Condemned

He was so hard to love because he found it so hard to love. Sometimes he would play tricks on himself and fall in love (or adoration?) with ones who would never love him back. He was her pocket-sized mirror, her wierd fish.

Él era su musa y un día quiso engargolarle todo lo que había escrito sobre su sombra, los laberintos de todas las palabras que nunca pudo decirle. De pronto desaparecieron las palabras. Todo lo que había alguna vez vaciado, brotante ambiguo del hoyo diamante de su panza, parecía el garabato mental de una niña delirando.

She couldn't give it to him. She couldn't say those words she really didn't understand, the "you are the sweetest child". She was tired of playing ping-pong and running to the other side of the table and grabbing his arm and playing for him. It was exhausting. Exhausting but not unfair because she asked him to play in the first place. She was running around in circles when in the end she was doing what she was condemned to do: leaving the ball in his court.

Cansada, cansada, cansada es la palabra. Desgastada y desperdiciada. Es como si él no existiera, porque todo el juego ha sido con ella misma. ¿Qué era el? Ésa es la pregunta importante. Una mañana se paró y sí pudo decirle que le causaba dolor. Él no entendió pero tampoco cuestionó, siguió con la no acción. Por fin la realidad la alcanzó y le pisó los talones y ella tropezó y salió del ensueño- despertó. Lo miró y se rio porque lo vio chico, insignificante al lado de ella, y le dijo un amable adiós. Por fin se había librado de él.

She pictured them in the living room, suddenly he saw the way her hair fell on her face and covered one eye and lined her nose and her twisty smile was full and vibrant and scooped down like a slowly falling angel for a kiss. "Don't do this to me!" she said; after some seconds of everything making sense the vertigo made her part. "I'm sorry," he replied. A sugar tear slid down her cheek. "Why?" she asked. "I don't know why". "See why you hurt me? You know it's all I ever wanted, but I had finally been able to put it aside, maybe on the other side of the table, where I can see, but not touch". "Why not touch?" he inquired, "I hadn't seen it before, but now that I have, I want it all". Part of her, the part that had always hoped, vibrated so hard that she almost fainted. A salty tear slid down her cheek and for a brief second she was immortal, and when she came back to earth she was willing to die if the winds of fate requested it...

Pasó el tiempo y todo siguió igual. Ella intentó quitar sus expectativas, sus sentimientos abrumadores de amor y de ternura. El oleaje se tranquilizó, bajó la marea. Fue luna y un lobo le ahuyaba, ya no ahuyaba ella ante un cielo nublado y oscuro. Él se convirtió en su hermano.

Love plays strange games and suddenly her feelings faded and crawled their way to him. Time is love's fickle archenemy, so she had to give him the bitter "it's too late".

Ella cerró los ojos, enganchó con las puntitas de sus dedos del pie la orilla de la esquina de la fachada del edificio y el piso de la azotea, cielo gris anocheciendo cables de luz y pararrayos, y casi saltó. Abrió los ojos y no lo vio más, lo borró de su vida y sopló alegremente las basuritas de la goma de la papelería.




She opened her eyes and all these were just dreams. One night's multiple dreams with different endings but all the same beginning. And, being morning, she was there again, right at the beginning.