islas de gigantes
midnight
Words rolled off the tongue at midnight, I found. Anyone could promise you anything, worst of all love or friendship. But such promises gave little consolation. If anything, what a promise could set us up for was the disillusion.
We got lost on the road. And I fell asleep and missed the first moments of dawn. By the time I woke up, we somehow found the right way and everything looked too bright.
sunrise
We wondered if we were at the right place. We were the misfits at that seaport, sticking out too much. Fishes fresh from the catch began to stink. Men shoved ice into containers full of already dead ones, while others were loaded into trucks. The boat we were waiting for soon arrived.
mid-day
By mid-day, my heart sank from sadness. I never truly knew its face until now. As we were used to, such thoughts were swept under the rug. Because there, almost within reach, were the sea and the islands. Yet there I was, too, feeling selfish and foolish.
At the top of the hill, you could see everything down below. But when you try to reach out, you might slip and fall into the rocks. I wondered how it would be like to live in an island and be cut off from the rest of the world, as if that would be worse in a city without a village.
Stepped out and saw them in the harsh sunlight: experiencing bold things, diving deep below as if sky caved in, all the while not caring much about anything, least of all, of me.
before dusk
What do you do in a situation where you’re awed and humbled?
You memorize: through the images captured with a crappy camera, through superlative words, through film-like scenes replayed and condensed in the brain. It cheapens it. But it has to be done; otherwise, the feeling will be lost forever, as it is already fleeting the minute it begins. Eventually we go home and forget, but not if we diminish something profound into several poor pictures or into a romanticized memory.
Back to the question: when you’re in such a situation, you say sorry.
night
Then, it settled. I crawled into bed and slept like a log. It felt like flying as we were riding the motorbike through the narrow paths heading towards the sunset. But I held back and did not tell anyone what it meant. It was only mine to keep from now on; no one else wanted it.
But such lies we convince ourselves with.
new day
Others got better at hiding behind cruel jokes. And as we were wrapped in darkness in a cave, this oneness overcame me. I, too, could learn.
For weeks, I had lived with this disarray and disquiet. But when I did not plunge into the water and worry about things later on, not out of resistance but out of some sort of contentment, this I also found: there’s courage in taking constant action, but also courage in keeping still.
with love,
abelink
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