February 15th
Dear Friend,
Sometimes I don’t know who you are and you may, after reading this letter, think the same thing. We seldom say the truth now if it is not to sell it: we’re spiritual prostitutes, quite frankly. Today, though, I decide to give myself away completely, in the name of those dead fires; in the name of all those yesterdays.
I used to be more like a human being before my personal war, and now I am forced to act like a machine, maybe obligated by my own limitations, I do not know. And since you have been part of that fatal transition and loss of my beloved humanity, these words shall be dedicated to you.
It has been quite a while since I feel. I mean, really feel, not just the air I must breathe, a bite of a flavorless strawberry or the floor I am standing on right now. I used to feel a lot; I might have even said in more passionate, terrible days, that I felt TOO MUCH. I know now that there is no such thing. One can never feel too much, even when it is such an oppressive experience that one cannot think or act rationally. Even then, it is not too much, but enough. I realize now that when our nerve endings are about to jump out of our skin, then we are finally living and not before that.
And now that numbness has occupied my senses, now that my nerves and brain are permanently half-asleep is that I grasp how fortunate I used to be, and how fortunate I hope I will be again, someday. Not everyone can feel everything at the same time, not everyone can feel a few moments so much that it hurts, but always in a masochistically pleasurable way. Sometimes a tear might make you feel more alive than a thousand untroubled breaths. Sometimes black and white are so much livelier than a deep, horrible, non-responsive shade of gray.
One of these times is today. Every war ever fought has made me stop trying, stop feeling, stop fighting. Every star not reached has made me numb, and tired, and bored. Battles were sure lost and stars were out of reach, but I used to keep on pushing myself to another day, another way around the storm. Now, I am a breathing machine exhausted from picking up the pieces, patching holes or figuring how a thousand fragmented truths can make sense as a whole. Even more terrible is the fact that I think I got sick of feeling. I burned myself in an arsonist attempt to be the heroine of my own epic tragedy, and I, as it was to be expected, turned into ashes. I was never the heroine, but at least I was a character in an adventure, I was more than dust.
But now that I have come to think of it, I do want to feel. The thing is, once one decides to put up a wall and stops trying to mend it, it is hard to go back. Right now I would much rather have an eternally-bleeding wound than sit here remembering all the times I had to heal it in the past. I would much rather swim through the flood than stare at the sky in search for the end of the drought.
I also used to have the ability of endlessly expressing love, and more importantly, of feeling it. I used to love freely, without guilt, without restraint. Now my eyes tell the truth, but my lips cannot distinguish it from the lies that now seem so fashionable. My mouth moves and something foreign to me comes out: something in another language, something that may not even mean anything at all.
I guess this fragmented, decadent world has gotten the best of my spirits. I am isolated from everything and everyone, I am alone. I am alone and I cannot even feel lonely. I do not remember how to tell you the truth – my truth – anymore. And so I had to force myself into my room and force my hand into putting pen to paper and writing the words you are now reading. I have no faith anymore, even though I want to. I want to believe that our destiny is decided by ourselves and not by a God who does not love us. I want to believe in you.
I wish I could live intensely ever after, but I know it is not possible. All I ask for are single moments of frantic, lovely heartbeat; of plenitude. I know one cannot make spiritual fulfillment, a Nirvana of the heart, last very long, but in their ephemeral nature lies the magic of these emotional explosions. I want my heart to implode and explode, to crash and burn, to shake and to shiver like a scared child again.
Oh, my dear friend, I miss a good laugh: a genuine, wonderful laugh that exists just because! The words of pure, beautiful, exciting, new love! I miss the days when it all fit together, and I would change this lack of feeling for that anytime. I would trade places with the most miserable of abandoned lovers just to feel my heartbeat once again. Heaven! It is heaven to cry with such truth in your eyes that you cannot hold it, with such a powerful sorrow that it could move mountains! Oh, how I miss those moments of perfect romance – and I miss us.
I miss an “us” that is no more: the “us” that could communicate with just a few words, the “us” that could give away anything without hesitating, the “us” that made the cold world look small and the warm sky look big and bright. Oh, I have forgotten the way we used to look at each other! Could it be possible for us to give birth again to those dead fires?
Me
Amaneceres Líricos 