Kazan, or lost loves

 (Ésta entrada hace parte de mi libro, DANIELA. Diez ciudades, diez formas de ver la vida. Tengo un bloqueo creativo ni el hijueputa, y tal vez la única forma de sacarlo es escribiendo)

Share my body and my mind with you
That's all over now
Did what I had to do
'Cause you're so far past me now
Share my body and my life with you
That's way over now

I'm finally happy now that you're gone

Lana del Rey, Cruel World

Where are we, sister?

This is Kazan, Daniela. I have no memory of this city, but there is only one way to reach its memories and its ideas. Walk with me.

Do you like being here?

No. I don't like it. It brings me memories of someone. He spoke like everyone does here: with words glued to each other, no pause in between. Not because he spoke fast, on the contrary. Spanish is not his native language, and yet he speaks it so well, perhaps even better than you or me. I feel that when he spoke their language, he did it in cursive. Cursive? 

Words have no beginning in this language, they have no end. It's like if they were threaded all the time on the tip of the tongue and people let them fall like drops, fast and slow, but they're still stuck after being torn from their source. It's horrible, really - but when I was in love with him, or I heard the great actors of his nation recite their plays and poetry, I found it to be so beautiful. 

I was always a sucker for accents, Dani. The past that is present in another language, hidden and biding its time, the inflection of the voice when modulating in different manners. Or just maybe because I found the speaker to be attractive, regardless of their gender, and therefore I liked their language even more: English, Italian, German, Russian, Dutch. I fell in love with all of them in my own way. 

Sister, what is love? I am not alive: I do not know how it feels.

I thought I knew what it was. I thought it was to have one person that needed you like air, and forgot about everything with your sole presence. But it is more than that: it is routine. Commitment. To share a silence when time stands still on a Sunday, 4 PM. You go from friends to lovers to accomplices. You accept your own flaws reflected in the others' virtues, and viceversa. You have a favourite person, and you're not it, and be able to tell them everything. All of this is love: but it is not what I had with him. Love saves, love heals. Love does not open past wounds, and does not create fresh pains. It should be salve on bad days, a bucket of ice-cold water in tougher days. What I felt was love, but the passion burnt me - and what I need is carbon after it has burnt, warm and safe. A sweet and gentle fire, that can be used at will - not an intensity that harms.

What was his name? It doesn't matter. His name is not relevant for us - our story is what matters. What you are able to understand from it. 

(Should I go on?)