You've already read it: I think I'll dedicate this to you.

I remember back in the day when I hadn't seen your face just yet and you used to play with those kids in every corner, and you'd always hide from them in the same places, and they could always find you – like me, they were drawn to you by that silence and the mystery of what was beyond what they called the fluffy mask, and I bet they were the only people ever that got a laugh back whenever they asked about what happened to you, even if you never answered them. Mask or not, the kids liked to be around you and you liked the kids to be around you as well, since I suppose that made you feel a bit less guilty and a bit more accompanied. I met you on a rainy day at the bus stop, because I'd looked at you and felt uneasy but then I laughed because I remembered I probably looked the same on that day, trying to protect myself from the cold and the wind (you know I've always been very weak and my nose is constantly red), and then you looked at me with what I guess was a quizzical brow and asked something rude but I just laughed again, and then I said good afternoon and stood there for hours just talking to you, looking into your eyes, dark yet shiny, unlike your very worn clothes. Standing there next to you made me realize we could be perfectly equal, and hearing your laughter from time to time (after the long, awkward silences) and letting go of my fears whilst encouraging my hopes made me blush, although you couldn't see it.

I never so much as touched your skin for years, except for that day when you had something in your eye and I tried to remove it and you backed away, as though I'd burned your eyelid, and stared at me with scared eyes for the whole evening. Then I became silent and then I just accepted trying to catch your breath through the frozen cloth would have to be enough for me, but I embraced that with open arms, since I couldn't now leave you. Not after hearing those little things you'd sometimes say, like the day when you told me your name and then I could never stop repeating it into my head, everyday, every time I breathed, because I was forbidden to say it aloud. Sometimes I felt like screaming it, specially after beating you at football when you'd fold your arms and look at me with the quizzical brow again, and I suppose you pouted, and then I'd try to kiss you and you'd back away once more. It was not until I talked you into dancing with me by the moonlight and I whispered things into your ear that would make my mother blush, and then you laughed and laughed and then took a glove out and squeezed my hand into yours, and you were cold and your fingertips felt rough, like they belonged to a working-class man and not who I believed you were, but I'd never asked where you'd come from. Afterwards you took me inside and we sat in the middle of that room of yours, and as I was trying to look around you shut the blinds and came back to me and started taking everything out in the shadows, and then you covered my eyes with something soft, and took my hands, and placed them onto your face. I discovered some scars and mostly wrinkles, and I think I felt a bit of burned skin, too; your neck was soft, though, and I loved to discover that you could have, indeed, a beard, and that you hadn't shaved in two or three days. Then you made sure my blindfold was safe in its place and took my dress away, and then you held me and kissed me for the first time. You stretched me into your arms for hours and after a while you drifted peacefully into sleep, and I took the blindfold out and stared at you till I could see your face in the shadows, and then put it on again, and felt asleep as well, my fingers entwined with yours. Then I woke up a few hours later and you were up and fully dressed, and I think you gifted me with an invisible smile when you looked at me, and I put my dress on and went back to just standing next to you, like I'd always done. Sometimes I think about that day and wonder why I still let you blind me every time we meet, but there's a part of me that still loves the mystery and the way everything feels different when I shut my eyes close, even your scent and your laughter, and the coldness of your skin.

Etiquetas: de mis letras, en inglés