§ As I watch the dying sun I know: so much of me was lost with your death. I try not to think about it much, but it is not seldom that an unexpected sign—a flower, a park bench, a sunset as of now—instantiates before my mind the days I loved you. We met when we were thirteen and at thirteen we were sweethearts. We went on and off, from lovers to friends, without losing a bit of our affection for each other. When we were friends, we were best friends. And so it was for years.

At some point, during that turbulent phase of human condition which only deliberate ignorance depicts as the happiest of our lives, and which we used to recollect with troubled eyes in our nocturnal conversations, you fell to drug addiction and eating disorders. For some time, I wasn't aware of this, for as all began you started to push me away. You would visit me sporadically, in times of health; I would ascribe your time of absence to mere distraction and, without noticing how turbulent were the waters of your heart—you kept this from me shrewdly—I would accept from you whatever love you came to give.

By the time we went to college, the dangers which surrounded you were clear to me already. But you stranded away from me, as I stranded away from you, as I went to live far from our town of birth and, at the same time, you cut me off in every way. Your addiction hurt me, because not only it pained me to see you crippled by it, but it seized you to the point that you chose, on every turn, drugs over those who loved you. Drugs over me. It was impossible for me to get close to you again. And in my ignorance I clang to this selfish way of heart, to this so shallow pettiness that I now wish I'd never felt.

Perhaps two or three years ago I managed to speak to you. We had a long conversation. I told you I still loved you, you said you loved me still. But our lives had taken so opposite roads that we knew our love was not to be—we knew the object of our love was but a remnant, and where we sought to find at least the shadow of past selves, we met but strangers and were faced with entirely mysterious beings. And it was then—I must confess—that I let my love for you die.

Some time after that, I fell in love with our mutual friend. The one you loved so dearly! You got to see how much I love her: I love her like I did not know I could love. We got engaged four months ago, and though you congratulated us, and seemed genuinely happy for us, you did not go to our engagement party. You went out drinking instead.

Three months ago you took your own life. Do not believe I am confused: I know we were not the reason. I know how crippled by depression your last years were; I hardly imagine how unbearably painful your existence was to you this whole last year. It was not your first attempt; it was, however, the one that met success. Neither I nor my fiancée—your life-long friend—went to your grave. I hope you can forgive this. These last years you were a sort of mystery to us, a mystery with a certain end. I wish you would have let me love you when I still could; I wish you had not put up so many walls before me. It brings me peace to know, without a doubt, that you were not only aware, but certain, of my love. I am left wondering what to make of you now that you went away.

§ Quisiera volverte a ver. El silbo del aire sobre el río, ¿no conjura tu nombre? Imaginé que una vez más sentías la arena húmeda en tus pies—que una vez más oías la lluvia—como si hubieras vuelto a nacer. Recordé tu rostro sobre el mío: el cielo castigaba tu pelo. Y, de pronto, te deshice en el recuerdo. El niño aquél estaba solo—tu cabellera era sólo una ilusión siniestra—un ctónico espejismo—la lluvia era muda y la arena solitaria. Sentí que nunca te he visto, o mejor, que en cien o doscientos años será como si no te hubiera visto—como si nadie te hubiera visto. Y como si jamás te hubiera amado.

¿Y adónde fue la imagen de tu huella? Un objecto que cae arroja un indeterminable pero exacto cuerpo de polvo en el aire—un haz de luz desgarra una penosa cerradura, como aguardando la llave que ha de quitarle la vida—un átomo de escarcha dibuja su última sombra en el instante anterior a derretirse: Son todas estas cosas más perdurables que vos, que en la febril infancia de una vida lamentable renunciaste a toda abnegación y a toda pausa—que has temido que el tiempo pudiera detenerse y a los espejos crueles y al amor, y has evadido el sueño y la pureza, la culpa y el ocaso, y la agridulce esencia de la vida. La más sensual memoria de tu cuerpo es anegada en barro cenagoso, y la más tibia imagen de tus ojos quiere transformarse en dos cuencas sin luz—en dos curiosos universos de gusanos.

Ahora recuerdo: una mujer y un hombre están a mi lado—grito la gran noticia: estás afuera—luego una elipsis. ¿Un año? ¿Dos? $S$ ya está conmigo. Tu rostro aparece frente a nosotros. Elipsis, otra vez. En su mano hay una alianza. Silencio. Luego tu muerte. Entre las dos elipsis te vi dos o tres veces. Entre la última y tu muerte, ninguna. No sé dónde estás enterrada. Finjo que el cementerio es algo así como una leyenda urbana—una superstición—algo que tiene que ver con los muertos porque la gente lo imagina, pero que no existe. A veces me pregunto: ¿Y si visitara la tierra de tu entierro? ¿Entonces qué? ¿Un llanto miserable, el arrancar la hierba con las manos? ¿O la anhedonia azul de todos estos días?

(Debo estar más muerto yo, que hablo vivo con los muertos, que vos que sos nombrada por los vivos.)

§ Como arena que se escurre entre los dedos de los pies, memoria por memoria vas desapareciendo. Pero yo he prometido recordarte. ¿Cuál es el núcleo duro del recuerdo, la última piedra inalienable, que no han de llevar las aguas de ninguno de los mares? Y si bien inamovible, ¿no la erosionarán los impiadosos embates? Quiero decir: Aun si jamás te olvido, ¿a quién estaré recordando?

§ What warmth lived in your arms...! I wish that you forgive me. I swear that all of it was true—everything I said was true. How terrible is death! We, the living, are lost—but now you have attained the wisest form of peace. Your love... it warms me still!

§ The last record of you is gone. Now only this failing neurons—so prone to error—so short-living and weak. My sweetest friend, how much I wish to show you that these stars blind us still, that I live on and well! Now that I've lost your voice I come to speak: I did not want to speak—I wanted to know of the silence you've become—but now I come to speak and tell that all insists to be and life persists and I live on!

§ Esta es mi última carta. Puedo sentirlo, pero no sé por qué. Nuestro propio corazón es insondable: ¿tal vez he alcanzado la paz o me aproximo al olvido? Siento que cada una de estas cartas era el agua de un pozo tempestuoso y que está pronto a secarse. El alma del hombre es un aljibe donde brotan las algas de la vida. Orígenes intituló una homilía sobre el Génesis: Nuestra alma, pozo de agua viva. Sí... Mi pensamiento de ti es como un loto flotando en el recuerdo. Ya no puedo conducirlo. Carece de todo vicio y toda culpa. Ya he atendido sus flores y su estanque. Y es mi deber abandonarlo.