The Waltz for a Thousand Times

 

I was severely hit by the cold, wet air of the early morning. Punishing me the dream that haunts me. I wake up three, four times a night, it's the alprazolam's fault, it's not the alprazolam's fault, it's the coffee or the tea's fault, what does it matter, if the blame dies alone and is never anyone's, and I opened the windows, the night was still walking among the vapors of the promise of being day and, I, sweating between the duvet and the mattress, looked once more at the clock and only half an hour had passed since the last glance, and I wanted to go back to where you were, in that piece of cloud where no time had passed, nothing stolen, everything as it had been before, before, before and now, in front of the two times there was me, the figure with the present body, sad as the wet night, the wind roaring, no fear, I was the jaguar, the match of the storm, and my glory was in the closed eyes, where I locked you away in these years, absolutely untouchable, permanent and without the stain of age, you kept smiling and from your eyes I saw everything that had been hidden from me during my life, from your eyes, no dawn had dawned on you I said goodbye, because you remained in them, night after night, only inside, being my window to the cold and absent world, the greed of the momentary and decreasing pride, that you were my dawn in my closed eyes, that I guarded you as someone guarding a temple of other people's vendors, that I held you as if the pillars of eternity depended on you and depended, depended, with my face, in the open window, where the rain fell, violently, violently I offered it my face, my arms, my chest to feel, in that impact, all the violence of the stronghold where I remain attached, to an image, to a dream, a mirage of the Douro, and while I kept my eyes closed, guarding you from the world, I offered the concave palms of my hands, not in prayer but in punishment, for continuing to hold you, with the care and passion with which you still nourish me inside, and my legs trembled with the effort to keep me anchored to this port, behind the shutters open, leaning towards the dawn, where you don't arrive, where you are not a character, where nothing and no one knows you, except for all the trees and outstretched arms, whose leaves scream life through their sap, witnesses of wings and beaks, naked like me, tamed like me in the storm, two doves gathered on the wall of the tank, without taking their eyes off me, also with trembling legs, like the candle itself, which remains lit, flickering hope like a sword's edge cutting the dream into reality and nightmare, with no rain to extinguish it, that exhausts it, that makes it sweat, all the living beings of the dawn look at me and are accomplices of my madness, of your absence, of the end that will be seen beginning, perhaps in a war scenario, where any bullet ends, executes, protects the body of any human, through my lifeless flesh, that loves peace and balance, that pursues dreams in the dark, and I see the rain falling on my palms full of God's water, I wet myself to wipe away the emerging tears of the nightmare, and through the neck and the pyjama top, I become a ghost again, scrutinizing the sky that is beginning to lighten and with it my dream of being late and being early, and being everything at once, of being cold, frozen, of my body vapor from scorched fires, weak legs that tremble from exile, from the weight of the years, from the tiredness that exhausts me, from the sum of longing, from the constant mirages that do not abandon me, where I dry the tears and new rivers grow whose tributaries flow into the cove of your eyes that I insist on keeping within me.

After countless attempts to return to the dream, I find myself, I face myself in the mirror where the candle burns, where your eyes from the worn photograph are, the eyes of all the guardian angels that guide me through the hallway in the dark to the kitchen, where I sink the bottom of the kettle into another tap and a bag of lemon balm, with a face towel I dry myself, hands, arms, soaked hair, I take off my pajamas and change my uniform and I sit down quietly, so as not to wake up alive or dead and I indulge in another tea that will hold me until mid-morning, where I will drink double coffee, to withstand the renewed shot of a dream that died exposed, a land mine that exploded ahead, that avenged itself over the years and, which I forgot to presume, that I took care to bury however, without a body present, your body that I love, that only in thought caresses you, does you harm, struggles between the lack and the consolation of still being alive and keeping my body alive and warm, together with the lemon balm tea, together with the sleeping herb, with the lavender in the folds of the sheet, with the tissues, in the fold of the plate, where the tea reminds me that the dawn is getting brighter and you will sleep peacefully again, without my aura surrounding your face, surrounding your chest, in your embrace and sweet smell, I rise up defeated, I return to my aid, the caps lock on, the eagle spirit paused for another night where the alprazolam can be effective, a resting effect on the body tired of the dance that continues to rehearse, the day I will see you, which will be a great day, a day with a bold date on the world's calendar, and on that day, all the speeches, all the words spoken, written, all the distressed dawns of your absence will tire me, because I will return to your arms, between a bullet, the shelter from a crash that will blind me, that will deafen me and I will only see the fireworks in your eyes and that save any child from the advance of the shroud, it will be me that you save, that my body serves as a wall, that is worthy of the shroud, that finally got tired rehearsing a dance that finally came true, when I still had dreams and they were made of velvet, they were fair and free, without offending anyone, guiding me, in the end, your eyes, always your unequal eyes supporting my body, fallen on the ground of the martyrs of war, where without it being a coincidence or chance, I will finally fall into your arms, in the window of your eyes, where God breathed life into me, thus began. And I finish the tea, the text, the sacralization of the seconds, pushing the blankets back, entering the day, in a fetal position, keeping the internal light lit for the volcano that will extinguish itself in this waltz at a thousand times, where my prayers are silenced, where I am already left, on my knees, where only misfortune will kiss my face as if it were your musty lips that calmed me in the now. And then, in the last chords of Brell, the lava of my body will mix in its salty waters, in the sea that united us and that nothing and no one will separate. I can finally close my eyes and wait for the waves that, seven at a time, will break against my body and take me to the open sea, in this waltz rehearsed up there, where we both waltz for many eternities.