How can I even begin to speak? To name the things that heavy my chest would be to ruin them, to turn something wild and formless into rigid words. I cannot tell the woes that inhabit my being. They do not have names; they only have a weight, a slow, thumping pulse that lives just beneath my skin. If I open my mouth to explain, I am afraid only a gasp will come out. Or worse, silence.

You see, I am a trap door. I am a threshold. I cannot stay, not because I want to leave, but because I am made of departure. To exist, for me, is to already be looking at the horizon, already mourning the moment that is currently happening. My presence is always a rehearsal for an absence.

And you—you look for me in the solid parts of the room, but I am only ever the draft passing through. I am molded by saudade. It is the clay that formed my bones. Even when my hand is resting in yours, I am already aching for the memory of your hand. I miss things while I am living them.

Do not ask me to unpack this grief. It is not an illness; it is my architecture. I am simply a person who was born looking backward, waving goodbye to a self I haven’t even finished being yet.

Yours,

© Beatriz Esmer