It is curious that my obsession with you does not pass. Perhaps it is a deeply wounded pride, the pride of never having accepted the end of our relationship. While you breathe the clear, fresh air of freedom, I have not been able to breathe properly for years. Pride? Perhaps. Even so, I sense a great fear in you. I have said this before, but it bears repeating. Repression can be a powerful form of denial—a cowardly way of refusing to face what we once loved so much. I no longer search for explanations; for a long time I tried, in vain, to analyze your psychology. You are no longer the same person, and neither am I. This is the only poor yet viable explanation I can find: repression. Fear. What other motive could make you so determined not to speak to me under any circumstances? It is as if I had inflicted irreparable harm on your life, as if I had taken a loved one from you, or abused you in some way that would make reconciliation impossible. I feel like one of those outcasts, a criminal who, after serving a long sentence, tries to apologize to the family only to be met with withering contempt.
What is the explanation? It scarcely matters; I already have it. Human beings are illogical creatures, driven by contradictions, hypocrisies, fears, and passions. It would be useless to look for sense in all this, and I believe that was what drove me mad some years ago. Yes, it was very sad and painful—it still is—but today I have learned to live with the restless shadows that come to torment me from time to time, as at this very moment while I write these lines.
Ghosts of the past, demons, spirits—call them what you will—something haunts me and will not let me forget you. Is it madness? Weakness on my part? And if I am weak, does that make you strong? If so, you would be the queen of the purest cruelty and coldness. As I wrote in earlier texts, it would have been better never to have met you. Then, perhaps, I might still have a chance of meeting you. After the relationship ended, I became a complete pariah—useless, senseless—a creature brimming with emotion and too immature to accept what others accept so easily, even becoming friends with ex-girlfriends for life. I never managed that with anyone else, by my own choice. In your case, it was you who chose. And however much I try not to hate you, I cannot; the same force that once propelled the love I had for you now drives my hatred.
My fuel in life is refusing to accept your silence, and I have lied for years, trying to manipulate you, to persuade you by the crudest and most insincere means of this inescapable fact: I hate you, Karina! What kind of creature can be so cowardly and cold as to the point of morally erasing someone else for so many years and still go on walking, living, loving… what a mad world this is. If you think I am insane, I think you are too—only with a different strain of madness, that’s all. I am psychotic and you are neurotic—no offense intended. Yes, I hate you from the depths of my soul, and that, too, is love; how deranged all this must sound. Why have I not forgotten you? Why have I been unable to love anyone else? You do not care. To hell with everything that belongs to my world and my small, boyish feelings. You are the mistress of reason, the queen of ice castles, the cold wind and the heedless storm, the everlasting contempt—an illusion of all that once was.
I must have erred—yes, made many mistakes—but unforgivable ones? Is immaturity the only excuse you have for our not speaking? Are you afraid I will return to the subject and then tell me it hurts you? Hurts what? Do you even have a heart? I know Aquarius is said to be a cold sign, but this cold? I keep asking myself what I would do in your place, and mind you, I can be quite wretched and frigid when I choose. After—what?—fifteen years? You are a grown woman, and I am an old man with gray hair; what on earth created this barrier between you and me? Are you afraid I might harm you? Even from a distance? Your silence never convinced me; I was the foolish one. But age brings a few benefits, and one of them is knowing right from wrong. What you have done all these years is wrong. There is no rational justification, for we are speaking of emotions. You will surely find one justification—or many—for this situation, and each will serve to keep you inert, immovable, resolute, as if not speaking to me for the rest of this life were your eternal war for honor. For the honor of indulging your narcissistic impulses, perhaps; for your pride—for there is no moral, spiritual, legal, or personal explanation that accounts for it.
If it had been fifteen days, my childishness would be forgiven—and your silence as well. But fifteen years? Fifteen years! My God, that is the whole life of a young adolescent. What have we produced in all this time? Emptiness. Solitude. Doubt. Pride. Hatred. Contempt. These are our children, now grown and entering their rebellious phase. Soon enough they will turn eighteen—still angry, but a little more lucid. I wonder if, twenty years from now, some enlightened spirit will touch you so that you tell me the reason for this silence that has cut me inside like a sharp, poisoned razor all these days. I remember you with tenderness, as an illusion, as someone who died and will not return; that Karina is gone, and I will never see her again. So be it. I accept that—but I will not accept this mortifying silence for a second more.
Go on as you wish, but I am certain that something in this wounds you. Something troubles you every day, and you will have to live with it if your decision is firm and indelible: either that you are incapable of forgiving, or that you cannot admit you are afraid you might come to like me again and, confused as well, are afraid of suffering as in the past. Yes, I am jealous; I think I am a little better now, but at the time I had no understanding of that feeling. Today I think I understand a thing or two about jealousy, and I promise nothing—only that I have learned something. I have learned that I ought not to love. Why take the risk? To live with the image of a ghost wandering through my mind and spirit, knowing I will never see her again? What sense is there in that? None; life has no logic, just as neither you nor I do. The things we study are full of logic, and that addicted me to searching for meaning in your actions. But I am tired of lies, tired of contempt, tired of going mad alone and suffering. I am human, for heaven’s sake. I have flesh and bone just like you, and one day I will die—just like you. What, exactly, will we take with us? Our pride, certainly, we will not. Enough. I have said more than I should. Sometimes I feel alone, and solitude, though a great friend, does not embrace me, does not kiss me, says nothing. So I speak to myself, because when I seek the opinion of a wiser person, I end up finding myself. You do not care, and before I fall into the sameness of those hideous sertanejo songs, your indifference is killing me de plus en plus. If that makes you happy, continue. The most absurd thing is to think that, for some sadistic reason beyond my understanding, you keep reading this blog—perhaps even shedding tears. But your decision is more “sublime”: why take risks with a madman, a forty-three-year-old smoker? No—better to keep to yourself; it will be better for you and for me. You are a woman of certainty—certain of everything you do. Keep it that way, and to hell with my small feelings.
C. H. Barbosa — an author weary of so many lies.
