We shall meet in a place in which there is no darkness
George Orwell

I have always imagined the day of my death.
Even in childhood, when it doesn’t exist.

I dreamed of a heroic end with the planets all lined up.
To trade places with Rick, to stay in Casablanca
to plunge into a lake beside my sick lover
to fall as a militiawoman in a war
where I don’t speak the language.
I always wanted a death worthy of life.

Two thousand fifty-nine.
Flowers are born with half their petals
armies of zombies occupy the sidewalks.

There are a lot of us old folks
we are so many
that our weight bends the word future.
They say we smell bad, that we are selfish
that we hug
with exactly the pressure of shackles.

I’m alone in the room.
My eyes are sunken in and my movements slow
like a cold Sunday afternoon.
Very white teeth adorn these men.
They don’t smile or threaten: they are statues.
They hold me down by my old woman’s fragile humerus bones.
It’s not going to hurt, stay calm.
Just like a trapped animal
I gnash at the air, I fight back, I struggle,
I shout out my mother’s name a thousand times.

My resistance collides with an hygienic silence.
There’s too much light and a full syringe.

You are lucky, -I howl out in exhaustion-,
if my mother was here
she would never let you do this to me.

Of all the earthly servitudes
that imprison my desires in this cell
I confess myself indebted to my flesh
and to all its intimate ups and downs
that make me happier
and less free.

Sometimes, however,
slavery reveals her sovereign nature,
and I feel like the mistress of my destiny.

Because I know how to love, because I have savored the fruit
and I have never spoken ill of its bittersweet taste,
because I can offer up my heart intact
if the road is worthy of requiring it,
because I’ll resist on my own two feet, with humble resolve,
the rigors of this maddening fire.

In this silent uproar in which we are all
scoundrels, vagabonds, indigents and prisoners
there are no victors or vanquished
and tomorrow won’t secure yesterday’s winnings.

May one who succumbs to the petty rancour
of humiliation not enter into the battle.
Be advised, enormous doses of
generosity of spirit and courage are necessary
in the silent struggles of human passion.

The payback, on the other hand, is substantial.
To belong suddenly only to nature,
not to fear death or oblivion,
not to accept a handout from life,
not to settle for anything less than everything.

Because soul doesn’t live among things
but in the bold action of deciphering them,
I love the sister light that encourages my senses.

A thousand times I've wanted to find out who I am.

After so many names,
so much journey towards my own compass,
I could embrace the sand for centuries.
Watch the silence pass by and keep on holding it.

The truth is not in me, every second
is a fleeting attempt to catch the unattainable.
The truth is not in anyone, and it lies even further
from a king than from any beggar.
If someone is thinking about chasing it
he should not forget this:
fire has always been a harbinger of decline
as intensity the threshold of oblivion.

When my eyes turn back to the origin,
I ask one last gift.
I claim nothing else.

Put words into my grave.
The ones I said a thousand times
and the ones I would have desired to say at least once.

Keep words to my side.
The ones I used to love,
the ones I learned along the way,
the first ones I heard from the lips of my mother.

Wrap me with them without qualm,
fear not their weight.
But indulge the words with you.
Treat them with respect.
Put them on my heart.

The truth is not in anyone, but perhaps
words could engender it.

Maybe then he whom I told with you
and for whom with you became his custom,
would lie beside me tenderly,
together in the most sacred void,
when eternity takes our measure,
when eternity is pronounced with you.