echo me close to your silence
trace me near to your sighs
soften me with your edges
and fall me into your eyes (could this be real, so real, so real)

melt me into your yearning
blur me into your need
where walls become like water
and this broken begins to heal (could this be real, so real, so real)

and fall me into your eyes, your eyes, your eyes.
almost alive, alive

color me with your whispers
paint me almost your dawn
where going is no longer coming
and leaving's almost gone (could this be real, so real, so real)

dance me through your defenses
float me through to your pain
pour me through your edges
till stone turns soft as rain (could this be real, so real, so real)

melt me into your yearning
blur me into your need
where distance becomes surrender
and stone begins to feel (could this be real, so real, so real)

and fall me into your eyes, your eyes, your eyes.
almost alive (could this be real, so real, so real)

stone walls falling
still morning breaking through
every step forward
almost into you (could this be real, so real, so real)

and fall me into your eyes, your eyes, your eyes. almost alive (could this be real, so real, so real)…
     and fall me into your eyes, your eyes, your eyes. almost alive…
          let's dance, let's dance, let's dance me into your eyes,
              your eyes, your eyes…
                   forever spinning into your eyes, your eyes, your eyes…
                       i'm almost alive, alive, almost alive…
                          i'm almost alive, alive, almost alive…

I used to hold truth
like a weapon —
sharp, clean, final.

But now it moves.

Not like a lie,
not like denial —
but like a tide
that’s been waiting for me
to grow strong enough
to swim deeper.

What I swore was solid,
now trembles in my hands.
Not because it was false —
but because I’ve changed.

And now I fear
not the truth itself,
but the way
it keeps becoming.

oh yes, but would you like to see me smile?

i stand above the bathroom sink,
staring in the mirror
under the flickering light over my head.
the dark circles, familiar—
a pair of scissors, one hand twitching,
strands of hair lying in the wash basin.
i chopped my hair in half,
shredded, shaggy layers framing my face.
a smile of freedom, one of acceptance,
the glistening madness in the eyes unsaid.

i stir what once was my skin,
now mere blood—tying myself to this life with an oath,
my ode to swear, to protect and to stay
true to my kin.
cruelty vibing in chaos-kissed violence.
how many times do i shed this skin
until it's not me who remains in the mirror,
and i finally forget my own name?

babies grow old into something brutal—
monsters that walk this place,
sing lullabies to their own preachers.
i've slipped and fallen and i've been left behind,
but the board i'd been playing upon
it turned upside down.
here, the world relies on my head.
i've got the ceiling under my feet,
the skies in my chest.
every ragged breath speaks a tune—
a horror comedy, ransacked, askew.

anew, this curse—
laughing while running through a field,
landmines under my feet.
drapery of melancholy, slips forsaken, hugs me tight.
the curtain of reality—i tear it half.
hands reaching out as claws,
drawing scars on the delusions.
there's beauty in forgiving,
madness in illusion.

once again, again, and again once more.
sixty-one days crossed out on the calendar
that once held way too many promises.
the ladder of failure and of persistence
carries bodies drowning in trying and abstinence.

there isn't any exit in the end.
the broken headphones,
cacophonies of blown-out candles
and half-smushed chocolate cake—
a brief history, periodical, falling,
hell-bent trying to be treacherous,
reaching out to pull the noise from music,
leaving raw voices, hearing them bruise.
archive this, paint the mess, click a picture,
write a note, believe the misplaced faith.
chase that feeling,
run half a mile toward the grim.

oh, but do you see the lights
when you close your eyes?
shattering silence.
the dance of a rugged doll—
i turned her key thrice, and once more.
better to be safe than sorry
amid the growing legions of undeterred regions.
do you hold her or stay near?

tsk, tsk, tsk—sounds of your begging,
faking every emotion, every gathering.
these masks of clay, carved to stone.
pity, pity, pity.
do you even remember who you were before?

empathy is a sin disguised as understanding.
sympathy for the weaklings.
you're playing monogamy,
devour the strength of the flies and the snickers.
tattoo yourself with flames—
let them draw in the scorching heat,
watch them be triggered.

sinners walk this place,
absent, indigenous—
they'll perish soon either way.

proclaim the promises in disguise
of gods for whom you pray.
metamorph into frankensteins,
surrender fascism—
believers of the wrong truths.
mercy shall be provided to you.

i might be the villain.

She opened her heart with
too much force.
She gripped it with fingers from both hands
ripping it apart
revealing
too many fragments of her soul.
They spilled out with
too much momentum and ended up
sprawled out
on the floor.
Will he notice the precious fractals of
her sweet spirit
crushed and broken on the ground?
Will he step over them?
On them?
Or sweep them under the rug?
Does he see the masterpiece that just
destroyed herself from being
too daring
too close to the edge?
She has
too little patience
to leave it up to him
what to do with the wreckage displayed.
She carefully picks up each piece
mindful of the sharp edges and new angels.
She borrows sap from her favorite Pine.
Blends it with gold dust powder
borrowed from ancestral strength
stored in her spine.
Applying this sturdy paste
she meticulously reconstructs
the segments of her discarded gift
into an alchemized transformation.
A Kinstsugi treasure with a new reservoir
inviting the love she has for herself
which can never be
too much.

They say all wounds heal with time.
But how do you measure time
in a place with no light?

I could not remember
how long I had wandered astray
in that empire of endless midnight.

Colors had all bled out.
Black had swallowed blue.
Gray had ashed over red.

The sun—
if it had ever shone there—
had disappeared behind a veil of stone
and had become nothing more
than a distant memory.

Where days blurred into one long, unbroken night,
the sadness took,
and took,
and took again,
like an insatiable parasite
burrowed in my chest,
suckling the sap from my soul
the way strangleweed chokes the life from trees,
its roots worming within me,
feeding on the rot it had planted.

I felt its bony fingers tighten around me
and pull me forward.

So, I walked
with the dull resignation
of something too tired to resist,
hauled down a path
I had never chosen,
but could no longer turn from.

The road ahead felt cursed.

Each breath was heavier.
Each step was a leaden weight,
dragging me closer
to the unseen flames
that licked the edges
of that night
that had forgotten dawn.

Somewhere along the way,
I had stopped missing anything,
except maybe—
that stupid part of me
that had clutched at hope.

Yet still, I pressed on—
though that endless march felt absurd.

It led me to the bank of the river
that had been calling me forth all along.

The black tide was whispering my name.

A faceless boatman was standing there,
hidden beneath his hood,
his lantern spilling firelight
across restless ghosts.

He seemed to be waiting for me.

I did not ask his name,
and I did not bother to ask
what price must be paid
to cross to the other brink,
because there are things you already know
before the question leaves your lips,
and deep down,
I already knew
the cost.

I thought about it.
I really did.

But just as I was about to step forward to embark,
something,
some ridiculous,
whispering ember in me
begged me to stay.

So I turned my gaze
from the void where darkness swelled,
and I looked upward.

A fragile glint absurdly far ahead
beckoned me forward
so I left the boatman, his lantern
and the churning river behind me
and I strode
upon that fateful shore,
dragging this body I barely recognized.

And the rage inside me,
the one that tried to **** me—
it quieted.

Just a little.

Just enough
for me to feel the air
still filling my lungs—
even if it tasted of fire.

Yes—
sorrow still draped its veil of stone over the clouded mornings.

Yes—
the wounds still ached beneath the stitches.

Yes.
Yes.

All of it—
Yes.

And yet,
I finally started to feel the blood flow in my veins again.

So,
I started to climb.

And,
to this day,
though weary,
though worn and weak—
having tasted the night,
having stood at the edge where the flames licked the dark,
having turned from the river that whispered my name—
higher, I rise
to emerge from the chasm.

For far beyond the ashen clouds,
I know something awaits.

Something vast.
Something luminous.

And I know—
one day,
when I step beyond this darkness
and pierce the cindered heavens,
the planets will greet me,
they will lay their blazing rays upon my shoulders
like a tender vesture of celestial gold,
and crown the scars upon my skin
with their halos of fire.

For I know the endless skies hold light
for all who dare to seek.

I am a droplet. Just a small droplet.

One day, I fell into a lake.
The water didn’t crave my presence,
but there I was—
falling.

With a soft smack, I broke the silence.
I shivered the surface and I started to send ripples outward.

Tiny waves fanned out toward the shore.
The lake barely remembered I had landed—
but I kept stretching and growing.
One ring, two rings, three rings…
Each of them was a promise slipping from the center,
making its way in a widening circle that brushed the skin of the water.

How many of these rings have I cast since the day I landed?

I have no idea.

Sometimes I think,
maybe the fish don’t care,
maybe the reeds just nod, in their indifferent sway,
and maybe the water laughs at my ambition.
Because who am I to think I can make any difference in this lake?

But isn’t it something—
how even a single droplet interrupted the calm?
How it pressed its will into the water and bent the shape of its surroundings?
How it insisted:
Look, I’m here, and the world has changed, however small.

Call it hubris.
Call it naive.

But here I am—
just a glistening speck, dreaming of shores I’ll never touch.
Hoping to be felt.
Knowing I might be lost, soaked up, swallowed,
lost to the lake before anyone even sees the last of my rings.

Because one day, my final ring will fade.
And the lake will still be there,
as if I had never fallen.

Still, I choose to believe—
that somewhere, I will make a lily quiver.
That somewhere, the landing of a dragonfly will shift because of me.
That one of my ripples will carry a story farther than I’ll ever know.

And maybe that’s all there is after all—
a brief moment
when stillness breaks
for a droplet
that dares to be
more than just wet.

Click
We took our first photograph together.

Your arm extended,
my fingers meeting yours,
in an absurdly human ritual—
the rectangle of trembling glass in your hand
caught our two shy smiles
as the warm light spilled across our cheeks,
our faces aligned like moons
briefly crossing paths
in an intimate eclipse,
as if we could trap a moment that slips
and defy time’s relentless march.

Of all the infinite configurations—
of angles,
of timing,
of souls—
of all the arrangements of light
that could’ve slipped away,
this was the one we chose to keep,
and save from eternal oblivion.

It was a spring evening.
Madrid was peaceful and light,
bathed in a honeyed gleam.
It sighed beneath the sun’s warm caress,
like a sleeper between dreams,
as if the dying star of the day were reluctant to leave
and dragged its golden limbs across rooftops
like a parent unwilling to close the door
on a sleeping child.

The warmth of spring—
and what a spring it was—
had settled over our shoulders
like a cloak of amber light
that we drank
with our awestruck eyes.

Around us,
pigeons strutted in this park
like tiny bureaucrats,
while the breeze carried the rustle
of the gossiping branches.

Nearby was this temple of old,
once cradled by the tides of Nile,
whose stones remembered the heat from another sun,
still warm from that distant desert,
but now perched on a Castilian hill,
beneath these foreign Iberian skies—
like a ghost misplaced by fate.

And sometimes,
don’t we feel the same,
like relics unearthed from other landscapes,
swept by the currents
we never meant to follow—
trying to make a home
in cities that move to unfamiliar rhythms,
where no one remembers the myths
that once raised us?

We were standing mere meters away
from the altars where incense once thickened the air,
where gods dined on gold and blood.
But these gods are long gone.

And this place now receives
nothing but picnic laughter,
the squeals of children chasing soap bubbles,
and the gentle chatter
of modern lovers.

The mountains watched us from afar,
unmoved along the horizon—
their stone-carved faces glowing softly
in the blaze of the sky set aflame behind them.

Above,
clouds unfurled
in velvet waves tinged with saffron and flamingo,
they drifted like heavy curtains
drawn slowly across the sacred stage
where daylight prepared its final bow.

I do not know if any gods
still haunt the ridgelines behind those mountains,
or if they would care enough
to watch a pair of mortals from there—
but if any did,
I like to think they were old,
worn by the centuries,
but peering with a kind, aching nostalgia,
grateful to rest their heavy, tired eyes
on something tender.

Something called our eyes upward.

It was an agave.
Tall. Singular.
Standing like a lone sentinel—surreal.
Its stalk rose with the authority of a cosmic staff,
unfurling into the air,
proud as a forgotten king from a vanished realm,
risen from the earth
like a titan
in a riotous swirl.

It stood wild-haired,
crowned with strange blossoms
like tiny fossilized flames.
Its limbs twisted skyward,
as if reaching
to drag the ether down.

I just kept staring at it—
this strange, otherworldly thing.
I don’t exactly know why.
Maybe because it was so incongruous,
like it had wandered in from some uncharted planet
and just decided to stay.

It was the stillness that unsettled me.
The strange, impossible calm
within me.

I didn’t notice it right away—
struck dumb under the setting sun—
but my skin knew
before my mind did.

I was…
at peace.

I didn’t speak.
I didn’t need to.
The silence said everything.
So I just kissed you.

I was…
at peace.

Because when you pull me
into the softness of your arms,
I remember—
that love can flame,
burst and bloom,
even when we feel out of place—
like this exiled temple,
like the gods who fled their altars
to hide behind the mountains.

I remember
that even when beasts stir in the dark
and gnash their teeth in the shadow
through my sleepless hours—
still, we abide.

Still, peace can rise,
like those strange flower titans
that break through stones
to defy the cities
and reach
ever skyward.

I feel this peace
in the earth beneath our feet,
in the silence
where the old gods rest
and stretch the hours to cradle us.

I feel it in our souls entwined,
in your soft, kind eyes,
in this photograph we took—
this light we chose to keep.

And…

Click.

We took our second photograph together…