Letters to Alex

The beauty on your face is seldom inspiration, seldom obsession. Something pretty in the end.

October 3rd, 2020.
Era jueves, y no tenía otra opción que pensar en ti.

Salimos a caminar y yo te mostraba la ciudad. Parece que te agrada. Parece que te agrado. Así han sido estos días, un tanto alocados y un tanto bizarros. Una especie de sueño, sí. Me parece que era jueves, pero pudo haber sido un martes.

Tu silencio me atrapa y me cuenta tantas cosas. Imagino vidas enteras contigo entre la el movimiento de tus párpados. Han sido unos doce parpadeos y yo te sigo queriendo, aquí a mi lado.

Escríbote esto no sé muy bien porqué, pero me hace sentir bien. Parece que debería ser más complicado, aunque también parece que no. Parecen las cosas, y parecen otras cosas, pero si estoy aquí, contigo, no lo parecen tanto, solo lo son.

Hemos visto un gato pasar por ahí y ahora llevamos unos minutos acariciándolo. Su pelaje es bello y gris, pero se ve azul con la luna. La luna está linda; es octubre al fin.

A veces pienso y sigo pensando. Soledad, martirio, y confusión. Otras cosas también, pero un poco menos. No lo sé muy bien, pero es posible que no hay mucho que saber. Tal vez lo hay pero lo desconozco, no es más que un sinsentido. Todo asemeja un sinsentido a decir verdad, en especial con este gato que nos ve tan dulcemente.

Seguimos caminando y llegamos a un café. Ponderamos un minuto si entrar o seguir caminando. La cuidad es linda, pero la idea de tomar un café tomados de la mano lo es también. Podría ser fácil pero no lo es. No todo lo es aunque lo sea, y aquí seguimos pensando.

Entramos al fin. Pido un espresso en las rocas y tú un americano. Se nos antoja que aquí sirven buen café, pero lo descubriremos.

Sorbo y te veo y la dificultad de todo se disuelve en el café. Solo están tus ojos.

Me haces sentir bien, y no es por lo que eres, sino por lo que quiero que seas, pero eso está bien, soy consciente. Solo creo que me da igual. Qué más da al fin lo que seas o no seas “en realidad”, al fin veo lo que veo y lo que veo seguiré viendo. Otro día podré ver otra cosa, pero qué más da si hoy no es así. Entretengo escenarios bellos, y ¿a quién debo darle el gusto de ser imparcial en mis entretenimientos?

Seguimos bebiendo el café y vemos por la ventana el gato que habíamos dejado atrás. Se ve feliz, aún sin nosotros, y nosotros también, aún sin él. ¿Acaso quítale algo eso a la belleza de nuestro encuentro?

October 13th
I would be lying if I said that I am over you. I don’t like lying to myself, and I try hard to avoid it. Still, I find that I lie to myself often, and the fact of you and me itself was in many ways a reflection of that.

I am incomplete, as most of us are. I have a long journey ahead, and although I must say I am advancing constantly and getting to know myself better, delusions are powerful, because through them we can, at times, feel real and strong. Maybe I am not real, and maybe I am not strong, but those few days, with you, I was. A cynic might say it was just an illusion. It was, and I would still reply “so what?” It was a beautiful illusion, but then it was never there.

I wanted us to be so many things so strongly, because I still lack them, and I am still learning to cope with living and being me. We could’ve figured it all out, maybe, or so I tell me at times like this. Learning to live without you, and without anyone for that matter will prove difficult but essential. It was good that you left, although I think you could’ve stayed.

Oh, but there is something deceitful with all the stories that could’ve been. Reality feels an arbitrary diversion from them, but in actuality they are an arbitrary diversion of our minds. We—I—entertain these scenarios not because of the usefulness of entertaining them, but because of the fear of not entertaining something. I still look at you when I look in the mirror, right beside me, inside me, being me. I think I am starting to learn why.

You came at a point when good and bad things we’re happening, and you fit my narrative of success and struggle. I miss those feelings, but they are not limited to you. For some days they will be, but I will have to learn to live without you, because it was I that thought myself to live with you, and fooled me into going all the way.

I don’t regret a thing, but that is categorical. To what service or even how would I pull off wanting to have done something different, when it was all that I did, and nothing else. I will never have had done something different, and in that some deep beauty shows itself.

Another element to add to the complexity is your lack of disappearance. Have you died, for instance, it would be easy not feeling the urge to talk with you and try to fix things, because I wouldn’t have that option. You are not ready, you told me, and that carries some strong connotation. Not many things are not ready and explicitly not possible if they don’t expect to be ready sometime. Your image still exists in my mind, but its meaning is changing, as I have this contradictory urges to both move on and stick around, as I switch between what we were, we could still be, or could’ve been.

Life moves in one direction, unequivocally and absolutely, but I still feel and see many directions and pathways in my head. That is beautiful in its own way. Although I cannot longer think clearly, although you have infected all my thoughts, blurred my observations, taken hold of my emotions, it is still as pretty as the day I met you, it just happens to be much more painful.