Amora: Stories

by Natalia Borges Polesso

I wanted to know more, I wanted to know everything, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask.

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.

There are places that exist so that we may revisit memories in temples and so that we may say that there really are temples that hold memories.

I want to see you tomorrow, and contrary to what people might think, it won’t be too late. Honestly, it’ll be perfect.

But it’s all just wind, desire, saliva.

My tired body, crammed with your empty name and with a ridiculous urge to laugh, to expel the air between one void and another, until there really was nothing left—neither membrane nor plasma nor air.

All I have left is a photo. And I don’t remember where I put it.

Don’t tell me I’m wrong, that I can’t count to save my life; I need explanations to survive, and if I can’t believe every day that I love you for being who you are, I risk no longer feeling a thing. Is that the sort of risk you want to take? I didn’t know. Sorry. Everything becomes profane.