Giannina Braschi - Empire of Dreams

The day told me that the wind had returned to my house. And had to leave because a man who wanted to build a new day came looking for it. But when the wind came back to see me, it dressed up as a new day so no one would come back to find it. And the wind took off again when the phone rang. The wind didn’t know how to tell the day that things were no longer in their place. And the day told me that when the wind returned to my house the ladder no longer had rungs. And I was waiting for someone to tell me why there were no stairs. But the wind disguised itself as a doorman and told me he didn’t know the house was mine. So, I told the day, things are no longer in their place. And the day told me the house was mine, like the world.

The wind and I would have to take off and fly. Behind the closets and under the furniture no one says my name. Yes, I know I’m in a world of invisible sounds. I know its origin. I go toward it and hide. The wind and I would have to take off and fly. My hand says it no longer feels the air.

And among countless roads and old shoes, among countless objects and questions, the hand acts as an interpreter and the air keeps blowing and the door keeps unlocking and the wind goes back to its place as the door closes. Yes, everything has its place and everything counts when objects empty at the door. But I feel there is something weightless that runs. It’s something that rises and never reveals itself and has to hide in some other corner. And that something now raises the same questions. And the wind finds itself back at a point — right where silences fly and objects jump back into the painting. By then you can’t tell one object from another — it’s as if they weren’t the same objects: watch, mirror, image, wind. But my hand knows the fall, and there’s no other question than the same objects striking the frame and the chair. And the air stays still and everything is in its place.

Sure, it’s true. Questions don’t change the truth. But they give it motion. They focus my truth from another angle. And you said: we’re cleaning up the truth. We must clarify certain things.

You don’t tell the truth and your jacket eventually comes back made of another material, and your shoes say sure! and run back to you telling my truth. Even if it’s raining now, your truth may be that it’s not raining inside like it’s raining outside. Though silent you may be saying what I’m thinking when you weren’t talking. Don’t pay attention to me and keep saying come when you said go . Then don’t expect me to listen when you say come . You’ll come with your words get out and the door will open. I hear those words and the door opens halfway. Then you’ll come and I’ll know how to say: get out .

I always knew that a bit farther or closer but never in the exact spot a heart beats at the bottom of a painting and we are the breaking glass. I don’t reach as far inside as I told you and I see you reflected in a sliding mirror and you open your eyes forgetting that you look at me and I am forgetfulness. But there was a time when to the left of the heart and at the end of the road to the heart and in the river and the street of the heart and within the walls of the heart you slipped and railed and spilled and always came back different through the heart, moving the heart and plunging into that heart. And you went so deep inside me that I asked you to take me in the dark and in the light — and inside that heart and your pulse and your nerve. Now there is no need to break the heart’s glass because it was submerged, full.

You tell me to say things as they are and I say them as they were and you say I changed them and I say I’m not changing them because that’s the way they are. It all depends on how they get up. But it’s not that — things get up when I make them. I insist, I’m not planning anything. They get up without a clock, and like sound they fall. And that’s the way they are because that’s the way they were born. They are happy when I get angry. They sit down when you get up. They fall asleep when I’m awake. But don’t wake them when I’m up or call them when I’m asleep. And understand me. It’s not a command. Understand them, not me who commands you. It’s the mandate of things. I’m not forcing you to obey them. They are in charge. And the table’s place takes the chair’s place, and the chair has a body’s place. And goodbye because you get everywhere with distance. Not because my goodbye, which doesn’t obey you either, is against goodbyes. And yes, because I took my goodbye from you and I’m hoping you’ll hold it against your own goodbye. Goodbye and goodbye.

I arrive at your house transformed into art, framed behind my memories. The lintel’s color is the guardian of my dream, you the painting. The frame of your house crosses the bottom of the painting. I cross the horizon and sit down to look at it. I arrive home transformed into art, framed behind your memories.

I learn more in those seven days than I already know. And if that day draws near, I wish to know Mondays and Thursdays. When that Thursday fades away, I ask for Saturday. The slowness of that Saturday makes me wish for Monday. And this Monday I find that Friday begins by thinking about you, and this Friday I learn that I draw away from you again on Monday, and every Monday with you brings the same hours as Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. And I’ll never return to that Sunday that drew me so near to your distance.

There’s no such thing as more or less. Hours are in excess. I’m constantly walking and counting as I go: one, two. Three hours have passed. If I multiply them, days run too. Then I make a circle and break it. The sea breaks, and those four and these two broke. You couldn’t, we couldn’t. The hand will close that circle when you come. What hand? Don’t look at me. I’d like to tear the number from the waves. Look at me. I have five fingers, and the waves are five. What does this five know of that seven or ten! Don’t you know if I open my fingers I count fifty and say, five, five? My fingers can’t open, they close. They run through the waves and always return to the sea. And they come, they come back without knowing their secret. They take what they bring. They bring the sea and take the embrace. Count the fingers on my hands. Ten fingers add up to twenty embraces. And day falls and so does that embrace. Don’t open love if the embrace is closed. Open the wind and close your hand. Keep away from my kingdom. The wind wanted to say the opposite. But the air took off with that hand.

What’s the use of memory, says the alarm. You have to love. You have to love when the heart is alarmed. And that alarm is the keeper of fire. And water can’t quench the fire loved with alarm. So who cares if the firemen arrive. Water turns into more flames. And then the bell rings. You won’t come, I said to myself, you didn’t show up with the bell. And suddenly that alarm is on fire. And you come in, slowly, and not even the bell knows the surprise.

Ask. I don’t ask for much. I only ask you for two numbers, two people, two accounts, two ways, two mirrors, two words, two gazes, two digits that always add up to four on a mirror, that always add up to eight and answer us, count. There’s only two of us, you and I together. Ask. I don’t ask for much. But for what little I ask the mirror repeats only two are left: you and me.

It’s impossible to be everywhere. You always said that. The impossible is possible in our framework. But you break the frame of another impossible: me. And I break the frame of another pronoun: you. And even if that frame be made of you and me — an impossible, a lip, some gates, a bar. Within the possible there is no impossible that won’t pierce the me and the you: the frame. And you and I have reached the bottom.