I never got rid of the grief within me.
This disconnection between my toes and my hands.
The adult glance, the merry youthful movements and indiscretions.
For what can I not forgive myself?
That I was given a package full of sorrow and accepted the camouflage?
That I had no conscience whatsoever once?
The head of a rose ensnares the anatomy of my heart.
I think of their lips and how they never loved me.
And I remember all the times I walked myself home.
Have I no right to have peace?
Am I not allowed to enjoy my very own presence
After I exhausted all my other options?
I walk past the auburn leaves as they are trampled on across the sidewalk.
I trample on them too, and call it love, love for the sound, that crispy delight,
Don’t my harsh soles, worn-out, accelerate their disintegration exposed on the tarmac?
Is it not me, or has it not been me being knocked over by the familial shoe?
I always dragged my face out of the mud and disaster and lovelessness.
I wandered everywhere trying to find those three words, without shedding light into myself.
I grew up without their sound, with the incapacity, with sincere condolences, reasons.
I’m the one with all the questions and the shovel extreme.
I look under carpets, mats and rocks and I always find all the pieces that belonged to me.
I cannot stomach emptiness, joylessness, my face in grieving distortion.
I refuse to mourn the loss of me, the words that were never given to me,
Until I slammed on doors and howled across deracinating winds, shoving my face
Into parental memories. Only I may see the invisible tears the past had caused.
I refuse to call it over, me, no I lived on and on, my face engulfed in muddy deformations.
I carried a torch within me and a basket to put myself back together again.
“Vittoria Colonna” by Cristofano dell’Altissimo (1525-1605)
