Don't play that song

 

The first time I was surprised. And the conversation was an excuse to say that you liked to be around, that you wanted to get to know me better, and because I was so withdrawn, because I kept myself distant and cold, because I was so averse to a simple conversation, then, much later, you came back, you sat down, after asking if you could sit down, I was reading Freud, but Freud never seemed so boring to me,  so inadequate, Nietzsche, Mircea Eliade, I forced myself to go on, trying to ignore what your presence was doing to me, that distracted me from my intentions, I asked for another coffee, I ran away from your gaze and it remained, I felt it through the laterality, the disguise that forced me, so that you wouldn't realize that it bothered me to hold your gaze, without my heart smiling and, little by little, I let him feel, without punishing him, without giving him coordinates or directions,  And when I looked at you, I tried to make sure that you were looking around, talking around to someone else to watch you, and I memorized the way your hair touched your earlobe, I memorized the mark you had on your upper lip, I memorized the shape of your frank smile, the eyelashes and the eyes, their color and shape,  I memorized everything, I scrutinized, I investigated, I focused my attention, I turned my focus to your arms, your neck, the way you held your coffee cup, your jokes, and I was already able, in the dark of my room, to draw your faithful portrait, of the outline of your legs and thighs, but your hands were birds in the night, I forgot Freud, all of them, although I often used them as an excuse to calm down, and others as advice on the next step,  if it was going to happen, if it was going to happen. The terrace was the setting, the perfect excuse to see you arrive, me with my nose in the books, in the photography course, but inside it was the poetry that would be established. The blind spots, the perspective, the lens and the lenses, it was urgent to hold your gaze, to record everything, if it didn't all end, suddenly, as if a flood came from the world and took you away. And then, there were many later, between invitations to Guimarães, to nature, to the ice cream parlor in Foz that was pleasant to see the sea with you as a background image, that the frame of memory does not ignore the context and motivation between the lines of my rational thought and the urgent beating of my heart, galloping in my chest. And on that ride, where we were mere voyeurs, hitchhiking, in the back of the vehicle, Francisco at the wheel and Ana in the place of the dead man, we did many kilometers, many countries, it sounded like five minutes, you gave me my first kiss and I forgot Freud, Hemingway, the photograph, Rui's anxiety, the disconnection called family, I even forgot that I had fears, I forgot that I was a girl, between your mouth and mine I could only register eternity. And then, many years after that kiss, you were still there, holding my hand, anchoring me to your chest, from the top of Monte Crasto to the top of the Castle in Moimenta, and I was still a girl inside, but on the outside it was already noticeable in me that the woman would not be long in arriving, in making her entrance into the joy that came to make a landing, not as my mother repeated to me, the illusion and fantasy, the curse of repeating her life, which I next to you I believed to be like a daily state of being. And then, much later, in the pain of loss, you were there, Grandpa Rodrigo said goodbye to life, to the land, of the humans around, and it was with me that you were. And you gave a name to silence, you made yourself constantly present, and then, soon after, the earth wanted to eat my joy, all of it, in one gulp, in one stroke, as it had done before, when Ruizinho said goodbye, when joy hovered like a summer sky, at the end of the season of fruits, the fruit disappeared into the earth,  a thirsty autumn, and at that time when I too wanted to leave, you were there, to hold me, to tear me from the consecutive pain, To the nightmare that avenged and you offered me the whole of you, and defended me when the first blackmail came, when emotions ran through the house, sustained themselves between the ceiling and the floor, where everything was a memory of the child that Saturn stole from me. And then, you covered me with kisses, hugs and hugs, day by day, year by year, the pain was replaced by longing, and longing never dies. I knew it when I lost my father, i always knew that when we are robbed of hope, no matter how many alliances we make with the future, the decree of loss is internal, it walks with us everywhere, as well as the most beautiful memory of yours that continues, and then, then, I lost you and when I lost you, I lost myself, so many years, so many, more than fingers and toes can count, I lost myself until I leaned against the wall,  until I looked in the mirror, until I was catapulted into the beach of fear, on top of a rock in the Castro de Sampaio, where I believed I had buried the pains I had kept, Along with the present pains, all the pains coexisting, that afternoon, all flying over the sea in a hurry, the chapel, the fort, I buried myself that day, when the betrayal came to my hands, that it was official, that it came from what I considered to be more loyal and faithful.

And then, even though I continue to revisit the philosophers and the liturgies, Freud, Jung, Spinoza and so many others, I know that who I was was left somewhere, between Sampaio's Castro and Sartre's existentialism, with the pain that accompanies the agony of seeing days being born, without your company. After all, eternity doesn't have to wait. Me neither. And first the joy is strange, then it sinks in, and then, well, then someone came along and told us that it was all a play, that it was a simulation, an act of vileness, just as my progeny had announced to me. That joy is not lifelong, that love is not eternal, if it cannot look into your eyes or enjoy your company. 

And then, the vultures prowl the night, stalk my thoughts, and then I continue to be the same, to keep only what is good to keep, to live in isolation, to daydream, because I have lost all joys, but I still have your photograph left. And she's the one who saves me and pushes me into another day.