The romance didn’t just end; it became a fossil. Above, a heavy moon slept the sleep of the inanimate. The carnaval folded its bright, paper wings and died. Then came the rent—that dry, mathematical slap of reality. The full stop emerged like a sudden, hard bone in the middle of a soft meal.

Everything turned grey, a thick soup of existence. Life, that restless animal, simply packed its bags and fled to Paris, to Rome, to Guinea-Bissau, to Marrakech. It went to some coordinate on a map that smelled of dust and indifference, or perhaps it just sat down in a small, damp bar at the corner of a memory. Life continued elsewhere, pulsing without me.

I am following the ellipses now. I trail behind the dots life has dropped like crumbs for a bird that has forgotten how to fly. It is a profound injustice: that the world moves without waiting for my permission, without pausing for my soul to catch its breath. This sensation is new, sharp, and entirely useless. My protest is a silent scream in a vacuum.

I must move.

I find a savage strength to survive these illusory seasons. I am saving my audacity for the days that taste like iron. This is the rhythm: a pulse in the dark. And sugar? Yes, something sickly sweet. Sugar is the infallible lie I tell my despair. It is the golden distraction for these days of stubborn, silent walls.

©️ Beatriz Esmer