How many tears will be enough to wash me from the darkness where the heart resides? How much must I cry, and having cried, dry myself, revealing a side hitherto immersed in sorrows? How much sadness must I release and renew, so that I may always have something to cry for? How much do I insist on myself and give up on myself in the same instant? How much of me is the sea? For I fulfill daily fears that memories are made of water, and I will forever drown. How much of me is aridity? For I bring fears that my stories are made of sand, and I will forever choke.

The intensity has me imprisoned in the chest, unknowing how much I need to purge to enable my tomorrows and access my own peace. Tears draw maps and exits that only time can see. I ask it for calm to feel hopes touching my feet. I ask it for any health to feel all nostalgia, never lucidity…

In the depths of my soul, these questions echo, unanswered, yet profoundly shaping my journey. The tears shed are not just expressions of pain, but pathways to an understanding that transcends sorrow. They carve channels through which hope may flow, even as they erode the bedrock of past griefs.

In the embrace of this tumultuous sea within, I find both terror and a strange kind of solace. It is in the breaking waves of my fears that I glimpse the shores of my resilience. And in the parched landscapes of my heart, where aridity threatens to choke the life out of my stories, I also find the seeds of perseverance, buried deep, waiting for the rains of time to awaken them.

This dance of extremes, between the flood and the desert, is the crucible of my being. Through it, I am forged, shaped by the relentless ebb and flow of emotions. I ask time for patience, for the gentle touch of hope to guide me. I seek the strength to embrace nostalgia without being consumed by it, to find clarity in the chaos of my existence. For it is through this delicate balance that I hope to emerge, whole and reborn, into the light of my own peace. 🙏🏾❤️

©️ Beatriz Esmer