INFERTILE

Do we have an intended purpose and how well do we carry this role? Is this earth for us a safe or a hostile place? Are we healthy, strong inhabitants of a clearly defined and well-functioning world? Are we mothers and creators?

November, 1990, my mother brings with her at the hospital the novel 'Eva Luna' to read after my birth ("We will call her out Eva so that she has the will to live..." "How about a surname..." "Her father belonged to the tribe of the children of the Moon. Let's call her Eva Luna"...My name is Eva, which means life, according to a book of names my mother consulted."; Reference: Eva Luna, Isabel Allende). My mother called me out Eva; Something that I found deeply ironic for years,  as I always had the impression that I wasn’t living life to its full extend, or so I have been told.      

Late July 2014, I caught a lump on my left breast. August 2014, I underwent surgery to remove the unidentified mass. The lump was benign. For about four years I couldn’t face my body image in the mirror. Let alone, let others look at me. 

October 2023, I underwent intestine surgery after years of intestine-related problems and blood-loss. A particular painful 2-month period of recovery followed.

February 2024 I suffer an ischemic stroke that led to paralysis of my left body side. After the brain surgery, later that month, I underwent heart surgery to close with an umbrella the hole that let the clot to pass through to my brain. I laid on a hospital bed for 15 days, drinking water through a syringe, and craving sugar. On the day and the days afterwards, I felt like I woke up in someone else’ s body. I recall saying over and over that I feel like Kafka’s cockroach. That there was a second brain and body that was autonomous and wasn't following my orders. I have lost completely the sense of touch on that side. And even much later, even the feeling of water, or human caress was the least unpleasant causing me only pain and distress. After 15 days hospitalized, I was transferred to a rehabilitation centre for about a month and a half. The months that followed I started to recover. The progression was that slow that I had lost the hope for a complete recovery of my mobility skills. But most importantly of regaining my independence. The thought of death was the only constant in the months following the episode.

There is a series of poems that I wrote post stroke. The images created inside those poems is what I experienced as part of a mental breakdown I suffered due to the stroke and medication. The following one is part of this project. 

Lying on the rock

it’s the bars that I can't stand

you and me

I ‘ve lost you in the light

why don’t you come?

You have always ran ahead

It was your hand I wanted

It was you I wanted to hold

I’ve tried to reach you with my hand

don't leave again!

What is this creature I have become?

I am a creature without body

an undefined mass

limbs of a frog

a figurine of poor work-manship

don't let my being scare you off

a little scarier that it has always been

I ‘ve never spoken to you

I ‘ve never listen to you

but it's on the rock that our bodies

somehow will meet

I took a photo of us

If only you knew how much I love you

I always love you

you are my body

you that carries on in my place

always ahead of me

and now

this endless torment

maybe I will meet you someplace

you said you had saved me

in my hand the rock is burning hot

my skin bursts

tell me what did you think of?

tell me do you

still hurt?

I've pulled your hand

she says she has conquered her prison

I try to discern myself in her face

what was in her soul

that abyss caught up with it?

I thought I was flying and I fell

my fault

I saw this eye on the edge of the bookmarker

pink tulle

crimson is the rock

white is the tulle of the wedding I didn't have

they promised me too young

some sign I didn’t notice

now my arm renders useless

now the bullet runs down the desk

tell me what you are doing now

I was looking for my knife

that golden dagger

the one I cut my cheek with

some sign I didn’t notice

now my arm renders useless

now the bullet runs down the desk

tell me what you are doing now

I was looking for my knife

that golden dagger

the one I cut my cheek with

You ‘ve hidden all the knives

green penetrating eyes

I gave birth to three children

this wasn’t my story

a snake’s skin

that beast on my neck stung me

It was it that wounded me

a mortal wound

please hold open my page

keep it open

it slips through my hands

and that’s not paralysis

that is our lives

now the beast is hanging from the arrows target

a yellow-black dartboard with a wound in the middle

a yellow dart piercing its neck keeps in check the beast

everything is suspended

it was my lucky charm

the one I lost at a party

that beast that was born along with me

now some golden heart is chocking me

I’ve lost all my three children

all three of them boys

one by one they left my side

and it was you who stayed, my first born

a vertical line across my body

so that you get lost under a tread

It was my cry.

Or the cry of my mother that cut in two halves

She says she dreamt of you many years ago.

She drew your picture on her body

while lying there bedridden

you’ve said we’ll meet again

someplace far away from here

someplace you would walk again

someplace you would walk without effort

and then I wont  be running behind you

and we will climb the most beautiful of mountains side by side

hand by hand

It’s the bars that I can’t stand.