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If you haven’t read all the previous parts or you don’t remember them well, I urge you to read this short(ish) story from the beginning (link here). The whole thing is supposed to be experienced in one sitting, but I didn’t want to go radio silent for about a month (or two).

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Regarding the last echoes of my teenage years,
Followed by the dawn of adulthood,
I remember feeling encased in a plastic bubble
Whose smoky-gray membrane dimmed the world
And muffled every sound and scent.
Inside, the air was stripped of oxygen,
Leaving me gasping for whispers of life.

The warmth in my chest had disappeared,
Replaced with a yawning, frigid void
That threatened to collapse my ribcage.
A squirming, screeching anguish,
Like myriad critters drowning
In a pool of poison,
Seared through my innards,
Corroding every fiber that once bound me,
Exposing my raw nerves to the wind.

During that years-long nightmare,
I was trudging through the indifferent city
When I turned a corner on Cipriano Larrañaga Street.
Shambling down that narrow, grimy sidewalk
Lined with multicolored trash bins,
Your father, a relic of another life, headed my way.

The imaginary sutures that struggled
To keep my copious gashes closed
Unraveled at once.
The rush of blood to my head
Rendered the world’s clamor mute,
And I stood paralyzed.

I pictured myself lunging at your father
And wrapping my hands around his neck.
The more he wheezed and spluttered,
The more his eyes bulged,
The tighter my grip would squeeze,
Making the tendons in his neck creak.
As his face shifted from crimson to purple,
His last light would be spent
Staring into my wrath-contorted face.

I had known your father as a volatile man
Who dared to threaten you, his own daughter,
Before the eyes of the boyfriend who loved her;
He knew that, if pushed, he could overpower me.
Yet, that lingering image of him
Contrasted with his present, slumped self:
The deep wrinkles carved into his features
Spoke of decades aged prematurely;
His mouth hung slack in a silent gasp;
His hair, gone gray, was disheveled,
With strands splayed erratically;
Dark circles ringed his vacant eyes;
A once-white T-shirt, sweat-soiled,
Clung to a protruding belly.

Your father lumbered toward me
As if he failed to register my presence.
A sour stench of filthy skin and clothes
Emanated from him like a black flame.

I stepped aside, letting your old man pass.
His footfalls and ragged breath faded away.
My rage had melted into tears;
He already looked like he’d been killed.

About a week after you died,
My mother, turned activist overnight,
Drove me to the spot of the accident:
Grassy, uneven terrain that sloped up
From a curve of the GI-636 highway.
A succession of vehicles whooshed by,
And the wind tugged at the placard
That my mother held in her intimate protest.
Before a television crew, she ranted
About the treacherous curve
That had reaped many young lives.

As the reporter nodded, the camera captured
The stillness of the roadside memorial,
Adorned with bouquets of wildflowers and a cross
Beside which rested a framed photograph
From a birthday celebrated in our home:
Your ponytailed self seated at the kitchen table,
Your chocolate eyes aglow with a joie de vivre,
And you showing off those crooked front teeth
As if they would never burn up in a furnace
And their fragments be ground to ash.

The cameraman aimed at the metal guardrail,
Its silver gleam patinated by rain and wind,
That your Aprilia had crumpled.
Then he panned over to the spot of the slope
Where your eyes had gone dull and lifeless,
Where your blood had drenched the grass
And seeped into the earth.

My mother kept me high on sedatives
That sapped the marrow from my bones;
Otherwise, if my lungs still drew breath,
I would have knelt before that spot
Packed with your blood,
And with my hands, I would have dug a hole
To crawl into and disappear.

I know you, Izar:
You were anguished,
And speeding in the rain.

That night in nineteen ninety-nine,
After you left me at my doorstep,
You told me you would head home.
Why did you end up in a highway?
Where were you going, Izar?
Did you even know?

My mother crowdfunded a memorial stone
To commemorate you, who had dreamed
Of becoming a motocross pro.
They installed it in a wooded lane,
Surrounded by the whisper of leaves.
Whether my mother bothered out of guilt,
Seeking the spotlight in a play of mourning,
Or to bridge the chasm between me and her,
I couldn’t say.
I guess it doesn’t matter.

Nightly, you visited me in dreams
To gift me the warmth of your presence
Along with your wild laughter.
I woke up reaching for you,
Only to clutch at emptiness.
A respite from the agony,
As my mind forgot for a moment,
Then I remembered anew.

In a numb, sunless haze,
I sleepwalked as if summoned
To locations we had frequented.
I stood unsteadily at a park near my home
While blurred people passed by,
My gaze fixed on the traffic,
Anticipating the sight of a Telepizza scooter,
Of you clad in the scarlet cap and polo shirt.

At the ecological park of Plaiaundi,
In the twilight glow of the setting sun,
I followed a tapering dirt path
Covered with needles, leaves, and twigs,
Ending at the staircase of an observation post.
I was clambering the weathered steps
When I looked up and there you were,
Leaning on the wooden balustrade,
Your caramel waves tossed by the breeze,
And you smiling down as if welcoming me.

At Aingura Park, near the marina of Hondarribia,
The humid air of an overcast day filled my lungs.
On the lush-green grass, I searched for our spot
Where we had lain to stare at the stars.
Beyond a row of maritime pine trees,
Absent fishermen’s rods leaned against
The rocky barricade of the shoreline barrier.
A lone man cast a line into the slate-gray sea.

You had always seemed to me
Too large for the world to contain,
But now, if I let go of your memory,
I would never find you again.

With each passing month, going outside
Felt more like venturing into a foreign country
Where I couldn’t make myself understood.
I languished for hours in the dark,
Lying in bed, covered up to my forehead.
Through headphones, I listened to the tapes
In which your middle-schooler self
Played the energetic radio host,
Riffing on manga series we enjoyed
And video games we tried to beat,
Pausing only to munch on snacks.
Your bubbly giggles echoed through the years
While tears streamed down my temples.

Who were these carefree souls
That dared to laugh and joke around
As if taunting the universe that waited
To punish them for their joy and hope?

On my cluttered desk, papers lay blank
Beside pencils and pens, markers and erasers.
Drawing and writing had come naturally to me,
Like a baby grasping for their mother’s breast.
Why draw? Why concoct stories?
What were my dreams worth
If you wouldn’t see them realized?

I felt it as achingly as a knife stuck in my eye:
I wouldn’t get over you.
In this life, if you’re lucky,
You meet one precious person.
I had found mine. I had lost her.
I was condemned to continue
Long after my Izar disappeared,
While the world spun on.

Where would I go after you?

Without a say, I merged with the voiceless
That had been rendered unfit for society.
How many people out there,
From the profoundly autistic
To those whose hearts shattered irreparably,
Vanish from the lives of friends and acquaintances,
Sequestered away in some psychiatric hospital,
Or the rooms of their childhood homes?
Breath by breath, they would wear away,
And fade further from the memories
Of even those who had promised to remember.
Decades on, a once-close friend
Might stumble upon that person’s obituary
And wonder what untold stories had been lost.

One afternoon, my parents had left
To wherever they went,
And I had armored myself in human garb
To shuffle through the post-apocalypse,
But when I grabbed the front door handle,
A revulsion shook my spine;
I refused to withstand again the glare
Of that traitorous sun.

Instead, I retreated to my bedroom,
To the sanctuary of its walls
And a door locked shut
That protected and isolated me
From a meaningless world.

A day became two,
Became a week,
A month,
A year.

The sounds and sights of that alien world,
A film projected onto the wall of a cave,
Tormented me through the windowpanes:
Beams of sunlight slicing up the shadows,
The muffled laughter of children,
A couple strolling hand-in-hand.

In the gloom inside, a shrine to the dead,
I worshipped the mementos of our shared past:
Your EVA figurines,
The comic strips I drew for you,
Your motorcycle gloves,
Your handwritten letters,
Mixtapes of your favorite songs.
I spoke softly to your photographs,
Like a penitent monk conferring
With the images of his saints.
I befriended spiders.
I stashed piss bottles under the bed.

In one hand, I held that picture of you
Astride your Aprilia Red Rose at night,
Your luminous face resting on your palm,
Your chocolate eyes crinkled in a grin.
On that photograph’s flip side,
A note in your chicken-scratch read,
“To my beloved artist,
Please sign the comic strip I enclosed,
To sell at some fan convention
Once you’ve become famous!
Love forever, Izar Lizarraga.”

In my other hand, I held a knife,
Its sharp tip pressing against my carotid.
I wasn’t strong enough to kill myself,
So I would stay within those four walls
Through every sunrise and sunset,
Through the ages of this world,
Forgotten and gathering dust,
Waiting patiently for my self to rot.

---

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Author’s note: the songs for today are “Lonesome Town” by Ricky Nelson, “The End of the World” by Skeeter Davis, and “The Scientist” by Coldplay.

If you enjoy my free verse poetry, I have three books worth of it yet to be self-published. Check it out.