avoare

I looked down into the falling water. Something about its erratic movement and the little waves trembling in the surface disturbed me. I felt like I was looking at something that I wasn't meant to be looking, or, worse, at something that isn't real, at something that is outside my realm of understanding. The water was similar to a gigantic placenta. Obscene.

And now I am sitting here, and the wind blows, and she carries no voices; there is barely any people left at the convent. My mom sleeps at the hotel room. One of the favored saints of the church — Saint Roque — stares at me, exposing his upper thigh, with a small, bleeding wound, almost like a gunshot — "and when you hurt the small ones, this is what you do to me". There is nothing behind his eyes. This, right here, is the place I will see in my dreams.

Am I always meant to be this way? To search for something that has no name or thought or shape at all and to always, always fail? Feels so terribly christian, I suppose, so terrible hopeful to think I am, in fact, searching for something, but I am. Perhaps I don't need it. Perhaps I don't truly want it. But I want to know its name. I want to know the name of this being. It is the woman standing in the dark, at the top of the stairs, leaning against the wall, and I can only see her shoulders. It is the dead bird. It is the lady in white. It is those nuns, walking around in their dark blue habits. There is something. But I can't force her hand. She is like a stray dog, one beaten and poisoned and just hanging by pure hatred and animal fear. Even when she comes, she will always keep her distance. But it is alright. I am just the same. No other creature could have created me.

I go up, I feed the fish; I dream that is what my life is resumed to now. It never is.