Remember winter 2022

Gone are the words I had left to say. 

With the spring of our lives still hot in our heels, karaoke nights and days for the deers. Snow can wait, I have hot coals burning my pockets. 

There was so much, so much I wanted to say but I forgot it. I left all those words in between blankets and broken closets. Houses I will never visit again, beds I never slept in. Chile flakes burning my tongue, cats scratching my hand, and those karaoke nights. They all stole the words from me. 

All the puzzle pieces of that picture from which to take without thinking, yet new pieces keep coming -the spring is still warming. It's a new picture, same but older, same but different, same but wordless. All the words that were forgotten. 

And we eat grapes but we don't hear the music, and we go to our place and burn through our stupid, and I see the words that I wrote while we were off our faces 'remember winter 2022'. 

'What the fuck are perfect places anyway'. 

30

Treinta años. 

Treinta años de historia, locura, pasión, poesía, amor, desamor, huesos rotos y almas rotas, reflejados en mi cuerpo en cicatrices y estrías. En fotografías que guardo de noches eternas y días rápidos. 

Mi cabello rubio ya muestra canas, la arruga en mi frente de levantar la ceja desde que era bebe está cada vez más marcada. Los años de sentarme junto al teléfono esperando una llamada quedaron atrás. Los he cambiado por años sentada junto a mi amor y mi perra bajo una manta. Por músculos fuertes de caminar horas, bajo el sol o la lluvia, kilómetros sin fin entre árboles y montañas, entre mesas y cocina y la barra de un bar. 

He cambiado las barbies por bolígrafos, los dinosaurios por un teclado, pero el espíritu es el mismo: jugar, soñar, contar historias. Ahora tengo mi casa, y ya no leo historias a la luz de una linterna bajo las mantas para que mamá no lo sepa, las leo en el móvil bajo las mantas para no molestar a mi pareja. 

He cambiado, sí, mucho. Ahora estoy más calmada, respiro más y mejor, los años me han dado perspectiva, los problemas tienen otro tamaño. Y tuve problemas, problemas grandes, soledad, perder una casa (dos), mantener en mi vida a quien no debía, a quien no me quería, perder a algunos que quería mucho, que se fueron a donde yo no podía seguirles. Hubo gente que me hizo mucho daño, pero de eso solo quedan cicatrices y aprendizajes. 

He cambiado, pero ciertas cosas siguen igual. Mis ganas de vivir, mi sed de aventuras, sólo han crecido. Dormir bajo las estrellas, contando perseidas, perseguir tarántulas y cazar ranas, correr por las calles de Madrid, descubriendo rincones, y esas noches de besos a cuatro, de sexo sin miedos, aquella noche de moros con mi novio y mi no-novia, con alcohol en las venas y algodón en la cabeza. 

Treinta años, y eso me da miedo. Siempre he tenido miedo de estar malgastando el tiempo, de no estar viviendo cosas que luego me arrepentiré de no haber vivido, me asomo al abismo y me da vértigo. Por eso tengo que pararme de vez en cuando y hacer recuento, porque he vivido, estoy viviendo. Este año nos perdimos con las bicicletas, sin agua, bajo el sol de junio. Nos escapamos a Valencia una noche, a cantar karaoke y tocar Marte. 

Caminamos bajo las estrellas tras 30 km, ese día nos sentamos en un tronco, medio helados, y no muy seguros de dónde estábamos, sólo para comer un bocadillo viendo la niebla.

Pasamos 8 días comiendo comida hecha en un hornillo y durmiendo en una tienda de campaña que parecia una casa, en especial para las arañas, corriendo por el monte y follando casi en público, y jugando con pistolas de agua como si fuéramos niños. Y aquella noche de Enero que nos escapamos al campo a ver como caían estrellas fugaces, congelados y abrazados, en una noche sin luna, comiendo un bocadillo. He comido comida tradicional senegalesa.

Este año ha sido bueno. 

Treinta años hago mañana, y que sigan viniendo. 

Goodbye

You told me stories of times long past, and bounced me on your knee. You gave me love and hugs and chocolate biscuits. I will always remember how you would build a tent under a fig tree, for me to play on those long, lazy summer days. How you would have freshly squeezed orange juice for me every Thursday. Little details, like the way you'd make malt drink every morning, the lemon syrup you so liked to treat me with, the strength of your hands, so big, holding mine. The scent of your shaving products, the sound of your laughter.

I wanted to call you, to tell you that I cared, I thought I would get another chance. May angels lead you in, gramps. I will always love you.

The loop

There I was, sitting on the street, waiting for my ride home, when I saw the future him. Tattered and dishevelled, lost, confused, broke and broken. With a hoarse voice he talked, eyes hazy, yet with an intelligence buried beneath all the smoke, like a sun hiding behind the clouds. He talked, and I listened, and I felt this sadness overcome me, because he's what's to come.

It's a dull, muffled pain, as though it came from a life past, from a different point in the loop of life and death, a different name, a different face, the same soul.

I gave the man some food that he didn't really want (the money, I just need the money, I can buy the food myself). I saw the way life ravaged his body, tore his insides out, and wondered at what point he became such a ghost of himself. Maybe in a room full of smoke and trash bags. Wondered then if it was a moment, if there was a before and an after, a point in time where he was irretrievable from the fog. Wondered if anyone could have stopped it, wondered if anyone would have cared, if he was alone because he burned through people like matches.

The man left and I watched him go, wobbling like the street was made of jelly.

The fight is never over.

You looked so frail, in your hospital gown, barely able to breathe, talking to people who weren't there in a language that wasn't yours. Memories of childhood and war seemed to find their way to your mind, in the shape of bullets and the sound of blasts. I thought, that last time I held your hand, that it would be the last forever, that I would never be able to look into your clear blue eyes again. How glad I am that I was wrong, that the same strength that keeps me walking is running through your veins. Ste yuj, yu gonplei no ste odon. 

V day

Day after day, I walk with you. With our secret words and our full conversations in just one look. With the feeling that for once, I'm not alone.

The way you get me is uncanny. It's like you see inside my head, as though you have the ability to look into my eyes and find my soul in there, and you see it, not just look at it. And you push me, oh man, do you push me. You see me for me, you love me for me, and you have such confidence in me that you, without words, without actually doing anything, push me to become the better version of me. Because when I see how you so blindly believe that I can do something, I somehow become convinced that I can.

I love that about you.

See, it's great, I know that I can be myself around you, that I'm safe like I don't think I've ever felt before with any other human, but at the same time, I know I can be anything. I fucking know. Where before I felt (or I was told) I had to be something else, be better, be good enough (which I never could), I feel good enough now, and funnily enough, that makes me want to improve.

You helped me find my wings, and I learned to trust them.

And I know, I know that you have my six as I have yours. I know that no matter what, shitty or good, every day ends with my head on your chest, with my lips on your skin, with your tongue licking my sex. My soul rests easy in the knowledge that you are with me in the sunny days, but also in those gray, rainy ones. And together we learned to dance in the rain, to look for the rainbow, to create one when we can't find it.

You are my best friend, my lover, my partner in crime, my traveling companion, and in this trip the journey is what matters, not the destination, because all my futures are with you.

A chuisle mo chroí

And now the heart beats. It beats fast, a quick, unsteady rythm against the wall. Cheek pressed against the cold tiles, the metallic scent of blood, velvet against my tongue. The feel of your skin on my throat, the danger of your teeth so close, so close.

The heart beats, stuttering, drenching me. It's building up, growing, like a living thing between us. Silent pleas, hushed whispers, summer's gone but it's scorching in here. My body hums and vibrates, the danger of cold metal against my skin, so close, so close.

Desire trickles down my legs, you lick it off me, I'm insane with need. Inside it's burning me, branding me, this thing between us that never seems to cease. Three years on the making, this picture that you paint on me, in red, black and blue, beautiful flowers blooming where your fingers grab my hips. Bruising me oh, so good.

And my heart beats.