Ah, they are mistaken, all those who believe that I write, my dear ones. I merely overcome the silence of the paper through sheer persistence. I urge the words to reveal their stories, I pester them to declare what they know. With sharp accents and cutting phrases, I intimidate them. And because they know nothing beyond what they’ve told me, because they cannot denounce me for my threats nor for my deceit, I paste my signature below. I appropriate what is not mine. You see, I wouldn’t know how to speak of such beautiful things, of lies I’ve never used or truths that have never belonged to me. The relief is that this makes me innocent of what others believe I accuse them of through my letters. The relief is that I can remain guilty when I absolve them in my writings.

Ah, they are mistaken, all those who believe that I write, that I am a poet. It is life, in its silences, that uses me to write. It is the moment that describes the moment. I am merely the instrument through which miracles, not my own, are penned. I am an immediate witness to revelations.

But I, truly, have never said anything… I simply let myself overflow. ❤️🙏🏾

©️ Beatriz Esmer