"If you no longer want to look, don't look," she says with a final kiss on the forehead. Very brief, and she's gone. I don't close my eyes, nor do I make much effort with the remaining darkness; it's not necessary. Here, there's no need to be noble or pretend to relax and let everything go—the mattress does it all for you. One by one, it sucks the contents of things. Here is the center, and God watches me. Upright. She paints herself to be seen kneeling, spilled; she's all appetite. I give her the dreams so I'm not
afraid to sleep, and this is how the bookshelf, the clothes, the chair, my mermaid doll, and two or three fresh potions disappear. From childhood to insomnia, a vertigo with its axis on tomorrow. Each second must be felt on her body and not on mine: this is abandonment, to be looked at without time. My first memory is not dreaming because I don't sleep either, and the future spills over me. My room expands, and there's nowhere left to imagine tomorrow. Here is the center, and she watches me, guards me; I'm thankful. When I let go, I move away from her like a country from its last inhabitant. A disaster has occurred.