The dog barks at me non stop like that thing. You know that thing right? It’s metallic and in Spanish we say “en casa de herrero...that thing is pure wood”. I hated them as a kid. You should know me by now and know what I’m talking about. You use them to do this: clack, clack... does it ring a bell? Don’t look at me like that.
Do you think if you said I love you instead of te quiero I would be able to feel it in the same way? I guess that is what happened. I prayed without my hands that something like this would happen. A community, an actual friendship. The people I lived with before stopped talking to me until I left the apartment. I wanted to hide under a rock. I also wanted them to see me sulking. I didn’t want them to suffer but I’m not sure if I wanted to be okay. The thing is I couldn’t stop crying. I put my things in bags they never offer to move. A deeper wound emerged and they didn’t even name it. It’s not like they are talking to me now.
My cat was happy in the new flat and I left him with a friend for a couple of days. Everything went wrong from the plane on. As I was getting inside I thought please cancel my flight, make it rain, cause a natural disaster. I hid inside the toilet till the thought of the 80 euros I had spent popped into my mind. I guess I just went inside myself and ate my stomach the whole weekend as my skin turned into a paper towel, tearing up at any stale pizza that I was too stressed to eat.
You said I was brutal in this language. I said I’m learning. You said people would be afraid of me. I tell you those people can smell my fear as I shrink. What did you say then? I can only remember some inner Spanish voice cutting out my throat. A word that doesn’t exist in your language or I might just have to keep on looking for.