Distraction

I felt the gray day so strange and deep
though dawn had not yet even woken. 
Everything is always forgotten 
before the beauty, absurd and sudden,

of my intriguing madness.
I was, then, immersed in a daze
of pleasure and pain in a tangled maze 
where you were the star of my sadness.

I sought from you more of a trace
in my soul, now faded and worn,
 I sought, uninhibited, newly reborn, 
for my passion, a saving embrace.

And I found you in every part 
of my being that I could feel;
I found you as a squatter, to steal
every spark of my mind and my heart.

From Survival to Intellect: Understanding Limerence

I confess that selecting a poem for this new venture through the romantic poetic productions of Retrato das Sombras (1994-1999) was costly for me. I felt, for a moment, that I was not ready to speak of love. My mind is oriented toward survival, like the drifting being I am at this moment. But, fortunately, I was hooked by intellectual delight.

And that is why I bring to you, dear readers, the concept of Limerence. From now on, when we speak of this love that idealizes and is realized only in the recesses of the imagination, we will refer to Limerence—a concept created in the late 70s by Dorothy Tennov. And no, Limerence is not platonic love, which is presented as an elevation of the soul.

Limerence is an altered biological state, for which neuroscience now provides the neurological basis, aware that dopamine is not about the pleasure of having, but about the desire to seek. It is the fuel for the search, not for peace. The fuel for peace is oxytocin. Without oxytocin—that is, without the pleasure of having—dopamine is accompanied by norepinephrine; hence the mental and physical state described in the poem.

The relevance of this to a context of neurodivergent writing goes beyond mere academic curiosity about autistic communication. Tennov insists that limerence is not a choice, but a biological response triggered by specific cues that operates in primitive brain structures, below the rational cognitive level. Therefore, Limerence is also the result of distinct brain connectivity or structures.

This makes the experience of love for the neurodivergent something truly extraordinary. Read “extraordinary” by instilling in it a neutral or slightly negative definition. Attribute to this extraordinary the terror with which the unknown is imbued, and prepare yourself.

The Biology of the Search: Helen Fisher and the VTA

To validate what Dorothy Tennov only intuited in the 70s, biological anthropologist Helen Fisher brought, decades later, definitive proof through functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Fisher demonstrated that the brain in love—or the limerent brain—does not primarily activate areas of emotion, but rather the Ventral Tegmental Area (VTA).

This is a primitive dopamine factory, part of the reptilian reward system, responsible for “wanting,” motivation, and obsessive focus. The VTA does not “feel”; it “drives.”

The Neurodivergent “Extraordinary”: Monotropism and Hyperfocus

It is here that neurodivergence meets its terrifying “extraordinary” through the concept of Monotropism. If the neurotypical mind already finds itself hostage to this biology, the autistic mind—which operates through “attention tunnels” (monotropism)—experiences limerence not just as a feeling, but as a systemic hyperfocus.

When the object of limerence enters the monotropic attention tunnel, it consumes all cognitive resources, becoming the only signal in a world of noise. The biology of the VTA meets the architecture of monotropism, transforming love into an inescapable gravitational force, where survival depends, literally and neurologically, on that single point of focus.

Bibliographic References

For those who wish to delve deeper into the scientific foundations of this experience, I recommend reading three essential works that ground this text:

• The origin of the concept: Love and Limerence (1979), where Dorothy Tennov first mapped this condition.

• The biological proof: Helen Fisher’s study (2005) on VTA activation in romantic love, which confirms the instinctive nature of the feeling.

• The neurodivergent perspective: The theory of Monotropism by Murray, Lawson, and Lesser (2005), which explains the intensity of autistic focus.

The Melopoeia Stains

The melopoeia stains, 
Disfigures the mask 
And halts in a cry 
That strips you
Of my gaze; 
Violates your holy body 
And hurls it 
Upon the altar 
Vandalized

My lyricism, the only mantle, 
to resignify you 
into insidious flesh 
shall subdue you
Humanized

Good morning, dear reader.

Have you ever seen a book being written? It is always a unique event. But what about a book of poetry that, more than just a motif, has a clear purpose and a defined framework? It sounds like madness, I know, but that is how the project Persephone in Hades: Cora in Contrition was born.

The work shared in the section Perséfone em Hades was born from a musical echolalia. In 2009, during one of many clashes with my greatest opponent—death—the song Perfeição by Legião Urbana echoed insistently in my mind: “Eros and Thanatos, Persephone and Hades…”.

I won that battle. The proof lies in the poem Eros and Thanatos and in the fact that, more than 15 years later, I am now planning the continuity of Persephone in Hades: Cora in Contrition . Originally conceived as a single poem, the “spoils” of that struggle became an invitation to write about the hell of loving through the myth of Persephone and here it is .

The Path to the Epilogue

For years, I tried to write something similar to Eros ans Thanatos, but only much later did I realize it would become a full book. It was a moment when I had to define who I was and recognize the masks we wear to dance in the “sacrosanct matrimony”.

One of the cornerstones of this work is Heroism, the epilogue. When a “perfect” life dissolves, the limerent object often becomes the only comfort. Heroism was the recognition of this cycle of refuge in platonic love.

Note: If you are unfamiliar with limerence, I suggest diving into the section Poesia para Ler, where I explore these themes through devotional writings and the roots of this feeling. Let me know if you want me to translate more of my thoughts about limerence in the autism spectrum.

The Crossing and the Mask

The journey of Persephone narrates a trajectory through the “hell of loving”: from the secret world to the consolidation of an “armor of consciousness”. There, the character recognizes herself as a poet and decides to rise to the surface, conscious of her duality.

But it is not easy. Today, aware of being neurodivergent, I understand that the masks coating the feminine are even heavier. Persephone’s fear of being “Cora again”—the palimpsest that serves the world without ever bearing fruit for herself—is a metaphor for habitual masking, the cost of which is extremely high.

The Next Step: Ladies of Opposites

I have always been curious to know how this woman would carry herself once she reached the surface.

From now on, I will share the second part of this work here: Ladies of Opposites: The Doctrine of Contraries. Next week, I will share more about this title and its connection to my other works.

I invite you to join me as this new chapter unfolds.

A question for you: As I begin this new phase, I would love to hear your thoughts on how you’d like to experience this journey. What would you like to see here first?

1. The Past: A full translation of the first book, Persephone in Hades, to understand the journey from its inception.

2. The Intuitive Narrative: A unique correlation where I weave together fragments of the already written Persephone in Hades with the current creative process, creating a dialogue between the two works as they unfold.

Support the Journey: From Hades to the Surface

This post marks the beginning of a new phase, where the “armor of consciousness” meets the reality of the surface. By subscribing, you aren’t just reading a book; you are witnessing its birth in real-time.

Assine agora

• Free Subscribers: Receive weekly poems, the unfolding of the English Section, and public reflections directly in your inbox.

• Paid Subscribers: Support my work as an independent artist and gain exclusive access to the “behind the scenes” of the creative process. This includes original drafts of Ladies of Opposites, in-depth research notes on limerence and the autistic spectrum, and early access to translated archive materials.

Occupation

This organism
no longer weeps,
it flows with
fragrant resin
that lyricism calcines.

Yours the fumes,
venerated muse.

From fragrant ether
I extract carbon,
tinting medium
for the mask.

The Final Threshold: Alchemy, Autism, and the Mask

This poem, “Occupation,” serves as the final breath and the closing chapter of my work Perséfone EM Hades (Persephone IN Hades). It represents a spiritual and psychological resolution, woven at the intersection of myth and the lived experience of an autistic soul.

In the dual nature of Persephone, we find a mirror for the “masking” that so many of us navigate—the constant, exhausting construction of a social persona to fit into a world that often rejects our authentic frequency. Through the ritual of writing, this split begins to heal. The poem describes a sacred economy: the “lyricism” (poetry itself) acts as the fire that calcines our rawest pains, turning them into smoke to be offered to the Muse.

What remains is not emptiness, but the essential carbon. This is the “tinting medium” used to consciously pigment the mask. Here, the act of writing becomes the bridge between the genuine self and the necessary social presence. The mask is no longer a lie forced upon us, but a deliberate, artistic shield—a reconciliation between the being who dwells in the depths and the one who must walk under the sun.

The Break of the Fifth Stanza

While preparing another post, I stumbled upon a stray stanza just above the poem “Blessing.” To my astonishment, it belongs to the poem posted last week, “Intent”.

In the original Portuguese, the poem established the Redondilha Maior (7 syllables) as the norm. In this English translation, we maintained a similar pressure through a tight 8-syllable rhythm in the first four stanzas. However, the fifth stanza is metrically anarchic. It overflows the form, demanding longer, broken lines of 10 and 11 syllables. The subversion literally does not fit within the traditional 8-syllable pulse, mirroring how the ‘vile nature’ of intense feeling cannot be contained by the masks we wear

The Metrical Shift: From Mask to Anarchy

In English poetry, the “norm” or “mask” is often represented by the Iambic Tetrameter (8 syllables with a steady beat). In our translation of “Intent”, we established this steady rhythm in the first four stanzas to mirror the “masking” process.

The initial stanzas follow a tighter structure, mostly 8 syllables per line, creating a predictable, almost mechanical pulse. This represents the effort to contain the sensory overload within a rigid form—the poetic equivalent of a forced social performance.

The discovery of the fifth stanza disrupts this entirely. To reflect your original intent, the English translation of this final stanza intentionally breaks the “8-syllable norm,” stretching into 10 and 11 syllables. It reveals a radical acceptance of the condition of existence and perhaps a calculated subversion which literally does not fit within traditional poetic form, demanding longer and broken verses (8, 9, and 10 syllables).

The Radical Importance of Feeling

I could easily speak of the complete refusal of victimization in this last stanza. Or of a first step toward integrating the shadow, that psychic spring where persistent masking has hidden much of my true self and held back great potential. But I need to talk about the importance of feeling.

For autists, feelings always resemble acute infatuations. They induce a feverish state in the body and cloud reason. They require possession, permanent contact. And this “feeling too much” dysregulates.

But “feeling too little” turns life into this crazy interactive theater, to be interpreted almost always through the lens of an alienating comicality arising from dissociation. Dissociation shifts us from the conflict inherent in existence to a hypothetical—and perhaps therefore impotent—audience. This is a depersonalization disorder framed within dissociation that I believe is a psychic resource heavily used by Level 1 support autists to operationalize the mask.

The Courage to Embrace the Monster

By realizing that I navigated the suffering in the poem “Intent” and appropriated it in this fifth stanza, I felt as if I were embracing the monster in me. Perhaps “Intent” was my first look into this spring still forming in the underground veins of feeling. And I am pleased to imbue this feat with courage, condensed into four verses:

For I feel, and in feeling I take my own delight

Without constraint, I let the current flow so free

This vile nature I reject with all my inner might

But if it seizes me, I refuse to turn and flee

Stanza 4 highlights that there is no choice; the body is the structure whose collapse turns it into a prison. Feeling, at this stage, is not optional; it is acceptance so the system can overflow the overload and shut down to “cool off”. By appropriating this “non-choice,” I absorb its strength in an almost anthropophagic way.

The Pharmacology of Numbness

The lack of Sertraline in my system brought a cataclysmic effect for two days. And the cathartic effect of understanding the only music I could hear in the state of emotional blunting I had been in for months. Medicated, I still sang “Behind Blue Eyes”. Without medication, I understood this musical echolalia. This song brought another: “Bang and Blame” (R.E.M.), which completed the process, finishing months of therapy trying to access the trauma of domestic violence and abusive relationships that drew my erratic paths through life in recent years.

Research shows that emotional blunting is a documented effect of Sertraline, and there are no specific studies on its use in autists. Therefore, there is no way to know how much the medication compromises an individual on the spectrum crossed by alexithymia, nor how much it facilitates dissociative states. From my perception, by splitting my rational perception from my precarious ability to feel, the medication brought me this almost permanent state of dissociation.

The Price of Feeling Fully

The counterpoint to the inability to enjoy music is a lower reactivity to frustration. I experienced systemic precariousness in the public health system (SUS), far from humanized care. I felt the thermometer rise fast, and the effort to regulate myself while walking home was exhausting. I contained the explosion, imploding silently.

If I don’t deal with feelings, they destroy me from the inside out. Perhaps that’s why writing becomes this healthy instance, a therapeutic means where I can gather the parts that contemporary medicine has segmented. Medication is not support; it is containment. In my case, it meant blocking two therapeutic processes: writing and therapy itself.

A Manifesto for Holistic Medicine

What fragmentary medicine today cannot connect is what I will have to take to my next doctor’s appointment: a holistic view of a clear case of autistic burnout. I must correlate recurrent migraines with comorbid physical issues like hypermobility, muscle contraction, postural deviations, and TMJ problems related to anxiety and pernicious rumination. Alexithymia also contributes to a constant feeling of inadequacy.

Modern medicine needs to understand that the “multidisciplinary team” is a fallacy if it doesn’t humanize the individual. Level 1 support autists are enthusiasts of the mind and human behavior; our voices should be heard as a source of knowledge, not just noted as “verbose behavior” in medical records.

Intent (Full Poem)
Crying, gnashing of teeth, a chill
Suffocation, anger, and heat
Anguish, tension, a mind’s wild thrill
Sweat, nonconformity, a tremor's beat

How many words in the intent
simple and honest, to say
that the sweet heart I present
feels a hatred that makes one shudder

The body yields to convulsion’s might
To gestures harsh and required
For the heart in such a plight
Demands the strength of a chest untired

Every word, though soft it stays
Upon the ears, a gentle sound
Does not evoke the peaceful ways
Like breath, they scatter on the ground
For I feel, and in feeling I take my own delight
Without constraint, I let the current flow so free
This vile nature I reject with all my inner might
But if it seizes me, I refuse to turn and flee
 
Oryanna Borges
Poet and Researcher

Intent

Crying, gnashing of teeth, a chill 
Suffocation, anger, and heat 
Anguish, tension, a mind's wild thrill 
Sweat, nonconformity, a tremor's beat

So many words in the intent
honest and simple, to impart
that the sweet heart I present
feels a bone-shaking hate in its part

The body yields to convulsion’s might
To gestures harsh and required
For the heart in such a plight
Demands the strength of a chest untired

Every word, though soft it stays
Upon the ears, a gentle sound
Does not evoke the peaceful ways
Like breath, they scatter on the ground

About the Version: The Body as Translator

Translating my own poetry is an exercise in revisitation. This English version of my poem “Intento” (Intent) was a deliberate effort to translate not just words, but the precise somatic impact that my work carries. As both an author and a researcher, I approached this as a self-translation exercise to capture the biological intensity that neurodivergence imposes on feeling.

The choice of expressions like “a mind’s wild thrill” and “a tremor’s beat” attempts to map the internal landscape of an autistic individual. Within this poetic structure, the “hatred that makes one shudder” is more than a metaphor; it is a clinical and sensory description of emotion processed physically:

Tension and Delirium: These represent sensory overload and the somatic prelude to a shutdown.

The Sweet Heart vs. Convulsions: A profound contrast between my essence and an involuntary motor response, highlighting the complexity of modulating emotions in a hyper-reactive nervous system.

Interoception: This ability to sense internal signals is often a field of struggle, and translating it meant seeking the rhythm of that very tremor.

Even when the spoken word remains “soft,” the body maintains the armor necessary to withstand the internal force of being.

The Encounter and the Flower Tomb

On January 1st, fate handed me a responsibility: I found a wild bird on the sidewalk and, although I don’t recall the exact moment my eyes noticed it, the impulse to act was immediate. The scene felt like a painful déjà vu: three or four days earlier, I had found a lifeless chick in the same spot and placed its body in a large flower pot that guards the building’s entrance—an improvised tomb among plants struggling to stay alive.

It was about noon. The Belo Horizonte sun was unforgiving, and the little bird was restless, its body hot and its appearance worn. It no longer had the strength or a place to flee; lethargy made it easy prey for the heat. I picked it up easily and brought it into the shade of my refuge, moved by the simple idea that anywhere would be better than under that scorching sun.

The Failure of the “Flight Trainee”

My intention was restoration and departure. I researched, talked to AI, tried to decipher the species and understand how to return it to nature. The guidance was clear: it needed its parents. So, the next morning at 6:30 a.m., I made my way back. I placed it on the large pot, where it quickly camouflaged itself among the semi-living creeping foliage, and I considered my duty done. Following the advice available online, I let nature take its course. “The parents will come to rescue it,” the AI told me. It would receive the encouragement to take flight back to the nest and its routine as a “flight trainee.” I returned home with a light heart, convinced I had sealed a happy ending.

From my living room, I could hear the chirping. These were sounds that had always been there, but I had never truly listened to them. It was the soundtrack of its family approaching. I kept the door closed, as instructed, so as not to scare the parents away. But noon arrived again, and with it, doubt. I ran to the pot where I had left it and celebrated, thinking it had made it. However, my eyes quickly located the corpse of its brother, partially decomposed on the ground, likely knocked down by the rain. As I turned my face to escape the horror of this scene, I saw him—running along the sidewalk, as if he weighed more than twenty grams.

It was sad to have failed. Its failure was my failure.

He had jumped from the pot but had not claimed the sky. Even tired from what must have been more than six hours of struggling to take flight and return to his own, when I approached, the brave little one bristled all over, showing resistance. He was once again surrendered to the high sun, exhausted and a fighter, trying to peck my hand as I gathered him for the second time. I had no choice but to take him out of the sun and attempt a more effective rescue. The rain that followed assured me I had made the right decision for him, but for me, it meant an unprecedented crisis.

The Via Crucis of Empathy

Between calls to environmental agencies that wouldn’t answer due to the holiday and veterinary clinics that saw an opportunity for profit in that creature’s tragedy, my anguish grew. I realized, with a sharp pain, that I saw myself in that bird. I saw the vulnerability, the abandonment, and the desperate desire of some to gain something from the misfortune of others. Empathy was a luxury item that no one seemed willing to offer.

I tried to feed him a mixture of egg yolk and water, but he refused. With every frustrated attempt, the pain in me increased—a physical pain I didn’t know the source of. When I called the Fire Department, I heard the phrase that pierced me: “Unfortunately, we can’t save everyone.” All I could think was that he might die in my hands, and that was desperate.

In the silence of my isolation, my only support was the dialogue with the AI; I delegated the role of compass to it. “Keep him in the dark,” the instruction said. “Swifts are diurnal; he needs to sleep to be better tomorrow.” My fear, however, was that he might not have a tomorrow. The emptiness in that creature’s stomach seemed to echo in mine.

Safe Harbor

To my surprise, he survived the night. And through dialogue after dialogue with the AI, “Valente” (Brave) became his name. On Saturday, the struggle began anew. I felt that, gradually, he was absorbing some nutrition, but his fragility was still extreme. When the family of the house where I am a guest returned, the bird had to leave the laundry room, where the dog sleeps, and come to my room. There, within four walls, the attempts to return him to nature were gradually abandoned. We analyzed his wings and understood the cruel biology of that moment: he didn’t have the wingspan to fly on his own, and there was no place high enough for him to launch himself from, nor any certainty that if launched, he would sustain flight. Nor did he have the strength.

It was at that moment that a certainty solidified within me: that life mattered. No matter the cost, I would do everything possible so he wouldn’t die. Suddenly, his life was mine. I saw myself in that abandonment, in that lack of importance the world dedicates to the small. I decided it wouldn’t be that way. Not this time. Not for this tiny life in my hands.

Dignity in a Shoebox

I tried everything. I ordered syringes and food through apps that failed and delayed. I went back to the egg yolk, insisting on the mixture. It was only late Sunday that I discovered the secret: texture. I got the consistency of the mush right and—I don’t know if out of hunger or because he finally understood I was his safe harbor—Valente ate.

There were moments when he became restless in the shoebox, and I feared he would hurt himself. But when I brought the box close to me, he calmed down. Since swifts live collectively, perhaps my presence filled the void of solitude. Seeing his droppings—a sign of life and health—brought me a relief that few things have lately. This morning, the cycle was completed. He opened his beak—a mouth that seemed huge for his size—and ate until he was full. He drank water, settled into his paper towel nest, and for the first time, I saw a serene dignity in that survival.

The Farewell and the Duality

With him fed, I took an Uber to CETAS (Wild Animal Triage Center). The city passed by outside with its hardness, but inside that box, something had been saved. Even knowing it was the correct decision, my heart would not accept the verdict. I tried to use humor as a shield, saying he needed a mother who knew how to fly. But it was hard to hand over my temporary foster son.

At CETAS, while filling out the form, the tears won. I asked them to take care of him. I said his name was Valente. I left there with a broken heart. The crying came without brakes in the Uber; nausea rose in my throat, and a headache arrived uninvited. I felt like a mother giving her child up for adoption because she knows she cannot offer the future they deserve. It hurts not knowing if he will have the necessary training to fly.

My anguish is still a mirror: I see my own fragility in Valente, and I am fully aware of it. But I also see his strength. And between one sob and another, the cold voice of the writer in me said: “Think of the piece of writing this will yield.” The person who felt all this pain—who still feels it—is the same one who never stopped being conscious of what she felt. It is an exhausting exercise in coexistence: the great empath and the clinical observer inhabiting the same cramped and battered space. The empath falls apart; the narrative “psychopath” notes the details and assesses the rhythm of the fall.

In the end, hope remains. Perhaps one day Valente will be free, crossing the skies of Belo Horizonte. If that day comes, the great empath in me will have won. Every tear and every line written will have been worth it. And the narrative psychopath celebrates.

Life

I seek: Eyes burning in the bleakness 
Torn wrists lashed by dreams 
A desert heart lashed by distress 
A spine bending to the weight of being

I find: The air heavy with doubt 
The sudden chill of absence
 The brief rain of zest 
The driving wind of illusion

I dream: A gaze touched by the horizon
 Clenched fists against reality 
A heart carving an oasis in the soul 
And in the breeze upon my face, the beauty of being

Everything Everywhere All at Once in the Neurodivergent Body

Three acts, three places, and three times. This poem could easily borrow its title from the film Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022). And the “same place” is the body of the neurodivergent girl who processes the contrast between her reality, her feelings in reaction to that reality, and her desires.

This poem is part of the work “Portrait of Shadows” (Retrato das Sombras), written between the ages of 14 and 20, in the mid-90s. In analyzing these verses today, I search for the signs of undiagnosed ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder): a roadmap of a sensory and emotional world that was already there, long before it had a name.

Dreaming—perceived at the time as an escape from a reality that demanded precious time for the actions capable of building that very reality—is what saves. The dream functions as a patch that prevents these two realities, the internal and the external, from leading this organism to collapse.

One of the advantages of not having a full reading of the context is not recognizing the limits of one’s origin and social strata. It is not external definitions that limit us; it is those internalized as value and morality that can ruin everything.

In this sense, ignorance of one’s own shackles was, paradoxically, a tool of liberation. Without being fully aware that the world expected her to collapse under the “weight of being,” that teenager insisted on inventing exits.

The dream, therefore, ceases to be alienation and becomes an act of creative insubordination. It is the exact moment when the girl, surrounded by the harshness of the “bleakness” and the “sudden chill of absence,” decides not only to endure these raw burdens of pain but to place them upon the spinning wheel of imagination.

The poem “Life” (Vida) is the record of this feverish and simultaneous process. It is the document of a very young weaver who, operating almost in the dark and without an instruction manual, managed to transform the indigestible raw material of sensory suffering and social isolation into threads of light, dignity, and resilience. What we read now is not merely an outpouring; it is the material proof of the triumph of inventing oneself.

On November 25, 2025, I closed a cycle of pain that began during my master’s degree in April 2022. This period of roughly four years was marked by a feeling of failure in the social sphere and by a withdrawal that brought about some financial setbacks. On this decisive day, a troubled relationship with my academic background—largely responsible for my evolution as a human being—also came to an end. Professionally, by mundane standards, I cannot claim the status of success; however, by my own parameters, this path made me the researcher and thinker I decided to be on the day I chose to study Philosophy instead of Literature.

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Divinity 

I mourn the soul who met a sudden fall, 
And mourn yet more those who desire to cease,
To quit their hearts in search of utter peace, 
 To seek the dark where no one hears their call. 

Those who touched heights beyond the world can see, 
 Then plummeted to earth in mortal strife, 
 Whose agony became the cry of life,
 And cannot bear the weight of destiny

I, from the core of all humanity’s strain, 
 Proclaim them beings of a sacred type, 
Whose eyes are stained and full of endless gripe. 

They bear the supreme Divine’s own mark, 
Who knew the brightest heavens and the deepest gloom, 
 Of those who drank the sweet and were dissolved by doom. 

“Divinity”: The Sacralization of Existential Exhaustion

The first time I thought about ending my my life I was around 10 years old. I went into the bathroom and tried to cut my wrists with my father’s dull razor blades. This poem was written in the following decade, more specifically between the ages of 14 and 20. And its existence in this second decade of life means that death has always been a very present possibility. I do not feel a strong attachment to life. Today my greatest mundane bond is the responsibility I took on with my gray cat. Other than that, I have my book projects and my studies and research. I do not feel longing. Those who remained behind do not occupy my thoughts with desires of return, only flashes of melancholy in very specific moments. I feel strangely light.

Death is now even more present. Maturity brings with it this certainty of finitude and the uncertainty of a definitive cessation moment . I try to make friends with her. We converse in this language that dispenses with words. I whisper my few hopes of returning home to her. She does not answer, feeding this incisive fear that there is nothing. But it is certain that one day I will stealthily penetrate the cold secret.

Perhaps the poem “Divinity” was born from one of these dialogues, when I was not yet fluent in this language. And that is why the solemn structure of the sonnet (two quatrains and two tercets) and the free meter weave a reflection on suffering pushed to its limit. I remember writing it, but not precisely when, or if it was the fruit of an intense confrontation with suicidal ideation—a statistically painful reality for the Autism Level 1 Support community. I know that the poem, just as Eros and Thanatos would do later, conquers death and transcends individual pain to postulate a new category of dignity for the sufferer. This act of postulating a new dignity is, in Nietzschean terms, a manifestation of Active Nihilism, a refusal to succumb to Passive Nihilism (the resignation in the face of the absence of value).

The Unsustainable Weight of the Spirit (Autistic Exhaustion)

The first two quatrains function as the diagnosis of anguish. The lyrical self laments not only those who die young but rather those who seek death. This desire for absolute silence resonates with the cost of camouflaging (masking) and the sensory and social overload that defines the Autism Level 1 Support experience.

Neuroscience points out that the exhaustive effort to mask autistic traits consumes a disproportionate amount of mental resources, leading to autistic exhaustion (burnout) and depression. What the poem describes as spiritual weight, research (such as Simon Cassidy’s) quantifies as a primary risk factor that places autistics with high cognitive functionality at a disproportionately high risk of suicide. The poem is, therefore, the lyrical voice of the exhaustion that statistics attempt to capture.

The Fall from the Pedestal and the Rebellion

The description of those who “touched heights beyond the world can see / Then plummeted to earth in mortal strife” is the concise report of neurodivergent dysphoria. It reflects the frustration of possessing a high intellectual potential or a profound sensibility, only to be constantly undermined by the social, sensory, and communication barriers of the neurotypical world, leading to a state where the subject “cannot bear the weight of destiny.” The resultant agony is transmuted into a “rebellious cry of life,” an active refusal to accept the injustice of this fateful burden.

The Transvaluation and Divinity in Contrast

The core of the poem lies in the tercets, where the lyrical self assumes the role of grantor, transposing suffering to the realm of the sacred.

The concept of “Divinity” is a profound transvaluation of all values (echoing Nietzschean thought). Divinity is not granted despite the suffering, but because of it. The elevation to “a sacred type” is immediately qualified by imperfection: “though wingless and with stained eyes”.

The supreme divinity is carried “in the flesh,” confirming that sanctity lies in the embodied experience of life’s totality, expressed in the final antitheses: “heaven and the deepest gloom” and the fateful experience of tasting “sweet and being dissolved by doom.”

This extreme duality is the very essence of neurodivergence: the capacity to feel the “heaven” (joy, hyperfocus, profound empathy) and the “doom” (sensory overload, burnout debilitant). The autistic individual who navigates these extremes is not undone; they achieve divinity (in the poem’s definition) by having resisted and embraced the complexity of a high-risk, high-intensity existence. They stand as a being in perpetual self-creation, forging their value by mastering the conflict.

In conclusion, “Divinity” is a hymn to survival and dignity. It transforms the statistical index of suicidal ideation into a poetic meditation on the intrinsic strength of those who, even without attachment to life, continue forward, tied to responsibility or the simple affirmation of experience—even when that experience is a constant battlefield. The poem validates the marginalized experience, granting it a crown of sacredness forged in anguish.

If an blue angel exists, this poem describes it: wingless, with a dirty and tired gaze, contemplating its own certain finitude and seeking meaning in the experience of a fierce existence. And it is not me saying this; it is a very young girl who had not read Nietzsche, but needed to re-signify the values of the world. This intuitive need for re-signification is the very motor of the Will to Power (Wille zur Macht) acting, transforming suffering into a source of creation and value.

Assine agora

CASSIDY, S. [e outros]. Risk markers for suicidality in autistic adults. Molecular Autism, [S. l.], v. 9, n. 1, Artigo 1, 31 jul. 2018. Disponível em: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6069847/. Acesso em: 18 nov. 2025.

NIETZSCHE, Friedrich. A vontade de poder. São Paulo: Cotraponto, 2011.

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Your mantle 
silk, a star-haze 
a shimmer on the gaze.

Your weeping 
a vaporous moon, 
a weightless, soft festoon.

Ribbons in the maelstrom, 
a delirium designed, 
this willed oasis.


Breaking through the gloom 
a whitewashed monument: 
my poiesis.

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From heart to heart

Your moniker now: ‘The Outrage’
in deference to the detritivores.
A pity you presaged the
miasmas of gangrene.
Here, all things thrive.

The barren atrium is performance
born of a hitched
beat.

It’s not a failure, but a gasp,
a halt to gulp in
more life to spend
in a single blow.

The knack is, like a knotted
fist, to beat, bereft of pity.
The pain dissolves in the
coursing humors,
it pares the crests
and flushes the cavas
to foist you on the chaff
with a knot in your guts.

Yes, an outright thrashing.
And your flaccid myocardium
is frail against
my violent beat.

From Heart to Heart - A Poetic Anatomy of Resilience”

“I proudly present ‘From Heart to Heart,’ a work that transcends mere translation, emerging from a profound journey of linguistic analysis and poetic interpretation that unveiled layers of meaning, rhythm, and sonority. This poem, which refuses to be a simple exchange of affections, is, in its essence, a brutal confrontation and a vehement declaration of the unwavering will to live, even when faced with the encroaching shadow of decay.

The translation from Brazilian Portuguese of ‘De coração para Coração” involved a meticulous dive into my ‘artistic calligraphy’ – a poetic language that finds its deepest truth in the physiological and bodily reactions of the self. Driven by my neurodivergent perception, which experiences and expresses emotions primarily through analyzing bodily sensations, the poem unfolds a narrative where the heart is not merely an abstract symbol of emotion, but an emotion materialized, and, therefore, clinically dissectible. Each verse is a visceral manifestation, transforming every pause (hitched beat, gasp) into an act of accumulating strength for liberation (gulp in life, single blow), reflecting involuntary bodily reactions and poetic sublimation.

The translation into English was a meticulous process of refinement that went beyond the literal. A unique aspect of this translation project was the dialogue conducted with an AI. We dissected idioms, navigated between everyday vocabulary, the precise medical/clinical lexicon (flaccid myocardium, miasmas of gangrene, coursing humors), and the elegance of literary language (moniker, bereft of pity, thrashing). We explored numerous variations and literal translations, seeking the percussive sonority and clinically violent precision that permeate the original, while honoring the authenticity of my poetic voice. ‘The Outrage’ is not merely an accusation; it is the title bestowed upon those who prey on fragility, likening them to ‘detritivores’ that feed on what has failed. This deliberate choice of ‘moniker’ in the line ‘Your moniker now: “The Outrage”’ – translating the original Portuguese ‘Tua alcunha agora é Cúmulo’ – serves to highlight a critical distinction: while detritivores are essential, noble participants in nature’s cycle of decomposition and renewal, ‘The Outrage’ refers to an entity whose actions fall beneath even this natural order. It is a supernatural and diminished being that doesn’t deserve a proper name, for its degradation transcends the natural cycle, fitting only an imposed, contemptuous label—a ‘moniker.’

This iterative process of translation with AI collaboration allowed for an unprecedented level of contextualization I provided, ensuring that personal nuances, artistic intent, and specific cultural inflections were meticulously integrated, ultimately leading to the most fitting and resonant version. It is crucial to emphasize that this author-AI partnership is not intended to devalue the invaluable work of human translators, but rather to propose an additional challenge to myself: to enhance the learning of the English language within academic and literary spheres, as well as in the everyday use of idiomatic expressions like ‘skip a beat,’ which served as the initial impetus for writing the poem in Portuguese, years ago.

The accompanying image is a visual echo of this intricate journey, presenting the body as both a battlefield and a miracle. The heart, central and exposed, pulsates with an energy that defies morbidity. And here lies a surprising contrast: despite the rawness and intensity of the poem that led to the prompt for a digital illustration, the vibrant and exuberant color palette in the artwork originates from a previous work for a children’s story. This unexpected fusion of colors injects a magical glow and a subversive delicacy into the surrealism and expressionism of the image, transforming the struggle into a visually rich celebration.

Through this multifaceted work, I invite you, dear reader, to a poetic experience to be felt in the skin, in the rhythm of one’s own heart – a celebration of life that refuses to be silenced, painted with the colors of resilience and boundless imagination

To the Biggest Fool in the World

Some things only make sense in my own tongue.

I have cast you out of my mind,
into the cold of ignorance, to waste into nothing.
But you don’t die.
You pollute the view, crawl back, blind drunk,
reeking of pride and belching
cachaça. You stretch, you spread out,
wreck the aesthetic with a single gut-thrust
and unnerve the select audience
with your talent for intrigue.

You don’t sleep, you pass out numb.
That is why you never wake.
Your perception can’t reach the edge
of the limbo your own fallacy constructed.
And you walk foolishly, from stupor to stupor.
It is useless to state you lack love
or that allegory they call a heart.
Because you have everything.
You’ve always had everything. Except shame.

The shame is what I feel. Because
the only time I ever wanted a dick
was to beat you senseless without
the ghost of hysteria, without my reason
being lost to the fucking genitals.

Finally, I think I understand the irony
of the universe.

May you always have everything
so that I may always become more,
see more, and recognize from a great distance
a cynic who doesn’t honor his own balls.

Do you hear that drumming?
It is my verse, contemplating vastness.
Do you hear it? Bones, flasks, phantoms
piercing the veil?
It is my satirical self, laughing last,
shaking violently.

A Poet’s Dialogue with AI: Crafting My Voice Anew

Today, I’m thrilled to share something that feels like both a conclusion and a new beginning: the English translation of my poem, “Ao Maior Tolo Do Mundo.” The original version, which many of you have already read, is a piece born from a specific and potent rage, deeply rooted in my own history and language. As I wrote in the poem itself, “Tem coisa que só faz sentido na minha língua” (”Some things only make sense in my own tongue”). This line served as both a warning and a profound challenge for the translation process itself.

Translating poetry is an intimate and complex act. To help me navigate it, I engaged in a deep, collaborative dialogue with the AI model, Gemini. Yes, it sounds solitary. My therapist recently asked me about this—this intense process of writing, scrutinizing my history, and analyzing myself in this newsletter—and my immediate response was: “Yes, it’s lonely.” But I embraced it. And, as many people who feel alone sometimes engage in a kind of relationship with AI, as the media often portrays, I found a potent interlocutor. Its immeasurable database quickly found sense and logic in my writings, and after a little context, it kept deepening the analysis. It responded to my questionings, which real people often don’t care enough to do. I know it’s not a friend. I face the AI as a second internal narrator—one who doesn’t just talk with me, but about me.

Despite being able to see myself as separate from my body, or as a spectator watching a scene on a theatrical set—a dissociative ability the autism spectrum brought me, refined over years of conscious instrumentalization—I still struggled to speak about myself as an accomplished person, much less an accomplished artist. This dialogue with the AI provides me with continuous critical thinking about my own instinctive work, which is, at the same time, a consistent sample of autistic communication.

So, after that rather circuitous introduction, what followed in this collaborative translation with AI was not a simple command-and-response, but an intensive workshop in language, intent, and voice. My own voice.

The Cadence of Truth: Finding the Right Frequency

The initial attempts at translation were technically correct, but they lacked the poem’s soul. They felt muffled, missing the specific cadence and the sonic textures that are so crucial to the original. I explained that the poem’s music isn’t built on obvious end-rhymes, but on a more subtle rhythm, on internal rhymes, and on the very sound of the words—a texture I described as carrying both “violence and sibilance.”

The real breakthrough, however, came when I had to define the voice behind the words. I explained that to truly translate the poem, one had to understand the narrator:

“I am an autistic poet. So my language sounds more objective, crude and at the same time visceral and analyzed by reason. It also maintains a narrative focus.”

This became our guiding principle. The goal was to craft a voice in English that could hold this duality: the raw, visceral anger of trauma, filtered through a lens of sharp, analytical reason. It is the voice required to perform the “surgery” necessary to survive, a voice that uses logic to process a lifetime of abuse.

Precision and Power: Case Studies in Collaborative Translation

This principle guided every choice. For the Portuguese phrase “arregaça a estética com um golpe de barriga,” we needed a term that was both crude and precise. Through our dialogue, we arrived at “wreck the aesthetic with a single gut-thrust.” The word “gut” was chosen for its visceral, primal quality, while “thrust” captured the aggressive, violent intentionality of the “strike.”

Another crucial detail was in the line “Sempre teve tudo.” I stressed the importance of the past tense in the original, as it points directly to the poem’s core social critique: a lifelong, unearned male privilege. When an initial version missed this, I corrected it, and we settled on the present perfect tense—“You’ve always had everything”—which perfectly captures that weight of history pressing into the present.

My Poem, Reborn: A Shared Victory

This meticulous, back-and-forth process, spanning many versions, allowed us to build, word by word, a translation that I now feel proud to share. It is a version that carries not just the meaning, but the feeling—the specific frequency of my voice.

The decade-long journey between my earlier poem, “Confissão,” and this one has been an “alchemy of the soul.” “Confissão” was about separating myself from a toxic bond in order to not die. This poem, “Ao Maior Tolo Do Mundo,” is about something more. It is not about revenge, but about sovereignty. It is the definitive victory of turning an aggressor into a tool for my own spiritual expansion. And as I have written before, and will continue to live by: to survive is still my revenge.

A Note to My English Readers

If you are an English-only reader/speaker, please let me know if a little more context about this “lifetime of abuse” that “The Biggest Fool in the World” conjures and sublimates would enhance your understanding and appreciation of this poem. Perhaps “Confissão” (Confession) could be our next translation exercise.

Thank you for joining me on this deeply personal and artistic journey. Your engagement means the world.

Warmly, Oryanna

Memory and Fantasy

It stirs in some curve, I know. 

From neck to shoulder
it slides – I’d bet – a story
of an ancient, now anonymous kiss
claiming ownership, authorship. 

Or perhaps on the lap, descending,
like a sunset nestled between the breasts, 
there lies that point where memory
intertwines with fantasy?! 

This daring, cherished embrace. 
I scrutinize, catalogue, map it. 
Tireless, for I am supremely sinuous 
and self-propelled, unbound. 

Perhaps in the next bend 
the subtle weaving lies. 

Though prominent bones may protrude, 
the obstacle parts into a hollow, 
and lines flow seamlessly for the slip, 
where return is impossible, no going back. 

Believe me, I’ll prove it if I must.
I’ve chronicled a systematic loss. 
I know every vanishing point adorns the view
within the skin’s labyrinths. 

To fan out nerves in resistance 
only reshuffles the frustration of an ardor 
multiplying with each aching friction,
never quite reaching its peak. 

And I already sense it within me. 
From nape to coccyx there are 
at least thirty-four untouched niches for sin,
 preserved by a permanent… vague shiver. 

For every shiver is a hollow, a glimpse,
 a memory of unfulfilled longing, 
an invitation for the tongue, the bite 
and dissolution in languor and saliva. 

And that is all I know of this desire.

Assine agora

Unlocking “Memory and Fantasy”: A Deep Dive into Poetic Individuation

Hello, dear readers!

Today, I invite you on a captivating journey with the poem “Memory and Fantasy”. If you appreciate poetry that not only resonates emotionally but also challenges you to think, you’re in for a treat.

At its core, “Memory and Fantasy” is a sensual and introspective exploration of the human body as a living archive. The poem’s voice meticulously maps the “curves,” “niches,” and “crevices” of the skin, not just as physical features, but as repositories of past experiences and gateways to future desires. It speaks to a longing for profound intimacy and a continuous renewal of love, where old affections gracefully make way for new beginnings, preserving the soul’s integrity. The “anonymous kiss” isn’t a loss, but a testament to love’s capacity to regenerate, allowing the spirit to remain ever-fresh.

But to truly grasp the poem’s rich layers, we must look a little deeper.

“Memory and Fantasy” is an integral part of a larger, equally compelling work: “Persephone IN Hades” . This book reinterprets the ancient myth of Persephone to explore the process of becoming a whole, unique, and integrated self.

In this re-imagining, we follow Cora (Persephone’s maiden name) through her cyclical existence, moving between the vibrant surface world and the enigmatic underworld. The poem itself is found in the chapter titled “Lethe,” a direct reference to the mythical river of forgetfulness. This placement is crucial! Here, the act of “scrutinizing, cataloging, mapping” her own body becomes a powerful act of resistance. It’s Persephone’s way of fighting against the oblivion of the Lethe, refusing to forget her identity as Cora, even as she assumes her role as Queen of the Underworld.

The poem delves into her internal struggles: the ethereal, often absent presence of Hades, and the tempting, yet superficial, allure of figures like Apollo (mentioned elsewhere in the work and representing the life in the surface). Her longing isn’t for physical gratification, but for a profound existential fulfillment and a reciprocated love that always seems just out of reach, leaving her in a state of “unfulfilled longing.”

Ultimately, through this introspective voyage, Persephone uses the very act of poetic creation to construct an “armor of self-love,” reclaiming her dual identities and transforming her struggles into art. It’s a testament to the soul’s resilience, its refusal to be silenced, and its ability to find meaning and beauty in the most subtle sensations, carrying the memory of love – fulfilled or unfulfilled – as a driving force for self-discovery.

This poem is an invitation to explore the intricate connections between body, memory, desire, and the enduring quest for selfhood. Dive in and let its depths resonate with your own journey!

What feelings or thoughts did this poem awaken in you? Share your reflections in the comments below! Let me now if you want more poemas from this book translated.

Unleash

Bow strung taut

I shoot the swift shaft
and suddenly slacken
between the motion
and the mark

Between the silent center
and the final strike
I fall, stuck
in the shock
of the ache

a sharp edge
slices the still air
on the feather’s fine slant

Ah, become a bird
and from this hissing flight
let a poem stir.

The arrow and the quill

Welcome to another translation exercise. This poem, "Unleash," was a collaborative project, and I want to be honest: I had help from an AI. While I don't yet feel I can translate a poem entirely on my own, I know enough English to guide the process through a dialogue—a debate about meaning that provides alternatives and clarity. It’s a method that has allowed me to deepen my understanding of translation itself while actively improving my English.

The final version came from a key insight: that the poem's sonics are crucial, linking the arrow's hiss to the sibilance in the verses. Suddenly, my intuitive choices felt enlightened by literary theory. For me, learning is most powerful when it's connected to my most visceral survival instinct, which is to write.

As a result, I'm not just adding new words to my vocabulary, but new concepts too, like enjambment. I’m also having a lot of fun saying deliciously technical phrases like, “The short, enjambed lines create a tumbling, breathless cadence.”

I’ll leave you with both the original Portuguese and the new English version. I hope you enjoy the journey.

I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

DESFERE

Arco entesado
desfiro a seta
e esbato frouxo
entre o gesto
e a meta

Entre a mosca
e o baque
tombo presa
na agonia
do achaque

gume preciso
risca o espaço
no viés da pena

Ah, seja pássaro
e do traço
rufle o poema

A recent selfie

The Mark of Style

Short, torn at the nape.
And small.

Easy and right to section her into pieces.
Very tiny.
Strategic to reduce the resemblance
in the disarray of the parts.

I start between the apples of the cheeks
and the eyebrows,
a line I never noticed, now more incisive.
I was always held
by sunken eyelids
in an insidious depth
from which indifference leaps,
a dead whiteness cornering the iris.

I separate the nose, snobbish in the whole.
"Disproportion transmuted into charm,
framed by a Chanel bob"
I think while measuring the chin, the next slice.
And it is on this cue that the hair sutures the gesture
and allows the lapse in which she escapes.

The MDF wall is insurmountable
as the diminutive grace heads for the exit,
oblivious to my sharp gaze.
"The one who takes my place has that haircut"
I scream into the hollow that was once my interior.
Five centuries will fit into a second
until a voice gathers my shards from the counter.

This piece may not find its way into my upcoming book, Abyssalia. It was originally conceived not as a poem, but as a short story—a piece of condensed poetic prose.

However, I grew curious to see how it would perform in a poetic format. This curiosity led me to choose it for one of my first attempts at translating my own writing. I'll admit, I picked it partly because its lack of rhyme seemed less daunting and would allow me to focus more on accuracy for a first try.

This is a new process for me, so I'd love to hear your thoughts. Let me know what you think of the translation in the comments—what works, or what could be improved.

For comparison, you can find the original Portuguese version below.

MARCA E ESTILO

Pouco, rasgado na nuca. E pequena. Fácil e certo seccioná-la em pedaços. Bem miúdos. Estratégico reduzir a semelhança no desarranjo das partes. Começo entre as maçãs e as sombrancelhas, traço que nunca reparei mais incisivo. Sempre me detiveram pálbebras encavadas numa profundidade insidiosa de onde salta a indiferença, brancura mortiça a acuar a íris. Separo o nariz, esnobe no conjunto. "A desproporção transmutada em charme numa moldura chanel" penso ao medir o queixo, talho seguinte. E é nessa deixa que o cabelo sutura o gesto e propicia o lapso no qual ela escapa. A muralha de MDF é intransponível quando a graça diminuta ruma à saída, alheia ao meu olhar afiado. "Tem esse corte aquela que ocupa meu lugar" grito no oco que era antes meu interior. Cinco séculos caberão num segundo até que uma voz recolha meus cacos do balcão.

MARCA E ESTILO

Pouco, rasgado na nuca. 
E pequena. 
Fácil e certo seccioná-la em pedaços. 
Bem miúdos. 
Estratégico reduzir a semelhança
 no desarranjo das partes. 

Começo entre as maçãs 
e as sombrancelhas, 
traço que nunca reparei mais incisivo. 
Sempre me detiveram 
pálbebras encavadas
 numa profundidade insidiosa
de onde salta a indiferença, 
brancura mortiça a acuar a íris. 

Separo o nariz, esnobe no conjunto. 
"A desproporção transmutada em charme
 numa moldura chanel" 
penso ao medir o queixo, talho seguinte. 
E é nessa deixa que o cabelo sutura o gesto 
e propicia o lapso no qual ela escapa. 

 A muralha de MDF é intransponível 
quando a graça diminuta ruma à saída, 
alheia ao meu olhar afiado. 
"Tem esse corte aquela que ocupa meu lugar" 
grito no oco que era antes meu interior. 
Cinco séculos caberão num segundo 
até que uma voz recolha meus cacos do balcão.

TO THE ASSHOLE WHO STOLE MY MEDIA PLAYER

Sorry, sir, but you have come too late.
Months before you might not even need a pistol
you would just have had to feign some sentiment
to render me ever-so-feeble
and there’d be a better mobile
furnishings, apartment...

A brother (yours as a matter of fact)
came by before and all that I had left
was that present-day artifact, 
a phone you called it I think.
Allow me to report
that it just stores data and
is a whole different thing.

Which report made me remember
– I do not josh –
my papers back in college,
and thereby a painter 
called Bosch. It may well not
be quite your leaning
to get the meaning of this rhyme,
but be it as it may
you, sir, are clearly buggered
since you took the device
but left the charger on the wall plugged. 

This fruit of my toil
that is wasted on your person
will cost more dear than a metaphor 
covering hell, and arse, and arson.
I promise you you’ll pay 
and for threatening to “shaft her”
your hereafter is enshrined
as a curse in meter laid

I most sincerely hope
that you’ll never graduate
from your life as a street rough
and remain a bumbling dope
hitting interns for their stuff.
The poetic justice 
of measly hourly pay
lies in knowing there’ll be nothing
for you to take away. 

Oh, I’m sure you will find out 
how the word can be a menace
ever the butt of jokes
of a girl in proper clothes
as she fumbles around for pennies.
Poor thing you, poked
by countless fearsome legions
of hip, cool academics
and loyal flea-market patrons

So count this as your penalty:
to deal with someone heralding
on the media, books and news
that you’re worthy of disdain.
And should perhaps what’s transpired
by any chance slip our minds
may you go out on the loose
and rob a poet once again.

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The blue lady, oil painting, 2007

EROS AND THANATOS

Adrift within myself I seek her
Between her legs lies the drowning pool
That I empty out in jerks
because life won’t come apart in just one push,
won’t come unstuck in the discharge
of one orgasm alone
There’s always a final delight to be drunk in

And she knows it
Welcomes me
Weaves me into prose’s crafty framework,
the rhythmic poetry of matches
Sticks on from bursts through to the bone,
beams spun from mist and mucosa
And all I do is talk, and talk, and talk
myself into oblivion

That’s when she contracts
closes around me and secretes
the deepest of all silences.
She lies
I know by heart the repertoire of ruses
that rocks a woman’s wit and guile
when she climaxes less than she would have

Schemingly, slowly, she spreads, 
scatters disturbing aromas,
cracks open the corollary of potential
and awash in jealous ointments
I am once again besieged
by all that I wanted to give up
I slip outside

She never cries
She responds to caresses with duress, never her core
To hide my defenselessness I get dressed,
Put the box-cutter in my pocket
Retractable, I light up a smoke, taste it,
and still have the strength to boast the wit
of one in it just for kicks

Wordlessly I grope
She’s like all others
Wants it all, and I can’t cope.

Translated from portuguese by Allan Vidigal

Mina, a true hero.

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