The Longest Memory

I(a).
Waking.

My love for you
was once wild,

Reckless, without peace.
Only wild, unbound.

Possessing me. My mind a beast in a cage,
uncontrolled.
Unyielding.
Desiring freedom.
It was the first time,
you were my everything.

But I wasn’t yours,
and I knew it.

Acceptance is blindness, repeated.

I still let you fill me, denying the thoughts.
My glass a small hole at the bottom,
Leaking.

You alone were my source,
My water.
A sacrificial spirit. A child that looks upon a closed door,
waiting to open just a crack.
Just to peek in and remember why she stayed.

It was the first time, after all.

II.
Progress.

Seasons came and went,
with endless turns of autumn death.
Soulless winters seeking cozy firesides,
to warm my soul, tired and weak.

Spring harvest, reaping life from ancient seeds,
nearly forgotten but never lost.
But the seeds grew.

Grounded in earth, a calmed mind,
while my inner fire fuelled a rise.
Oh solitude, my newest friend.
With summer I anchored,
tethered to shore.

My glass invincible to the downpour,
sealed.

III(a).
Spiral.

Wild desire for the endless adventure,
a child’s hide and seek.
Magic tricks for lost thoughts and found answers,
to a brave mind still reckless, still blind.
Unlearning all that was learned to find truth.

III(b).
learning, unlearning.
learning, unlearning.
learning, unlearning.
learning, unlearning.
learning, unlearning.
learning, unlearning.
learning, unlearning.
learning, unlearning.
learning, unlearning.
learning, unlearning.
learning, unlearning.

Fuck, brain training is hard.

III(c).
First times are hard.
Forgiveness is harder.

Trust, the hardest of all.

Thoughts an uncut diamond, sharp and raw,
as I learned to unlearn, and learn again.

Walls of fear encircling my sacred garden,
my glass box begging to be shattered.

Millions of fragments of thoughts,
scattered, lost,
homeless, frantic, repeating.
The child searches for safety in what she knows,
perhaps it’s like the first time?

But I digress.

IV(a).
Resilience.
Remains of glass now lie in ash,
debris clouding my magician’s gaze.
As I slowly, delicately, sweep up dust,
leaving it piled to the side.
Oh, the memories of the first time.

Wild, unbound.

As I turn again to learning, unlearning.

IV(b).
learning, unlearning.
learning, unlearning.
learning, unlearning.
learning, unlearning.
learning, unlearning.
learning, unlearning.

IV(c).
Persistence.

IV(d).
learning, unlearning.
learning, unlearning.
learning, unlearning.

Until one day:

IV(e).
Strength.

V.
Learning. Letting go

This piece was on view in December 2020 in Lisbon for the collective exhibition of 25 artists for the show, “Primeiras Vezes” at Na Esquina.