30 sentences by Ana Martins Marques to delight in Minas Gerais poetry

He comes. Hear in my chest the elemental silence of metals.

In the shards of the broken mirror you multiply. There is one of you in every repeated corner, in every shard. Why would breaking it be bad luck?

Memory reads the day backwards.

There are days when I feel the confusions of lightning working on me.

What happened to us and what didn’t happen to us carry the same weight in the poem.

One day I’ll learn to leave, I’m going to leave like whoever stays. One day I’ll learn to stay, I’ll stay as someone who leaves.

We didn’t even know we were already as happy as we thought we would be.

At the center of what I remember was unmade love: what wasn’t gnaws what was like the sea air.

We were never together in a photograph. It was always me, my eyes downcast, the awkward smile, or you, the distant, almost ancient look, always prettier than you are.

When you kissed me, you forgot a word in my mouth. Should I keep it under my tongue? Swallow it like a dry pill?

Even if they weren’t dedicated to you, all the words in the books seemed written for you.

Now put the book down, turn your eyes to the window. The city, the street, the ground, the nearest body, your own hands: you can also read there.

Cut ties and then go back, check what’s left. Supports. Patch. Dwell on the cut scar.

Love deeply, but test every now and then if it still stands.

We cannot protect another body from aging with the body by throwing ourselves into the remembrance of it.

Too soon it was too late.

Love belongs to the lonely.

It’s still too late to know. There are still knives too raw for cutting. There is still music in between the songs. Listen: it’s still music. There are still ashes to say.

It’s good to remember memories of others, like someone offering to carry someone else’s grocery shopping.

We collect objects, but not the space between objects. Photos, but not the time between photos. Stamps, but not travel. Lepidoptera, but not their flight. Bottles, but not the memory of thirst.

I have collected shards. I’ve been briefly observing its shape, thinking that happening is irreversible, thinking about how easy it is to tear apart.

I wish I could make a bonfire with the poem that would burn just for you.

In this very room long ago you taught me nudity again and then we called it love, but that was an exaggeration.

O sea, I also don’t know where to begin.

It’s late, but I’m ready if you are.

I was never as happy as when I was unhappy by your side.

The weight of the world is light, but there is no one to carry it.

I’m waiting for an exact time that doesn’t come.

There are three words I don’t say, three forms of affliction.

It’s really ridiculous that I still think about you so much. The thought is stupid like a liquidator.