Amora: Stories

by Natalia Borges Polesso

Grandma, don’t you get tired of cooking? What else can I do, honey? I like cooking, it passes the time, and life, and at least we’re eating, and you know, people talk less when their mouths are full. And when their tummies are full, they spend less time thinking about nonsense.

Isn’t that what life is? A series of trials?”

My language. It’s chaotic, it comes from inside me, from a part of me that’s still wild. A part I don’t understand. I can’t grasp what I’m feeling.

Things get lost between my head and my mouth—somewhere unknown to me—and they never come back.

“You think there’s a part of you that’s still unknown? Just one? We’re all completely unknown to ourselves.

I wanted to be able to do that, to immerse myself in some dark corner of my life only to surface at the other, brighter end of it.

I would’ve deep dived into my own hell to reach the other, brighter end of my life, the warm center of the person I wanted to be.

I always preferred to walk. To walk until my feet ached and my thoughts ran dry.

I’ve been thinking of myself as place, you know? The body as place? The body as metaphor for a place traveled, or a life’s cartography—with all its marks, signposts, and islands.

Amora, what a perfect name for you. You are made of love.