It was not a moment, but a suspension. A most beautiful, incredible, immaculate moment, as if the world had forgotten its duty to rotate and simply breathed in. I was there, or perhaps I was the space between the air and the water.

A silent prayer in still waters.
I look at the river, and the river looks at me with its wet, unblinking eyes. I wonder, with a sudden pang of existential vertigo: how many questions can a river carry to the sea before it becomes too heavy with salt? Does the water tire of its own fluidity?

Every thought deepens the sound. It is a dense, thick silence that vibrates in the teeth. A ripple, small, insignificant, a tiny shudder of the liquid skin, can take the truest heart to the furthest shores. One does not arrive at the shore; one is surrendered to it.

I whisper to the wind, but the wind is a thief; it takes my voice and gives it to the sky. My secrets blush the horizon, staining the clouds with the unbearable pink of a private shame, or perhaps a private joy. It is all the same in the end. To be seen is to be bled.
I am. The river is. The sea is waiting for our questions.

Saravá…🙏🏾

©️ Beatriz Esmer