Vou encher a nossa casa de plantas. E espero que as plantas se enchem de aranhas, flores e aromas.

    Irei piratear sorrisos sempre que possa, e ter a calma que não recebi, e que recebi.

 

 Ontem comprei impulsivamente. Como já não fazia há anos, peguei e paguei com uma tal ímpeto de quem não quer racionalizar o assunto. Deu-me até alguma adrenalina. A urgência de quem não se quer confrontar a si própria, temendo um ralhete. 

 Comprei um colar, com um pingente particular, a cabeça de uma medusa, muito detalhada, com cada cobra com direito á sua própria expressão.

 Aquela quinquilharia tocou-me em algo tão primitivo e frágil, que por consideração, deixei o instinto tomar total controlo sobre esta decisão.

 Eu sei o que a medusa simboliza. Eu agora sei porque a comprei, e tenho pena de que ontem, tenha tido medo da minha reação, como se por entender o motivo, fosse privar-me deste brinquedo.

 Fiquei triste.

 Talvez parte de mim ainda não se consiga libertar da injustiça que sofreu no passado, embora veja o quão longe já chegámos. 

 Mas a verdade é que no fundo eu sei, e sinto, que essas injustiças persistem, todos os dias, para muita gente. E não parece ser tão relevante como deveria, face ao estado atual do mundo.

 Há tanta gente a sofrer, tantas causas, tanto choro. E eu escuto, tantas vezes, impotente.

 Eu sei o que a medusa simboliza, tal como sei o que o alfinete simboliza, e quero que, no fundo, quem está a passar por algo, saiba, que eu sei também, e que não estão sozinhas no mundo. Como uma porta aberta.

Torna-se quase como um berro, para a maioria silencioso. E que melhor grito interno, do que utilizar a cabeça de uma medusa ao pescoço.

 Sempre gostei da sensação agreste das pedras sobre os meus pés. 

Algo que me chama a terra, algo que por segundos, abafa o que se passa dentro e fora de mim.

Mas quando era muito nova, lembro-me de não gostar da água fria do mar.

Foi algo que me ensinei a gostar. Como me ensinei a gostar de insetos, como me ensinei a gostar de pessoas.

Nos últimos dias, nas ultimas semanas, nos últimos anos tenho sentido a necessidade de mergulhar em água fria e pisar as pedras dos rios. 

Adorava que este texto fosse sobre o que se passa no mundo, como uma fotografia, um registo, mas vou apenas admitir que não o consigo fazer. Sou limitada pelos filtros com que absorvo e os filtros como que transmito. Posso dizer a verdade, que a inquietação cresce todos os dias. A frustração de perpetuarem um genocídio aprovado pelo governo, em meu nome, e em nome de todos nós, sem ninguém o ter aprovado. 

A forma como as empresas saem impunes quando são apanhadas a utilizar trabalho escravo infantil, quando são apanhadas e poluir rios, solos, o ar, quando são apanhadas a privar as populações das praias e dos seus espaços públicos, POR DIREITO, quando são apanhadas a subornar, a envenenar, a trair a humanidade. Nada lhes acontece. Mas se alguém ousar atirar sopa para um quadro protegido por plástico, ou criticar um genocídio, pode ir preso, vai pagar caro, é inadmissível.

Tentei não me tornar cínica. Mas não vejo se não cinismo na palavra inadmissível. 

Com que então é AQUI que colocam o vosso limite? Canalhas, monstros, farrapos de humanidade. 

Não tencionava escrever algo belo, ou com um significado profundo, só quero voltar a escrever, perder a vergonha, novamente. Aqui está. 

I don’t like the silence as much as I say I do. It creeps in at night when the lights are low, and Echo curls against my feet. I sit there, wrapped in too many blankets and not enough warmth, thinking of people I’ve loved. Of him, sometimes. Not often, but when I do, it’s not his face I remember. It’s the way his laugh filled the room, the way he looked at me like I was the last good thing in a world coming apart.

And then there’s her
the one who stayed too long in my head after the night we kissed. She smelled like rain and summer, and she left without the typical sighs of seasonal change. I wonder if she still tries to keep her forever-dying plants alive whenever she remembers to water them. If she remembers the way my hands shook when I touched her face for the first time.

God, I miss them all sometimes, all my lovers, all my friends, like missing a song you can’t quite hum. They’re gone, but they’ve left echoes, little traces in the way I laugh or cry or hold my own hand when I’m scared.

And I miss my mother.
She’s everywhere and nowhere. In the flowers I buy but forget to water. In the way I braid my hair when I need to feel safe. She told me once that the world doesn’t owe us kindness, so we have to make our own. I try. Some days, I fail. Some days, I forget how. Some days, I'm kind.

And what about the beauty of the world?
The beauty that goes behind the sunsets or paintings or perfectly arranged bouquets. The beauty that is in the cracks. The moments when someone drops their guard, and you see them, really see them, for the first time. The girl on the bus crying into her sleeve. The old man singing softly as he weeds his garden. The quiet, messy, mundane things no one notices but that hold the world together.

Closure

(She came back. finds him in the golden quiet of dusk, his silhouette framed by the fading light. When she speaks, her voice carries the weight of years.)


“I’m sorry.
For the way I left, for the wounds I didn’t mean to carve.
I was too high to see what I broke
or maybe I saw it and didn’t know how to stop.”

(He turns to her, slowly, and his gaze holds hers. There’s no anger there, only a tired softness.)

“You didn’t break me.
You just showed me where I was already cracked.”

(Her breath catches, and for a moment, the words falter in her throat. When she finds them, they are quieter, gentler.) 

“I thought of you so often,
but not as a memory I wanted to keep tucked away.
I thought of you as someone I wronged.
You deserved better than the girl I was then.”

(He shakes his head, and his smile — barely there — is something between understanding and a challenge.) 

“You weren’t a girl. We were just all unfinished.
And maybe I deserved to be shaken.
You made me see that life is bigger than the safe walls I built around myself.
I hated you for it, once. But not anymore.”

(She steps closer, tentatively, as if unsure of her place now. Her voice trembles, but only slightly.)

“And now? What do you see when you look at me?”

(He studies her, really studies her, and it’s a long time before he answers.)

“I see a woman.
Not the muse I painted in my mind,
but someone real.
I see your scars, some healed, some still open.
I see the tiredness in your eyes,
the kind that only comes from carrying too much for too long.
And I see... strength, even in the softness.” 

(She exhales, the sound almost like a laugh, but too heavy to rise.) 

“You make me sound like a ruin.
A tired ruin, barely standing after so much weather.” 

(His brow furrows, and there’s something almost fierce in his reply.)

“No, not a ruin. 
A landscape. 
Not something broken, but something shaped, 
by storms, by fire, by time. 
You’re still shifting, still becoming. 
And maybe now, I’m finally seeing you as you are, 
not as I wanted you to be.” 

(She looks down, her hands twisting together, but when she speaks again, her words are quieter.) 

“I don’t know who I am yet. 
I thought I did once, but now... now it feels different. 
The changes come slower, but they are still coming. 
And I’m so tired of trying to outrun them.”

(He steps closer, his voice soft but steady.)

“Maybe you don’t have to run anymore. 
Maybe now you can let them find you, 
let them shape you without tearing you apart.” 

(She looks up at him then, and for the first time, there’s something lighter in her gaze — a flicker of hope, or maybe just relief at being seen.) 

“And you? 
What have you become in all these years?” 

(He shrugs, but there’s a quiet pride in the motion.) 

“Different. 
Not as wild as you, 
but not afraid of the fire anymore. 
I’ve been tired too, 
but I’ve learned that tired doesn’t mean done. 
It just means it’s time to move differently.” 

(Her lips curve into a small, bittersweet smile.) 

“I’m glad you’re still you, 
but not the same you.” 

(He chuckles softly, the sound low and warm.) 

“And I’m glad you came back. 
Even if you don’t stay.” 

(Her smile fades, but only slightly, and when she speaks, her voice carries something unspoken, a thread of promise wrapped in uncertainty.)


“I don’t know where I belong yet. 
But maybe... maybe I’ll come back again. 
Soon.” 

(His gaze doesn’t waver, but there’s no pressure in it, only an openness she didn’t know she needed.) 

“I’ll be here. 
Not waiting. 
Just... here.” 

(She nods, taking a step back, and then another, until the shadows swallow her again. But before she leaves completely, she looks over her shoulder, and the words linger like the last light of dusk.) 

“Thank you... for seeing me.” 


(And then she’s gone, leaving behind the quiet echo of something unfinished — not a goodbye, but a pause in the story, waiting for the next chapter to begim.

O GAJO

 You speak, and your words twist the air into something I can’t breathe.

You shatter the image I held of you, an image I adored, perhaps too much.

 

I wanted you to be art,

because art doesn’t leave.

Art hangs still, waiting for its lover’s gaze,

offering its beauty without question or demand.

But you are not still. You are a storm,

and I am caught in its teeth.

 

Should I be hurt? I feel the sting,

like the echo of something I never truly had.

You were never mine, not really.

Not the way I thought.

I built a shrine to the idea of you,

and now you tear it down, brick by aching brick.

 

Yet in the midst of this destruction,

the emergence of this ruin,  

I feel like I see the truth for the first time

You are a wildness I have no claim to.

 

I am proud, though it frightens me.

You’re a flame too bright to hold,

and I feel the burn of knowing that you do not want to be held.

I see you now, not as my muse,

but as something untamed, unknowable.

And it terrifies me.

 

How do I love what I cannot contain?

How do I adore what refuses to be captured?

Perhaps the answer is simple: I don’t, I let go.

Not to lose you, but to free myself from this weight of trying to define you.

 

But still, I am selfish. I want to chase you. I want to own you

To learn your tempest, to stand in your rain. Make you the villain in my story.

But would that be enough for you?

Would it ever be enough?

 

So, I will not be angry. Angry would be a terrible word

I will not be afraid, not of you, nor of what I am losing.

Instead, I will stand here, proud and aching,

not watching you become the wildfire you were meant to be.

 

And if, one day, you look back,

Maybe I will still be here,

not to hold you down, neither to hold you up

but I'll be curious of what you consider to be your truth

A GAJA

 Don’t drape me in your sunlight, don’t carve my shadow into permanence.

I am not the canvas stretched to hold your fleeting dreams,

not the pedestal for your gentle sighs or your awe-heavy gaze.

I have worn your words like gold chains, forged in admiration,

and I have gleamed in this light, but tonight, I want the dark.

I want the untamed howl of a soul running free.

 

You call me art, perfect in the stillness of your eyes,

but I am not still. I am fire in the marrow,

lightning spilling down a mountain’s spine.

I am fleeting, feral, and unholy to your hands.

And you don’t even know me.

 

And maybe I’m in love, maybe I’m not

With this woman I’ve watched from the corner of my hunger,

her movements, soft poetry sharp enough to cut. Slice me open

She is a song I don’t know the words to yet, but I hum the melody

a prayer caught in the wind’s restless mouth.

I want to kiss her, touch her, see her, but first, I must touch myself, see myself

find the salt and earth and chaos in my own name.

 

Because what is love, if not truth given wild? If not rust?

What is desire, if not a mirror? If not a flame?

She is a symphony that I want to play, but I must first tune my strings,

pull and twist them, all the questions I have yet to answer.

 

She set my soul on fire; I’ve cradled it in my trembling hands.

But how can I give her my heart if it still beats to a rhythm I cannot follow?

How can I hold her, when I still slip through my own fingers?

 

Call me strange, call me untethered,

say my name like it doesn’t belong to you, because it doesn’t.

I am no muse, no porcelain figure in a lover’s myth.

I am a tempest caught mid-spin, a thing of breaking and bending,

a hymn that doesn’t ask to be understood.

 

Let me walk this path, let me scatter my pieces in the wild places,

and when I gather myself back, I will not be whole, not perfect,

but mine.

 

And when that day comes, when I meet her in the dawn,

I will not be a mystery, a thing to be admired.

I will be raw, true, untamed.

Not her muse, not her fascination,

but her equal.