It was hot inside. Annoyingly hot, stuffy. Naturally it wouldn't bother me, that poorly ventilated room full of people, maybe I simply did not want to stay there. Outside there would be the night's breeze to comfort me, amidst the smoke from cigarettes and other drugs, but I got used to avoiding those. Really, I did not want to stay there, even the way towards the exit seemed too long. I don't want to complain about things, may the records show. I pushed the door as one does when reaching for freedom, and entered the exaggeratedly lit anteroom. Only a few steps left until I reached the comfort of the breeze. To my surprise, there wasn't a lot of smoke from cigarettes and other drugs, in fact there was practically nothing outside. People must be all still stuffed in the heat inside, poor things.
I leaned calmly against the low wall that separated the location's private domain from the street's public domain, and took in the cold air. It probably wasn't that cold, but compared to the cloistered air from where I'd just left, anything was cold. The sky was starry but a bit cloudy, with the appearance of an expensive fabric that someone had poked holes through several times and placed a light source behind. I searched my mind for another occasion where I had left that place alone, with that same perforating need for "fresh air". I searched in vain. Why was it that on that day I wanted my share of "fresh air"? My mind seemed to be as cloudy as the sky, with some ideas poking through it like the stars that shone above. But what would be clouding my mind? I had no real worries bugging me, I hadn't felt stressed in days, did not remember any appointments, had not forgotten anything. There was nothing. There was only this quite ample space to occupy with the present. What's the problem, then?
I checked for the time on my cellphone and put it back inside my purse. I stared at the door, and from there he came, water bottle in hand. He looked in my direction and smiled with his eyes. I pretended not to see, for some reason. Girls always pretend when boys smile with their eyes while looking at them. He got closer, I reached my arm out for the bottle, and this time he smiled with his lips as I took a sip.
— Bored?
— Nah — boredom was ways away from being the matter.
— Tired, then?
— I guess so.
I gave him back the bottle as he leaned against the wall, beside me. Silence. As comforting as the soft breeze. People were talking around us, but I didn't hear them. One couple or two were on the verge of indecency right there, but I didn't see them. I had exhausted my anxiety, my anticipation. What was left for me was a piece of the expectation that would keep me in a suspense animation state until the facts materialized and other expectations would replace the first ones. For the time being I did not want anything else, only what I already had. That breeze, that comfort, that one beside me holding a bottle of water. I spent so much time telling myself to live in the present, and forgot about that along the way. He moved the bottle from his right hand to the left and moved his hand swiftly until he hugged me by the waist. I took a deep breath and laid my head on his shoulder. I'm not sure if he smiled with his eyes or his lips, but he smiled. His smile was the type of thing you didn't need to see, you could feel it.
— Hot in there, isn't it? — he asked, taking another sip of water.
— Very — I answered smiling.
I hope my smile has that same quality of being something you can feel. For some reason I wanted him to know that I was smiling, but did not want him to need to look straight at me to know. Than a star shone brighter inside my mind: now I wanted something.
This one is another from a while ago, beginning of 2011 to be exact. Any similarity to reality is not a mere coincidence because I basically took situations that really happened and distorted them a little bit to express what I was feeling. And I'm not sure if I did it well, to be honest. Partially because if memory doesn't fail me where were a lot of feelings that amounted to nothing, when you feel a lot of a lot of things you end up not feeling anything of anything. Then that's hard to express, anyway. And nowadays, I understand that 10 years ago I still didn't really know who I was.
Also, because for a long time I wrote exclusively in the third person, so when I chose to write in first person, when it came to detailing things everything ended up too abstract. I know exactly what I meant to say, but I don't feel any solidity in saying that you know, when reading this. It's easier to express certain things when they are "someone else's" expressions.
But with time we learn how to put "ourselves" into words better.
