The word “grief” is too small. It is a word for a broken glass or a lost dog. It is not a word for the way it was when I was seventeen. At seventeen, the world was very old and I was very tired of it.

I carried a thing inside me that was not meant to be carried. It was a dark weight, and then it broke. It was a bad business. There was the blood and the muscle and the heart failing in the chest, the way a horse fails when its legs are gone. The dreams died before they were born. They were stillborn and they were very quiet.

I was in the sea then. It was a deep sea and it did not care if I stayed on top of it. No one had taught me how to swim, so I did not swim. I only stayed there. It was a long time to stay afloat when you are seventeen and the water is cold.

We will stop talking soon. The words do not work anyway. We will look at each other and there will be the emptiness in the eyes and that will be all. It is a hollow sound, like a bell in a town where everyone has gone away. It is better not to talk about it.

©️ Beatriz Esmer