Silencios
Él cerraba los ojos y respiraba lentamente dejando fluir el aire por su ser mientras yo miraba por la ventana del 6o piso, mi vista volando por los edificios de fachadas rojas y techos putrefactos bajo el eterno cielo gris.
Apenas acabábamos y el silencio ya había entrado, haciéndose el invitado por unos momentos. Pero poco a poco la presencia de este ser invisible perduraba y perduraba y perduraba. Empezaba a pesar y se expandía, como la humedad proveniente del golfo en el verano tejano.
Al tratar de hablar, yo no sabía lo que decía. Solamente escupía pensamientos atolondrados y sin dirección. Lo que salía de mi boca eran sonidos con el simple objetivo de llenar el espacio. Él los tomaba en cuenta pero que se dice ante gemidos tan vacíos? Sus no respuestas eran un reflejo de mis no palabras.
No tenía nada original en la cabeza y mientras él fingía que meditaba, yo me volvía la esponja absorbente del silencio. Entre más silencio entraba a mis pulmones, nuestros cuerpos se volvían a encontrar, reemplazando las no palabras por gestos que solo tenían miles posibles interpretaciones, pocas de ellas a mi favor.
“Estás bien?” me preguntó, finalmente abriendo sus ojos y con una leve sonrisa que también movió los músculos de mi cara.
“Sí,” le respondí. “Lo único es que no tengo absolutamente nada que decir, nada que tenga sentido ni un gramo de importancia,” es lo que no me atrevo a decirle.
Una curiosidad infinita se despierta dentro de mi, imaginándome todas las cosas que retiene él en su mente. Tendrá conversaciones en la punta de su lengua? Cuentos? Cientos.
Pero en este eterno ahorita lo único que hay y se siente es su silencio y el mío.
Me estira la mano. Más bien la deja caer entre la mía. La quiero agarrar fuertemente, ojalá con eso le pudiera expresar todo lo que no puedo, todas las preocupaciones que estos meses de vida anti-social me han generado. No puedo decirlo. Ni siquiera está en la punta de mi lengua - todo está en la fosa de mi estómago, revolcándose.
No sale nada, ya ni sonidos. Nuestros dedos se abrazan, separando los sentimientos y pensamientos con dos gruesas capas de piel.
We’ve been told this is mead.
Submergence
A thousand scalding hot pins latch on to my skin, cutting through until they sear the bone. Everywhere I move they would brush against me, eating at me like the teeth of beautiful miniature piranhas.
Suddenly the white hot sensation turns into a desperate numbing that envelops every surface of my body save for my head. The tips of hair not long enough to be held up in my bun are drenched in lake water and become strands of flooded yarn.
My whole being compresses even as I grow aware that I am flailing under the surface. Every single pore, muscle, tendon tightening up to conserve whatever remnant of body heat left in me. Amid the movement I hear that flesh pump within, drumming to the rhythm of the tiny man-made waves around me.
Soothing.
The coils of tension dissipate, the goosebumps flatten. The fiery star above peers down, indifferent on the three swimmers that morning. To dive down, sink into, fall to the bottom of the lake is what I desire, what I long for. To feel the inner depths of this body of water wondering if someone had left the answers there for any of us three, of how to move forward.
More than anything, to submerge. As long as my head stays dry and my hair untouched, I could not say I had basked in the entirety of this promise. To lay down on the imagined sand at the bottom and gaze at the orange orb above. Would its rays jumpstart it all again?
From around here.
Growing Up
I’m nearing 27 and I still don’t know why adults hyped up the idea of wanting the earth to speed up in its dance around a dying star.
Did accountants dream of becoming living numbers when they were first losing their teeth? I’m not harping on them, hell I’d hire them if I made enough money to do so.
Maybe if they were the digit crunchers for rock and roll bands. I dreamt of that. To tour and pour the heart on the damn stage, at least watch from the side, feed off the madness.
They made paying taxes sound like fun, like when they put us in that “ciudad de niños” or “Junior Achievement City Experience” shit. Little orderly shops and houses and perfectly trimmed fake grass… that real life Connecticut suburb where aberration is a crime and originality goes to die. Is that where all the little children who dreamt of reaching the moon went to live?
I think I was 26 when I realized that I wasn’t cut out for the Mexican National Football Team but maybe I could still somehow find a way to referee the games. I wouldn’t play in the World Cup but fuck could I dream of red carding the damn bastards. Howard Webb was a cop in England before he ref’d that 2010 World Cup final. I ain’t putting a badge anywhere on me unless for the power trip and I don’t need that.
Politics? Hard pass, I’m trying to play video games until 3 a.m.
Our family went on roadtrips often, down winding stretches and hurling by millions of those desert spider trees that abounded in northern Mexico. To drive without end, could that be a job? Was a job something we decided to do to get paid? Just drive and meet people by accident and on purpose. Ultimately what was the difference?
I also wanted to be a doctor. Took only one semester of undergrad and a hundred gallons of alcohol to get rid of that dream. Cheers.
Swim official! Would I be penalized for bringing out my Nikon on deck?
At what age do these turn from dreams into unlived memories? is there an expiration year? From when I arrogantly, fantastically believed I could do it all to realizing that it’s now ever so slowly appearing in that rearview mirror.