Escape

He sits across from her, two isles of desks away. She saw him the first day he showed up with his four girls crew. She saw him, looked at him broadly twice and dismissed. Not that he was dismissible, but her head had had enough to handle for years to come. Not yet. Not again.

Two days went by. She had caught him glancing at her three or four times through the mornings and lazy afternoons. She had caught his puzzled eyes wondering, but she refused to assume he wondered about her. He was just lost into thoughts, not into her. No wetting her toes into any river. She needed ground.

The third day it might have been the baseball cap. There was something about the whiteness of the cloth against his tanned skin that sucked her into his soft beard, his blue eyes, his half smile. She looked away. He answered the phone. His raspy voice echoed in her ears. No. No. Not yet. Not again. She locked her ears from any outland.

But then she spotted his calves under the desk. She spotted the roundness of that muscle riding her into sudden lust. She looked at his ankles, thin as a good dancing slave. His protuberant chest yielding surface to his shirt. His hands typing away seventy-five words per minute. She lost her eyes in him until awaken by his smile. She looked away as if she had been looking through him. But inside her blood was sprinting. She could smell his scent from miles.

She walked outside and lit a cigarette she didn’t want to smoke. She lifted her arms wishing for the wind to dry the sweat drops off her skin. She sighed heavily and asked the gray clouds to distract her intensities. Please, take them with you. Take me with you.

She walked back into the office and his eyes stared directly at her. No hide, no secret. She stared back all the way to her chair. Sat down, cocked her head expressionless while still looking at him and finally looked away at her computer screen. Still, he stared. God, help me. Let me resign from my hunger for a split second. Not yet. Not again.

That night she escaped to home without saying goodbye to anyone.

Next day she came in too early, haven’t had noticed the anxiety of her early wake up. She had sped up to work distractively, not aware of her crave.

She sat in her car reading while waiting for the office to be opened. She watched his crew arriving, one at a time. He will be the next. He always comes in after the Coordinator. She watched the minutes walking through the door, but not him.

She thought she got her mind in place, paced into the office and camped her eyes at his empty spot. He must be getting here any moment now. What? What am I saying? She typed away into her keyboard a story she didn’t want to live; a story about a girl meeting a boy without really getting to know him. A story about the hesitance of a girl persisting to avoid new storms within. She wrote about the girl and felt sad for her despair, her intransigence with herself.

She wrote for as long as she could. He was to arrive any second. But then ten o’clock came and not him. She remembered his blueness gazing at her the days before. She remembered his mystery, his mist and she felt moved. She felt moist.

She ran into the restroom and looked at the mirror. Stop. Stop. You gotta stop. Rest your breath for a second. She looked into her eyes and shut down her fantasies. This is not about him. This is not about anyone but my inability to rest alone for a split second. Stop. You don’t want to know him. I plead. She was tired of her hastiness. Tired of repetitions and the frugality of her inconsistence. The diagnosis was clear; she had been addicted to excitement, to feeling too much, to loving and desiring and engaging and diving. She was exhausted of longings. She washed her face and peed in silence. Enough. She flipped her head and fixed her hair. Not yet. Not again.

When she came out of the restroom there he was at his chair exhaling fire. He smiled at her and she grimed shyly. Run for your life. I can feel it, it’s burning again. No, it’s not any chemistry, it’s just caffeine. It gotta be.

She refrained from thinking but her hands were shaking. Mothafucking cappuccino. Perhaps, I must blame this demand-less job that allows my mind so much to drift. All I need are some tasks and my mind will be clear. Send me the infantry; I’m ready for the battle against my will.

So she got back to writing her story about the girl that didn’t want to meet the boy. She threw herself into words and disregarded her heartbeat. It kept beating. She wished to demise her evil sweat glands persisting to flow rivers under the fabric. She looked at him sitting quietly and wished to run her fingers through his still wet hair.

The day became long. Every second insisted in stretching itself. She saw everything. His dark-gray converse, his dark jeans, his hip green shirt, his attention while scribbling into the post-it, his carefulness with the taping down pictures, the kindness in his tone, the sharpness of his angles. You evil God up there. Leave my motives alone. Leave me be.

She went outside and smoke another cigarette against her will. Let me smoke away my thoughts, blur them with smolder and divert my chemical imbalance. She sat by a chair outside and drifted into bewilderment. She rested her head on her hands and found a pair of dark-gray Converse by her feet. He had sat next to her. No words just presence. They sat in silence hearing each other’s breath, feeling each other skin without needing to touch. Not yet. Not again. They kept the hum of the silence in their heads until requiring tasks pulled them back in. Uff.

The day had gone by with her searching for quietness in her mind. The clock was ticking and she had a chance to win against her overly adventurous hunger. But please, stop talking. Allow me to refrain from hearing your voice against my ears.


By five o’clock she had survived. It was Friday. By the time the weekend would be over she wouldn’t be sitting on that desk again for months to come. Her job was to end and that last Friday was the last chance to give in.

She packed her computer. Looked at him with freedom and wished for a soft kiss. She stood up, pretended to not be leaving––and left. Left alone and drove away holding her breath. It was done. It was over. She closed that chapter and rode along.

Not yet. Not again.

Carta para Marla

Marla,

Descobri seu blog ontem e pirei. Em meio de dia esquisito, cabeça nublada com possibilidade de chuvas escassas, te encontrei cibernética e mudei de cor. Abri suas páginas e mergulhei até segurar as pedrinhas no fundo. Te li mais e mais e me joguei no abismo das suas intensidades. Eu aqui despatriada do meu português, despreparada enquanto transbordando palavras inglesas e espanholas ainda adolescentes que habitam meus desertos mais áridos, me esbarro contigo na esquina da vida e me desencontro para depois me reencontrar.

Fiquei ali abismada, cheia de sensações, em uma mistura de inveja-branca e ciúminho feliz por todas as palavras que você escreveu e não eu, das suas frases não terem de mim saído. Fiquei ali admirando e querendo te saber mais, te conhecer mais, te descobrir. Senti saudades dos meus amigos nesse Brasil, dessa falta de vergonha de falar, de sentir, de viver. Te li mais e pensei em como é que nossos mundos nunca se justapuseram, aí descobri que você só chegou no meu Rio (e o tenho como propriedade sem nenhuma falsa humildade) quando eu já havia me jogado no mar. Marzão de muitas línguas e eventuais mordidas da tal da solidão e esbarrando contigo reacendi esse dia de hoje esquisito, sombra de chama que já virava cinza.

Descobri essa mulher no outro lado do mundo que de imediato quis amizade. Te li uma história atrás da outra e fiquei faminta por minhas próprias palavras. Te abri e quis mais de mim, saindo de tristeza espreguiçada e de repente transbordando em inspiração.

E agora aqui de longe sem saber quem você é, fiquei achando que a gente é amigo dos mesmos amigos, dos mesmos encontros. Compartilhando aqui contigo o meu mundo de palavras tão pequeninhas esquecidas na caixinha de jóias que eu deixei no Brasil, e achando que é tudo besteira quando em face da sua habilidade, fico quietinha, tímida da minha escrita, achando que nada é bom o bastante.

Mas sobretudo, como é lindo encontrar alguém tão distante que mesmo sem presença, só com palavras, inspira tanto e des-cobre meu entusiasmo ainda que em silêncio. E por causa de você, eu quero ler mais, escrever mais, viver mais, eu quero ser mais.

Obrigada

Francisca Libertad


*O site da Marla
www.doidademarluquices.blogspot.com

Settle!

I stay with you so you stay with me and here we are together with each other.

We’re here not because you’re the best for me, although I could claim I may be the best for you, the best of you, if it wasn’t for my grand humility. We’re here not because it feels somehow right––it really actually feels mostly wrong––but because you rather battle about me than not battle about anyone, and I rather struggle about you than not having anyone to struggle about. We are here holding hands in the dark not because your hand feels right on mine, either because my hand fits right into yours, but actually because we’re scared of not having each other’s hands to hold, not having any hands to hold, scared of not being held. And day after day, we convince our minds that we may not be exactly perfect for each other, but at least we are good enough. We live off “good enoughs”, and “as good as it gets”. We live in a safe home. We march around scattering conformism while smirking at the ones whom give into the so-called love.

Love? Which love? That love-thing they brag about, full of major intensities and blahblahblah? Leave that out to the childish ones confined to that burning hell inconsequently happy people go to––the place they’ve taught us about at the shiny temple we went to sign in for our pledge.

Let’s sit here in our throne of temperance and normalcy, sinking into quicksand land of ordinary. Let’s tell ourselves we are content for having each other no-matter-what while lying on a stagnant hammock of old wonders and abandoned yearns.

Remember the days of the great dreams? Days when we used to believe that we were to be happy; happy as those whom allow themselves to cry of hurt instead of recurrent disappointment; as those whom miss each other when they are apart, not out of habit but out of presence; happy as those whom rather die for love than spend hundred years of solitude; happy as what Happy means in that thick book of words.

Don’t be silly, Ultimate Romantic. Leave your aspirations outside and obey what love really is. Not excitement, not desire, not specialty. Love, I’ve been told, is not about compatibility, sex, satisfaction and joy; love is about companionship. It’s about partnership and being there for each other regardless how you feel––and I thought that to be called friendship.

Silly me to think that from six billion people in this planet there would be at least three or four to live what I thought love to be. Straight up illusion––you’re delusional. Love is about a kneeled down proposition, a ring, a veil, a bouquet and a white dress to represent an innocence lost long time ago. Love is about having someone to watch Fox News with, someone to nag and fight at night, someone to complain of your weight gain and point out your vices day after day over and over again. Love is there so to a have a genitalia next to you every night, not that you’d be sharing it often, either that you’ll even associate it to excitement, but it is there, and it’s yours, only yours, and that is to stay that way until you finally lay alone, not to say relieved (re-lived), on a velvet-padded wooden box.

So enough of this love shenanigans! It’s bedtime––that one with the fancy cushions just to look at and never to lie on it. Let’s orderly take them away, turn off the lights and sleep back to back with our conformism until death do us apart.