Navegar (part 5 of Studies in Disillusion) [Website contribution]

The Yanomami know
not to tie a hammock too tight.

It must give a little.
Move with the body.

—

In the flat
I learned the opposite.

Cold hands.
Phone light.
Small sounds at night.

Even sleep
became something rigid.

I slept on the sofa.
He never did.

At first
I said I liked it there.

Reading late.
Watching the District line.
A small space
that was mine.

Later
I understood.

My body had left
before I did.

—

He put his ear plugs in.

I brushed my teeth
until my gums bled.

—

He said I was needy
towards the end.

I still push furniture
against the door
in hotel rooms.

But sleep comes easier without him.

—

I think now about knots.

About what holds
without tightening.

A neighbour.
A cousin.
A woman saying:

‘that happened to me too’.

The small relief
of not being
the only one
who noticed.

—

He wanted the story
tied neatly.

One version.
His version.

The reasonable man.
The devastated man.
The man everyone believed.

But the sea
does not wait.

I did not wait.

Navegar é preciso.

Somewhere
between the sofa
and the sea

something inside me
stopped asking
to be believed.