The idea was simple: get together, play, and take pepa. That’s what we call LSD in Buenos Aires (I know other places, or other generations, call it something else, so I thought I’d clarify). Not sure if the disclaimer is necessary, but you know how I am.
Everything was going fine. The music played, the lights flickered in the dim room, the summer heat clung to our skin. Until I looked in the mirror.
Rule number one when taking hallucinogens: don’t look in the mirror.
And there I was. A corpse.
Gray, pale, thin, hollow-eyed, dead. I didn’t recognize myself. My body felt disposable, like a suit I was wearing but didn’t belong to me. As if I were suddenly seeing reality from inside a disguise. I detached from myself. I became a turtle retreating into its shell.
Ten minutes earlier, I had stepped out of the shower. The water hadn’t been enough to wash off the sticky feeling of a sleepless night. I got dressed quickly and went back to the room, but something was already off. When I tried to explain it, my voice sounded distant, foreign. I lay down on the bed, staring at the ceiling with teary eyes. That ceiling. The one I knew too well, the one I had seen countless times on nights like this. Nights that were rarely sober.
And then, you.
You lay down beside me and ran your fingers through my hair without saying a word. You didn’t try to understand, you didn’t try to console me. You just stayed. And that was enough.
Sometimes, I wonder if you really love me. But then I remember this. How you always know what I need without me having to say it. How you’re always one step ahead, how you know me better than I know myself.
What we have isn’t like anything we were taught about love. It’s not like in the movies or the books. It’s something purer, more sincere, deeper. A kind of love no one knows how to put into words, which is why it almost never exists in stories. But I know it exists.
That early Sunday morning, I saw it all so clearly. I felt dead, empty, loveless, completely alone. Trapped inside my shell. Hiding what I felt out of fear of how the world might react.
I didn’t want the others to see me cry. I apologized a thousand times. I felt like I had already ruined the night. Like always.
But you didn’t leave.
And for a while, that was enough.
Now, everything is different. The nights have gotten longer, even though we’re no longer out partying. It’s been a while since I’ve slept well.
And you’re not here anymore to lie beside me, to pull me back from the storm inside my head. There’s no hand running through my hair, no silence speaking louder than words.
That early Sunday morning, everything felt too real. But now, what weighs on me is what’s missing.
And what’s missing is you.
The plan changed. The game is over.
And I will always be missing you.
Mel Bruja 