The Weaving of Her Stories

I let go I let go of my mother’s loving embrace if when in her arms I feel like a stranger in a strange land I let go of my grandmother’s sweet voice and the blurred silent film I play in my memory when I think of her I let go of my house with windows too tall for my little arms to reach. We kids running from one dark corner to the next. I let go of the walls cracked by the big earthquake, the dust in our eyes, the silence that followed the big roar of Mother Earth. I let go of the fear when we were falling asleep with our shoes on. I let go of the narrow streets, the washing hanging in the sun from one balcony to the other. I wave to the train going past and I let go. I let go of the magical mountains in the landscape where we had bonfires, summer after summer, in that time when we still believed that nothing changes. I let go of the green waves of the sea, of the rocks filled with mussels where we always cut our feet, the sour blackberries on the cliffs, I let go of the cicadas singing a lullaby while we slept under olive trees. I let go I let go of your hand where I’d hidden my hope that morning when I was yet to know that I would not see you again I let go of love because my chest is too tired to carry the grief of that last time we breath in each other’s arms on a sunny June morning. The year that summer never came. If that day you had whispered the future in my ear, I would have laughed, that loving laugh, you always said, you loved me for. I let go of the children that run to school and of those who we lost before they could open their eyes, before we could count their tiny fingers, whose names are left stuck in our throat for ever. I let go of judgment, I put crystals on my windows to wake up to rainbows, and I wear my best dress on a Monday morning to dance to my own voice. I let go of what I think my life is supposed to be, I let go of what it has never been to make space for what it is and has been for a long time. I let go of you my friend and all the good times we always spoke about and never had, until the day you decided to lay down by the cold river and sleep forever. I let go of the thought of the rain on your still body, I let go of my plans to come and surprise you with my smile. I let go of all those lands I have never travelled, because this is the only journey I had to take. A journey made of words and long lost memories I let go of the roots, now that the soil is turned into sand. I let go of gravity and like a floating tree I drift away into the sky. And I let go of the desire for a new land, now that I know that there it is all exactly like here. I have never belonged neither here nor there. I let go of a country that never lets me go, and I cross borders that are only lines drawn with a pencil on a map for someone to keep count of how many times we go back and forth.