/// the smell of twilight

here and now

the air, the light

has burst into between

where you 

and i

we rest unfold

and melt like gold.

the smell of twilight. i remember this day clearly and i could smell everything and i could feel everything. this was the end and the beginning of things: who knew that i would be completely happy here?

and the grey silhouette of the city in pictures squeeze my heart. the view from artxanda: vast and  golden, the city cradled between the mountains. that white wired bridge where you carried me the nights we went to residence. piggy back rides in the rain. this city is painted with yellow lights, golden rain and foreheads. this city is fog and the space in moyua where you first meet the friends that you will keep for life. this city is the grey afternoons tired from sitting all day in the library, a walk to the subway to get a sandwich, a spontaneous dinner at an empty vegetarian diner with a boy you are falling in love with. a walk home in the rain, towards the metro, passing by a snazzy furniture shop. a humid afternoon and a bocatta sandwich. this city is a trip to barcelona and back, with a boy waiting at casco viejo, ice creams by the river and zombie nights in hotel lobbies. the first touch of our hands. and then things started running faster and you were in the middle of everything.

and then all of a sudden, everyone has left just when you realized that you are having the time of your life. but your best friend is still there. you went to the shire where these pictures are taken, ate potato chips by the sea and promised to become like the old ladies walking along plentzia. to live and grow old together by the sea, all of us. a wish offered to the sea. let's not go yet, i'm still writing. listening to lali puna on repeat, i tried to put everything down in my notebook, only succeeding to write about one day. i try and try but these past months and everything that has happened felt bigger than i am capable of putting down. like pinning down giants. i cannot wield words like i used to. i trip and stumble and drown. i no longer have the power of the last word like corinna stonewall. but maybe that's not true.

but this is me trying. bilbao: dark turning into light, picnics outside the library, a birthday party and blowfish pictures and electric currents in the air, crying inside classrooms because of sad argentinian movies, countless lunch dates at the white cafeteria below the library (the fish! the thin sliced potatoes! the small coke bottles! the chocolate dessert!), the shins and lastfm and "are you judging me?", the dodgy area where you could buy asian stuff, norsk metal night and promises of summer 2010, 80s parties and everlasting, sparkling nights.

and you you you. artxanda and pear ciders. lost trucks and our favorite day by the beach. and now i stumble, now i fall, i can't put words to so many beautiful memories of you.

do i really have to put down everything? why do i feel that it will get lost if i don't? can you hold the memories for me too? can you promise to remember the feeling, in case i forget? will you tell me someday, hold me by the sea and tell me how it feels like to be in bilbao, when everything was running faster and has the smell of twilight? 

tell me that in bilbao, the grey turned into gold. tell me that it is possible, tell me that it happened. tell me how i found you, tell me how i found love.