Translated from the Spanish original by L.G.G.
He walked among us
with steps that seemed steady,
but in his chest
the ground was breaking a little more each day.
He smiled in the hallways,
said “I’m fine” in every talk,
and no one saw that in his eyes
an endless winter lived.
He carried storms in his pockets,
questions without answers under his skin.
His phone buzzed with quick phrases,
but never with a “I’m truly here for you.”
He screamed in silence so many times,
his voice turned to ashes.
He wrote invisible letters
in the steam of the shower,
hoping that someone, someday,
would read his early goodbyes.
September lit the hope,
with yellow ribbons on the streets,
with voices saying “you are not alone.”
But he, sitting in the darkness of his room,
no longer heard anything.
That night, the moon leaned through the window
and found him surrendered,
with broken eyes,
with open hands
as if waiting for an embrace that never came.
The clock moved on without hurry,
and the world kept spinning
while his light faded slowly.
At dawn, the house was calm.
The bed untouched.
The silence unbearable.
And on the desk, a wrinkled note:
“I didn’t want to leave,
but you left me alone
when I was screaming the loudest inside.”
That note burned in every glance,
like a cruel mirror.
And then they understood, too late,
that it wasn’t him who gave up,
it was us who never learned to listen.