliding like grease that lubricates our sad and tense nerves…
But that’s not the point
So,
I take a small knife and open my skin to see my nerves
and in them dwell
my early mornings and dawns
the warm sensation of some trips
perfumes
my restlessness when I see the freckles on your arms
the horizon of your eyes
your bright, beautiful skin
the pain of a knife
desire open on salt and sand
pianos
spoken words
foreign
written
secret
laughter
distances
hangovers
voices in airports
meowing cats
sirens
ghosts
your perpetual beauty in my eyes
storms
a woman crying
a sofa screaming
the smell of sea breeze
the noise of footsteps climbing stairs
the blue of the sky
they dwell in my nerves
the ice in my drinks
passions
your words that keep me alive
unpacked suitcases
glass
awake cities
books
brushes
caged birds
stones
hairs
colors
shines
blurry faces
names
skins
a red thread
I dwell in myself and my vertigo
And all these nerves are connected by an invisible current with your name that gives me life like Frankenstein, like a puppet that opens its eyes, gets up, showers, brushes its teeth and spits, dresses, combs its hair, perfumes itself, walks, eats, breathes, feels, thinks and sleeps…
(and dreams of you, who also dwell in my nerves)