I'm sorry to tell you

I just left the doctor's office, descended the twenty-odd steps, dodging pamphlets on the crowded cobblestones of the narrow sidewalk. I don't like it, but I pick up a brochure, curious and at least somewhat compassionate. My wrist hurts, hence the orthopedist. On my way home, I pass by all the usual places, some unseen, and encounter a circumstance befitting the warm clothes. A couple, the same as every night, I don't know if they're a couple, were embracing amidst the tulips of beer, in a dive bar of such misery that it wouldn't even be acceptable for an intellectual to appreciate. On one side, a woman open, drunkenly lacerated, surrendered to chubby arms. On the other, the owner – of the arms and a little of her. She, drunk, very effusive. He, sober, too sober, but there, just like yesterday, the day before yesterday, last month, tomorrow. She, certainly drunk. Judging by his Sunday night look on a Friday, I suppose he was a tightrope walker. That really got to me.

I arrive home, but she's not there yet. I tap my feet anxiously for an hour and twenty-six minutes. The kitchen door slams shut, a sign that it's been opened. I barely wait; she's still breathless, her hands dirty from the street. I ask, like a child shocked by an accident, asking her to answer soberly, without any drama: "Love, my great love, do you still love me?" She's startled, asks if something happened, I tell her the route home, we know about the week's routine, and we reach a consensus by contrasting it with the emptiness we haven't been fitting into, like a hug in a dive bar. Agonizing, amidst so many unwilling ears and forcibly polished mouths, to agree only on the divergence. We discuss, between barbs and theories, we make quotations, we enter a stage, we recite verses in a performance, and I pull us back to reality again. "Answer me... still?" She says it depends on what love is, how colorful I hope it will be, how many points on the scale of willingness to hug makes love. She replies, shifting the blame onto me, as if I had asked out of a guilty conscience. The fact is that every time we're feeling down, with blurred vision and intoxicated, not connecting much, there's not much clarity. Even so, we love each other, we sleep embraced – and we let go at night, due to the uncomfortable position. She emphasizes that she likes me very much, but she lacked the right verb.

The next day, I wake up more peacefully. The night, clinging to caresses and sighs, is incredibly skilled at stopping the clock hands and diverting glances. I iron my clothes, an hour passes, and I have a terrible time in traffic. A traffic jam caused by an accident, an adult who is inattentive, not very curious or compassionate, I remember Her and the day begins. Everything reminds me of Her, from the brooch on the pregnant woman's bag sitting two seats ahead, to the pagode music – imagine that – that finds me receptive enough to realize the incredible fact that it describes my relationship better than Chico Buarque or Queen. I look out the window, it's sunny today, I catch what little breeze there is and I see a cemetery in the background. Out of the corner of my eye, I see some people making the sign of the cross. I don't know how to pray anymore, I return to Her once more. I shift back to reality, like someone desperately trying not to drown, I look again at the distant graves and remember that this was the place where I went to a wake for the first time. The son of my professor, he met death before he even crawled. Almost ten years have passed, but I remember the knocked-out look on his orphaned father's face. Many hugs, none of them enough. Amidst so many, I heard the babblings of those who couldn't do anything, but were eager to say, "I know exactly how that feels." I didn't know what to say, nor what to speak, perhaps an epigraph for a good book, a phrase pasted from the internet. And I, I didn't really know what it was like – I always wanted to know if anyone truly knew. I could do nothing, I only shared in the suffering, without hugs, without words, just a nod of my head.

The tires rolled, we moved forward on the asphalt, and I even forgot the heat that was making my shirt sweat – I feel like I was even imagining something else, something fleeting, I think. I look outside the bus again, I see a sign about acupuncture, I remember her stubbornness in advising me and my stubbornness in saying no. She feels the same way, a weak pulse. We write too much: poems, articles, chronicles. Too much drama for too few hands...

Where are we now? Next week. Actually, today. It's a little after seven, I should be next. I enter the room, bump into the mahogany desk, and am struck by the icy air, the very Western features of the doctor's face, and the decor, while I stand observing the scene with realistic eyes as a staff member comes and goes. The man in white offers me coffee, which I accept. He asks if I want sugar or sweetener; I wanted real sweetness – sometimes, randomly, I have a sweet tooth. After checking, he notices the thermos in the room is empty, so he calls his secretary to bring some, even though someone coming and going could have done it. The other young lady, the secretary, docile despite the late hour, informs him that the coffee runs out very quickly and that there's only decaf, but that she could make more. I refuse twice.

Finally, the routine consultation begins. The doctor asks what it's about. The psychoanalyst appointment is the next day, but I lie down beforehand, anticipating any preliminary examination, while he fiddles with some needles, and I'm ready to tell him everything. His voice cuts me off and he wants to know if it's normal pain. But how would I know that? I wiggle my face and stammer. I live under the burden and magnitude of always being myself, unique and one-sided, even if capable of having an encompassing side. I haven't the slightest idea if the pain I usually endure is the expected kind or, even, the kind found in an average type, according to some nebulous statistic – which I never participate in, but which knows about me.

I state the sayable: “I hate to tell you, I honestly don’t know.” I say that I don’t believe it’s truly communicable, or at least, that it’s possible to compare my feeling. The guy says that if everyone knew what happens inside a human being, it would be easy to explain. I like the idea – just for a few seconds. I look inside myself, human, but still me, and I find the answer. I tell you: to name something, all you need is a namer, and the fact that we name something in common doesn’t mean that anything tangible, truly identical, actually exists.

We need to move on, and he only asks that I describe what I feel, what it's like, without naming it. My pocket trembles, a text message: "Come home, I made lemon pie!" So I reply without the slightest doubt: Doctor, I think it's love.