Edna Orozco Campo

Santiago de Cali, February 28, 2019

To those who used to be interested,

People are saying that everything has a beginning, a knot and an outcome, that this is how the world turns, that in this way life is constituted. Some say that the world was created in seven days, others thanks to an explosion, others speak of anunnakis and reptilians, but all agree that planet earth, in all its splendor, will have its end. They say that love is the most beautiful feeling that takes you to the moon and can lower the sky. But love is the most lethal weapon because little by little it consumes you, you stop being you, you give yourself to another person to dispose of you. Love is lethal, because your feelings no longer belong to you, your emotions no longer control you, and reason…reason doesn’t work.

They say that when you love someone, every time you see them, brain circuits are set in motion and the areas that activate states of sadness are silenced. They say that when someone leaves you, it is for the better because maybe they never loved you or love was no longer on their side. People say that sadness, crying, problems and sorrows have a solution, everything has an answer, but that predestined death is the exception. People say so many things, but that doesn't fill, it doesn't calm, it doesn't heal. They say, love, that the best way to liquidate someone's feelings is to stop naming, calling, thinking.

The days of hope, joy and unbridled love are over for you, for me, for us. You are gone and your memory is my only company, my only hope. We were a bunch of fantasies, dreams and goals to fulfill. We made promises that now accompany the air, that talk to the stars and that leave with the waves of the sea. You are the way life tells me that the good is short-lived, that life is short-lived.

The hours pass, but in my head...time has stopped; my mental clock is frozen when you left me alone outside your house, with questions and no answers. Without expecting it, you ripped me from you, you left me with an orphan and a one-sided love. Without expecting it I find myself alone in my room with the cold sneaking down my feet, touching my soul and reminding me that I will have to get used to your absence that embraces me. I will have to live with my hands bruised by lack of heat. I will have to march to cry, to lament, to remember.

Love, in the middle of my dreams I name you and you do not appear. I call you with excessive passion and you don't come back. Why don't you come back? My mouth, my hands, my arms cry out for you, for your presence. I long for your absence to go away.

I don't give up, I don't get tired, I follow you, I talk to you, I tell you, I write to you:

Ven, como oración te llamo en las noches.

Abrázame, porque me muero de frío.

Te recuerdo mientras tomo tus broches;

te recuerdo mientras lloro como crío.

Vuelve, porque me quema tu ausencia.

Regresa, porque sin ti no he vivido.

I must not be able to forget you, your shadow haunts me, I repeat your name, I feel your steps. I call you, love, and you don't respond; I scream at you with fury, despair, with pain. I think we were words, words with the need to be completed; we were verbs wanting to conjugate; we were love and fun; we were two paths with different goals. How ugly it is to realize that we are no longer, that we will no longer be.

The worst part of no longer being is hearing about you, walking paths and imagining yourself holding hands, visiting places and not seeing your smile waiting. The worst thing about no longer being, is that you are with someone else, existing, laughing, crying, traveling. The worst thing about no longer being is that I am still here, being for both of us, feeling for both of us. And here I am, listening to your voice in my head, perceiving your smell in my clothes, feeling your taste in my mouth.

You have hurt me, love, and I feel suffocated, my chest oppresses me, my lungs do not pump enough oxygen, my blood doesn’t run. I have forgotten your face, your hands, your arms, your lips. I've forgotten what it's like to take you, to hug you, to love you. Don't think I hold a grudge against you, but it hurts me to live, existence weighs on me and the days distress me. I have broken our photos, your letters, your thoughts. But, life, nothing works, everything remains the same, you are still not, I am still for you, I am still here.

Sometimes I find myself looking at nothingness, observing the infinite, perceiving the absolute. Sometimes they find me crying for you, imagining you full, drawing you beautiful. Sometimes Mom hears me cry and I know that it's also her grief. Sometimes and only sometimes, I feel that I don't miss you, that you were just an illusion, that you were a dream or a badly told joke. Sometimes I lie too, sometimes I no longer feel like you're missing.

I know I must mourn you, burn you, and suffocate you. I know I must eat, take my medicines, I know I must breathe. I know that, perhaps, you are one more, a passing being who taught me the verb to love and to conjugate it in all its times. I know that ours was little, that for you it was not enough. I know I must forgive you, forgive me, forgive us. I know that I must learn to forget and to miss healthily. I know many things, love, but I don't know how to put away the pain, how to let go of grief, how to extinguish our love.

They say the best way to liquidate and forget someone is to stop naming them. And that's what you've done, love, because I feel like I've hit rock bottom, there's nothing but darkness anymore. Listen to me, look at me, read me.

Love, I've hit rock bottom.