A bench in a square

A bench in a square

I would see the children play in their mind, fall and rise, I would see parents with smiles and I would hear the voices of the mothers, I would see those lives and I would have doubts in my mind, I would not really hear what Marcos would say or what Lucas would answer.

I would only be in the middle of the two, wanting to hide in the heat of Marcos and learn from the certainty of Lucas in death.

-Have you ever been with someone?

-No, you?

-No, Sebastian?

Marcos was nobody, was someone who wasn't looking for but found, was a boy who had bruises of the rainbow on his skin and marks on his skin that hid in sweaters and drunken smiles on his lips.

We didn’t know his name, not the real one, we only knew the questions he gave and the lies he said about him. We didn’t know if we were friends, maybe we were just strangers who talked in the afternoons and saw themselves in certain places, maybe that was the reason why he did not appear for weeks.

He didn’t look for death like Lucas, he just wanted to flee like no one who followed the train tracks against the train.

-Yes, it was dead in spring, I was happy but I used to cry at night, their laugh was torture.

-What happened?

-He told me he loved me

I had a need to play with my fingers, twist them, break them, bend them, destroy them, when the truth was presented as anxiety, in the moments that Lucas and Marcos listened to me and watched, where they sought to understand society through me, we were a dysfunctional, complicated but simple relationship, Marcos was not our friend only a stranger, Lucas was the leader of a group that did not exist and who lived to die and I was the young man who hid between them to doubt of normal lives.

-What did you say?

-Why?

-What happened?

-He just left, with pain in his eyes and without saying good-bye

-Do you miss him?

-I don’t remember his name

Lucas would put out his cigarette, sigh and Marcos without words would leave, he would get up, leave a void in the bank and walk with a limp in his broken leg and a tremor in his hands, he would smile and say goodbye.

He would not say see you later or bye, he would say goodbye because we never knew if he would return, if we would not read his story in a newspaper, we didn’t know what to expect from the today in which we separated.

-Have you ever loved someone?

-Yes

-Does he love you back?

-Haven’t asked

-Why?

-I fear for his answer

-Then you do not love him, if you loved him you would tell him, you would let him know, you would break only to see the sadness or joy in his face, you would do it just to let him know and know if he loves you, you would say it to him because you love him.

I remember looking at the children, they went with their parents, the wind that played with the scarf on my neck and my fingers that removed the painting from the bench, I remember several feelings of that day and thoughts that flooded my mind, like the breath that it burned my lungs, and I remember that Lucas was gone before I gave an answer.

Learning that love was only for the tortured, for those who love from afar and torture themselves with that pain, for those who sigh with a broken voice, for those who love who tomorrow dies.

-Ok, I love you

I remember, I was alone on a bench until the night came and my fingers trembled from the cold, while my mind described Lucas's eyelashes and my eyes remembering the curve of his lips and my feet thought they knew the way he left. 

I remember staying until I could deny that I did not love him and leave the bank where I would see them tomorrow.

If we arrived at tomorrow.

T.A.