Our Share of Night

by Mariana Enriquez

Tengo miedo que la noche me deje también sin alma, la añera es la pena buena y es mi sola compañía.

No sé para qué volviste, si ya empezaba a olvidar, no sé si ya lo sabrás, lloré cuando vos te fuiste, went the song, y que pena me da saber que al final de este amor ya no queda nada.

If he abandoned his son, Gaspar would grow into a furious and silent man, but the world is full of men like that.

I passed on something of me to you, and hopefully it isn’t cursed, I don’t know if I can leave you something that isn’t dirty, that isn’t dark, our share of night.

And he gave an answer that was so true I sometimes repeat it out loud. The thing is, nothing happens after this, dear. The next day, we get hungry and we eat, we want to feel the sun and we go swimming, we have to shave, we need to meet with the accountants and visit the fields because we want to keep having money. What happens is real, but so is life.

her, love was impure. I, on the

other hand, have had so little love that it seems to me like a delicate jewel, and I’m terrified of losing it. My fear is not just that I’ll misplace it, like an earring on a night of sex or sweaty dancing, it’s that it will evaporate and vanish like alcohol.

‘And it pushes me into certain corners, into certain moist houses, / into hospitals where the bones stick out of the windows, / into certain shoestores with a smell of vinegar, / into streets as frightening as chasms. / There are brimstone-colored birds and horrible intestines / hanging over the doors of the houses that I hate.’