Traversing the Confines of Limbs and Pillows

María Eugenia Colón Vázquez
Departamento de Filosofía
Facultad de Humanidades, UPR RP 

Recibido: 09/03/2023; Revisado: 02/05/2023; Aceptado: 02/05/2023 

Traversing the confines of limbs and pillows, I’m awoken by a sliver of sunrise that escapes the stained metal windows of that derelict room. Another morning spent in the arms of apathy. Is this the youth that was promised?   

When held me close to your boyish body and I turned away, you reproached me for being complicated. Whereas I was glad that I was being shamed into giving in because it was a release from the regret of not holding out. It was an excuse to spit my pride into the gutter with the fishbones and the baby teeth. But the reality was never as glamorous as my supposed complexity. After all, wasn’t there always someone else? And if I write your name so that you may share the blame, may I finally survive, this tightrope to legitimacy?  

He never could elude   

why he orbited me for years  

Hunting me down   

with a lifeless sneer  

And I  

never could discern  

if the arrows hit the spine  

And I   

never could tell  

the authenticity of my surrender  

But I hope you yield  

a petal yields  

to a drop of passing rain  

He opens his sock drawer and places a crumbled twenty in my hand before pointing at the door. Like my mother reminding me to fix my posture, my fear pokes at my back warning me to save the vestiges of grace. But on the hour train ride back home, I begin to assemble the age-old list of grievances I call reality.   

But who can blame me? Alone on a mid-December night, the Christmas lights hung like glittering nooses. It was nice out and eventually my face numbed from the wind, just how I like it. There was party. Decorated with empty wine bottles, somewhere in the venue’s basement someone’s always getting a tattoo. They’ll play songs about love and turtles, and breakfast sandwiches and teenage alcoholism. And on my way out, Cat Steven’s “The Wind” plays on repeat. “I swam upon the Devil’s Lake/ but never, never, never/ I’ll never make the same mistake/ No, never, never, never.”

Esta obra está bajo una licencia de Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial 4.0 Internacional.