Departure

The woman’s plaintive voice rises and falls like a sigh. I turn up the radio.

No hay mas vida, no hay
No hay mas lluvia, no hay…

I sit at my mirror and brush out my hair.100 strokes every night, ever since I was a little girl. Ever since I could remember. Even before you.

Llévame donde estés, llévame…

My hair hangs to my waist, the length of it like a black waterfall. Your hands once knew it well.

Cuando alguien se va, él que se queda sufre más.

I put down the brush, impatient with myself and my useless recollections. But memory is long and forgetting is never. I will your face to become a ghost, a spirit. Not this relentless image that burns its imprint behind my closed eyes.

No hay mas cielo , no hay
No hay mas viento, no hay
No hay mas hielo, no hay
No hay mas fuego, no hay…

The woman’s plaintive voice rises and falls like a sigh. I give up to memory and feel the tears course down my face, these irrevocable rivers of love and loss.

Cuando alguien se va, él que se queda sufre más…

~

At first it is hard. At first it feels like pretending, like acting. Like the smile on my face is so plastic, if I move wrong it will crack and part of my face will fall to the ground. Broken.

The thought of this gives me some sick satisfaction, because at least then I will be able to show on the outside how broken I am on the inside. And then I won’t have to pretend anymore.

But I’m still whole, at least on the outside, so I keep pretending. Because I know it breaks my mother’s heart to see me depressed. Because I don’t want my friends to think I’m some estupida who does nothing but mope over a guy who won’t even give her the time of the day.

I see you sometimes, when you don’t think I’m looking at you. When you are rummaging through your locker or joking with your buddies. I watch you laugh and all I can think is, how can you go on living as though you aren’t missing half of yourself? As if your heart has already forgotten me.

Shakira got it right, man. The one left behind always suffers more.

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