colibri

We fell in love at the shore.

If the sea was the life ahead we were sitting in the sand, feet dipped in cold water, eyes set on the resting sun. The beach was our playground, the shore the stage where we would play our love. We were staying at the edge of forever with no intention of diving into the rest of our lives. Nevertheless, we stayed for the twilight. We watched the light fade into the water, slowly, patiently. The day was dying in the arms of the sea, yet all felt at ease.

There are many words I could have said then, before the last sun beams touched us, still I chose silence, my best feature. The golden hour suited him well and I wouldn’t dare to ruin it. He was laying in the sand, without a care in the world, picture perfect. I couldn’t bother to let him know how my heart was aching with every passing minute, how the indisputable briefness of our affair was slowly drowning me. I couldn’t fight it, instead I laid still, by his side.

We had been doomed from the sunrise, there was no denying, still we stayed for sunset. That’s a memory worth saving and a love story on it’s own.

I loved you once.

We were kids who didn’t knew better and jumped fearlessly onto cold water on hot summer days. I would tell you all about my hopes and dreams and we would drown our fears while we picked fruit from the trees of your grandma’s backyard.

I loved you twice.

In the bliss of our teens, we would kiss in the shadows of spring and hide from the pointing fingers of our companions. We were precious and only ours. We would say we were friends and hold hands behind our backs. We’d lie to protect the truth from unloving eyes.

I loved you three times.

As we said goodbye, I loved you the most. At the airport with teary eyes, wet cheeks and a runny nose, as they dispatched my luggage and you held me tight. A grey hoodie and fearful eyes. ‘It won’t be that difficult‘, ‘You’ll come see me and I’ll come see you‘. I spoke from the heart while I told you those lies.

I’ll love four, five, six times.

In the loneliness of my room, curled up in a sweater that belonged to you, with another boy by side, hand to hand with my past. I should know better by now, had I not loved you all those times before. The heart grows fonder in the distance and memories grow sweeter in time. You’ll always have my heart.

There’s this pit in my stomach, I didn’t knew a void could feel so heavy. I should be hungry but my throat is closed. Eating feels like a burden and not a necessity. It isn’t cold in here, how come am I shivering? My forehead is burning, my eyes are heavy, I want to sleep, but I’m restless. I can’t seem to find the right compass to breath. No deep breath is deep enough to slow the pace of this frenetic heart. I wonder if it will get better soon, I just wish I could stop existing for a bit. Where can I hide? I can’t move much, not precisely. I can’t see properly either, everything is blurry. It’s almost as if I’m not in sync with my body. Do I look okay? Because I feel unsteady. I wonder if it shows. I hope it doesn’t. I can’t really put into words how I’m feeling or explain why I feel what I feel. Truth is, I’m clueless. On top of everything, I’m clueless. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment when I started to feel like this. I can’t explain what’s behind it. I’m going through my mind and I can’t seem to find any plausible reason for me to be anything other than absolutely fine. If all the books are right, I should be fine. Why is it that I’m not? Everyone tells me how I don’t have the age, the look, the conditions, the everyday life of someone who isn’t fine. It’s frustrating that I’m feeling something everyone tells me I’m not entitled to. Yet I do. Why is it that I’m not fine? If I can’t find the answer, no one else will validate my uneasiness. And I’m so tired of being alone in this.

I’ll just lay down for a bit, this will pass eventually, maybe in a few minutes I’ll feel better. I’ll just exist quietly for now, to make up for the noise inside. In a couple hours I’ll get up with tired eyes and a fatigued body, but I’ll be up. And that’s something.

So it’s April.

Spring is late, the rain is pouring outside, and all I wish is for this morning to last for a few more hours. If I could turn back the clock, I would, just so that I could sit here soaking up this feeling again.

I isn’t love, it’s falling.

But falling slowly makes the heart grow fonder. There’s no rush, time isn’t ticking, the clocks to have failed to wake up this morning. There’s only you and I, and all that’s left to do is to fall in the middle of spring.

And if when the time comes we’ve failed to reach love, there will be no regrets, the arrival is secondary when the fall is this tender.

I think I’ll miss late lazy mornings for the rest of my life, and there’s no sweeter gift than the briefness of a perfect moment.

Come back to bed.

Let’s keep falling.

(a memory, 04.18)

I went to college for a brief period of time, still I managed to find some good people there. There was this particular girl that really stood out to me. We used to catch the same train, although I’m not really one to start a conversation, we would sit together so often that we eventually befriend one another. Most of the times we would sleep through the whole journey, but sometimes we would talk about college, the books we were reading or just little nothings to fill in the silence. She was easy to talk to.

It was the beginning of my second year, from what I could gather her first year hadn’t been spectacular but she still thrived in spite of it. She was pretty, very quiet but approachable. Once you got to know her you would find out she was pleasantly nice and could even be a bit funny at times. Although she didn’t really seem to connect with anyone in particular, she got an invitation to all the gatherings. It was always a gamble, would she show up or not? But at the beginning of the second year, she started to show up. A lot. Everyone was excited about her different take on the new year and from outside, it looked like she was enjoying it as well.

Once, while at a party we talked briefly about it, she told me how she felt like she missed out on a lot on the first year and wanted to seize the college opportunity more. She sounded more cheerful than usual and had an excitement that would shine through her words. Still, something felt off. There was a certain emptiness in everything she said, almost as if she was convincing herself as much as she was convincing us.

I notice she started to stay over more often. She would go to parties and drink a little bit too much, she would get very talkative and slip up some information about her once in a while. No one really knew that much about her, so it was nice to find out little things. It still seemed like she wasn’t comfortable enough to talk freely, she didn’t want to talk about certain things, it seemed as if hopping she would forget them herself.

I really didn’t pay enough attention to notice when exactly it was that things started to turn south, but they did. She started cutting class so that she could sleep through the hangovers and she would only show up if there was a party later, otherwise she didn’t bother coming to college at all. Everyone still liked her, but her niche got smaller. She started to hang out with the girls that went out the most. There was nothing wrong with that, but it was a very different behavior from the previous year. You would see her often at six in the morning stumbling home, going through cigarettes like it was candy.

She ended up disappearing completely one day. We later found out she had a really bad break up. She was kind of alone, that boy often seemed to be the only reason she was still there and apparently that had been swept away. It was unfortunate that whole situation. It’s too bad such a nice girl would give herself up for a boy like that. I was always left with this sour taste in my mouth, I wish I could have been more of a friend to her. It seemed like she needed someone who would have dared to ask the right questions. She kept everyone at bay, so the truth is that there wasn’t much to be done. You can only get as close and someone will let you. I tend to do the same thing so I understand where she is coming from – the less they know, the less they can hurt you. But it also means that you’ll be left helpless eventually. And I guess that’s what happened to her.

I have no clue as where she could be now, but I hope she found her path and herself. I know that hindsight is 20/20 and what I know now I didn’t knew then, I can only learn from looking back. But I hope I can be more of a friend to the girls in my life today than I was to this girl before. Support them when they need it and call them out when they start to fall out of grace. Sometimes all you gotta do to help someone is dare to ask the right question.

The day you left
i remember thinking
I didn’t want to live
in a world
that doesn’t have you
in it.
But you exist
because I exist.
And I no longer believe
that fate took you
from me.
You were given
to me
for a brief moment.
All that’s left to do
is to be thankful
for our little infinity.