Mari Sánchez Cayuso

Tag: silence

  • Before It Had to Be Named

    I have never told a man
    I loved him first.

    Not because I didn’t.

    Because I believed
    love should recognize itself
    before it had to be named.

    I thought if it was true
    it would arrive on your lips
    before it ever reached mine.

    Then you happened.

    For the first time
    I wanted to say it.

    I carried those words
    like water in my mouth
    afraid that if I spoke
    I would lose
    both the water
    and the thirst.

    So I said nothing.

    Instead, I loved you like the wind

    the wind that finds your face
    before you have opened your eyes

    that moves through your hair
    and catches in your breath

    leaving you to wonder
    what your heart remembered
    that your mind could not name.

    It hurts to love you
    because the feeling is real
    and has nowhere to go.

    No place in your life
    where it can remain.

    So I carry it into mornings
    into songs I cannot finish
    into every quiet place
    that still makes room for you.

    I have questioned everything else

    my judgment
    my timing
    the meaning of your silence.

    But never this.

    Never the love.

    I only wanted one impossible thing:

    for you to know
    that somewhere in this world

    you were loved
    by a woman who had never told a man
    she loved him first

    and still could not bring herself
    to tell you.

    So if, on some ordinary morning
    the wind finds your face

    lingers for just a moment
    and catches in your breath

    let it be enough.

    Let it carry the words
    I could not.

  • Look at Yourself

    I have been thinking about the terrible fact
    that people can become unreachable
    while still being alive.

    There should be another word for this.

    Death is too complete.

    This is something else.

    This is knowing someone is somewhere
    washing their hands,
    looking for their keys,
    standing in front of an open refrigerator
    deciding what they want—

    and not knowing
    if you cross their mind at all.

    And why do I torture myself this way?

    As if I cannot see myself in a mirror.

    As if I need someone else’s eyes
    to tell me I am still here.

    I stand in front of myself every morning.

    Same face.
    Same mouth.

    Same body that has carried me
    through every terrible thing
    I was certain would finish me.

    And still,

    one person’s silence
    can make me question
    everything I know about myself.

    This embarrasses me.

    Not because I loved.

    I have never been ashamed of that.

    But because I keep returning to the silence
    as if it contains an answer.

    Was I too much.
    Was I not enough.

    Was it my body.

    Did something in me become disappointing
    once it became real.

    Look at me.

    I want to say this to myself.

    Look at yourself.

    You have a mirror.

    You have lived inside this body
    for more than half a century.

    You know what it survived.

    You know how many times
    it had to become yours again.

    And still,

    I stand there

    looking directly at myself

    and somehow

    I am waiting for someone
    who is not here

    to tell me

    what he sees.

  • I Was Left Without One

  • Unbelievable

    There is a room in me
    where everything I have ever loved
    eventually becomes unbelievable.

    I’ve been here before.

    I know this room.

    My mind cannot reconcile
    two realities.

    That you were here.

    And that now

    it feels

    like I made

    the whole thing up.

  • Notes

    I want to kiss you

    because silence
    has become too crowded
    inside me.

    Maybe

    if I reached
    your mouth

    I could finally learn

    the grammar

    of everything

    you refuse
    to say.