Joana Saraiva
I asked time for calm when I fell in love with you. I held time in my belly, held butterflies in my stomach, and did my best to ensure that only what I was certain was the size of the moon remained between you and me. The mission became even more difficult because the size of things isn’t just measured in inches. It also has time, and time was in a hurry to grow up. With both measures combined, the mission seemed impossible. When I fell in love with you, I lost control of reason. Reason took the best of me, and all that was left for me were butterflies.
Falling in love with you was like the sun happening to me. I know little or nothing about what you like, what you don’t like, or what you imagine you’ll come to like one day. I know nothing about that, but playing at guessing has become air to me. I imagine you’re perfect. That your eyes always choose me, that you write my name in your notebook countless times, that you don’t even know my name but get lost trying to guess it, and that’s exactly what makes you perfect.
Liking you like this, without body and without calm, gives me peace. Liking you like this, in imagination, is as big as I want it to be, and that’s what gives me peace. Not knowing if you’re from other moons, if your fingers intertwine with others that aren’t mine, or if you really don’t even want to know my name doesn’t sweeten my imagination. It stumbles upon it instead. It makes it wrap itself in what I don’t know how to unwrap in myself, in what is dark and then has no way out, or at least, I haven’t found it yet. That’s how you stay side by side with the sun. That’s how you’re the sun to me, and that’s how I’ll only turn you off when I want to.
One of these days we’ll meet. I finally gather the courage and come close to you so you can hear my voice. I know yours by heart, and in my imagination – because I counted the “thank you’s” I heard you say to me and to others – you speak like someone who has no doubts. If you have them, and I wish I were lucky enough to know them one day, you don’t make a paragraph of it. You write yourself in capital letters and don’t leave blank spaces. You don’t leave room for others to guess you, and it’s along this line that I love you again: to me, you left your notebook blank. I filled it with my name and yours, filled it with future and motivational phrases I read on sugar packets. To me, who will also be the sun for you although you don’t know it yet, you gave me what you haven’t unwrapped in yourself yet. You unraveled in lowercase and rested your shoulders on mine: don’t worry, my moon, I wanted it this way. Let yourself rest, my moon, I promise to take care of your shadows. I promise to love you when you’re like this, moon, and on that face of yours, I promise state secret.
You got nervous when they saw you unprotected. You knew the text, you knew the story, but for some reason that took a while to understand, you hesitated in your cue. This time, for some reason that doesn’t even have to be your definition, you weren’t perfectly effective. I saw you imperfect, and that’s when I loved you for the first time. I saw you out of control. I saw you swallowing your heart and not knowing how to hold it in your chest because it was beating so loudly. I saw how high your heart reaches, how deep your soul goes, and that’s when I fell in love with you. I saw how much you saw me when, without saying anything, I cradled the swing of your soul. You lent it to me without fear, and I swear I didn’t peek more than I should have. When you put yourself like that, out of control, you just wanted silence: lucky for me, silence is my virtue. When I found you – you, far from the next line, and I about to be brave – you breathed with your whole chest. You detached it from yourself – only this time, you gave it freedom – and inevitably you detached yourself from your body. Your hands wanted the ground, your neck wanted your hands, and my hands wanted yours. I covered your body with mine. I stretched my arms to ensure I held you completely. In the silence you wanted, I promised to take care of your imbalances. That I wanted them for myself too, and that your dizziness brings you closer to the ground, closer to being human, closer still to me.
When you saw my eyes, I saw your soul. You held the heavy eyes, and I rediscovered my full soul. When you regained control of yourself, when you relearned the shape of your mouth, your hands, and your neck, you said “thank you” to me. You stretched the size of your arms, the will of your hugs, and you held me completely. Because I’m good at keeping silent, I didn’t say anything to you. I rested my chin on your shoulder and breathed with my whole chest just like you, without even knowing, had taught me to do. I let go of my body, handed it to you, and rediscovered myself out of control.
You left after hugging me completely. We didn’t cross paths again, after you hugged me completely, and after you returned to your duties in front of everyone who knows you only in solitude. Now I see you.
When I stay at home, at night, watching you be someone you’re not and crossing my fingers for the quick return of my “nameless character” to Alice’s grand café. The reins of reason were lost when I fell in love with you. I fell in love when I saw you like that, unbalanced. You gave that to me and I promise you that it will stay only with me: your shadows only with me and me only with the butterflies.
For the one who sees with the heart