scars and flowers

a love story through blurry memories

My first memory of you is eating tapas in the middle of a street down the block from the Main Hall. To be honest, I never truly enjoyed patatas bravas. There were four of us, and you weren’t talking much. Sometimes you would shyly laugh at something our classmates said without really participating in the conversation.

My second memory of you is arriving at Carrer d'Aragó to work on a project with me. You were still silent, but you took me to the bus station when we were done. Right before reaching it, you said you liked my energy.

My third, fourth, and fifth memories of you are blurry, but somewhere around the sixth one, you were in the wooden bench outside my house, and we were discussing God, fate, and our first loves. You thought I was magical and I loved that. I also loved staying past midnight simply engaging in conversation. That became one of my favorite rituals.

I cannot chronologically recall the five following months, and unfortunately, I cannot consult my journals because the ones I wrote in Barcelona are in Colombia. As if they were made of clay, my memories mixed and combined. They are one big ball, it’s impossible to differentiate one from another. But I remember the important days.

I remember my birthday. You called me at 00:00 and asked me to meet you downstairs. I was crying. When I reached the street, you had a red rose bouquet and a hug. I was starting to wonder if you had feelings for me or were just a good friend. You had never tried to kiss me or expressed any sort of emotions, so I assumed it was a platonic friendship. You were not the only person to give me flowers that day. You saw when Juan and Nupur gave me a lily, as I am named after one, and a cupcake. I was no longer crying.

I remember the day after my birthday. You called me at 00:00 and asked me to meet you downstairs. You had a bouquet of white flowers and said, “I wanted to give you the first and last flowers of the day”. If I had watched that scene on a screen, I would’ve said the movie was unrealistic, but there I was, living it.

I remember you kissed me for the first time in front of the angry Mediterranean. Your kisses held so much passion that I understood they had been caged for over six months at that point. When I asked why it took you so long, you said you wanted me to understand that you would love me under any circumstances, regardless of anything I could offer you.

I remember you taking care of me in Costa Brava as I wrote over 20 pages during a controlled panic attack. You took me to my favorite cala in Canyet de Mar. The Mediterranean was raging again. Maybe it was a sign from the first day.

Canyet de Mar (2024)

I remember you asked me to write a story about you. I wrote about a bird that loved a tree without knowing its fruit was poisonous to him. He’d never know because, when the tree blossoms, he’s already flying South.

I remember your birthday. I asked when your last relationship ended, you said it hadn’t. I remember aggressively saying ‘congrats on your engagement,’ and the faces of the people at the tables around us. It’s been years now, and I haven’t managed to get that angry at anyone yet.

I don’t remember the in-betweens, the existential crisis, the coordination, the dynamics, how the story aligned with other adjacent lovers, how many times we even kissed, I only remember two times, I don’t remember when I stopped being mad, I lost count of the times you saw me cry.

It’s still one of my favorite stories to tell.

My highlight is the day you gave me my birthday gift. A couple of days after showering me in flowers, you said you finally had something. I was expecting you to open your backpack, but instead, you lifted the leg of your pants so I could see the scar: a lily. For as long as you live, I’ll have a flower. You made sure you gave me the longest-lasting flower of my life.

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• Wrote this as Henry, come on by Lana del Rey played on repeat.

• Started reading Invisible women. And was gifted How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, which I’m grateful and excited for.

• I’m happy to announce I have a steady job - not my dream job yet, but a job!

• Pleaseee give me movie recommendations. I - almost literally - haven’t seen any movie ever, and I want to change that. I’m trying to re-train my long-span attention.

• Thoughts on watching Interstellar for the first time: I need to trust the things I don’t understand instead of trying to explain them; aging at the same pace as the people I love is a blessing; I want to be as human as possible.