“It is love. I will have to run or hide.

The walls of its prison rise up, as in a

twisted dream. The beautiful mask has
changed, but as always it is the one. Of what
use are my talismans: the literary exercises,
the vague erudition, the knowledge of words
used by the harsh North to sing its seas and
swords, the temperate friendship, the
galleries of the Library, the common things,
the habits, the young love of my mother, the
militant shadow of my dead, the timeless
night, the taste of dreams?

Being with you or being without you is the

measure of my time.

Now the pitcher breaks about the spring,

now the man arises to the sound of birds,
now those that watch at the windows have
gone dark, but the darkness has brought no
peace.

It, I know, is love: the anxiety and the relief

at hearing your voice, the expectation and
the memory, the horror of living in
succession.

It is love with its mythologies, with its tiny

useless magics.

There exists a corner that I dare not cross.

Now the armies confine me, the hordes.

(This room is unreal; she has not seen it.)

The name of a woman gives me away.

A woman hurts me in all of my body.”

― Jorge Luis Borges