GOOD IS BAD

Sometimes you find truth in a bus and sometimes you walk hundreds of kilometres, you cross oceans, you visit continents and it elludes you.
Yesterday classes ended. I realized that maybe it was my last day as a student in the Complutense (not counting exams, of course). It was a strange feeling. Another "home" I am leaving. Something else left behind, polluting my memories and making me go slower and slower still.
And then to work... work work. Why do I work there? Why? Because I need the money? Yes, I need the money. They pay well enough. True. The restaurant is not too far away from where I live. The job does not involve touching dirty or greasy things, or cleaning anything. There are very nice people working there and I do have fun at times. I can even read when there's not too much work... But I am unhappy.
What am I doing there? Handling money all the time. Again and again and again. And I despise money. I hate how all the managers focus on making financial benefits instead on focusing on the people. I hate hearing the conversations of the associates about their other bussinesses: they make me think there are no real good people around, just generous people. I hate witnessing people humiliating other people, whatever their rank. I hate going there night after night waiting for some sort of miracle that never happens... and when there's a spark of hope it only leaves my hungry for more, desperate for something more real, something I can grab and touch and smell and...
I am too delicate for them, too sensitive, too soft, too sweet, too pretty, too good. So they say. The maitre said that I puzzled him, I was the only person he couldn't figure out. He said he had met hundreds of women but never anyone like me. I said I had been brought up in a special way. He said it wasn't that... that there was something completely different about me. Tonight I dreamt there was someone who had been brought up just like me... who played with shadows of flowers and whose glance danced while he walked. Am I a different species?
Do I really live inside a balloon? Should I stop believing that people are good? Should I stop believing in miracles? Should I stop waiting for a fairy tale hero? Should I stop dreaming? Should I conform?

NEAR THE END OF THE YEAR

GOODBYE LOVE, HELLO DISEASE

Look at these pictures. I just took them some minutes ago with the webcam. That's supposed to be me. But I only half recognize myself.
Life still goes on. Incredibly. In September, or late August, again airports and suitcases and this time Boston. An elite university only for women. My last year as an undergraduate student and first official year giving lessons. And I realize we are entering a dangerous new period of our lives.
A friend, or rather an acquaintaince, a friend of a friend, is getting married sometime soon, maybe this month or maybe the next. And I am not talking about someone at work, where everyone appears to be suffering from the wedding fever (but they are in their thirties). Kas is in her early twenties. And soon to be married. So now we are all marriage and parent material. It is no longer a long-term dream or nightmare. It's here.
Those fears some of us have had since forever of spending the rest of our lives alone no longer seem absurd. Yes, of course, I am twenty-one. But now, at twenty-one, the feeling is not that you have time to go out and meet people and have fun. Rather, if you are alone, you should be worrying. If you haven't yet booked the church or the City Hall for the wedding, people begin to whisper, and look at you as though you had something contagious. Yesterday, one of my workmates said that they all thought that I was one of those girls who remains a virgin until her marriage (...), and the maitre, when told that I have no boyfriend, said that I should hurry because if not "se me pasaría el arroz"... F**k
So, alone for life. Because according to a friend, I am enchanting but I have the type of personality that attracts people and scares them off almost immediately. It's my way of acting. It's the illness. The delusions. The tears. The scars. So, goodbye love, hello disease.
Just out of curiosity, how many more people will I attract to my web of madness and how many more people will leave me completely alone and broken screaming every night in pain? Will I ever resign myself to loneliness? Will I stop scaring people? Will they stop being cowards? How much pain can one single person experience before the soul or the body give up?

INGENUA IDIOTA (EN ESPAÑOL PARA QUE LO ENTIENDAS)

para oscar para oscar para oscar para oscar para oscar para oscar para oscar para oscar para oscar para oscar para oscar



Estoy en tu dolor
y en el dibujo de tu sangre
Si me arrancas el corazón
te amaré con tus manos piadosas

Tu corazón huesudo me lleva

Migajas de una relación

He visto mentiras más grandes que tus manos
pero me estrangulas
Soy el pequeño pez
que lame basura de tus llagas
Ya no sobrevive el fado
que provocaron tus labios

Recuerda. Esas pecas son mías
Si te besan, me están besando
Si muerdes la boca
muerdes mi llanto
Quedé a la deriva en tu cáliz de plata
y tú jamás me salvaste.


P. D. No, no estoy enfadada. Tal vez si lees esto, me dirás algo, de lo contrario sabré que yo he imaginado todo.

COMPANION IN FAIRY LAND

We were lying on the grass
miles apart
holding each other's hand
I hid under a flower
and became a silver butterfly
Your voice was a kitten
you licken my wounds
and softly scratched my back.
I loved you then
like now, like a rainbow
with leafless leaves and stars
You shot your nails
right through my soul
and made a tiny dancer
out of sparkle and salt.