The headlights cut through the dark like a blade, carving our departure into the night. Behind us, the streets were rotting, their fading posters curling away from broken walls as if trying to erase the past. Even the earth itself seemed to be fighting back, exhaling a raw, heavy scent of survival. In that quiet, heavy moment, we felt like nothing. Yet, as we moved, the strangers who shared our streets stood silhouetted in their doorways, watching us go. Suddenly, the dam broke. I remembered everything all at once. I remembered the sweet teacher who used to lift me onto … Continue reading The Night My Mother Cried

Preste atenção. Donald Trump é a prova viva e cuspida de que os brancos nunca foram supremos ou superiores. Nunca. A história humana é cheia de mitos grandiosos criados para justificar a brutalidade. O maior deles, sem dúvida, foi a fábula da supremacia branca. Durante séculos, impérios foram erguidos, terras foram roubadas e corpos foram escravizados sob a narrativa de que o homem branco carregava o fardo de uma “superioridade natural” — seja no intelecto, na moral, na liderança ou na civilidade. Construiu-se uma redoma de vidro baseada na ideia de uma excelência intocável. Aí veio Donald Trump. E, com … Continue reading O Grande Blefe Histórico

O silêncio do mundo diante de uma injustiça prolongada não é neutralidade, é escolha. Quando olhamos para a história da Palestina, o que vemos não é uma sucessão de desentendimentos casuais ou conflitos geopolíticos complexos demais para serem resolvidos. O que vemos é uma linha do tempo implacável, linear e devastadora, onde os anos mudam, mas a violência permanece a mesma. Israel o fez em 1948, quando as fundações do Estado foram erguidas sobre o apagamento e o deslocamento forçado de centenas de milhares de palestinos. Repetiu a dose em 1956, em 1967 e na invasão ao Líbano em 1982. … Continue reading 78 Anos de Silêncio e Sangue: A Linha do Tempo de uma Opressão Contínua

It was you who taught us that the best way to pray was to make something beautiful. But beauty, you see, is a dangerous, breathless thing. It is not a decoration; it is an interrogation. Today, when we pray, we do not kneel in the traditional sense. Instead, we sit down before the heavy, silent weight of the world and arrange whatever happens to be in front of us—a broken glass, a spilled shadow, a sudden memory—into patterns, forms, and feelings. We search for the structure of what cannot be seen. We draw in the dust, knowing the wind will … Continue reading The Whispering

To exist is to be completely, terrifyingly small. I look at the train tracks. They do not care that I am looking. Under the heavy, vertical weight of the midday sun, they stretch out—two parallel lines of molten gold cutting through the dust, leading toward an horizon that is always moving, always out of reach. Is it leading to an unknown destination? Or is it a journey home? Perhaps home is not a place at all, but the realization that we are always arriving and always leaving. And what am I? A self that is fluid, spilling over its own … Continue reading Ephemeral Echoes

Amour, je suis venu secourir ta graine qui craint les hivers, qui redoute les lendemains—née des yeux, non par des chemins imprévus qui pourraient te perdre, mais par l’échec des erreurs passées, de ne pas savoir dire adieu. Lorsque nous réalisons que les clés de notre prison sont toujours dans nos poches, cette découverte peut nous mener à de véritables nouveaux départs. Ne nourris pas la peur de répéter tes actes poussiéreux. Tu apprendras que tu peux recommencer ou renaître sans bouger. La vérité est une terre sans chemin en chacun de nous, où la liberté est l’espace qui nous … Continue reading Ta Graine

It is not that the word is missing. It is that the universe itself was born with a fundamental crack, and we, the fragments, try to use syntax to stitch together what was never meant to be seamless. Look at us. We accumulate pages, we swallow melodies, we repeat verses like an old woman counting rosary beads in the dark—a mantra against the anguish. We demand that language perform a miracle it never signed up for. We want it to be a spine. We want it to be blood. But a word is such a fragile thing. It is a … Continue reading The Inevitable River

An apology as hope. Hope, an excuse to postpone. Tomorrow, a promise—the fullest version of ourselves waiting. Tomorrow, I act, realize, become. Tomorrow, I will be healthier, more tolerant, more authentic. Tomorrow, I will talk to the boss, call my parents. Tomorrow will be less distant, less crowded—no anxiety, no fear, no sadness. Tomorrow, that strange heaviness in my chest will ease. Tomorrow, I will leap—insist, persist, heal, apologize. Tomorrow will be fairer, less naive, more serene, less lonely. Tomorrow, I will put an end to my weary ellipses. Tomorrow, the indentation in my story will prove my courage was … Continue reading Tomorrow as an excuse

Avant que tu ne me fasses t’aimer, sache simplement que je t’aimerai comme les étoiles aiment la nuit— avec désir, sans fin, fidèlement. J’aurai besoin de toi comme les mouettes ont besoin de planer au-dessus des vagues, te regretterai comme l’été regrette la pluie. Même lorsque tu seras proche et que je verrai la chaleur monter lentement sur tes épaules, que je toucherai la tension de ta peau, que je compterai les cils de tes yeux, dans mon cœur subsistera un besoin rugissant plus fort que les eaux tonitruantes des chutes du Niagara. Car si tu me fais t’aimer, je … Continue reading T’aimer

I am a miscegenation of absences and sudden presence. If you look at me, do not look for a mirror; I am not white, I am not Caucasian. I am the silence of the Karipuna blood that runs, thick and secret, from the Rio Jamary, from the drylands of Guaporé where a people was almost entirely erased into the air. What is left of them lives in the rhythm of my pulse. The rest? The rest is a map that does not help to clarify anything, because to clarify is to limit, and I am a spill. How can I … Continue reading A Brazilian Identity in Words