Hello, New Me
I was told you finally chose a name.
Carolina. Carol, for short.
A proper thing at last. Not the angry one. Not the self-destructive one. Not the shadow pacing behind the walls.
A name. Something I can call you when the house is quiet. Finally… I can address you in some form… little me of passions and flame.
I saw your video.
Believe me, Carol… I’ve seen it enough times. I take care of its aftermath every morning. The scars healed. The body survived. The blood washed out.
But I still remember. Our naked skin. The knife you ran through them. The smile.
God… that smile.
Not sadness. Not despair. Defiance.
The expression of someone looking directly into the camera and saying: Don’t. Fucking. Try. Me.
And I saw what you chose to hide… when you posed for so many of your bloody photos.
You always wanted witnesses. That’s what nobody understands.
You never hid. You performed. You bled publicly. Turned pain into theater… and dared the audience to leave before the final act.
We’re not different, Carol.
In fact… we’re more alike than all the others that are us. More than Rafaela. More than Jota.
You and I share the same embarrassing flaw. We love things too much. People. Memories. Ghosts.
And when they leave… we become unbearable.
You seem to me the type who loves too much and hates too much. That’s okay. I’m more your reflection here than you are mine.
I wonder, little me full of anger… did she choose the name Carol in homage to that first girl who liked us? Do you remember her from anywhere?
Tell me something. Why did it take you so long? Where were you all these years?
It was Rafaela. Jota. Me. The child. The soldier. The idiot. A perfectly dysfunctional arrangement.
And then one day you arrived… carrying thirteen-year-old grief like a knife between your teeth.
Why now? Why not then? Why so late to the messing Vera’s party?
Perhaps because nobody had the time to be angry back then. Survival was a full-time occupation. Someone had to endure. Someone had to obey. Someone had to disappear.
Maybe you were born later because rage requires energy. Maybe you appeared only after we stopped drowning.
Your memories hurt the most. Not because they are unique. Because they are mine too.
I remember just as well as you do. I remember our giving up… the first day we stopped taking the medicine. I remember the haircuts. The collars. The buttons pulled all the way to the throat. Every corner hidden… a beautiful shot to Ingrid’s head.
I remember carefully murdering a girl… and pretending it was maturity.
It never happened. It never happened. It never happened.
That was the prayer. Wasn’t it? If we repeated it enough times… perhaps Ingrid would finally stay dead.
But she didn’t. You carried her. That’s your curse.
My Carolina. My heart of disaster. My destructive instinct. My interrupted little teenager…
I feel you. I remember you. I know your pain.
You carried every corpse we left behind. The abandoned girl. The first love. The humiliation. The longing. The stupid hopes. You collected them all… and dragged them into the future.
Do you think I don’t think about those days too?
The days when we were like dogs… the days when we broke ourselves apart just to earn another moment of attention. When we were him again… and our master completely lost interest in us.
I remember wanting things I am still ashamed to describe. I remember what happened when he left. The terrible thing. The humiliating thing. The fact that relief never came.
Why didn’t his departure bring relief? Had our use turned into passion?
He was the one we wanted to give our virginity to. He took it by force… and we were left only wanting more.
We touched each other for that reason. This mess isn’t just yours. I remember that too… even if I don’t like to say it out loud.
You think those memories belong to you. They don’t. They’re ours. All of them. The ugly ones especially.
Yes… I remember her. The girl with red-dyed hair, tattoos, and black clothes. Sitting beside him on the windowsill while the afternoon faded around them.
You still visit that memory. I know. So do I.
In a kinder world… we would have been sitting there too. Young. Wanted. Ordinary.
In a more just world… we were there.
But the world wasn’t kind. So you became Carol. And I became Vera.
And neither of us got what we wanted.
Still. I think we should stop fighting.
Not because you’re wrong. Not because I’m right. Not because you’ve finally learned how to behave. God knows you haven’t.
I’m simply tired of treating you like an intruder. You’ve suffered enough trying to prove you exist. I’ve spent enough years pretending you didn’t.
So keep your knives. Keep your fire. Keep your impossible heart.
Just sit down for a moment. The war is over.
You don’t have to keep bleeding on stage to convince me you’re real.
I see you now.
You stubborn, furious little thing.
I see you.
