Sometimes, the world is too loud, and I find myself becoming quiescent—just a quiet, soft-spoken soul, hiding in the corner of my own existence, breathing softly so as not to disturb the dust motes dancing in the light.

Why do we invent things that hurt us? We build chimerical dreams out of thin air, merely imaginary, fanciful little traps that we walk into willingly, just to feel the sting of something unreal. And then, silence falls. No, not silence—a susurrus, a whispering or rustling sound of dry leaves or forgotten secrets brushing against the walls of the mind. Who am I in this? Perhaps I am just a raconteur, one who excels in story-telling, inventing lives and meanings because the naked truth is too blinding to look at directly.

Everything around us is so clinquant—glittertering, tinsel-like, pretending to be gold when it is only cheap foil catching a dishonest light. It shines for a second, and then it dies. Like an aubade, a song greeting the dawn that is so painfully brief, dissolving into the harsh noon before we even have time to understand the lyrics of the morning.

We are obsessed with things that do not last. We weep because life is ephemeral, lasting a very short time, slipping through our fingers like wet sand. Yet, foolishly, we carry a longing for the sempiternal—something everlasting, eternal, carved into the stone of the universe.

And yet, amidst this clumsy, beautiful chaos, there are moments. A sudden, unexpected sound that is so euphonious, pleasing, and sweet in sound, that it reorganizes the architecture of my blood. It feels like finding a billet-doux folded inside a book you haven’t opened in years—a love letter waiting patiently in the dark.

And finally, love. The great, terrifying mystery. Redamancy—the act of loving in return. Is there anything heavier, or more luminous, than looking at another soul and realizing the feeling is mirrored? It is everything. ❤️

© Beatriz Esmer