O Lado B do A

I still remember how it felt to hold your hand freely. No guilt, no pretending, just warmth against warmth, like our palms had decided long before we did. Once, we kissed on the train. The world outside blurred into a moving watercolour. London sliding past in streaks of grey and gold, and for a moment I thought: this is how belonging feels.  Then the doors opened, and belongings left with you. Autumn came early this year, and I  see us everywhere. In the condensation on café windows, in scarves pulled high, in the way people fold themselves into the cold. Layers upon layers, like we were: truths, disguises, tenderness, fear. The air still smells like us, sharp, alive, impossible to name. Remember the bridge? I  walk that bridge every day. It remembers what we tried to forget. The wind there is the same, and, believe me, i t still knows your name. How would you feel if I told you I wrote a book about us? T o understand what survived when we didn’t. I’ve been reading the E...

I wake up, and the first thought is you. Always you. The other side of the bed feels wider than the whole room, heavier than any silence. I grab my phone the way someone dying of thirst grabs a glass of water, urgent, desperate, knowing it won’t be enough but reaching anyway. I type. I tell you, the night was too long. That I dreamed of your laugh. That I can still feel you in the smallest corners of this flat. And I always end the same way: saying I love you. Like a prayer. Like the words themselves could reach across the distance you left behind. As the hours crawl by, the words pile up. I write the way I breathe: compulsively, because if I stop, I suffocate. I tell you about the lunch I made without appetite. About the song that caught me off guard and tore me open. About how the emptiness gets louder when night falls. And every time, I circle back to the only thing I can say with certainty: I love you. I love you as if it’s the first time. I love you as if it’s the last. I love you...

Existem amores que não cabem no tempo. Eles chegam sem aviso, atravessam a vida como tempestade, confundem céu e mar, acendem uma chama que não se apaga fácil. São encontros que parecem escritos pelo universo, mas destinados apenas a deixar marcas, não permanência. Esse encontro foi assim.  Palavras de intensidade, coração exposto, medo de errar. Nas entrelinhas, confissões que a voz não sustentava. Num dia, a chama inédita acesa em si. No outro, a fuga para a lógica, a segurança, o caminho já traçado muito antes de me conhecer.  Deu um lado o sentir.  Do outro, uma alma evitativa, sempre presa ao controle.  O resultado? Um amor imenso e interrompido.  Releio as palavras deixadas em cartas, fragmentos, coragens e covardias, e compreendo que não era para durar. Era para incendiar. Era para tocar fundo e depois seguir, cada um com a marca desse fogo.  Houve a escolha pelo conforto. Eu escolhi o risco.  E ainda assim não existiram derrotas. Houve vida, ...

 I still read our story with a smile on my face.  

Não existe absolutamente mais nada que eu possa fazer. Meu peito ardia como brasa enquanto a tristeza se infiltrava lenta e venenosa. Foi como rasgar a esperança em tiras finas. E, se ela é a última a morrer, em mim já descansa sem flores, velada ao lado de tudo o que um dia foi amor. O mais cruel não foi a tua ausência repentina, mas o teu adeus em gotas porque não sou bom com despedidas. Como droga diminuída em doses homeopáticas , tua presença foi se desfazendo até que um dia despertei, me olhei no espelho e não te vi. Estranhei o espelho, estranhei o trem em que não te beijei, estranhei minhas próprias mãos vazias, sem as suas pra segurar. E como todo vício que se desfaz, a abstinência me rasgou em noites insones , em lembranças febris , em silêncios que ardiam na boca. Havia tremores, havia sede, havia a ilusão de que bastaria uma fagulha tua para me incendiar outra vez. Mas o tempo foi limpando meus poros, purificando o sangue, te expulsando de cada canto de mim. Até que um dia...

Quão pequenos nos tornamos quando contemplamos a imensidão do mundo em cima da pedra mais alta? Muito, eu penso. E, ainda assim, sinto-me entrelaçado nesse todo. Do alto da montanha, meus olhos alcançam uma linha infinita . Vejo as sombras das nuvens dançarem sobre o chão, como pinceladas vivas. Que maravilha. Estou tão elevado que quase toco os dedos de Deus . Por instantes, esqueço o medo e a ansiedade da subida. Apenas respiro, quase sem ar. Na descida, a paisagem se mistura com vestígios do que foi. Restos que carregam melancolia , ausência , dor, e, mesmo assim irradiam estranha formosura . Nesse instante, entre tantas vertigens de sentir , tudo encontra sentido, pois quando ergo o olhar, o horizonte se torna moldura de um passado inesquecível . Até onde sua visão se estende? O amor também é assim. Um coração em escombros ainda guarda seu encanto, transbordando lembranças que não se explicam. Como quando você partiu, mas o espaço que habitou em mim permaneceu; gasto. Silencio...

The room pulsed with an almost illicit energy that evening. The front door concealed more than just a space; it held a secret. Outside, passing figures flickered in the glass like ghosts, blind to the transgression breathing behind these 987 square feet, a passion that should never have existed. Inside, time unravelled. Reality wove itself into something indistinct, tangled between longing and inevitability.  Robin always arrived first, a silent ritual. Perched in the blind spot at the top of the stairs, phone abandoned on her lap, gaze anchored to the vacant wall, she measured time not in minutes but in the rhythm of her own pulse. The waiting wasn’t agony, it was proof. Elliot would come; he always did.  And that was the problem.  Beyond these walls, London moved unbothered, indifferent, but here everything funnelled down to two bodies navigating the weight of a decision already made. The sharp click of a key turning in the back door snapped the moment in half. Always t...

A falta é o não haver. E haver vem de existir. Mas que confuso tudo isso se torna quando, no silêncio dos meus dias, é justamente você quem mais se faz presente. A ausência pesa, ocupa, grita baixinho nos cantos onde sua voz fazia morada. Saudade é palavra pequena para o universo que carrego no peito. É solidão acompanhada. É o eco de uma presença que insiste em continuar mesmo depois da partida. Ela vem sorrateira, se espalha pela casa, deita comigo, caminha lado a lado. Não dói como uma ferida aberta, mas arde como uma memória viva que insiste em se repetir. E como arde.  É estranha essa saudade. Não pede licença. Rodeia meus dias e noites. É a alegria em lembrar dos momentos bons; é o vazio de não poder revivê-los. É lembrar do riso, da conversa, dos olhares e, ao mesmo tempo, entender que tudo virou lembrança. Talvez o mais bonito, e mais cruel, talvez, da saudade seja essa dualidade : ao mesmo tempo em que consola, machuca. Não existe palavra em nenhum idioma que consiga tra...

O som do pneu deslizando no asfalto molhado desperta algo antigo em mim. A porta entreaberta espera por um sopro de vento fresco.  Estou na cama, meio despido, com papel e caneta em mãos, rascunhando as últimas palavras de um livro quase pronto.  É verão , e chove.  Tudo parece distante e, ao mesmo tempo, presente demais.

I’m awake. Maybe it’s the heat. Maybe it’s my thoughts. Can’t sleep. The pills don’t work anymore.  How much can you miss someone? I’m staring at the ceiling.  3.02 am No answer.

We were a theory, not a plan. You bloom where the sun lives. I burn and sulk. You chase light like it owes you joy; I chase shade like it owes me peace. Six hundred thirty hours of sun, and I’m radiant, ghost-pale and grinning, the happiest contradiction in London’s golden Spring. You? Probably glaring at the sky, wondering how it got so loud. I think it's because of me. I wish I could say this to you. But you’d only close your eyes, turn your face to the light, and forget I was ever in the shadow. And then there is water. And I don't know how to swim. She loves the water. I wish I could watch her body move beneath the surface.  Me? I’m always on the edge: afraid the water will pull me under before I learn to float.  You say water heals; I think it’s a language I never learned.  While you disappear in its quiet depths, I’m left standing, dripping, wondering if love is the same, something you can sink into, or something you only watch from the shore. I wish I could say t...

If I could choose my words more carefully today, it wouldn’t be to dazzle you, but to find a language vast enough to carry your beauty. The coffee would be ground fresh, its scent blooming through the rooms like a soft promise. Beyond the window, the sea stretches endlessly, dissolving into sky, blue meeting blue. The sunlight brushes your skin, unveiling you slowly. You’re caught in the wind, eyes closed, smiling like the moment belongs only to you. I watch in silence. I registered it on 35mm. The rest of the day? Laughter echoes between songs. Tangled sheets. Words whispered in the hush between breaths. Today is yours.  Entirely.

It’s funny, really. I used to think birthdays were just about the day itself: cake, noise, fun t-shirts, the moment everyone sings off-key, and you don’t know where to look or what to do with your hands. But then came you . You, with your quiet wisdom and sideways way of seeing the world. You were the one who said to me, “Why not celebrate the last day of being thirty-eight?” Like it was obvious. And it stayed with me. Especially now, as your day draws closer, I keep imagining how you're moving through this week, how you're closing your cycle, quietly marking the last days of your old age. I imagine you walking slower, noticing the sky, counting moments in sips of coffee and pages turned. You said your birthday didn’t matter, called yourself boring, as if your life didn’t deserve candles and confetti, and I hope, more than anything, that you remember what you taught me: That ageing isn’t a loss. It’s a gathering. So, whether you mark it with cake, or candles, or quiet, whethe...

Era cedo ainda quando ela me acordou com uma mensagem dizendo que viria passar o dia comigo. Chegaria em duas horas. Dei um salto da cama, tomei banho, preparei um café forte,  não só pra acordar, mas pra perfumar a casa. O tempo ideal pra ter o espaço só pra mim. Me fiz bonito, exercitei a respiração e esperei o tempo passar. Para um ansioso, você pode imaginar o desafio. E então ele chegou. E me trouxe ela, pontual. Coisa de britânico. Quer dizer... enfim. Abri a porta com um sorriso largo. Mal podia acreditar: ela estava em casa. Um abraço longo, apertado, seguido de um beijo molhado de bom dia. — Não vai me convidar pra entrar? — ela pergunta. — You are already in! — Shoes off? — Clothes too. She laughed. Outro beijo. Ela vestida dela mesma. Olhar pra ela dentro da minha casa era como ter a sensação de que ela era minha. E só minha. — Vem, vou te mostrar tudo. Tour pela cozinha e sala. Mãos dadas. Downstairs. Chuveiro e cama. — Aqui onde tudo acontece? — ela pergunt...

I sip reality in bitter shots, chased by dreams that burn like liquor. Each swallow was a revolt against the ache that moved in before I even had a name for it. My chest stays tight, and I am in a room with no windows. Anxiety doesn't knock; it lives here, unpacking bags into my breath, tapping its fingers on my ribs when I try to sleep. So I reach. For something, or someone, anyone who feels like silence in the storm of my thoughts. Drugs, drinks, touches, lies, all the same brand of escape. I don’t want joy. I just want less. Love? It’s a needle, too. Different syringe, same blood. I crave someone the way the sick crave a cure, forgetting some medicines kill you if you take too much. But I take it anyway— I always take it anyway. I don’t fall in love. I vanish into it. I let them drown me, softly, with hands I mistake for salvation. They hold me until I confuse their leaving with something I deserved. And when they’re gone, because they always go, I don’t just break. I return...

Escrevo sem saber se me ouve, se me sente, ou se apenas se esconde atrás do tempo. E  mesmo assim, eu falo.  Porque há palavras que não cabem no peito,  e há silêncios que gritam mais alto do que qualquer som. Não sei o que fomos pra você.  Talvez um capítulo leve, talvez só uma história breve.  Pra mim, fomos livro.  Não daqueles que se lê por curiosidade,  mas os que se vive linha por linha,  com a alma aberta e as mãos trêmulas.  E mesmo que o final tenha chegado sem aviso,  ainda releio nossas páginas em silêncio. Você, talvez, já o tenha fechado e guardado na estante, o u pior, talvez tenha lido tudo enquanto eu ainda tentava entender a primeira frase.  O s eu livro preferido? Eu n ã o li . E talvez por isso, mesmo agora  a história ainda vibra em mim. Há noites em que sua ausência ocupa o quarto todo,  e manhãs em que seu nome acorda comigo,  como um trecho sublinhado que nunca saiu da minha cabeça.  Não te...

E o que eu faço com a falta que a sua falta faz? Eu grito em acordes menores o refrão da musica que casualmente encontrei traduzindo o que na época não podia traduzir. E repito, incansavelmente, o trecho que diz que não quero fechar os olhos com medo de sentir demais a sua falta. Enquanto isso, repriso a cena na minha mente: a música ecoando, você nos meus braços, nas escadas de um lugar frio e mal iluminado, onde ninguém nos vê e nós nos sentimos. As batidas dos nossos corações se alinham. O choro ameaça vir, mas para na garganta. Toda a emoção daquele instante transborda pelos meus dedos e escorre pelas cordas do violão. Cada acorde é um mantra que repito na esperança de te esquecer. Mas o choro vem. A cena se repete. Dessa vez, sem você.

“When I utter those words, 'I don't know,' it dances on the air, far more complex than it seems. There was a time I walked in certainty, where life's path felt settled and assured. I believed in the existence of others along this journey, yet never took the time to bridge our worlds, to weave our stories together.  When I whisper my uncertainty, it stems from a place I never dreamed existed—the depths of my heart, where feelings intertwine like vines, ensnaring me between two souls. I never imagined how effortlessly I could be swept away by her, caught in the thorns of love.  If only the choice were so clear-cut.  You think I should leap fearlessly or relinquish you to the winds of fate, but I've wrestled with this battle countless times—in the silent corridors of my mind, in the tender chambers of my heart.  At times, it feels right, an embrace of possibilities, yet in the blink of an eye, the clarity fades into shadows again. And oh, how piercing it is to listen t...

To write is often to reopen wounds, to face the ache of memory and feel again what once whispered in the dark. Perhaps that’s why some poets turned to opium: to numb the pain just enough to hear the truth more clearly. They didn’t run from feeling; they distilled it, drugged just enough to choose the right words, turning torment into beauty, sorrow into verse. Art, after all, demands a toll. And memory never comes without its ghosts. Now, as I write my own book, I’ve chosen to face the past with my eyes closed — not to escape, but to relive. Not with opium, but with you .  You are the presence I breathe in.  And in every memory I revisit, it’s your shadow I find shaping the story.  You are the pulse behind every page.

...between the boy who had always been there, warm and familiar, and me, a sudden spark in a dim corridor. Her heart, a compass constantly spinning, never quite pointed home. And that was enough to begin something we never quite finished. It wasn’t love. Not at first. It was a spark—the kind that catches if the wind’s just right. We told ourselves it was innocent. It wasn’t. The truth was, we both wanted to be seen. To be chosen. To be the reason someone turned around. She drifted between us like someone chasing her own reflection in a broken mirror—wanting him, wanting me, wanting no one at all. And when the wanting dried up, she stood in the stillness, trying to remember who she was before she bent herself to fit into someone else’s hands. Lisbon was where it all came undone. Not loudly. Quietly. The kind of unravelling that feels like a confession. The truth, the ache, the thing neither of us could name. Her voice was a murmur against the chill air as she sat near the river, and her...

I came to the hills where poets came to die, not of wound nor illness, but of truth,  to lay their sorrow down  in the hush between stone and sky. Here, the earth remembers  what the heart is made to forget. So I have come too,  with your name like ash in my mouth. The wind in your voice,  the warmth of a false dawn—  I mistook it all for love. You wore your kindness well,  but it fit too perfectly,  like a borrowed coat. I never saw the seams. It opened its hand,  and there were your lies,  lined up like smooth stones  pulled from a black river. And I— I was the last to know I was drowning. Not from the world,  but from the cathedral of my mind. Your place is sealed,  a crypt beneath the heather. The poets here  died for beauty, or for truth. You? You simply faded,  like fog from a mirror. No carved name. Only silence, and the clean forgetting. You do not sleep in my memory— you are exiled from it...

There is a storm in my soul. You saw it once—marvelled at it, maybe even feared it. But you never understood it. You tried to tame it, contain it in promises too fragile for my thunder. Now that storm is mine again. No longer stirring for you. It dances to my own rhythm now, one you can’t follow. It crackles with the fire of everything I reclaimed. I am the electric silence before the lightning. The pulse before the quake. Majestic, yes—but no longer yours to witness. This storm doesn’t break me. It makes me.

I paused. The kind of pause where everything inside you screams, but the outside stays still.  Silent. Numb.  I sat in that silence, heavy and hollow.  I’m empty. I feel sick—like something inside me rotted and leaked into my skin.  I feel dirty in a way that no amount of scrubbing will fix. And my friends—they look at me like I’m broken. They’re right. But none of this started with me. This started with you.  Your emptiness. Your sickness. Your dirt. You handed it to me, gift-wrapped in charm and fake promises. All this fucking time, it was your damage, damaging me. My vulnerability versus your game. You lied. You used me to save something you had. You told me you didn’t deserve my heart, and God, you were telling the truth for once. I should’ve listened. But love makes you deaf. And I kept loving you. I over-gave myself to you, and maybe that’s my curse. But yours? Yours is never being able to forgive yourself for what you did. You're everything I never want t...

Love has a strange way of finding us — sometimes in joy, but more often in the unraveling. Life, with all its careful plans and promises, can shift in a breath. One moment, you’re steady. The next, you’re staring at the pieces of something you thought would last. And in that quiet wreckage — heart cracked open, hands trembling — love reveals what it really is.  I’ve learned that heartbreak doesn’t just hurt. It hollows. It echoes. It lingers in the spaces they once filled — in the silence after laughter, in the absence that follows presence. It takes your breath before you even realize it’s gone. But even in the ache, there is beauty — because to grieve like that means you dared to love deeply. You let yourself be seen, held, known. That kind of love never truly disappears. It leaves something behind. Pain, no matter how sharp, is temporary — though it doesn’t always feel that way. Sometimes it wraps itself around your ribs and makes a home there. But even then, it is love — not ju...

I rode for miles,  trying to quiet the noise in my head.  Fifty kilometres of empty roads up north  and heavy breath. New places. And somehow, without meaning to,  I ended up in front of your house,  still carrying everything I tried to leave behind. And I just stood there,  not knowing if I wanted to knock  or keep riding forever.

Tem coisas que a gente escreve sem saber se vai ser lido. E outras que a gente escreve justamente por isso. Faz quatro meses que o mundo ficou mais vazio, mas não o bastante pra calar o que ainda vive aqui dentro. O tempo tem passado, sim, mas certas ausências não envelhecem. Elas se acomodam, educadas, no canto do peito. Não fazem barulho,  só fazem falta. E o  mais engraçado de sentir a sua falta é sentir a sua falta enquanto a vida segue. Às vezes me pego relendo as nossas palavras, e pensando no quão bonito era quando trocávamos palavras bonitas, como se cada uma acendesse uma luz suave no meio da escuridão.  Era lindo, né?  Era poesia sem precisar de rima.  Era encontro em plena distância.  Mas o que mais dói, e talvez o que mais me inspire,  é pensar que havia tanto amor,  e mesmo assim faltou coragem.  Que triste; o meu amor transbordava, mas a sua coragem evaporou no medo.  O mais louco de sentir a sua falta é que mesmo sentindo ...

Y ou know, I’m so deep, so intense, that any attention feels like love. I understand you, your pain, your thoughts, your moments. I’m deeply involved and I don’t know how to escape. I don’t know if I should stay or go, wait for you, or leave it up to fate. Fate sometimes plays with us and I wouldn’t say I like it. I give too much of myself and I stumble, hurting myself, even though I know what’s coming. I know you can’t say much and this silence cuts me and opens wounds I don’t want to nurture.  But ‘every time I run away, I get closer, and losing sight of you like this is too painful,’ and I don’t know what to do anymore. I crave your complete affirmation because I already feel a connection, and I hesitate to get close to others. It’s hard.  I want peace. But I also want love, desires and wants that are physically fulfilled. You balance me and that does me good. It’s hard to be the hidden side when my heart wants to scream. It’s even harder to know that I can’t keep anything ...

The other day, while counting my steps on a street that didn’t seem to lead anywhere but the office, I heard your voice call my name. Clear. Steady. Like you'd just stepped into the room of my life again, casually, as if no time had passed. For a second, I thought maybe I was slipping—low blood sugar, a lack of sleep, maybe something weird I ate. But no. None of those things. So I answered. Of course I did. What else does a heart do when it hears home? For a few minutes afterward, I stood there in a sort of waking dream, swept into the exact shape of how it used to feel when you were close. It was so real, so full, I thought my heart would burst open just to make more space for the joy.  I didn’t try to understand it. The universe twists itself into knots sometimes, just to see if we’ll notice.  But now I know—if I ever hear your voice again, I’ll follow it, no matter where it leads. With all of that spinning through my mind, I got home that day and remembered—somewhere i...

I woke with a quiet mind, the weight of yesterday softened by sleep. Something inside me shifted— a simple but undeniable desire: to be happy, truly happy. No more games, no tangled lies, no voices raised in anger. I want love that feels like home, a refuge, a place to rest my soul. I carry within me the gifts I was given— a heart that overflows, hands that create, a spirit that longs to give without fear. I will share this only with someone who understands the sacredness of love. Let her be wild, but wild for me. Let her run free, but always find her way back. Let our problems be stepping stones, not walls between us. May we meet each other in truth— at the pub, in a long embrace, through tears, through laughter, through silence that needs no words. And if we ever lose our way, may she know that home is not a place, but a choice we make, over and over again. I no longer want to start over, to build and break, to rewrite my story alone. I want someone who understan...

Eu queria te ligar. Dizer que não aguento mais viver sem ouvir a sua voz. You once said I’d get over you if you disappeared from my life. Well, look at me. It’s been so fucking hard, missing you. Some days, it feels like my chest will explode. I met someone. But someone is not you. I think you said it too— "there is no one like you." We agreed to the biggest emotional irresponsibility. The risk? A heart brutally broken. Getting numb to escape reality only makes me want you more. I wish I were strong enough to break this barrier between us. I wish I could hear your voice again. Somehow. Please, come back home.

I'm healing. It hurts less now.  Sometimes, I even go more than five minutes without thinking of you.  I hope your journey feels the same.  It will get easier—before we find the courage to explore the brave side of us . One step at a time. Keep walking toward me. I'm here. Stay safe.

The calendar shows "busy all day" , e o dia parecia mesmo reservado pra mim. We were completely "out of office." Andei relendo nossas conversas. Esse dia foi incrível. Estávamos mesmo conectados. I wish I could be less intense. But that wouldn’t be me. You know, the thunder thing. I was a teenager wearing some weird, oversized man’s skin. I should have tried harder. Mas fiz o que pude. We ran out of time. It got late. And now I miss you. Todos os dias. You said so many beautiful things that day. Words rarely spoken anymore. I read them with a fucking big smile on my face. The real one. The one you like. Fuck, how much I miss you! I bet you miss me too. You once said, "I miss you more than I can fucking describe." Here we are. Still running? I cycled to Alexandra Palace. How’s Lulu? I miss you mixing languages— "I will never use it with anyone but you." How’s your Portuguese? We had so many lists, do you remember? LOL. Never The One With...

Ando me perguntando como é que se define saudade.

São incontáveis os dias sem você. They asked me to say goodbye. Well, I never thought that I would have to say goodbye. Not to you.  Eu, sempre preparado pra tudo. Não pra te perder. Eu ensaiei diversas frases. Pensei ser frio, funny, neutral. Pensei em não ser, não estar. Me entorpecer de algo até que tudo passasse e eu fosse capaz de ouvir a tua voz outra vez. Ou melhor, que você fosse capaz de me oferecer a tua voz again. Não sei colocar em palavras a falta que a tua falta me faz. E, ao mesmo tempo, ter que lidar com a certeza de que você irá voltar. Saiba, te espero com o melhor sorriso. Daqueles que você adora. E, em todo esse lance de dizer goodbye, me peguei pensando em te escrever uma carta.  Addressed to the fire. Mas o fogo não lê. O fogo devora, consome, reduz ao que já não pode ser tocado. Assim como o tempo. Assim como você. Então, deixo as palavras arderem até virarem cinza. Quem sabe, no próximo vento, alguma delas chegue até você. Quem sabe, um dia, você entend...

Além de tudo, o que dissemos em ligações sem registros.  Nosso vocabulário, a sua voz, o nosso tom. Espalhados por incontáveis minutos.  Lil. Life. Sem descanso.  Coisas que só a nós pertencem.  Indizíveis em qualquer um dos nossos cinco idiomas. 

Is Sunday again. Cold. Bright enough. February is slipping away. Haven’t done a thing this weekend. The air feels heavier. Familiar shadows press in— we know the signs.  It will pass. Pain is temporary. I quiet your name in my mind, turn off the “what ifs.” It shall pass.

My mind replays you on a loop, wandering through the echoes of your favourite things, laughing where you used to laugh. The coffee tastes bitter now. Your voice was sugar, and I don’t use it anymore.

Hey, It’s been a while since I last met your eyes—right before breaking down in tears on the footpath, on a cold and sunny January day. Funny enough, it’s sunny again today, but no tears this time. It took me time to decide whether to put these words together or let them slip away. But since all my letters are written for the fire—why not? There are so many things you’d be proud of. I can almost hear your voice, telling me you never doubted my ability—though you’d also remind me to ask for that pay rise. I miss you saying that. There’s a chance, just over the horizon, that I might become the head of my department. Or maybe that’s just my anxiety spinning dreams. Either way, I’m covering for everyone and slowly making my way there—missing your encouragement along the way. Guess what? I ran yesterday. Gosh, I don’t miss it - can you picture my eyes rolling here? My legs are useless today, and it was only 5km, just a warm-up for next Saturday. How did you do this daily? Missing our walks ...

Keeping you stored like a WhatsApp message we gave up on (re)reading.  Left sitting at the bottom, unseen, with no notification of arrival.

I  wrapped myself in the cloak of invisibility and allowed myself eleven days of silence. Eleven days to grieve, to exist in the emptiness left behind. It feels as if someone reached into my chest, took my heart and lungs, and commanded me to keep living.  But how does one breathe when the air is gone? How does one move when the weight of loss turns every limb to stone? I sit in the stillness, hoping that in the quiet, I might find a way to piece myself back together. But grief is not gentle. It does not wait for permission. It paralyses, flooding every corner of my being with an ache so deep it swallows time itself. I wake, but I do not rise. I exist, but I do not live. The world moves on, indifferent to the storm  unfolding  inside me. And so, I remain here, in the silence, mourning what was, mourning what will never be. In the darkness, a friendly reminder: “it shall pass” - there’s your handwriting on it - one day breath will return, and will find my way back to...

I realized I spent the whole day talking about you. Maybe it’s the rain. If my memory isn’t failing me, I dreamt of you last night—skinny jeans, white shoes, and a red top. That combination looked perfect on you. No, nothing happened. It was just you, standing there, and me, quietly taking in your beauty. This morning, I brushed it off as just a passing scene. But by afternoon, the memories came rushing in, overwhelming me. Someone called me by your name.  Was fun.  Like the rain falling now, I know this will pass. I'm ok. It is just saudade.

If I had to choose between you and you, I’d still choose you. Because here, on this side of the world, no one carries your essence, your elegance, your words. No one gets lost in books the way you do. No one holds your voice. Here, it’s just silence, an empty hum that fades into nothing. And you? You’re the melody in my chaos, the spark that lights the pages of my days. You make the ordinary feel poetic like each moment is worth savouring.

If there’s one thing I regret in all of this, it’s that Saturday morning when I asked you not to come. I’ve cursed every place we went to together, and look at me now—alone and completely lost in my thoughts. I should have fought for us. I should have begged you to stay. I should have encouraged you more, let go of my jealousy, my possessiveness, my anger. I should have changed myself to take care of you. But you loved me as I was, and now I’m so lost without you. I should have made myself your safe place from the very beginning. I should have erased all the lies I told myself, the ones that made me believe I was right when I wasn’t. Look at me now. Full of regret. Please, forgive me for not being strong enough. I should have treated it as just a passing thing, like you said that day, and left it at that. But I couldn’t. I knew it was more. I felt my whole body tremble every time I heard your voice. I knew we were more than just attraction. I felt the fear crawling up my spine, but at ...

It lingered in the space between us, a tension neither of us could name but both felt. Her presence stayed with me long after she left, a quiet warmth I couldn’t shake. The way her eyes held mine, the brush of her hand—too deliberate to ignore. I told myself it was fleeting, that it would pass. But when her absence ached more than her touch ever could, I knew the truth. I craved her. I welcomed the way she unravelled me. It wasn’t a question of right or wrong anymore, only of inevitability. We were standing at the edge, and neither of us could resist the fall.

Now you’re in pain, and I can’t reach you—not by phone, not at work, not through messages, not face to face. It feels like you cleared away the dust but swept me off with the wind. I’m hurting, and I keep hearing you say, “There’s no scenario without pain anymore.” You were so wise. Should we add that to the list? Do we even still have a list? Maybe I should call you “genius”—you always loved that, and I can find it on the list. I’m full of sorrow. Empty. Collecting dust, longing for you to return. What's the point of being loud if you're not here? When you cannot witness my love overflowing? "It's always weird not having you around", you said once. If these words I'm writing could reach you, maybe you'd be surprised by how much I remember. I remember it all. Was never fond of chasing reasons for happiness. Not in the early mornings.  Not at work. Not in life, in general. But knowing I'd share not just breakfast, but the same air as you, that made my h...

I'm still so confused. I keep seeing all the flashes in my mind about everything we went through. I changed my favourite playlist to sad vaibes. Everyone is asking if I'm okay. Is my sadness visible on my face? It’s been painful for the past six days.  Maybe I’m going through what you experienced before. I’m worried about you and the s(h)ituation you're in now.  Did you know they contacted me? I felt attacked.

Depois de escrever e pensar demais, resolvi dormir cedo, pra que o dia em que eu te visse chegasse mais rápido. Bless me. Eu não sabia o que me esperava. E se soubesse, não teria acordado. Na chegada, seu ar frio, andar duro. Sem sorrisos, zero abraços. Você sempre com tantas perguntas, carregando nenhuma sequer. Eu entendi, mas ignorei. Ou não quis acreditar. Talvez. O silêncio querendo atenção chegou a ser assustador. Ofereço chá, café, água. Nada faz seus olhos se redirecionarem a mim. Justo nós, que falávamos pelo olhar. “Do you want to get some lunch today?” “Let’s see how the day goes.” Não me convence. Tento quebrar o gelo com a clássica tentativa de atualizar seu browser. Você parece mais forte.  Desvio o olhar um instante e te perco de vista. Te encontro numa sala, isolada, sem laptop, às 9:35 da manhã. A gente nunca precisou disso. As coisas começam a ficar claras e minha vista turva. “Want me to be quiet?” “Yes, please.” Fine. Não consigo. Tento post-it. A gen...