In the whirlwind of our busy lives, we cross a multitude of faces every day, a crowd of strangers who cross our path without us often giving them more than a furtive glance. We are all strangers in each other’s lives. It is both intriguing and poignant.
I don’t know what prompts me to write this letter. It may be the last letter. The last sentence. We never know. Life sometimes brings us uncertain surprises. It’s 3am. Port au Prince. I can not sleep. It is not only a sleepless but also an empty night. A void that leaves all its weight on my heart and my thoughts. I really like the night. I like its freshness and its silence. But sometimes she leaves all the voids in the world on me. A chaos that I do not always have the strength to support. I did nothing at night. I am a sincere man to her. I have never looked night in the eye. I respect its mysteries.
Tonight I feel empty. And when the void is there, I can’t read. Not even the strength to listen to a piece of Franck Sinatra. I’m thinking a bunch of weird things. Since my existence, how many doors have I closed? What future for me in this country of violence? How am I going to end my days? I imagine my lifeless body exposed like a precious object in the eyes of my strangers.
Photo by Bruno Silva
Writers, poets, journalists, there will of course be some praise. I don’t want any speeches ladies and gentlemen. I have always thought that I have accomplished everything in life. I loved. I had terrible heartaches. I have also been loved sometimes.
While writing this letter, I think of my mother, of this stranger I cannot name. I am a young old man in a 27-year-old body who lives in a country that has nothing but emptiness to offer. I don’t have tears inside me. I cried everything. I will not go to heaven with a store of tears. When I die, my heart, my soul, my body will all be light as a butterfly. Not heavy. Very light. A dead flower that flutters.
I will go to a country without uncertainty. Without chaos. So we have to cry everything here below. And you don’t need to cry on my journey. I cried for you. I want big laughs. Uplifting poems. Songs of hope. I know the strangers in my life will not appreciate this letter. But know that my life is not a party but rather a vale of tears.
When one lives in a country of misfortune and violence one must think of one’s death. Life expectancy today in Haiti is how many years? No one can answer this question. the European will perhaps say 50, 60 years. the American also in single digits. Asians, yes. But here, we don’t have an expectation of life, but of death. What joke. And I think it was Haiti who invented this case; death expectancy. The other peoples, they think about life. We think about death. To survival.
Photo by Andrea Bova
I think of the bloody acts. To the murdered. Not to mention what we kill alive. Me, I’m a living dead sometimes. I walk. I read. I’m listening to Sinatra style on my speaker. I even gave flowers to this stranger. But I am a moving body. Some are obviously dead. There are some who have died invisibly. I am of the second category. And that’s what I’m thinking about right now.
Why when I look at my mother I suffer so much. Why am I unexpected. I apologize to the strangers in my life. I love you. But I have to think, I have to think. I must write my anger, my torment. I say thank you to these strangers. I say strangers because they don’t see the inside but rather the outside. They see a man who writes chronicles. They see a man who likes beer, steaming dishes. They see a man who likes to laugh. But they did not see this injury. They did not see the nostalgia of living in a hopeless country. This growing wound. Who tears. We are all strangers in each other’s lives.
Believe me if I don’t have writing as therapy. I may not have the strength to stand still. It’s my only defense. The words, they are always there for me like the strangers in my life. They are never absent. Writing is sometimes an act of resignation.