A series of depressive poems soon to be published by Editorial Torremozas' poetic anthology "New Voices" (2023). Originally written in Spanish, translated to English by me.
I. Aspirations
I think I could have a life of
sustainable detergents
baptisms
medical check-ups
white vacations
some surprises
like the first steps of a little girl
that I could call daughter
or little scares too
like dreaming of a well
like hanging out the laundry and smelling the rain.
At times I think I could
weave something like patience
make calm grow like a loaf of bread
emptying the wait of its contents and rest
sitting on a shady porch
admiring the black horses
like statues among the hay or white swans skating on
the impervious surface of a green lake...
But inside I am on fire
as I wait
for things to start, for someone to assign me
a turn: I find myself always ecstatic.
I can't look in the mirror without splintering like ice.
I can't see a long street
without wanting to fly out of the window and crash
into the endless sky.
II. " Escape thoughts" which is not the same as "suicidal thoughts."
At times I forget that I could be somewhere else....
The possibility exists: the window is a few steps away from this bed.
The possibility exists
of packing everything and leaving or simply
pack nothing and leave too,
walking down the same street as always
and leave the washing machine running
the lights on
leave someone with my name
in their mouth.
But even to disappear,
to run away like I want to
I suspect, one must have a plan...
Where to now?
The question already haunts me like a shadow.
I don't know! I don't know!
Let's turn around
undo the path, change your mind, go back.
Repent.
Kiss your husband on the forehead
caress your cat
take a nostalgic look at the kitchen tiles.
Apologize: no, this is not where I wanted to leave from.
no, it wasn't you that I wanted to escape from
this was not the escape I imagined.
I am a small world and I can only stretch to a certain point.
I reach the borders of myself and I can barely touch them with my finger...
To leave that way... a few seconds are enough...
the window is a few steps away from this bed.
The possibility exists, I can imagine it, and yet
I dare not.
I only treasure the sensation
-of floor, of flight, of air-
like a presentiment.
III. A wish
In an alternate world,
unknown, perpendicular to this one,
that may only exist beneath the streets,
in the drains or inside the mirrors of certain houses
and which can only be reached unintentionally
by falling into a hole:
It is a magnificent night.
Before, it was a white and luminous day.
We dance tightly and drink sweet wine
in a garden with emerald trees
frogs shining like lanterns.
We don't have to go to sleep.
We look into each other's eyes and they sparkle.
It's a magnificent night of a summer that never ends....
The world seems infinite and everything beautiful
unquestionable.
IV. Thumbelina
I have a tiny life
that takes place only under the lamps
or at the foot of certain beds,
that I leave hanging over the dining room chairs,
on the threshold of doors
in the cupboards and the closets.
Only to sleep I strip myself of it.
I get rid of its heaviness and leave it lying
crumpled up on the dark floor...
I enter the sleep like an animal in the forest
crawling, exhausted, trembling,
I reach the soft field of my bed
and when I close my eyes
I am something new:
white, plain, like cold porcelain....
but with no shape to cage me
no weight to burden me
with nothing more than a dream that expands
under the sheets and at the back of my eyes.
V. Regreso
Did I exist that day and walked, majestic and young, along that white street at dawn?
Did I survive one more night of fluorescent party and force myself to sleep on pink sheets?
I am still on that bed waking up, with the hope of having proved something to myself...
If I go back:
Will I see myself leaning out of a window thinking I deserve a place in this world?
Or does only a dark and impatient street awaits me?
A closed window or worse, an empty one.
Something very sad occurs to me:
places don't remember
the people we were in them.
VI. An emptiness full of things
There are things that grow to the measure of a fault
like a well, a pit or a hole:
it exists only because it is empty
because it contains an absence.
I try to fill it.
radishes, whole wheat bread, digestive teas; flowers like lavender or milk jasmine, carpeted chairs, long lamps, shirts with mother-of-pearl buttons, leopard and black patent leather shoes, peach juice, cans of coke, a million cigarettes, psychoanalysis sessions, stupid desires like a new tattoo, fleeting and weak hobbies, numerous drugs of all kinds, plants that will die sooner or later and whose name I never learned, glassy words like future, books and books even if they bore me, even if they make me feel sad and lonely and only exist on my bookshelf to remind me that I haven't read them but above all, that I don't want to do so...
I accumulate days like dirty dishes.
As soon as they arrive, I throw them
back, like a bridal bouquet
and I listen to them
at the end of the absence,
how they break
into a thousand little white pieces.
It is insatiable, but I don't blame it.
I understand that its manhole nature,
long, empty and dark
prevents him from doing anything else.
VII. Remoteness
Days like empty pockets, I reach in and pull out
crumbs, tickets, coins.
I don't see them coming
I don't understand their shape
I don't know where they start or where they end...
I only have a window that lights up and darkens
it dictates a strange rhythm that does not concern me
I'm not entirely alone either...
Love lies by my side, yes.
But I decided not to touch it.
I am elsewhere,
far from myself.
What is it like to speak from the edge of words?
from the center of a silence?
Inside all things and myself: nothing.
I am a radical and taciturn atheist.
VIII. No hard feelings
In my eternal condition of intern
apprentice
student
of not "good for nothing" but rather
"relatively good
for a few things very specific,
unprofitable and competitive".
always in the race for the attention
of the baby boomer on duty
who will decide how special I am how intelligent I am
how fresh is the perspective I bring to the project, to the table, to the meeting
where I am always sitting on the periphery
with a pen in my hand sometimes even
a notebook
just to disguise my role as a perennial listener,
I wonder:
Why do I get to the places I call
reward or desire and despise them?
Why does it make me so miserable to keep my promises?
The pilates instructor yells at me "I'm light and perfect like a ballerina!"
and me, that very same morning,
while watching an egg frying in a tiny frying pan
I thought I could put my hand in the fire.