Lope's Thoughts

Look at yourself. Not the face the mirror has been rehearsing for years, but the one hiding under your skin. Look closely. There is a small door behind your left eye. You have never opened it. Inside, an old version of you is sitting at a table made from yesterday, turning pages with hands that have forgotten their own shape. Open the pages. Do not ask who wrote them. Some words were written by storms. Some by strangers. Some by nights that refused to become mornings. And some, some were written by you while you were asleep. Turn the page. A black sun is hanging from the ceiling. It has no heat, only memories. Underneath it, your forgotten dreams are growing teeth. They are waiting for you to remember their names. Turn another page. There is a road running through your childhood. It has no beginning. It has no end. Only footprints. You follow them until they suddenly become yours. Then you realize you have been walking backward your entire life. Look at yourself. The book is breathing ...

The dice is still rolling. I heard it last night inside the belly of the moon, knocking against its silver bones while something beneath the earth counted the numbers. One. Two. Three. I looked outside. The stars were gone. Not hidden. Gone. As if someone had reached into the sky and quietly stolen them. You stood beside your palace wearing the proud smile of someone who believed the universe had chosen him. “Look what I have built.” You pointed at the towers. You pointed at the gold. You pointed at the doors that opened whenever you approached. But behind you, the shadows were whispering. They knew something you did not. The river did not ask your permission before becoming a river. The sun did not read your name before entering the morning. And the wind has never stopped to ask who deserves to breathe. You simply woke one day with food on your table, a roof above your head, and enough light in your hands to believe you had created the sun. Grace is a strange creature. It enters quiet...

I was born between two worlds. On one side, the houses wore gold around their windows. On the other, the windows wore cardboard around their houses. Between them ran a road so ordinary that nobody noticed it was a river. I walked that river barefoot. On my left, men drank sunlight from crystal glasses. On my right, children drank water from plastic bottles that had already lived someone else's life. And above both worlds, God was silent. Not absent. Silent. The kind of silence that makes you wonder whether heaven is listening or simply watching the way the moon watches a city burn its lights. I used to think wealth lived closer to God. Then I saw a poor woman break her only loaf of bread into three pieces, one for her child, one for a stranger, one for tomorrow. She did not know tomorrow was coming empty-handed. Still, she saved it a piece. That night I understood something I had never learned from the rich. Sometimes faith is not having enough and sharing anyw...

Why are you laughing? Did my falling look beautiful from where you stood? Did the sound of my plans breaking make a pleasant little song inside your perfect afternoon? I watched you smile while my world tripped over its own feet. You laughed as if disaster were a comedy written especially for you. Perhaps you thought my tears were part of the entertainment. Perhaps you believed misfortune only visits people who deserve it. How strange. The rain fell through my roof and you laughed beneath yours. My cup broke in my hand and you laughed because you were holding a glass. My road disappeared and you stood beside the map pretending you had drawn it yourself. You pointed at my mistakes with such confidence. One finger. Then another. Soon your whole hand was conducting an orchestra of my failures. You spoke as if you had never stumbled. As if your feet had signed a contract with gravity. As if your life had never misplaced a single key. As if every decision you made had been approved by the g...

This morning, Life rang my doorbell wearing a hat made of Tuesday. I opened the door. “Why are you here?” “I'm bored,” it said. So I let it in. Big mistake. It drank my coffee, ate my last biscuit, and rearranged my problems alphabetically. My worries complained. Apparently, they don't like alphabetical order. Outside, a pigeon was arguing with the moon. The moon refused to apologize. The pigeon called a lawyer. I decided it was none of my business. Then I checked my plans for the day. They had disappeared. I found them hiding in the fridge between the milk and my forgotten ambitions. My biggest mistake was sitting on the kitchen counter, wearing sunglasses. “Don't look at me,” it said. “I wasn't.” “Yes, you were.” By afternoon, the sun had misplaced itself. The sky turned pink, the trees started whispering, and my shadow announced it was taking annual leave. “Where are you going?” “Somewhere without responsibilities.” “Can I come?” “No. You're my responsibility.” F...

He thought she was a fool. He saw the softness in her face and mistook it for weakness. Saw the kindness in her hands and imagined them already reaching for his needs. He spoke of love when what he really wanted was rescue. A woman to carry his burdens, pay his debts, quiet his failures, and call it partnership. He did not come looking for a woman to love. He came looking for a woman to use. And she knew. She heard the hunger beneath his sweet words. She noticed how his affection grew warmer whenever money was mentioned. How his promises became bigger when his pockets became emptier. How easily he said we when he meant you . But she did not expose him. She listened. She smiled. She let him believe he was the clever one. That was his mistake. He thought silence meant ignorance. He thought patience meant surrender. He thought her gentle heart had no eyes. But wisdom is sometimes quiet. It sits at the back of the room and watches everyone tell on themselves. And while he was counting what...

Before you call her difficult, wear her shoes. Not the shoes she wears now, not the polished ones, not the ones she learned to walk in after life had already taught her how to hide the limp. Wear the old ones. The ones worn thin by nights she never talks about. Step into the life she keeps behind her smile. Walk through the morning after a night of crying and pretend your eyes do not hurt. Get dressed. Fix your hair. Answer the phone with a voice that sounds normal. Tell everyone, “I’m okay,” while something inside you is quietly begging to be left alone. Wear her shoes when someone she loved becomes someone she fears. Walk the distance between I trust you and I should have known. Feel how heavy a heart becomes when it has carried forgiveness longer than it should have. You call her cold. You never saw how many times she reached for warmth and came back burned. You call her distant. You never heard the conversations she had with herself at three in the morning, trying to convince her h...

I did not fall for you like people fall in movies. There was no thunder, no sudden music, no heaven opening its hands. You simply stayed a little longer than you should have. And somehow, that was enough. You learned the quiet parts of me, the places I keep locked, the old wounds I cover with ordinary conversation. You never asked me to explain the darkness. You sat beside it. That frightened me. Because I had spent so long believing love meant being saved, I did not know what to do with someone who could look at my brokenness and call it beautiful. Sometimes I wonder if we found each other too late. You carrying your ghosts, me carrying mine, two wounded souls pretending we were not recognizing each other. Our love was never soft. It had teeth. It lived in midnight conversations, in jealous silences, in the ache of almost losing one another. You could hurt me without raising your voice. I could break your heart with nothing more than the distance in my eyes. And still, when the night ...

You. Yes, you. You wake up every morning carrying the weight of your own name like the world has been waiting for you to arrive. You think about yourself. Your pain. Your dreams. Your failures. Your victories. Your reflection staring back at you as if the mirror were an audience. You wonder, What do they think of me? Do they see me? Do they understand what I have been through? But listen. Nobody. Yes, nobody cares. The world is not standing still to study your scars. People are fighting their own wars behind their smiles. Carrying their own ghosts. Hiding their own fractures. You think your heartbreak is the loudest thunder in the sky. It isn't. Somebody else is crying behind a locked door. Somebody else is losing someone. Somebody else is wondering how they will survive tomorrow. And while you are busy asking whether the world notices you, the world keeps moving. The sun rises without asking your permission. The streets fill. The clocks continue. People fall in love. People break....