………………YOU ARE THE WE OF ME………………

1
Me running over the yellow grass until I get tired. Ana, Ana, small white pea entombed in the center of a wall of orange bricks painted of white, not bright. Ana! Ana! Open your mouth, break the transparent skin that wraps your body and scream. Ana! This is me, the sun does not move nor do its five rays, the sun is a drawing on a white piece of paper, perpendicular to your wall. The grass is real, that I can tell, yellow soft grass, about to rot. Ana! Ana! Open yourself and Ana! let the brick in which you are inlaid crack wider, let the crumbs fall down, wait for me Ana, wait with your eye wide open, that here I come, running, tired, I know that there is a real sunset behind the white paper of the yellow sun delineated with yellow ink, Ana, because in the box where you live and where I am running, there has never been a morning. You are a seed.

2
Ana
rolled over the surface of the wall but did not fall down. Ana was green inside. My tongue was dry and pasty, ana-green, and my hands felt hot and swollen, delicately being eaten by fungi.
Ana conducted herself to the ground and moved slowly, her body tightly attached to her wall. She came, bouncing, and saw me. Oh, and the grass was still green, like she was.

3
I
have watched Ana. Systematically. She usually lits a match for three seconds or four inside her niche in the center of the wall. I can only see the dot of light through the white curtain she has hung to cover the crack in the brick she inhabits, the crack through which she entered the wall. She didn’t posses anything, Ana moved with no belongings. Where did she find the tissue that hangs covering the hole in the wall? Ana, I have spied on you from the ground, where I am, far from you, through a telescope. Maybe it was an old, almost transparent leaf that you managed to carry up. But who am I trying to fool, I haven’t stopped observing you, I know you didn’t take anything with you, I know you could not have found it inside the brick, I know it is your white pea skin, I know it because the curtain is an empty bubble suspended from a spiky salience of the clay where you want to entomb yourself, where you are lighting a, a match? Inside the brick, your round soft body, raw, and your skin covering the entrance to your room.
Into the brick, Ana naked. Where did she get the matches from?

4
Ana, I
want to bounce with you. I want to be on you, over you, bouncing up and down with you, feeling you bounce under me, you looking at me with your eye and me healing.
Ana.
The paper horizon glares. It is a fake brightness, it is a liter of vegetable oil boiling, burning; looking at it tires me as would eating a bunch of leaves fried in rancid oil with no salt. The salt, the heat –the leaves getting warmer– would kill me. The horizon gleams and I can’t move. I can only follow Ana into her room with my mind. I can see her inside.
Inside Ana’s brick, she opens her chest, still green, and chants. Ha. There is enough space for Ana and for me in her brick. Her skin is elastic and clean, I want to try to fit in it. Fresh vegetable skin. When Ana chants, it is a different heat; it burns at another degree, measurable on a scale different from that of the painted sun. It is a heat that can burn, can hurt. But then, when a new sort of pain appears, it is possible to forget the previous one. When Ana chants, the wound of the burning from the fake paper sun is still there, but is not the focus anymore. Ana’s song becomes the primordial fire, and it also burns the skin, but as if water.

5
Ana is removing
the curtain from the entrance to her room and goes outside. She rolls over the wall but does not fall. How is that possible? She is solid; she should fall because of the same principle that makes her bounce. But she doesn’t.
Ana, I have been watching you through my telescope. A thread of hair, of somebody’s hair, coiled like a snail shell, is the tube through which I look at you moving into and out of your wall. You are not a prisoner, you come down to the earth and pick pieces of wood from underneath the roots of the grass and take it up to your brick. You bounce Ana, your eye open, and with my mind I follow you and with my telescope I make you the center of my images, and yet I haven’t reached you, Ana.
You are going back to your wall. It is starting to rain.

6
I haven’t wanted to take my mind to Ana’s room again. My hands feel duller, I scratch the fungi on them, I could bleed. I could.
The grass is wet, is getting rotten, it smells like old algae pushed away to the shore, dark green the algae, sickly yellow the grass. This horizontal rain is washing away the rays of the sun. The rays are not straight lines anymore: they are bent arms. Oh Ana, I have the feeling that the paper horizon is going to rip soon and we will see the real morning behind it. I don’t have a brick to seal myself in. The water inflates my body, I become fatter and the fungus on my body strengthens.
The light in Ana’s brick shimmers two seconds before her seven hours of rest. After that, I don’t know what she is doing anymore. She has not been out. It is raining still, and she hasn’t hung the curtain.

7
There remains the mystery of Ana’s ability to bounce and yet move as if flying very close to her wall. How can she move along a wall, a vertical surface, and not fall, being round as she is, being solid, having weight?
The paper sun is gone now, I see only a yellow stain in front of me and on my right the white brick wall. I don’t see Ana.
To run.
Me running over the yellow grass, the leaves growing taller and sharper, they are like arrows cutting my skin and blurring my sight. The drops fall as if sprayed. Ana, I’m coming.

8
To leave the leaves dry hanging from the back of your chairs. You sit by my side and fix your eye on the dry pieces of wood that make your room and your house. There is barely enough space inside the brick. You live in a cave, Ana, and the surfaces that surround you are prickly and hurt me. You have taken the pieces of leaf that attached themselves to my body as I ran, and you have put them to dry. They are nutritious, you say. Maybe I pulled myself along the wall, or maybe you are able to fly and took me here, cracking wider the crevice in your brick-and-house so I could get in.
I look at you, you and your skin. I am here with you and you don’t look at me, and there is no space for you to bounce or for me to make use of my telescope. I want to hear you chant, you say that you don’t chant anymore. But you did chant. You are round and with your eye you recognize my fungus, my reddish body, and light a fire with two pieces of wood.
You don’t chant anymore.
I will not ask you where you got the matches that light this fire.
You used to chant, you say.

“Frankie Fluffy,” Dr. Miller writes down on a white piece of paper. Frankie reads the words. He is a doctor. He is good, Frankie thinks, but she does not know what to do. She bends her head down a little and blushes. That is what to do. Years later Frankie will understand, or think she understands, that she chose to blush and bend down her chin because that was what she had seen her mother doing when interacting with strangers.
Frankie blushes, but she reaches out for the piece of paper. “Frankie Fluffy,” she writes under the sentence Doctor Miller wrote for her to copy and entertain herself with while waiting for her mother. Or maybe she was waiting for him to speak with her mother. When Frankie is older, she will think she has forgotten what she was writing that sentence for.

Frankie’s mom takes her to Daisy’s house. Daisy’s birthday was two days before, but her parents decided to make the party on Saturday. Frankie has not seen Daisy in a long while. As she walks into the house, she notices Daisy standing in the middle of her living room wearing a pink paper hat. This is the second birthday party Frankie attends in her life. The previous one was Pablito’s, to which Frankie went dressed in some shirt and pants that her mom had convinced her to wear. Frankie hated pants because they made her inner thighs feel itchy and hot and she always felt like putting a hand in between her skin and the cloth in order to relieve the burning, which she did, but not in public. For this party, though, her mom bought one meter of blue shiny fabric that Frankie thinks is silk, and made a little dress that reaches down to her knees in spite of Frankie’s specific instructions to make the dress as long as Snow White’s. The dress does have blue puffy sleeves that cover only her shoulders and show her arms, though. Frankie wears white socks with ample sewing lace on its border and a black velvet coat that belonged to her aunt Frances, dead even before her sister, Frankie’s mom, was born.
Daisy doesn’t move from the center of her living room; she is wearing a pink paper hat and probably a dress too, Frankie will suppose years later. There will not be recollections of many details in Frankie’s memory; she will only remember the parts that she didn’t expect to happen, and from those, only the parts that she likes the best. Frankie gets a stapled red paper cup. Inside there should be candy, like at Pablito’s, but she doesn’t open it. She takes off her coat and hands it to Daisy’s mom. She wants to tell the lady not to lose it because it was her aunt’s. In Frankie’s mind, things with a past become more recurrent because she links them to other ideas –so she thinks about those things more often– and she feels they are more important because she has them in her head longer. But Frankie doesn’t say anything, nor does she approach Daisy. Instead, she keeps on going over the possibility of not seeing her velvet coat again, and thinks that after the party she will ask her mom to show her pictures of Frances; she will ask her why she was named Frances too.
Frankie’s body is changing; soon the black velvet coat will not fit her anymore, but she has gotten a white polyester pajama torn in the chest and sewed back with white cotton thread which also belonged to her aunt. Frankie was named after her aunt because her mother wanted to remember, she was told. Frances died at eighteen, Frankie learned, and the picture she is to recall is one in which young Frances wore loose pants and a yellow shirt and was standing next to a horse, holding the reins, her other arm around the shoulders of a person that Frankie could not identify as a girl nor a boy. The gown is beautiful, like a bride’s, Frankie thinks. She wishes she could wear it every night, but very often her mom takes it away to wash, and Frankie sleeps wearing something else, maybe a pants-and-shirt pajamas.
Frankie sees Daisy again at school as she walks down the stone stairs towards the play yard. She passes by without saying hi. Daisy shouts loudly Frankie, do you want to play? Frankie turns her head and looks at Daisy and other girls wearing blue aprons, just like she does. Daisy is standing two or three meters from her cousin Laurena, and both girls’ legs are tied together by a long piece of spring that creates a four-sided figure. Another three girls form a line perpendicular to the larger sides of the rectangle, waiting for their turn to jump in. Frankie knows this game. She learned to play it at the beginning of the school year, before she started missing classes. First it was the chicken pox, then her breaking her wrist, then Christmas, and then some other things like her not feeling like going to school and her mom’s not forcing her. No, she says, I don’t want to. Frankie does want to but she imagines that if she says no Laurena or Daisy might stop playing and approach her to ask why not. Laurena does. Frankie, why don’t you want to play? Frankie, looking downwards and doing her best not to move her face, says with a grave tone that isn’t normally hers that she just doesn’t want to. Frankie wants Laurena to keep on asking, to hold her arm and go back with her to the classroom hall, to a corner where the sun can’t reach them, and tell her that she wants to play and that she is not very sad, just a little, sad just in a part of herself. Laurena insists, Frankie, please, please come. Frankie feels a little better. But she says no again. She doesn’t say anything else and Laurena doesn’t touch her. She goes back to Daisy and the other girls, and Frankie walks a little farther, maybe two or three steps retaking her original path towards the kiosk with the packed chips and the cups of red jelly. In the pocket of her apron, she plays with the money to buy her lunch and turns back, not looking at Laurena or Daisy. Is she angry asks Daisy to her cousin and she answers no, I don’t know, and they both look at each other and then at Frankie, who walks up the stairs, back to the hall, knowing she is being seen, and liking it.
Frankie’s mom picks her up after school. On the way home, sitting on the bus, Frankie thinks of something. Her mother tells her not to think so much, sweetie, tell me have you seen Daisy? What did you girls talk about today? But Frankie does her best to freeze her face and decides that she will not speak, though she thinks she might if her mom insists so much that she feels that delicious thing in her chest that feels just like a caress in her ears and a kiss.
She doesn’t look at anybody in the bus. She looks through the window; they are passing by the park near to the jail, and Frankie notices there are no animals or people there. Nor even benches. She sees some blue birds going up and down the branches of two trees with no flowers. Mom, why don’t they put benches? Remember that park near to grandma’s house where there were that font and that church and that bunch of old people sitting on benches? Remember? Why don’t they put benches here? Frankie’s mom looks at her daughter. An old mark of a chicken pox pimple under Frankie’s lip is getting reddish, she keeps on scratching it even after she has wounded the small circle of skin on it. Frankie needs to take a bath: she has been refusing to wash her hands and even her face, she has been throwing the toothpaste without making use of it, she hasn’t looked at herself in the mirror ever since her mom broke the big one on the door by hitting it with the broom. Four weeks ago, Frankie would have invited her two cousins over if only her mother had suggested it, and along with Daisy, they would have filled with purple bubbles the tub in the bathroom and taken a long, long hot bath. Her mother would have had all of them look for new costumes in her drawers. Frankie would have been looking for pieces she could wear as skirts or dresses, and after finding something she would ask her mom where the thing came from, why she bought it, why didn’t she throw it away if she didn’t use it anymore. But that morning came when Frankie didn’t go to school because her mom wanted to leave her to rest. While Frankie slept her mom cleaned up the house as usual: she took the mats out to the back yard, turned on the radio and started sweeping the entrance starting from the wall opposite to the door, walking backwards, until she hit the big crystal with the wooden handle of the broom and crackled the mirror in the bottom, with such a force that there were not big pieces of glass to clean up later but mostly crumbs. Frankie woke up, feeling a buzzing vibration resonate in her whole body, and couldn’t think of anything. She had been sleeping profoundly, not even dreaming, when the loud crash of the mirror called her back to the morning but didn’t give her space to have that necessary second of consciousness, between sleep and awakening, when all memories come back to the mind and one remembers who one is and what one should feel in the day. Frankie walked to the living room and saw her mother carefully picking up the pieces of glass that were big enough as to grab them with her hands, and felt afraid she would see one of those sharp triangles of mirror cutting her mother’s skin and making her bleed. That didn’t happen, her mom was very cautious not to hurt herself, but Frankie saw a square of broken crystal invading her mother’s hand, wounding the lines in her palm, and started to cry even though she immediately realized it was occurring only in her mind. She rubbed her eyes with her knuckles and felt that her left cheek was swollen and raw, as if someone had punched her with fury. She remembered this feeling when she was older, but couldn’t really tell what had happened.
I remember, sweetheart, says her mother looking at her. They say that this park doesn’t need any benches. She caresses her daughter’s leg with her left hand and with the other holds Frankie’s backpack so it won’t get dirty by the contact with the bus’ floor. Frankie doesn’t look back at her mom, but holds her hand over her blue apron. She has forgotten completely what she was thinking of before noticing the desolate park. Frances Francine, Frankie suckling pig, you smell like a piglet, her mom sings with a lowering tone and a big smile, trying to make a rhyme, softly caressing Frankie’s thigh. Frankie has followed the words and likes them. She thinks of the baby pigs she has seen in the past, only on TV, only cartoons. She laughs, her eyes quickly looking for her mom’s, and her little body quivers, relaxing. Frankie looks at the man in the sky-blue shirt who drives the bus, she looks at the woman with the supermarket’s bag sitting in front of her and at her own legs and arms, and wants to remember a song of her own to sing to her mom, but her thoughts are only about the things that she sees immediately.
In her house she eats broccoli and tuna and drinks chocolate milk, and doesn’t even turn on the TV for the cartoons, she wants to sleep.

Frankie, wake up. Let’s go to Doctor Miller’s. Wake up, you need to take a bath before we go. Frankie opens her eyes and remains still, pushing her head against the pillow, as if she was expecting that it would swallow her. Her mom lifts her under the armpits and tries to make her sit, but Frankie loosens her body and for a second she seems lifeless in her mother’s hands. Her mom doesn’t like the game, she lets Frankie fall back on the bed and asks her to get up, take those clothes off, hurry up. But Frankie doesn’t move, and her mom sits by her side and runs her fingers through her dirty hair. Frankie baby, you need to get up, let’s go get you clean and pretty, and as she says this, her voice lowers more and more, almost becomes a whisper. Frankie thinks of the TV pigs and wants to enter the screen and beat their noses, make them bleed, see them twisting their pink fleshy bodies on the floor of the house the three of them share. Frankie is furious, she wants to kill the pigs and kill the wolf and break down their house, and then she wants to cry a little and stay living inside the TV, but doesn’t want anyone to turn it on.
Her mom has the purple and pink soap bars that Frankie likes the best, a grape smelling crocodile and a strawberry. There are no bubbles in the tub, Frankie didn’t want them. She sits on the empty tub, trembling, because she didn’t want her mom to fill it either, and her mother passes the soap along her body very quickly, we are almost finished baby, are you sure you don’t want the tub filled? You are cold. Frankie doesn’t speak. She thinks of the pigs, the part in which she smashed her fists against their noses, and now feels regret. She goes back, over and over again, to that mental scene where she saw them, naked, dying, and then returns to the part where she entered the TV. She smiles, because she likes being able to make the pigs come alive again, to change things.
On the way to and back the Doctor’s office, Frankie sleeps in the bus. Frankie will not be able to remember Doctor Miller’s face with detail; he will simply become a man wearing black glasses and dressed in white; smiley, safe. She will only remember the phrases he used to write for her, maybe to help relieve her uneasiness. He used to write half a sentence and then ask Frankie to tell him how to finish it. “I like rope games, apples,” “I don’t like it when my mom is angry.” The last time she saw him, he asked Frankie what were her favorite things to touch, to smell, to see, and then he sat in the floor next to Frankie and told her the things that he liked to touch and smell and eat. Then he started to make up strange funny words to call himself after the things he liked, and asked Frankie to do the same with her name. He wrote down the things they both liked the most. “Doctor Tomato”, “Frankie Flowery.” But from those sentences, Frankie will only remember one in which her name was attached to a fluff, as if a thread was being tied to a bright balloon just before it was released in the middle of a morning, free to go up to the sky and get lost, or pricked.

When Frankie goes to bed that night, she takes off her under pants. Her inner thighs feel itchy and burn, as if she had worn pants all day. She puts on her aunt’s white gown and throws herself over the bed. Frankie wants to go to school the next day. She has planned to accept Laurena’s and Daisy’s invitation to play, and after they are done playing, she is going to ask Daisy to walk with her to the restrooms. Once in the big room where the flushing toilets are all always taken, she is going to tell her friend to wait until everybody is gone back to classes, she is going to lock the door and take off her apron and sit over it, on the floor near to the sinks. Then she is going to wait for Daisy to say something.
She looks at the ceiling and feels the steps of her mother approaching her room. She closes her eyes, pretending she’s asleep. Frankie doesn’t move; her teeth are tightly closed. Her mom turns off the light and covers her by rolling the bedspread over her so Frankie is the stuffing of a blue fabric canister. When she leaves, Frankie opens her eyes again and sits on the border of her bed. She can smell the fruity aroma of her body. She likes it. What is Daisy doing right now? Daisy is skinny, so pretty, she always knows new games that her older sister teaches her. Frankie didn’t like having her hair braided until Daisy had hers plaited in two long pieces of black hair, like mouse’s tails tied with yellow ribbons. Daisy doesn’t like much to talk with other people, but she is always moving. In school Daisy and she were always together, sitting in the same bench when possible. Daisy’s mom used to get her coloring books in the school’s store, and Daisy would let Frankie paint and glue noodles and dry grains on a few pages, always. In the afternoons Frankie repeated with precision each word of her conversations with Daisy to her mom. Daisy’s sister is in second grade and Pablito is her boyfriend, mom, and Daisy says she doesn’t like that because her sister is older than him, and Pablito is our age, and he should be with a girl of our age, and I felt angry, mom, so angry, I don’t know why. Daisy also showed Frankie her collection of Disney cards, each with a princess imprinted in color on one side. At first Frankie liked The Sleeping Beauty a lot, but she didn’t like the idea of the princess sleeping so many years and the castle getting old and full of thorny ivy. So she changed her for Snow White, and had liked her until that time came when she didn’t want to remember or feel certain things anymore. Her taste had not moved further from the black haired princess since, her mind occupied in trying to think about other things.
For Christmas, Frankie’s mom took her to visit her grandmother. They stayed there two weeks, the two of them sleeping in the same bed, Frankie’s legs tangled around her mother’s until late in the morning. There were no children in that house; her cousins had not come to visit that year. There were only her grandmother, her big cat, so big it looked like two mingled together instead of one, and her mother’s body. Frankie missed Daisy. She thought of her maybe twice a day, first at breakfast and then in the afternoons when the cat jumped over her lap making her entire body shake, so heavy a cat and so fluffy. There was something about the smell in her grandmother’s pans that reminded her of the odor of Daisy’s mouth, and there was something about the softness of the fat in the belly of the blue eyed cat that made her long for her friend’s touch, her hand in hers walking towards the school’s kiosk to get themselves some apple chips.
she and her mom had long walks in the park across from her grandmother’s house. It was full of older people, there were no kids there, at least not when she and her mom walked along its paths. White and yellow flowers bloomed, men and women sat together on rocks and benches. Most of them were parents, Frankie thought. Her mom used to sit too whilst Frankie selected special leaves and clovers, and after a while she called Frankie back, let’s go get you some food, give me your hand.
The first thing Frankie did after returning was invite Daisy over. They didn’t scream with excitement when they saw each other, they just started talking about Pablito’s party, which Daisy didn’t attend but wanted to know everything about so she could tell her mom and ask her to do something better when her birthday come in a month. They talked and watched TV and ate scrambled eggs with rice and ketchup, and after that Frankie got her red candy cup from Pablito’s birthday and they both finished the candy and the chocolates. You girls need to take a bath, Daisy, what is your mother going to say when she sees your clothes tomorrow? Frankie’s mom took them to the bathroom and taught them how to release the water into the tub and where to put the shampoo and the soap afterwards, and let them both alone, naked, in the bathroom. When they yelled announcing they were done, one hour or so later, Frankie’s mom handed them towels and took them to her room, not Frankie’s, so they could see the TV if they wanted. The girls put green polyester gowns on as pajamas. They looked alike, the water of their hair still dropping on their backs and making them tremble. They jumped over the big white bed, higher and higher, playing a game in which one tried to make the other fall to the floor, laughing out loud, louder each time. Daisy fell first. Then Frankie jumped down. She gave her a strong hug and Daisy embraced her too, and they laughed more and kissed each other in the ears, suckling their lobes and laughing. Daisy’s hands ran down Frankie’s back, and Frankie didn’t know what to do next, but she wanted to act as if she knew. She kissed Daisy’s shoulder, but doing this made her think of her mother, and she looked at Daisy and they both stopped, maybe she was thinking of her mom as well. Daisy fixed the green stripe of her shoulder with one hand and with the other held Frankie’s neck, and kissed her in her lips. Frankie’s mom was watching.

Whatever Daisy is doing right now Frankie cannot guess. She is listening to a song in her head. She cannot remember where she has heard it before. It sounds calm and powerful, at times it feels like a heavy rock falling down to the earth, almost angrily, over and over again. Frankie listens to the tune and shuts up all the remaining words in her head. She is listening carefully. She thinks it is a new song, something she has never heard before anywhere else. She repeats it in her head many times, and then she sings it out loud, sitting on her bed, barely moving. Frankie doesn’t want to fall asleep now. Frankie wants to repeat the song so she can easily recall it tomorrow and the days after, she wants to sing the song to people so they can help her to remember if she forgets. Frankie sings louder. She will remember. She uses two syllables to describe the song, “la” and “ra,” and now she decides that she cannot wait until tomorrow, she wants everyone to listen to her right now, the melody bursting out of her body in long strings of sound. Frankie sweetheart, says her mom from her room, I want to sleep. Please don’t sing. Frankie stands up and stops singing, but is still repeating the song in her head. She walks out of her room, trying not to think of anything but her melody, trying to have it mingle with everything else she recalls. She walks down the stairs, towards the entrance door where the mirror used to be, and walks outside the house. In the yard Frankie starts singing again, trying to overcome the intensity of the crickets’ tune and with her eyes she’s looking for the hose, she wants to prepare some mud.

When she was thirteen, she was scared she would never know enough. She studied. She went to school and smiled to the boys she met; to all of them, because she was teaching herself to be nice. Nice meant to be liked, to show others that she was able to like them too, to be a person who loved and was loved by her equals because that she had learned in her catholic elementary school in the religion classes. Not that she had a reason to distrust the nuns who taught her. Once, she remembered, she had questioned why God did or did not do a certain thing in a certain part of a story in the Bible –what this story was she could not recall- , and the nun who was lecturing had regretted having let her speak, and had told her with the anger that being confused might cause to the tone of one’s voice that God was mysterious and that there was not an answer for that question. When she received that answer she was eight and wore the brown squared dress that was the uniform of her school, and she told to herself that “mysterious” was strong enough a reason, and she sat back on her wooden bench, her brown dress wrinkled on her buttock’s area.
Now that she was thirteen she still wore a uniform, a purple sweater over a gray skirt and purple stockings, and was determined to become a good girl. In her mind the priority was finding a group of girls who would make jokes and have boyfriends, and she pictured herself being one of those smiley and quick-witted creatures who confidently folded their skirts so their knees were visible and who always knew what to say, and were happy, even if they were not good students.
She watched her classmates in their way to their houses, sometimes walking along with them, sometimes from a distance. But she didn’t understand them. She did not think she was a smart student. She was bigger than the other four girls in her classroom; she was the tallest and her hair was longer and blacker and her teeth were more salient, much like those of a horse, she knew. She was now in ninth grade, and she had found two girls to go to lunch with, until a day when she waited for them outside her classroom’s door and a third girl came and gave her a little piece of notebook paper that said that she was not fun nor a good company, and that those two girls wouldn’t go out with her that day. Or ever. So that kept her questioning what it meant to be good, whether it had the same meaning for girls than for parents, whether big mouths were included into that definition, whether she could change that meaning and make herself fit into it. She did not have answers for those questions, so she kept on asking teachers and the people with whom she did not feel guilty for asking what it meant to be a good person. But the answers they provide didn’t make her feel as if she finally knew what to do in order to become who she wanted, and only seemed to persuade her to move farther away from her goal. She was thirteen, and every time she smiled to a boy, to any boy, maintaining the look so her eyes could recognize the color of his, she felt as if she was at last the brash pretty girl she had built in her mind. The only difference, she noticed immediately after she had established eye contact with the boy, was that the girl in her head had perfectly small teeth and was shorter than men. This realization made her blush immediately, and she moved her sight towards the floor, ashamed for knowing what she knew about herself and for not being able to believe her own picture, not for longer than three seconds.

Que estamos perdidas, Anla, que se me va acabando el aliento primero y que al levantarme, a veces, me olvido de ti. Que nos hemos perdido, Anla, y que es tan cierto que para vivir necesito verte haciendo el amor conmigo y darte dos besos en la espalda, mientras dejo que el dolor que no entiendo me produzca calambres en las piernas y me paralice. Nuestra cama es angosta, fresca, el balcón tiene vista a la copa de un árbol que acoge a tres pájaros negros. Que cuando te beso, Anla, me doy permiso de sentir mi dolor y el tuyo, que el gusto de esta saliva acedada pone mis pies en la tierra y me enfrenta a un sabor desconocido en mí. Mira esto, Anla, ahora no soy capaz de escribir otra cosa que streams of conciousness, he perdido las metáforas. No sé escribir, Anla. Solo sé sentir tu respiración a través del pelo de mis senos, sólo puedo imaginar que las dos nos queremos en un espacio donde tú estas en paz con mi amor y yo con el tuyo, donde yo puedo amarte a ti y a todos los hombres del mundo debajo del puente donde al fin murió Telma. Que ella era todo lo que yo quería; que la perdí, que está presente sólo como un cuadro encima de mi cama, el del dibujo del pájaro que quiere tragarse la mariposa de mi ojo derecho. Que se me va acabando el aliento, Anla, que para saber si soy virgen Ella, esa chica, me pregunta si actuar se siente como un orgasmo, que Ella me dice que tengo lindos-ojos-y-aretes, y que por eso a Ella quise darle un beso y dos. Ella estrambótica. ¿Mujer? Casi la hemos perdido, Anla, se me va acabando el aliento. Los pájaros miran, tengo vergüenza. Primero te abrazo y luego tú me acaricias los párpados. Primero te beso en mi cuarto. Primero abrazarte. En mi cama, Anla, en mi cama estás tú, omnipresente en mi cuarto interior. Los pájaros te observan, sólo ellos.
Cuando Ella, la chica ¿mujer?, abra esta puerta, quisiera que nos encontrara a ti y a mi acariciándonos sobre mi mesa de fibra de vidrio. Cuando Ella abra la puerta se me acabará el aliento. Besar la almohada. Gritar al revés intentando un silencio que lastima la garganta, contigo en mi cuarto interior para siempre. Cuando Ella abra la puerta me encontrará perdida en un beso. Y afuera, revoloteando, unas cuantas plumas negras.

Yo quería abrirme a mí mismo y ver qué había dentro, desgarrarme y observar finalmente la sangre latiendo debajo de mi piel, que crujiría como una manzana que es mordida, cuando con mis dedos y los suyos la abriéramos para ver la vida adentro de mí. La vida descubierta con ella. Su cuerpo pálido y suave estaría abrigado por telas rayadas y ella me hablaría como siempre de las historias que querría montar conmigo, yo el protagonista, yo corriendo hasta ella y cayendo a su lado casi muerto sobre el pasto amarillo. Y después, me sentaría a su lado para contarle mi pena, la de esos libros, y haría un agujero en la pared para escondernos ahí, los dos solos con la luz de los fósforos que ella secretamente habría guardado en sus bolsillos. Yo desdoblaría los papeles guardados en el centro de mi pecho, abriría las hojas de líneas, blancas, y pondría aquel gesto que a ella tanto le gustaba y le leería lo que escribí, y Ana abriría su boca rojísima y yo la mía.
Y nuestros labios se abrirían un montón, cada boca como una claqueta de las que usan en el cine para separar las escenas y permitir el ingreso de nuevos personajes -esos que ella tanto ama. Nuestros labios estarían enfrentándose, los unos ocupando el espacio que le correspondería a los del otro, bocas abiertas y gigantes como las fauces de los lobos, del lobo de mi cuento segundo. Y al fin, en un roce casi imperceptible, lograríamos juntar nuestros labios doloridos de tanto moverse sin encontrarse. Y yo, que querría más y más con ella, pasearía mi lengua sobre sus dientes superiores, tan caliente mi cuerpo y sudoroso, y sus ojos seguirían cerrados. Y yo, yo le diría “Ana”, despacio, los dos metidos en el agujero de la pared de ladrillos, ella con su mano cubriendo el orificio para que la luz no penetrara y yo sosteniendo el fósforo prendido en su mano, junto a mi pecho todo el tiempo, sin quemarnos.

Llegará el día en que Carson duerma con Reeves y su trompeta. Será el día que ella golpee a Katy y la deje muerta.
Katy Faroles se llama su muñeca verde, casi podrida. A Katy la sentaron junto al piano, entre las cortinas, para que se enfriara y muriera, tiesa. Carson la encontró y cerró la ventana, y el agua de lluvia y el viento sin música se quedaron afuera.

-Vamos- le dijo a Katy. Aún me falta una muñeca duquesa

Katy obediente abrazó a Carson y se resbaló hasta su pierna.

-Carson- le dijo Katy-, estoy hambrienta.

Carson buscó frijoles, buscó tomates, buscó unas peras. Pero no encontró nada para saciar a la nueva duquesa. Katy se aguantó el hambre y apretó a Carson y volvió su piel negra.

-Carson- dijo de nuevo Katy-, de ti nunca me iré. Ni muerta.

A Carson no le quedaron ganas de presentarle a sus otras muñecas. En adelante engañó a Katy y le hizo creer que sí era duquesa. Y vistió faldas más cortas para que Katy no tuviera de donde aferrarse las veces en que ella se sentaba a la orilla del río a mirar los patos. Y a remojarse las piernas.

Carson sentadita come pasas, come arvejas. Carson tiene una falda que no le cubre bien las piernas. Su camisa es la misma blanca que Reeves usará cuando se suicide -después de un concierto, su cuerpo destazado sobre unas piedras . Ella parece un niño, tiene cara de muchacho. Reeves empieza a tocar su trompeta. Carson quisiera saber leer música para escribirle cartas. Y quisiera subirle más el dobladillo a su falda y quizá cortarse un poco el pelo y dejarle en el bolsillo cuatro arvejas verdes a Reeves egoísta, el que no toca para ella.
Bajo los pies de Carson los patos nadan, son diez contentos. Ella les lanza pasas y cierra los ojos y se concentra. Adentro halla a Reeves sin su trompeta. Solo su cabello peinado, y el torso desnudo, sin camiseta. En la cabeza de Carson, Reeves vomita las arvejas.
-Te quiero Carson, pero sé que tú amas las trompetas.

Frankie es una pelusa que quiere explotar mi casa. Explotar mi casa. Explotarla. Se agacha, y justo debajo de mi mesa, se aferra a las telas que envuelven mi cuerpo y se ríe. Y flota, Frankie quiere ser un chico, se encoge, da brincos. Frankie no me pertenece. Carson la puso en su caja y yo la tomé prestada. Si ella lo descubre, si sabe que yo hurgué en su caja, entonces quizá quiera darme una paliza. Frankie furiosa, Carson furiosa, ella pegó sus mejores dibujos en las paredes de su casa. Ocurre que cuando el día acaba, Carson se sienta a escuchar las lecciones de trompeta de sus amigos de fuera de la caja y casa, y deja que Frankie descanse en la hamaca que los granos de polvo le procuran entre sus cuerpos. Y Frankie suele quedarse, quietecita, aletargada en el espacio que las partículas le hacen, y no se mueve nunca, pero el reloj que tiene perdido en sus fibras sigue corriendo, y le cuenta
que Carson ha cerrado los ojos y sólo busca sonidos
que los granos de polvo son viejos, cadáveres, espectros
Y Frankie deja que el reloj se acelere, y ella vibra, y como a Carson, sólo le importa sentir el latido de sus manecillas-canciones internas. Su reloj ya no es reloj, es el dibujo de una bomba que Carson pegó en la pared para señalar el norte de su caja y casa. Y Frankie se levanta, los huesos del polvo muerto cadáver espectro se desintegran, Frankie tiene una bomba en el pecho, y yo destapo la caja y casa de Carson, y Frankie salta y se ríe y se oculta entre mis piernas. Pelusa. Carson se desintegra en el polvo de los cuadritos de sonido de la trompeta, que no vio, quietecita, partículas de chica que en el fondo quería ser chico. Ahora Frankie explota mi casa.
Y yo cuento

Sentada. Las piernas abiertas sobre el suelo. El voladito del vestido sucio, los dedos manchados de fango seco. Me abres los brazos pero no me miras. Pequeña. Te vi en el monstruo que Anaïs escribió, pero ahora que he vuelto a leerla reconozco que el suyo no es tan bello… ya no te reconozco a ti en él. El óvalo que arde en medio de mis senos se pregunta por qué el calor me asfixia pero no me mueve. Por qué le siento hervir pero no busco extinguirlo.

Deshacer la pintura en mis dedos, tomar a la chiquita en mis brazos y golpearla hasta que su cabeza, como un plátano, se estrelle contra algún rincón y se quede pegada, adherida su pulpa a la superficie. Para, entonces, quitarle la faldita de tela transparente y abrirle las rodillas. (Yo te veo a ti en la literatura). Y pintar la pechera de su vestido con las puntas de mis índices, creando remolinos simétricos justo en el hueco donde está su diafragma. La niña, con los ojos cerrados y el cerebro expuesto, intentaría pensar por un momento en el color de los trazos que yo le dibujaría en las costillas. Pero su pensamiento quedaría inconcluso, sin lograr conectarse con la definición de amarillo, guardada en la fracción del hemisferio que, fuera del cráneo, habría empezado a descomponerse.
Todavía viva. (No me llames cruel. Cruel es lo que me obligas a hacer). Me acostaría sobre ella, reposando mi tórax sobre su pubis. Leyendo su aroma, tierno sudor de lodo y agua de río, de donde la saqué el primer día. Se rió, unos dedos bajo sus axilas, y aunque quiso no se quejó por los guijarros que le abrían los talones. Volvió todos los días usando la ropa que guardaba para los ratos de felicidad. El vestido blanco de la tía Lila le quedó bien después de fruncirle la cintura. Lo vestía por las mañanas, para sumergirse en las aguas poco profundas. Yo aparecí el día en que su deseo de quedarse allí toda la vida, empapada los cabellos y los calzones, creció tanto que pudo rememorarlo. Primer recuerdo, pero la obligaron a salir de todas formas. Conservó las ganas de volver todos los días, aunque las escuchó menos seguido. Yo/ella la/me llevé/llevó conmigo. Era el tiempo de nuestro amor como iguales. Vivimos juntas.

Y oler su ombligo. Inconexo. Su fragancia, mezcla de leche y heces, me recordaría las páginas que ella me sugirió escribir cuando éramos niñas las dos. (¿Vas a quererme cuando yo no sea yo misma?). Que dirían “te quiero Anaïs, te amo porque tú eres como nosotras, porque eres una nosotras crecida”
Y estirar los brazos para alcanzar sus cabellos, salpicados de trocitos gelatinosos y escarlatas, pedazos de su masa encefálica recién expuesta. Que vibrarían en las palmas de mis manos, como luces de neón que encendiéndose tratarían de decir algo, de escribir con destellos fluorescentes su verdad en las falanges de mis dedos.

Hundo el pincel en el tarro de pintura roja. Saco una gota y la mezclo con otras dos de color blanco. No bastan para lograr el rosado de tu piel. Quiero encontrar el tono de tus brazos dorados, escondidos en las sombras. Los pinceles a un lado; caen al piso. Son mis manos las que se embadurnan de tinturas color durazno, las que arden queriendo sacarte de ese rincón y mostrar-me a ti, ahora que ya no soy contigo… Pero no me miras a los ojos. Mis senos ya están marchitos, los pezones casi rozan el suelo, y ésta es la primera oportunidad que tengo de verte desde que te encerré. He vivido sin ti porque quise ser sin tu compañía. Y traté de ser lo que solo las dos juntas, tu y yo, podíamos ser. Pero no fui. Y te extrañé, pero temí que vieras que no me he convertido en Anaïs y que mi viaje diario a la cárcel exterior no valió la pena. (Espérame mientras soy alguien más). Vergüenza. Yo traté, sola, pero supe que no sería como ella después de leer su Monstruo, que nunca se igualará a ti, porque tú me perteneces. La dejé irse a ella y a su engendro, y para que tú no lo supieras, te encerré en mi guarida.

Siento tu abrazo, en mi espalda los libros que escribiste en tu encierro. Tu voz en mi cuello me explica las historias que quieres que cuente. Pequeña, no me miras a los ojos porque has perdido los tuyos. Mojado tu traje blanco, húmedos los dedos de tus pies. No dibujaré un círculo arremolinado en medio de tu pecho. Ni te golpearé hasta matarte. Confía en mí… Te recuesto. Te quito la faldita de tela transparente y cierro tus rodillas. Reposo mi tórax sobre el tuyo. No eres el monstruo que pintó Anaïs, ni yo quiero dibujarlo. Mi dedo en tu ombligo se enciende, te parte, nos afianza. Puedes salir cuando quieras.

Don’t you call me cruel
Cruel is what you are making me do

I’m at odds with me now
Would you want me when I’m not myself?
Wait it out while I’m someone else?
-John Mayer

Si quieres a Marissa, no la encontrarás en mí.
Huelo a pastel de chocolate. El aroma sube hasta mi nariz, cierro los ojos y me acuerdo de ti. ¿Estabas nervioso? Yo intentaba no estarlo, intentaba improvisar en la marcha y construir el personaje que creía que tú deseabas que fuera.
Café en la mesa. Me contaste la historia de Marissa descubriendo a Dios (¿por ti, contigo, en ti?). Era el cuento más cursi que habías escrito pero era el que más te gustaba, me dijiste. En esa historia todas tus fantasías se materializaron: encontrabas a Marissa en la calle de una aldea remota, mientras los Stone Temple Pilots tocaban tu canción favorita y ella te miraba de frente a través de un cristal. De allí, saltabas a tus salvajes relaciones sexuales con ella; hacías que enfermara de apatía y que -teniéndote a ti como figura masculina- decidiera que creer en Dios iba a ayudarla a sentirse menos vacía.
Yo me reía por dentro. Bebía café y atacaba un empalagoso brownie con prontitud, para que las carcajadas no salieran a borbotones y arruinaran nuestra primera salida. No sé si te diste cuenta, o creíste que eran los nervios los que me hicieron cubrir la boca como si estuviera tosiendo justo cuando tú tratabas de describirme con máxima precisión a la Marissa que inventaste en tu texto: la piel de medusa, escuálida y sin sonrisa. Ofreciste mandármelo por e-mail para que lo leyera con más calma y te dijera lo que pensaba. Te dije que por supuesto, que era lo mejor porque se me había hecho tarde, que seguro iba a disfrutar mucho leyéndote.
Aunque en verdad quería quedarme y conocer más a Marissa. Así hubiera podido decirte que iba un rato al baño, utilizar ese momento para reflexionar a solas sobre sus motivaciones y regresar sintiéndome como ella. Entonces me habría sentado junto a ti para seguir atendiendo a tu historia, ya sin celos. Halagada.

Caminamos. Supongo que no teníamos más que decir. Me mirabas, ¿era tu cara de aturdimiento señal de que intuías la metamorfosis dentro de mi cabeza? Mis ideas se volvieron maleables como la gelatina, y mis ganas de reír se apagaron.
Quería pedirte tomarnos de la mano y justificar de ese modo tu silencio en la calle. Quería que Marissa fuese real, que tuvieras una foto suya en la billetera.
- Creo que sí la he visto, fue todo lo que dijiste.

En la mañana descubrí este olor en mí. Quiero hablar contigo, todavía quiero pedirte tomar tu mano, que me prestes tu cd de los Pilots y que me acompañes en este día raro en que no tengo ganas de hacer el amor.
Encuentro tu “Marissa o el origen de la fe” en mi correo. La Marissa que leo en tu texto se reúne contigo en una cafetería de la ciudad, come con deleite un pastelito negro y se burla de tu ideal femenino, sin más música de fondo que la voz destemplada de unos niños vendedores de dulces.

Quiero hablar contigo, todavía quiero decirte lo que no te dije ayer: que olvides a Marissa, que sólo existe en tu mente. Que no podrás encontrarla en mí.

-Tía Lila, ¿qué es el horizonte?
Tía Lila me respondió primero con un suspiro. Sacó un balde lleno de agua del tanque de latón del patio y se inclinó sobre él para lavarse la cara como si hubiera estado muy sucia. Después dijo:
- Es el borde de las cosas.
Se quitó la blusa mojada y el sostén, y entró a la casa a buscar ropa seca. A veces no se ponía nada durante horas, y andaba con las tetas blancas bamboleándose como si quisieran despegarse de su pecho. Yo entré detrás de ella. Me senté sobre la alfombra de la sala, justo en la parte que iluminaban los rayos del sol que atravesaban los cristales de la ventana. La miré alejarse por el corredor hasta que ya no pude distinguir su silueta de las sombras de los aparadores del fondo. Su imagen se fundía con todo lo demás en mi cabeza.
- ¿Por qué tienes senos, tía Lila?
- Di tetas, mijita.
No importó que no contestara mi pregunta. Para saber que seguía siendo ella aún en medio de la oscuridad me bastaba con oír su voz; esa voz que llegaría a pertenecerme algún día y que desde el fondo del zaguán me arrullaba roncamente: “Duerme, duerme negrita…”

- Tu abuela ha muerto- me anunció tía Lila esa tarde, mientras me ayudaba a levantarme del piso de la sala donde me había quedado dormida. Me sentó junto a ella en el sillón más grande y me abrazó mientras yo todavía soñaba. Y en mi sueño, yo estaba en el corredor de la casa y ya era una adulta gorda y parsimoniosa como tía Lila, pero cuando vi mi pecho no encontré mis senos. Entonces lloré, y la oscuridad y las sombras se volvieron de un color sepia incomprensible. Entré al cuarto de mi tía, ella estaba sentada de espaldas al espejo de su armario con el torso desnudo y una falda color verde que quemaba los ojos. Le dije:
-Tía Lila, ¡para ser cómo tú solo me faltan las tetas!
Ella se rió, sacando un enorme cuchillo de carnicero con punta de tiza de entre sus dientes amarillos, y me lo dio para que yo delimitara su silueta en el espejo.
- Esa línea es mi horizonte, mijita- dijo mientras se ponía de pie y buscaba un sostén en los cajones del armario.

- Y ¿dónde está la abuela?- pregunté cuando sentí el abrazo de tía más fuerte y desperté completamente en medio de la penumbra de las seis de la tarde.
Tía empezó a sollozar. Se cubrió la cara con las manos y me ordenó que fuera a su cuarto. Con los brazos extendidos para no tropezar, caminé en busca de su habitación, pero antes de que lograra encontrar la puerta, sus pasos retumbaron sobre el entablado. Traía una vela encendida que su respiración agitada amenazaba con apagar. Abrió la cerradura y colocó el candelabro sobre su cómoda, me tomó en sus brazos y me metió en su cama sin quitarme los zapatos.
- Ahora voy a ver a mamá. Duerme bastante, mañana tú también irás al cementerio.
Buscó en el armario un chal negro y se lo puso antes de salir. La escuché revolviendo cajones en otro cuarto, pero no conseguí dormir hasta que recordé que tía Lila nunca vistió de verde en su vida.
Abrí los ojos con la luz del día siguiente. Sabía que la abuela estaba muerta y pensé que tía había ido a su entierro. Estuve acostada largo rato, sintiendo que un nido de arañas se tejía en mi garganta sin que yo pudiera toser lo suficiente para expulsarlas, hasta que escuché un chorro de agua derramándose en el baño. Me alegró suponer que era tía Lila bañándose y salté de la cama quitándome el vestido de flores doradas en mi camino a su encuentro.
Cuando entré al cuarto donde guardábamos las toallas y los jabones, vi a tía Lila sumergida hasta el cuello en una tina llena de un líquido rojo. Sus ojos me miraron sin decir nada. Yo me quité los zapatos y los calcetines blancos para meterme con ella en el agua. Porque tenía que ser agua, sólo agua de un color alegre que tía hubiera preparado para aliviar su dolor, agua, no sangre, no su sangre. Agua.
Me acerqué a la tina y metí mis pies uno por uno. Mi tía seguía mis movimientos con los ojos anémicos. Me sumergí a su lado y apoyé mi cabeza en su hombro.
Su respiración era suave, casi imperceptible, casi nula. La abracé y quise preguntarle si la abuela estaba enterrada, pero mi voz, ya ronca, se enredó en las telarañas de mi garganta y no pude decir nada. Pensé que no era necesario molestar a tía Lila con preguntas, y me aferré a su cuerpo desnudo con más fuerza, entendiendo que el horizonte que me separaba de ella iba desapareciendo a medida que yo me hundía en el agua salada de la tina.
Bajo el agua, los contornos no existían y nada podía impedir que yo me convirtiese en tía Lila y poseyera sus recuerdos y su dolor y sus grandes grandes senos. Y bajo el agua, resolví que me quedaría en el fondo hasta que mi tía decidiera que ya era hora de levantarse y secar nuestro cuerpo.
Hasta que tía Lila decidiera.

Hoy falté a todas las clases. Al fin y al cabo, no vine aquí a estudiar, sino a .
He terminado un texto pendiente. El mundo cada vez me parece más redondo, más viscoso. No un sólo mundo, las burbujas de cada esfera brillan verdosas entre mis manos y chorrean, se resbala el material, líquido derramado en mi cerebro y yo canto, o hago que canto. Nunca mis historias están terminadas. Es verdad que después de un cierto tiempo se me olvida que las escribí y entonces ya no soy la persona apropiada para corregirlas, y se quedan así, muñecas a medio rellenar en mi casa de escombros sin luces donde, hace un tiempo ya, nunca es de noche. Muñecas, juguetes, palabras que ya no son yo. Que en primer lugar nunca fueron yo, ni siquiera un pedazo, solo una foto tomada desde cierta distancia. La imagen la capturo desde el interior. Para definirla, me convierto en una neblina transparente que se apropia de los cuerpos inventados que viven en las fotos que tomo, y que cuento en forma de historias. Mis ojos son los de ellos, y cuento con su propia voz y su propio conocimiento. Yo soy ellos cuando los cuento. No Maccullers. Ella se queda a la mitad, observando, sin embeberse en la burbuja verde viscosa que rodea a cada muñeca. Ella no se embadurna, aunque procura que los ojos de quien lee se humedezcan con la mucosa vital de los seres que lee. Pero Carson ya esta muerta y yo no soy ella. Ni Anais. Mi Anais esta viva pero me rompió el corazón. Ella está lejos, vive en las honduras a las que yo tanto les temo, vive en soledad y sale a veces, tristísima, y se mezcla con los otros y hace que la amen, pero nunca se queda. El fondo del abismo es su lugar preferido, y yo la entiendo. La envidio. Por supuesto no se llama Anais. Por supuesto es una mujer de carne y hueso que amo profundamente pero que nunca estará conmigo. Porque nació mucho antes, porque es más sabia y más bella y más triste. Pero es su soledad lo que yo amo, y eso es algo que yo aún conservo en mí pero que aún no aprendo a manejar. Así, la soledad es eso que me acerca a Anais y sus ojos verdes distantes, que viven en la oscuridad y la luz de sus textos. Lejana. La llamo Anais porque el nombre me recuerda a la otra, a la de Miller, y a veces, leyendo los diarios de esa otra, he encontrado mis propios temas.”Anais”, el nombre, es entonces un nexo que yo he inventado para acercar a la Anais de carne y hueso a mí misma un poco más. Que no se llama Anais, no no no, pero que yo la llamo Anais porque es sencillamente muy vergonzoso amar a alguien que nunca volteara la mirada para reconocerle a uno. Anais. Y aún aquí hay un poco de vergüenza en el aire. Flotando. Amor sublimado. Que no es amor. Solo la certeza de querer alcanzarla allí donde ella vive, descalza. De conocer la burbuja de sus ojos. La que ven sus ojos. De crear la mía propia. Y la pena. El dolor de saberme cada vez más lejos, estoy en busca del fondo de un abismo nuevo, mi vida en la que me he empecinado en llegar hasta el fondo de innumerables agujeros. Hasta el fondo. Hurgar y sacar la tierra y trabajar con mi pala cabeza de muñeca hasta llegar al núcleo, al centro que arde, y comprobar que la burbuja ha sido en realidad solo el vestido de un mundo real, palpable. Estoy cavando un nuevo nicho. Profundo. Solo el recuerdo de Anais me sostiene en este esfuerzo, Anais Monstruo y Carson Frankie Mick y mi alma magullada pero viva. Mis dolores son menos pero mi curiosidad es más grande. Nada me duele, pero haber empezado a escarbar en esta nueva tierra, suavecita, pantanosa, es una especie de premonición de otro hueco en el que me voy a enterrar por algún tiempo. La superficie me es accesoria. Me gusta a veces, para tomar fuerzas. Cuando estoy allí afuera busco compañía, alguien que me acompañe en el viaje. Aun no lo encuentro. Cuando estoy afuera, buscar el alma de la gente. Ahora he vuelto aquí adentro. Sigo escarbando, el sol nunca se pone. Sigo escarbando y a veces, después de leer a Anais, siento que este también fue su camino, reconozco los senderos en sus páginas, me leo a mí misma en sus textos y entonces me doy cuenta de que quizá ella es el mapa y por eso no la olvido. Marca profunda.