Deckard - What if I go north? Would you come after me? Would you?

For the past two years I've called home places that are very very far away and different from what I called home.
The streets of New York, Buenos Aires, Madrid and other temporary destinations have served as a place of refuge, solace and sanctuary. And now, coming back to the place I called home for 28 years -Bogotá-, I no longer feel welcome here.
When do we stop belonging to a place?
When do the spaces that we believed to be ours, so familiar and welcoming, become so cold, and unbearable, and unforgiving?

I feel like I have outgrown this city, and the city has punished me for leaving her. And I too, have changed too much for her own sake. I'm still too restless, and too curious for my own good. But I'm also calmer, and I tend to listen more and talk less. I still speak too much shit and say things I regret after 5 minutes, and I try to change every day even if it I find it so hard. I don't want to conform anymore to just one thing. I have an irresistible urge for freedom. I'm vulnerable and brave. I'm still a shy little child but my mind took a turn for the worst, influenced by my own dark desires and twisted corners of my mind.
I turn 30 in less than a month, and yet I still feel like a child in oh so many ways, even though the lines that circle my eyes tell a different tale.

Today, as I walked around downtown, I was surrounded by people and cars and sounds. All of this, six months ago, would have driven me to the point of tears. Insanity. Now, it's as if I was just drifting through and nothing affected me. Has the impossible happened? Have I severed all ties with my homeland? No. Not all-here there be mountains. Here there are things, sights and sounds that I will never find anywhere else. But that isn't enough to make me stay. I found a crack in a door to the world, and I opened it. I chose to go north.

'We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.' W. Somerset Maugham.
There are three pictures of myself I have in my minds' eye. The first is of me, aged 4. I have bangs, jet black hair and eyes filled with mischief and playfulness. What did I think then? How was I before? I don't remember I look at that person looking back at me, and I don't see myself. I don't recognize her. I was a child, but that is not who I grew up to be.

Second picture is when I turned 25. My hair was longer, my body mutated and I felt different. I took that picture because I needed proof that I had changed-that the ugly duckling was no longer looking at me in the mirror and that I could be attractive, alluring. As if I needed to be that piece of meat, those eyes. See what you're missing. I see her, and people say how good I looked then, and compliment my looks. But then again, that isn't me. I was so fucking scared of my own sexuality and needs that I went looking for emotionally unavailable guys. Older men. People already in a relationship. Why? That wasn't me. I was too scared to show that I was different. Or that I needed something I couldn't yet have. I see her, but I don't see me.

The third picture hasn't been taken yet. Maybe it will come in a day or ten years, in a beach or walking down a different set of streets. Maybe I'll speak another language by the time that picture is taken and will have changed my looks so much that I will not recognize myself. But she will look at me, and I'll see that that woman as me. That no matter where I am, or what city has changed me, I will be me. I have broken a shell, and let out a ghost.

It took me 30 years to feel at peace with a lot of things. Yes, I am short and fat and ugly. And critical. And full of flaws, and sometimes clingy. Demanding. Dependent. I have a violent side. I have a temper. I get carried away and daydream too much and can get scared of stupid things. I can do irrational stuff. I let my body control my choices.

But then again, I grew up. I made choices that forced me out of my zone and faced the world alone. And survived. I'm not scared of falling in love and out of it. I tested myself and can walk with my head high. I wear clothes that show my body and keep my skin intact. I'll look the world in the eye and laugh. Yes, I am crazy. I have always been, and I always will be.

Blurred lines

Two pieces of poetry I wrote a while ago, never completed.
You can finish them if you like:
1. "You haunt me with your presence. I may never get enough of you"
2. "Y la sangre que corre, espesa. Y el placer, infinito."
Cómpletame, dijo la frase. Me siento tan sola.

A man in a ghetto, possibly Poland. 1943.

This thing is heavy and suffocating. These are the words that have not been spoken, the words that didn't have the time to be said, that were cut short. There are again so many things to say. To my wife, to my mother - clarify, explain. The words that were not spoken weigh like a bandage over a bleeding wound. But it is now the end. Why does this interest me still? For only a slender thread still ties me to life and it will be broken soon.

Bukowski (because insomnia)

If I never see you again
I will always carry you
Inside
Outside
On my fingertips
And at brain edges
And in centers
Centers
Of what I am
Of what remains.