Every so often, a vertical hunger stops the clock. It is not a hunger of the stomach, but a thirst that tastes like iron and ancient salt. My internal sea, that vast, liquid uncertainty where I usually drown and breathe all at once, suddenly retreats. It leaves behind a naked floor of sand, rib-cracked and shivering in the light.

I wander through this landscape of myself. It is a geometry of drought. The climate is not an external weather, but an arid state of being where the winds are scorching whispers, reminding me of all the voids I’ve carefully tried to wallpaper over. In this stillness, the air itself feels heavy, like a secret that refuses to be told.

©️Beatriz Esmer