TE19 Iberian Adventure

Patrícia Portela

not really the question anymore.

Rewrite me where you feel it necessary, add to me where you find me incomplete, make an indent on the bottom corner of the page every time you stop, scrawl down your insights on me with your pen. Do not let any expressions escape from your face as you read me. If possible, conceal my front cover so that no one can find out my title. If you prefer, you can read me out loud, in bed, on the sofa, at a café table, on a garden bench. If you take me to the beach, you may get me wet but do not bury me. Acknowledge the space between my lines as someone who knows that all monologues are dialogues and all dialogues aremonologues. Between the two of us. Practice getting used to my words and imagine that we are all people dressed as other people, borrowing words to speak with. That we don’t really know what those words are actually saying (especially when put into this or that order), but that we say them all the same and as we do so all the syllables fit perfectly into our mouths and bodies, transforming us into what we are not but could be. Always keep some dark glasses at hand. The shock of the return to reality is always excessively bright and not always so constructive, never mind the frivolous claims of those who believe that a lesson can be learnt from every misfortune. Let’s mutually ignore one another. As a work of art, I thank you and will think long and hard about myself (though you won’t notice that as you leaf through me); meanwhile you, as a thinking thing, lie to me, though your body is unaware of this, and it shows.

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