#11 - Eu tenho minha casa pra olhar
Can I tell you something? I saw someone yesterday at the bar next door to the one you and I met. I did not pick the place, it was him who did it. The parking spot I found when I got there, I'd say, was the same or close to the spot I parked at on the very and only day you and I hung out together.
It was around the same time of the day of our encounter. As I arrived half an hour early I decided to take a walk around the block so I could calm my nerves; being back to that same spot triggers melancholy thoughts. I went up the street, I walked past the the first bar we met at that evening in May. I didn't get as sad I as thought I would, I just saw myself by the bar waiting patiently for you, being anxious to see you in person. Those memories came to me along with the one of my asking you to go to another place because I was overwhelmed by the crowd that surrounded us. Then I fast-forwarded to the now. Nothing I dreamt of that day came true. I'm back at the same location and you're still not mine, still a person I don't know.
I put on my headphones so as to trick my mind with music. I don't think it was a successful attempt but music helped my thoughts to diversify, to veer into other directions. I don't want to think about you anymore. I look back at that only moment we had in person and I can't believe it still resonates with me. I don't want you to think I still want you, I don't believe I do; or at least I've come to terms with my delusional mind that refuses to give up on the idea of you to understand there is nothing that could happen between us.
I am here writing just to tell you that I've learned that language is transgressive. Words that didn't have any meaning before you they come to me now with a vengeance as if it was yesterday. The words acquire a voice that materializes in my brain. It is the compounds of letters that become shapes, it is a performance that calls for feelings, emotions I would prefer not to experience. The letters that form your name are now a weapon, the names of the places I've been with you are now charged with memories reluctant to ghost me like you did me. Those words I associate with you are not longer just words, but exact moments in the history of my time here on earth.
I think of another language we never got to use, the language of touch. How I exist in this not so new territory unable to find those genuine hugs, spur-of-the-moment taps on the shoulder. As I sat across from you on the day we met all I wanted to do was to touch you. To feel the warmth of your body; to place my hand on your knee for a while, to raise it to your face to feel your stubble or simply get close enough so I could feel another body next to mine. I think that the vast distances between me and people have left invisible wounds on my skin. Can I tell you that I believe touch is so vital, that I see it as the primordial ooze?
We no longer ‘keep in touch’, which means I am no longer touched by your kind gesture of getting to know me. So I met someone else who does want to be in touch with me, someone who touched me with his smile because it reminded me of yours. I want to change the meaning of the language I have regarding you. All I want is to be able to say: "Não posso ficar nem mais um minuto com você / sinto muito, amor, mas não pode ser... / Eu tenho minha casa pra olhar."
