TE17 Mysterious Montenegro

Three Texts

discussion wrapped up, laughter, decisions, also for you: in your presence as you sink into one of the many split seams, stretched stitches and rips in the fabric of reality. You go under, slowly losing consistency. The words stand out very high, like white clouds against a clear sky. The words belong to adults, to a world that continues to take place. As long as someone is speaking, you listen, persuaded of his right to occupy a space of sound and meaning, of why he exists, with the strength of one who takes his turn to speak, confining himself within his own boundaries or effacing even your fleeting outlines. Losing my words, I become a docile animal, a rustling tree. All my scratches and marks, the cracks, the lost blood, come frommy being out of phase with the present. A fissure in which a few grains of dust have also fallen. One day I found a blade of grass in there. A long table set for lunch. All the relatives seated. You move forward, a little girl next to the paternal shadow. In an instant you sense it: the time to speak has come. The sentence stands out. You have found the words that fit, like a dress in which you try not to feel uncomfortable. It’s your chance: you can at last bring that thing outside, watch the shape and consistency it takes on as it enters into contact with the air, in the ears of others. But it has remained inside. The sentence is engraved in your mind, a soundless breath that doesn’t come out of your chest. Suddenly appeared the consequences that would have occurred if the sentence had reached your lips (questions, reproaches, a fault to share, suffering poured out on others). I swallowed. That sequence of words could go back down into me, come undone again, leaving itsmeaning intact. Likeastrongbox thatmight have been rediscovered years later, or ended up forgotten. For now, I just had to let it settle to the bottom. To shelter it, I had a big dark 131