AUSENCIAS

For some time now, I have been living alone on Absences Street. Here, the doorways have no numbers, and the houses have no neighbors. They all left. I don’t know where, or why. Only the marks their hands left on the doors remain, from opening and closing them millions of times; their workplaces stand empty with the coffee machines still on; the carpets of their homes bear their footprints; a heart drawn in the fog on a window; their grime in public sinks; and a dense cloud of their perfumes that chose to stay instead of following them.

Now, as the only neighbor left, I like to walk in the mornings and discover the lifeless space their memories have left behind, to listen to the echoes of an “I’ll be back soon,” of an “I will always love you,” to count the kisses that were never given. And in the afternoons, I usually enter the empty apartments and observe all their things, untouched.

I like living here.

Obsessed with painting absences.