volcanic rocks, concrete and a swimming pool

Quisiera entrelazar las historias, con mucho cuidado, pero también con el azar que trae consigo dejarse llevar, evitar la llegada del miedo, esa mirada que juzga hasta llegar al vientre y producir agruras. En ese vaivén me encuentro haciendo esto, moviéndome de lugar, buscando entradas y salidas, diciendo lo mismo mil veces a un sinfín de personas que entienden de todo y nada a la vez, reconociéndome en todos los significados que elles quieran dar a lo que digo, pues en ese disipar me reanimo.

My skin doesn’t hurt as much as yesterday

Soles of their feet, thighs. I see everything from below and it’s always moving. They stir me and jiggle me. Sometimes I like it and get carried away by the game. I really enjoy it when the sun comes out. A part of me is often cold, so I usually spill myself out, spreading myself out, in order to regulate my temperature.

Yes, when the sun’s out it’s better. My tiles shine and the girls really like to come and play.

They stay on the shallow end; very rarely do they venture out together into the deep end. When they do decide to go there, they immediately look out for the edges.

Still a long way to go.

They’re afraid of not reaching the ground; it’s difficult for them to let go, to float, and then feel the fatigue take over.

I remember very well one evening before dark, when they were covering me with the blue tarp. They’re small; they’re about eight years old, but together they can carry it. With a great coordinated effort, they throw it at me with all their might, though they only manage to cover half my body.

One of them decides to jump into the water to make sure that I’m completely covered, taken care of. In a hurry, from the center of the deep end, from that void that they want to stay away from, she throws the corner of the tarp to her sister, who catches it on the first try and manages to cover me completely.

And so, we’re both trapped.

I feel her swimming in the dark from one side to another and then trying to go out in order to get air, to no avail.

The plastic and the water create a space where oxygen can’t enter.

We thus experience a few minutes of distress:

her legs are panicking,

flailing from side to side.

Her tired arms flap around,

her eyes desperately seeking a way out within that immense blue darkness in which she’s trapped.

I’ve gotten really tired in the last few years. It’s taken me a long time to realize that the girls are gone, that the currents have changed without my being able to see them or stop them.

I have remained cold, filthy.

The blue tarp deteriorated until it stopped protecting me from contamination. I felt the real weight of bodies for the first time when they emptied me out and I lost the water’s protection. Using the excuse of renewing my skin they began to peel me. They scraped off my flakes, but they never finished the task; I stayed that way, only halfway peeled off, with chafed skin.

En algún lugar leí que la esperanza es el deseo de la memoria. Me gusta pensar en eso, en qué desea abrazar y que le hace agua la boca y le entumece el cuerpo.

I’m still empty. Ever since that day when they took out all the trash in order to distribute it elsewhere, I’ve remained empty. I’ve never felt so much silence.

Soon the rainy season will start, and I’m getting ready to receive a couple of puddles that I hope will suture my bumps. The puddles don’t care at all about being impure, that they’re constantly being passed through or avoided using endless acrobatics; they remain there until they’re swept away or the sun does away with them.

I wouldn’t say that writing this is hope.

Irreparable damage exists, and, although I sometimes wish the scars embedded in my skin would begin to disappear, the loss and the desire go hand-in-hand. Perhaps it’s only in total loss—in the set of fractures, tears, and cuts—that it’s possible to reappropriate oneself.

The Rise of Nostalgia

Patience is a kind of resistance. It’s what we cling to when we’re incapable of visible movement. Our presence is permanent and contained. We can see a lot of stillness. We’re the bedrock of this place, although we’ve been hidden and now only stand out as decorations, texturing the gardens. But we’ve always been here.

We arrived with the eruption.

An intense heat generated us and spread us out throughout this area. Only extreme heat allows us to walk; it’s in the destruction that we find new causes and new territories.

They grew up surrounded by us. They decorated us with magueyes and flowers; we became their sleeping minefield. Some would say that we’re not a friendly tapestry.

The rocks grate your eyes and scratch your breath without asking, but in contrast with most of the city’s aquifers, we seduce you with the illusion of stability, and here we saw you drown.

The volcano Xitle erupted more than a thousand years ago. A quick search tells me that it was 1,650 years ago, but measuring time seems to me such an abstract operation, something so absurd, that they could tell me that it was a hundred years ago, a thousand, or more, and it would all be the same to me since I have no idea when I was born. But that eruption of heat created clusters of loose stones making up a static patio: El Pedregal.

Maybe we can become time itself so it won’t get out of hand.

It was early in the morning. They met at the front entrance. The ones in front told me they were several feet, of all kinds: a fine pair of shoes, knockoff sneakers, and a few large, black, thick rubber boots were all placed aside.

The lady came down to open the door and as soon as she did we were filled with fear, powerless. All these people entered and passed over us very, our firmness didn’t halt them for a moment.

It was all so fast that those on the back garden’s walls told us that they had already reached the other end of the house.

It all happened in a matter of seconds.

Without being able to move, we felt the enormous need to explode, to destroy, to blow up the mines in order to prevent that conspiracy from spreading.

But like with the volcano, once something burns to a certain degree, it’s impossible to generate what’s needed to stop it.

The distress invaded us from all ends. We tried occupying as much space as possible, making it uncomfortable to come or go, but something kept motivating these people. We felt their adrenaline spill out in the drops of sweat falling on us, inciting them to fulfill their aim as soon as possible. Their steps demonstrated a self-assurance that seemed to show prior experience, as though they knew exactly where they were going, even though they had never before followed those steps. It was as though that moment were already a part of their memory.

Detachment can give one infinite confidence. With fragmented attention, not even the slightest possibility of empathy is allowed to pass through.

Today, those wounds feel distant and uncomfortable. Like when you scratch a scar and your skin crawls: I even close my eyes, as though preparing myself for more pain to come. Even so, with my goosebumps, I keep rubbing the scar on my left forearm as though it were a talisman able to revive the past or with power over the present.

Predatory Shapes

I like to look out the window. The crack in my right fracture allows me to see the jacaranda, which is already huge from all the rain that’s fallen on it. It hasn’t been cut in over a year. Since it’s been invaded by other plants it itself looks like a weed, and it floats. I can’t manage to see its trunk. My field of vision is very small, although it does exist. Thanks to a blow that resulted in my having several cracks that themselves form mountainous reliefs, if you look at me closely, I remain in the shadow of almost being something. I don’t remember who they were, but some people wanted to knock us down, although personally, I didn’t mind the idea of becoming rubble. I’m already used to being something for a long time or being just a moment. In the end the concrete is connected to everything—like the earth—especially in this city. If they were to disperse me, I would then feel even more: I would feel what happens here as well as in a thousand other places.

I’m afraid that it’ll get out of hand. There’s something. I feel that it’s not much, not enough. It could have been more, but it was what it was—or perhaps, it still has a lot to do. Maybe we still have a long way to go.

The concrete is related: our history of extraction and distribution creates an endless thread in which there are no isolated pieces. I remember the mine; the explosions broke us up incessantly while they justified the noise by citing a future of abundance. We figured out early on how to reconfigure the pain with each explosion. So, years later, on that day I got a little excited by the thought of being destroyed yet again. The thought of taking on other shapes. I had never been a shape as such. Every shape is impure according to the strictest definition, and I already know what to do with the broken pieces.

That day we saw how everything fell into pieces and became fragments of an already broken whole. We received more blows thanks to the coming and going of people with furniture, buckets, clothes, and flowerpots. The refrigerator, the stove, the chairs, the beds. The objects that had given meaning to that space were torn from their meaning as soon as they were placed on the street. They reminded us that we’re only projections, temporarily adequate containers. But—don’t worry! —returning to being ourselves is only a matter of time.

Reparation is a gesture.

beber

la herida

sudar

la herida

recopilar

recolectar

recontar

revolver

la herida

escurrir

herida

beber

sudar

herida