starving, heavy

April, 2025

In the convoluted mess that is a Sunday evening mind, I reach for the pen as it reaches for me, and I suppose that’s precisely what I’ve been looking for. It’s difficult to explain. I’ve been hungry for something more, something cathartic with an ethereal hint to it. I’ll settle for something as subtle as my grip on the pen. There’s so much to be said, and you know me, no feeling that inhabits me ever goes unaddressed. It’s a taunting game, getting to know someone. You must also give. I must also make myself known. It’s in these times that it becomes clear to me that I am tainted. It is a difficult task to shine a light on myself amongst so many shadows. I’m a difficult person. People tend to give me a break because the only person I tend to harm is myself, but that’s only true to a point. You can only get so close without becoming tainted yourself. I see the worst in everything. It’s an awful flaw. I see potential, and I taint it, recklessly. I see better in the dark, so I cast shadows on everything in sight. I remake everything in my tainted image. It’s tiring, but I’m restless.

A friend tells me I’m not tainted, I am no shadow — I am a light that does not believe in light. She says I only feel the need to punish good things because I don’t believe I deserve them. And she’s right, I see myself through a darkened lens, and I see a self that doesn’t get to have good things. Because if I stop fighting the shadows I create in my mind, if I allow myself to see the light, dare to chase it, I risk finding out that it’s all dark out there. And I’ve chased the light, I’ve seen how I look in it, and to be honest, to anyone else it might seem like I glitter and glisten, but in my eyes, I am weak beneath it. I’ve come to realize that more than anything, I am always terrified of looking weak. I’m nothing without the fight. Every time I’ve left it behind, I’ve discovered and rediscovered that the fight’s all I’ve got.

Now that’s a great writer’s tale, but here comes what will always keep me from being a great writer. When the time comes to choose between being a writer and being human, I will always choose to be human. Hell, I don’t want to live like this. Coloring everything with the colors I hate most, listening to someone speak, only to hear my worst fears echoing around the room with the sound of their voice. I don’t want to live like a shadow, though it is easier. It’s always been a great comfort to me to resort to what I know best. But it’s no life. I don’t want to spend my days in dark corners of empty rooms. But how do I keep from it? I can keep a steel grip on blood and guts, but I can’t for the life of me delicately cradle something good. As odd as it will seem to say this, it stems from the same reason I don’t like automatic cars: I can’t seem to take my damn foot off the brakes.

I believe the first step towards gentleness might be to stop punishing myself for, well, being myself. I am what I am, take it or leave it. If there is one thing I refuse to entertain, it’s making myself in the image of what someone else wants from me. So this is it. No hiding, no overly critical self-reflection. I am who I am, and that is perhaps my best quality. I’m done covering it up, whether it be in fine garments or in rags. I am scared to be as much as I am. I must be it, nonetheless. I realize I will be rigid. I will quiver at the sight of anything gentle. But I will bear with it. I started this off by speaking of a hunger, a hunger for something more. And it’s perhaps because I am keeping myself from being more.

the feeling does not exchange pleasantries

Oct. 27th, 2025

The feeling does not exchange pleasantries. It does not knock on the door. It does not ask for invitation. It barges in, it stares me down like a wolf eyes a deer. It asks, “what has become of you?”

“Where are you?”

“How did you get here?”

“Do you exist? Do you still recall a time when you did? When did you disappear? When did you allow cowardice to creep up your leg, make its way to your hands? When did you lose the fight? When did you give it up? When did you surrender yourself to the sands, to the oceans, to the winds? Was it peaceful, allowing them to take you? Did it torment you as you watched your life go on relentlessly without you? Did it feel like watching a movie or did it feel as if you were dying, the years flashing before your eyes? Are you still dazed as you stand for yourself once again? Or is the crushing weight of yourself dissolving as you allow the oceans to take you once more? Does it torment you? That the very fog you were trying to escape is now your home?”

“When you inhale the nicotine, do you hear your father’s begging as an echo? Does it please you to sacrifice yourself in the name of no one? Does that do it? Does it quench it? The thirst to succumb?”

Aged in the wood

We read people wrong. We leave the light on for people who prefer the dark. We keep our ears glued to the door and jump when we finally hear a knock, only to open it and find the wrong person on the other side. Often enough, we let them in anyway. We kick them out and bar the doors, turn off the lights, no better than bitter old men on Halloween. We end up with the notion that love is some form of trickery.

Inevitably, there comes a day when one’s mouth aches for something sweet, and we tear the bars off the door, open it wide, turn on the lights until the space is more hospital than house. We invite someone else in. They leave of their own accord. We close the door, lock it just to be safe. We dim the lights comfortably.

I know now there is no use in barring it. Hope will always weasel its way in.

Odisseia do Perdão

11 de dezembro de 2024

Ainda não tenho força para perdoar. Talvez “força” não seja a melhor palavra, o que tento dizer é que perdoar exige que se faça as pazes com o que foi para mim. E o que foi, de fato? Foi agarrar o brilho e vê-lo tornar-se opaco nas minhas mãos. Acho que a maior dificuldade está em fazer as pazes com a vida como ela é: imperdoavelmente fiel às antíteses. Fiel ao brilho, ao divino – e fiel ao mundano, ao terreno, ao opaco. Fazer as pazes, também, comigo como sou: ingênua quando colocada frente a frente com meus desejos. Por natureza, equivocada na minha própria consciência.

Por fim, fazer as pazes com quem perdi. No fim das contas, eu o perdi, ele me perdeu, nos perdemos. Parece simplista ou até reducionista, mas é do que se trata. No fim das contas, pouco importa quem perdeu o quê. O ponto é que perdemos. Longe de mim colocar tudo isso nas costas de outro alguém, esse peso também é meu, e existem bagagens minhas despachadas ao longo dessa odisseia. O problema é que me preocupo demais, me questiono demais. Se eu me permitir, me afundo em perguntas e deixo com que a enchente me leve. É eterno o dilúvio da ausência de respostas. Coloquei todas as minhas cartas na mesa, e assim ficaram. E aqui encontro o desafio que é compreender que pouco me importa as cartas que faltam. Não são minhas para devanear. Posso dissecar tudo o que sou, me desfazer por inteiro, e de nada adiantaria. As respostas não são minhas para ter, mas evitar de me perguntar parece a antítese de mim mesma.

Talvez há de se aprender a ser fiel ao pragmatismo. Não sei dizer, esta resposta também não tenho.

Fairytale’s Epilogue

I remember you bursting into my life like a hurricane and quickly becoming the kind of drizzle that stays steady through the week keeping soft, sweet company. In the morning, we’d open the windows, and it would always be such a beautiful day. Cold, sunny days. My favorite kind of weather. Beautiful days during which something even better bloomed between us. I remember laughter, so much laughter. Companionship that I felt never before and never since.

I want to use this space to let the softness speak louder than the sticks and stones we found ourselves throwing the last time we spoke. It’s silly, that we let something tender end in wildfire. Though I suppose that’s the fate of most tender things, as unfortunate as that is.

June was sickeningly happy in the most tender of ways. It’s haunted me, how simply and effortlessly happy I was. It’s not a feeling that comes easy, not to me. You brought a lot of effortless joy into my life, and I’m trying, through gritted teeth, to hold onto what happened between us as a good thing, even though it didn’t work out. Because it was a good thing, while it lasted. And it wasn’t supposed to last any longer, I know that much. But the fairytale world was beautiful while we were in it. Boy, it was magnificent. And I would’ve stayed there forever if it wasn’t for reality crashing through.

It doesn’t matter that the end was bitter, the journey was sweet enough. I didn’t want it to end in the way it did. Still wish it hadn’t. I wish it had ended in well-wishes and tender goodbyes. I still feel guilty a month later, and I don’t know when the guilt’s going away. I tend to beat myself down. The last time we spoke you were a different person entirely, and that’s why I’d rather cut off my hand than reach for you again. I’ve already been in the receiving end of such callousness and suffice to say I learned not to stick around for more. You’re not who I thought you were, and I suppose that’s alright. That’s life.

And I address this to you, even though you’ll never read it. But I hope you do. I hope you know I think of you softly, and I’m sorry for the bitter parts. We’re not meant for each other, but it was beautiful while we thought we were. And maybe that’s enough.

Announcement: to hell with self-awareness

Every time I get the urge to write, I find myself drowning in self-doubt, in one way or another. But I must get this down on paper, I must let the ink stain the page – perhaps just a terrible way to say that my heart has been stained. Thus I must do what I do best: let the stains taint my words on the blank page before me. But before I do that, I must make this announcement – for myself than anyone else.

I’m honestly sick of bringing myself down because I should write in Portuguese instead of English if I want to make something real out of my writing to maybe, if I get lucky enough, get something published someday. I failed the bigger picture. There is no “should” or “shouldn’t” when it comes to it, writing is natural, it’s who I am and have always been. So what if I have two mother tongues and write in both? Whatever comes to me, I write as is. Why did I make such a big fucking deal out of it all? To make myself smaller to fit in a box? And box I completely made up, at that.

So this is an announcement of sorts. I’ll be writing and posting whatever the hell I want. Stick with it or don’t. I made a self-commitment long ago that, wherever the tides take me, I’d always write for myself and not to please anybody else. So here I am, uncut, uncensored, just me. Still holding close the same wish: that by writing so intimately, someone out there will read these incredibly personal tales of my own and see themselves in it. Art can only thrive because no feeling is unique. That’s what it’s all about.

Ando leve

Recentemente, compreendi. Carregava comigo todos os fardos – alguns meus, alguns peguei emprestado. Não sabia onde colocá-los. Para a minha surpresa, não se guarda o peso em lugar algum, se deixa ele para trás. Os deixei em seu lugar, no passado. Às vezes, olhando pra trás, ainda consigo vê-los. Não sei como fiz isso, mas está feito. O único caminho é andar adiante. Nunca andei para frente com tamanho ímpeto. Jamais achei que isso seria possível, é como se fosse uma metamorfose, mas sou mais eu do que era antes. “Nunca vi a Sabrina tão Sabrina”, disse um amigo. Também nunca me vi tão Sabrina. E sei por quê. Tive coragem. Estou acostumada a me prender ao passado, mas tenho descoberto um fascínio por viver no presente. Vejo o passado, o presente e o futuro com outros olhos, olhos novos. Abandonei os andares tortuosos que sempre descrevi. Com as mãos trêmulas, abri a porta e andei adiante – meus pés me surpreenderam em sua firmeza. Tenho descoberto que sou capaz de muito mais do que imaginava. Talvez o segredo realmente seja preencher os espaços vazios com coisas vivas. Julgava o mundo opaco, sem perceber que o brilho deve estar nos olhos. Meu sangue corre, meus pés andam e meus olhos brilham. Assim me faço eu. Renasci, mas, dessa vez, deixei muitas coisas em meu antigo corpo, pois não me pertencem mais. Cinzas sobre cinzas, como deveria ser. Guardei as garras, não me são necessárias. Elas se agarravam em cada passo, como eu esperava andar dessa forma? Agora, ando leve.

bagagem

eu as quero de volta.

todas as minhas virtudes.

todas as minhas camadas.

as palavras, o amor, a força,

a esperteza,

as garras.

fui as perdendo, uma a uma.

esvazio-me a cada fardo que carrego,

e logo,

nada de mim irá sobrar.

não sei como as ter de volta.

não sei onde colocar o peso.

alguém me diga:

onde guardar meus fardos,

desde que possa voltar para buscá-los —

por precaução,

pois são meus.

são tudo que é meu agora.

em último caso,

uso-os para me reconstruir.

embora aí esteja o perigo:

construir uma muralha

e não ter escapatória,

a não ser me torná-la.

seria esta a vida adulta?

um eterno reconstituir-se,

quando nem sabemos

se aquilo que almejamos refazer

sequer existiu.

às vezes,

o que parece sólido à alma

existe apenas no plano da alma.

intangível.

talvez seja,

talvez tenha sido,

talvez nunca foi,

talvez nunca será.

talvez minhas virtudes

e meus fardos

sejam apenas areia.

talvez sejam um mito.

talvez estejam guardados

debaixo do travesseiro.

não sei

e não me pergunte.

só lhe digo que são meus.

talvez meus fardos sejam

uma expressão azeda

do passar do tempo, e minhas virtudes,

uma doce lembrança do passado.

the weight of witnessing

I find myself in a once-in-a-blue-moon moment where I can clearly see my own existence as both past and future, but not present. This liminal space-time, it happens when you know something has ended, and, necessarily, something else is beginning, but you know not what, not yet. Witnessing the end, step by step, each domino in itself, somehow translates into this tragic movie that plays in my mind every time I allow it to drift too far. I will not attempt to frame this witnessing as beautiful. It’s blood and guts, stuff not everyone’s got the stomach for. It is not for the weak to love so fully and thus lose entirely. The weight of it buries me. A love that consumes you is a love that leaves you to ashes. Meanwhile, the world screams at me GET UP! GO FORTH! AIM FOR THE HEAD!

I guess I can sum it up by saying that I spent the last three years in a Smith’s song, and, dear, that double decker bus finally crashed into us. Even writing this feels strange already, as there is no us and there hasn’t been for months now, but I suppose the strangeness settles in with each goodbye. And I have the sore feeling that I’ll be writing about it often enough. It’s the only way I’ve found to put the weight down. The road ahead is adorned by ashes from a past still burning, but it is a road ahead, no less, and I walk on, as I have before. The clock’s been ticking, and it tells me the time has come.

For once, I realise that being well versed in loss isn’t just an unfortunate trait that I carry like a burden. In this space between past and future, I feel the familiarity of myself. All the past versions of myself that coexist here meet me at this crossroads, and they greet me with stern handshakes that carry a weight of responsibility. I can see now that this is why I have the stomach to feel, to be bled dry, and not trip over my own guts while doing it. I learned early-on to let the blood run its route. After all, “the only way out is through”. From a young age, I took it upon myself to go through, and I took it like an oath.

I realise now that there is no becoming who I once was. It doesn’t add up. All these versions of myself are different, I mean, sure, they’re tangled into one another by a common essence, but they are incredibly unique to the time and space they inhabit. And it is the common essence of myself that I must build on – and I can feel it again, finally. The woman I was, she isn’t fit for this role. So, this is me, stepping up. I went through and, as if that wasn’t hard enough, there’s more work to be done: leaving behind. Putting some of this weight down and walking ahead. I tend to carry all of it with me, and some of it I’ll carry ‘til I die. But I know I must move. As I witness my own return, I feel my lost strength building itself up again.

Give me a gun and throw me in the trenches, folks. I know my way around.

add title

Everything about me screams weakness. How did I get here and how do I go back? And back to where? Back to when? I don’t even know what I’m asking for, always stuck in this mental shrine of what I (supposedly) once was. Don’t trust memories, folks. They lie. Or people. They lie even more. Or anything, really. If I were you, I’d just self-isolate until the scary world out there magically gets better. Don’t trust me either (I don’t).

I rot in this room and I let all the things I value rot alongside me. I don’t write and I don’t sing and, god help me, I don’t talk to my friends either. I could attribute this to my mental state and call it a day, but I know better, and by that I mean that I’m no saint, so save your prayers.