It was like a breeze in the morning, soft on my face, carrying the scent of spring flowers, cherry blossoms trembling quietly, the smell of fresh grass rising from the earth. Birds somewhere beyond sight. Water running with purpose. And I close my eyes, and I am already there, already inside it, already folded into warmth that refuses to leave me, the embrace, the scent of fresh clothes, the warmth of skin, the quiet tension between us, between breaths, heat that needs no words, heat that demands, and I feel it, I feel it all, unbearably tender, alive, almost unbearably alive, moist, the air thick with memory; or is it memory itself, exhaling through me, insisting that I remember, demanding that I feel, demanding that I am not allowed to forget, and I remember, I remember too much, too completely, and it is cruel because the past is total, total, absolute, while the present presses against me, pressing, insisting, demanding, and I am caught, caught in between, unable to stand, unable to reconcile, unable to let go, how can the body forget what it once knew, what burned into every nerve, every sinew, every pulse? It cannot, it cannot, it remembers so well, it whispers through skin, through breath, through marrow… I can feel it and the mind tells me to taste the present, to live, to live now; must I? Must I really? Or am I only pretending, only pretending to move forward while feeding myself ghosts, walking forward in shadow while the soul trembles for what cannot be retrieved, trembles, trembles, trembles…

I breathe, deeply, slowly, darkness closing in, mind wandering to that strange place where desire and tenderness blur, where longing and courage meet, sacred and dangerous, a place without stars, only pulse, only breath, only the intimate, merciless weight of being alive. And still… there is good here. Even in this unrest, even in this torment. Because perhaps life is not asking me to recover what once was, but to create again, once again allow new tensions, new essences, new feelings, new touches, new hopes, new desires to rise, rise like fire in the present, not to replace, not to imitate, but to prove only for me that I am still capable; still capable of movement, of feeling, of loving. There’s still a taste of it.

The best of me waits. Patient. Insistent. My mouth can still learn new ways of discovering love, new rhythms, new tenderness, new ways of breathing another into myself. I go down, down into that strange, terrifying depth where longing becomes courage, where desire becomes confession, where memory becomes possibility, where every pulse reminds me that I am alive, unbearably, painfully alive.

And yet I falter. I stumble to move. I wonder if I am too much, too unsteady, too fragile to carry memory and still taste the present, and yet I breathe, because breathing is proof, because feeling is proof, because longing is proof… I’am still alive!

Sometimes I feel myself dissolving into the memory, into the warmth, into the tension, into the unbearable closeness that is no longer present yet still surrounds me like a shadow I cannot escape. And I ask myself: how much of this is real? How much belongs to now? How much to then? And does it matter, if the pulse, if the breath, if the body remembers and the soul aches, and I am here, here, entirely, utterly, in it, and it moves me, and I let it?

I feel the weight of absence pressing against me and yet; at the same time; the weight of presence, the possibility, the trembling hope that life can still offer me new tensions, new essences, new touches, new desires, and I want them, I need them, I must have them, not as imitation, not as a ghost of what was, but as proof, proof that I am still capable, still capable of movement, of feeling, of loving, proof that I exist, that I breathe, that I am alive living and no longer surviving!

And I go down… down… deeper into this, into the strange, dark, sacred depth where memory, desire, and courage converge, where longing becomes confession, where every pulse reminds me I am alive, and alive unbearably, painfully, achingly. And somehow in that darkness, in that depth, in that weight, it feels like the smallest miracle, the tiniest, most human miracle: learning, again, to smile, to inhale, to exhale without fear, to fold the past into the present without losing myself, without breaking, without drowning.

Breathe into me… and do not let me drown.

Andréia Silva